Well I didn't expect so may responses, but they amounted to exactly what I expected from the community.
I crafted these after speaking with a few "whales", and listening to comments from a few of my friends who I could not into get to join the game for anything more than a few days. While trying to figure out what key areas would prevent price hiking, and hopefully bring costs down to a manageable level for the rest of us.
A few other comments: Most of the "whales" don't put any cash into the game. It's just a setup of having old accounts that exploited bugs when they could be exploited, and price fixing. They have all the money they will ever need, and are set in their ways. My suggestions are not to bring these down, but to shift things such that the rest of us have a glimmer of hope of being able to keep up with them. If zen store prices were lowered then a dil tax would be necessary, otherwise dil price per zen would skyrocket and everything would end up back where it is now. And zen store prices need to drop, as it is now I cant find anyone i know, fleet or otherwise that is willing to put any money into this game. The returns are just not worth it.
My comment to exclude the super rich was not to exclude anyone who disagrees, but to exclude those who are taking advantage of the broken market. The fact is, that that no newbie can ever hope to purchase any of the lock-box ships, or any of the best skills, traits, or otherwise. I get it that the ultra rich in this game like to show off, but all your showing off is making me want to do is quit the game. I get showing off one or two cool things, but when your entire load-out is impossible for anyone who isn't willing to blow thousands on the game that is a bit overboard. I have been playing this game for nearly 2 years and i'm constantly considering quitting. But i have friends who want to try to keep it up, they are almost always complaining but are holding out for when cryptic finally fixes things. If you don't like my suggestions what would you suggest? If you don't think I don't know what I am talking about then I would suggest that it may be the other way around, or most likely somewhere in the middle.
[Edit] Final note. if you think a quarter per key is too little. Look at the math. The chance of getting a lockbox ship is about 1/250. At the current price $10 can get you 8 keys. this means that the average person attempting to get one of these ships (using cash) will spend a little over $300. If the price were to drop to $0.25. then we could get about 40 keys for $10, this would bring the cost of lockbox ships down to an average of $62.50. Which is still more than twice any zen store ship.
This is the kind of thing that's easy to solve with education, an ignorance problem.
The cost of one lockbox ship isnt the same as the cost of 250 keys. The answer should be obvious - the side loot from the boxes.
for 250 keys, on average, one ship and a lot of lobi and other side-loot are produced. The ship only makes up a small portion of this value. Consider a ship worth 150m ec. 250 keys is 1.15b ec. but the ship doesnt cost 1.15b ec on the exchange does it?
Contrary to another viewpoint that can be corrected with education, the opinion that "prices are high because of price fixing," sto prices are actually very rational and the market is efficient. A 150m lockbox ships costs something on the order of 13% of the value of 250 keys because much of the value obtained from using the keys comes from the side-loot and lobi.
If the ship cost significantly more, you would be able to get significantly more than 4.6m worth, on average, from each key you used, and people would drive key prices up or ship prices down by doing that as much as they could, until it reached equilibrium again.
Education about the sto economy is so important to people who don't know much about it, and ignorance is the source of a lot of frustration.
The fact of the matter is, prices of almost all items in sto are heavily dependent on the cost to produce them, whether through crafting or opening lockboxes or promo packs.
As to the author of the post above, i'm sorry if you wasted your time 'consulting with whales' or whatever. You talked to the wrong people and you've been lead down the wrong path.
Well, considering the Iconian ships seem to be selling in the neighborhood of 800+mill, than all of the left over goodies from those 250 keys, IMO more than makes up the difference of the 250 keys value alone!
Granted, the ship(s) are not easily obtained, but 1 alone is equal to 165 keys easy by itself.
The odds of that 700m ship are about 1/750, not 1/250.
It has two ships, the quas, about 200m, 1/250 odds, and the vonph, about 1/750, about 700m ec.
And all the side loot is pretty much worthless, which is one of the reasons the other two ships cost so much.
Education: the magic bullet!
I wouldn't say the side loot is worthless, as 1 of the traits alone has been going for some decent moola', not to mention what 250 keys worth of lobi [@4 per box min. = 1k] can buy to be sold.
Despite the odds of 1:750, it is still possible to obtain 1 or more, and if that 1 or more happens, than it like I said, more than makes up the difference just by itself.
Not that I even really care, because I don't bother with such rediculous prices for things anyways!!!
While the things on the exchange have increased in price significantly over the past couple years the ability to earn currency, ec and dilithium included, has also increased pretty significantly. What we are seeing now is what you see in the real world, but at an accelerated pace. It's like your grandparents telling you how a can of Pepsi was ten cents and oh so cheap back in the day. Yes cheap relative to today, but near equivalent to today based on total income.
Think of it this way. Your grandparents made 2 dollars an hour and paid 10 cents for a Pepsi in 1950. Today you make 25 dollars an hour and pay a dollar fifty. The price of the product has increased, but so has your income.
A few other comments: Most of the "whales" don't put any cash into the game. It's just a setup of having old accounts that exploited bugs when they could be exploited, and price fixing. They have all the money they will ever need, and are set in their ways.
Or you could introduce an accessible class of item that, irrespective of how much you already have, has continued value.
Like tech upgrades. If you need more EC in STO just get into industrial manufacturing [ie. tech] and commodities [ie. dilithium, as translated into lock box keys, and those materials you don't use to create tech upgrades.].
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
While the things on the exchange have increased in price significantly over the past couple years the ability to earn currency, ec and dilithium included, has also increased pretty significantly. What we are seeing now is what you see in the real world, but at an accelerated pace. It's like your grandparents telling you how a can of Pepsi was ten cents and oh so cheap back in the day. Yes cheap relative to today, but near equivalent to today based on total income.
Think of it this way. Your grandparents made 2 dollars an hour and paid 10 cents for a Pepsi in 1950. Today you make 25 dollars an hour and pay a dollar fifty. The price of the product has increased, but so has your income.
LOL, I don't know about you, but there are millions of people who do not even come close, to making $25hr.!
In fact, many do not even make 1/2 or 1/3 of that!!!
Now that $1.50 can of soda, is looking much more expensive huh?
Factor that for well over the past 2 decades, the average wage has only increased by roughly 1.5%, while products keep increasing in cost surpassing the average wage increase by years!
Inflation in the demand/supply market, always tends to exceeding increase/decrease far faster, than what peoples wages tend to balance out to be.
The other poster was just throwing a number out there, not stating that everyone makes, or even averages $25 an hour. And his point is still valid typical products, like a can of soda do stay in sync with the relationship of incomes because there are too many substitutes that will readily replace them, luxury items are what have a smaller amount of relationship with the aggregate market income, and for a reason, they are a luxury.
The lockbox shops are a luxury product of this game but they do follow the law of supply/demand, otherwise people wouldnt bother supplying them. If there were tons of them available he supply would exceed the demand at the high prices and the supplier would have two main choices:
1) Supply at a lower demand scale price (lower the price to where someone buys it)
2) Keep listing it at the higherprice until demand meets the supply price (there is no holding cost to incentivize dumping it) but then the supplier risks the product falling on even lower demand once the next luxury item shows up.
What the thread OP is missing is that the lockbox ships (a luxury) doesnt offer that much more dramatic of a performance over free of Zstore ships. The elite people that he is disgusted with are just as likely to mop the floor with him when they fly in a free T5 ship of the elite players choice, with mkXII gear that is pretty much easy to access by all players.
What the thread OP needs to do is to find some of those same players to help him learn the game and his playstyle and teach him what he/she needs to do to improve thier performance. If they were to contact me via ingame email, I would be more than happy to intro some people that would be more than happy to help.
LOL, I don't know about you, but there are millions of people who do not even come close, to making $25hr.!
In fact, many do not even make 1/2 or 1/3 of that!!!
Now that $1.50 can of soda, is looking much more expensive huh?
I was interested so I looked up some stuff. (The amount of stuff you can buy from your earnings or most often thought of as "how long do you have to work to get product X" indeed changes over the years, with very basic and technical products usually getting cheaper when adjusted to inflation).
Bottom line: typical income 50 years ago was 1/8th to 1/10th of what it is today (depending on whether you go for median, mean, household or family income the numbers vary). The retail price of coke was 1/10th to 1/15th of what it is today depending on source.
So yes, soda is a bit more expensive now when compared to your income than it was 50 years ago. Still, it is far from the raise on the price tag. Which lets the point stand: buying a lockbox ship off the exchange these days is a multiple of what it was a year or two ago. But so is the amount of ec players have.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
While the things on the exchange have increased in price significantly over the past couple years the ability to earn currency, ec and dilithium included, has also increased pretty significantly. What we are seeing now is what you see in the real world, but at an accelerated pace. It's like your grandparents telling you how a can of Pepsi was ten cents and oh so cheap back in the day. Yes cheap relative to today, but near equivalent to today based on total income.
Think of it this way. Your grandparents made 2 dollars an hour and paid 10 cents for a Pepsi in 1950. Today you make 25 dollars an hour and pay a dollar fifty. The price of the product has increased, but so has your income.
LOL, I don't know about you, but there are millions of people who do not even come close, to making $25hr.!
In fact, many do not even make 1/2 or 1/3 of that!!!
Now that $1.50 can of soda, is looking much more expensive huh?
Factor that for well over the past 2 decades, the average wage has only increased by roughly 1.5%, while products keep increasing in cost surpassing the average wage increase by years!
Inflation in the demand/supply market, always tends to exceeding increase/decrease far faster, than what peoples wages tend to balance out to be.
never mind a coke what about the price of a PC, the first pc I bought after they had been a consumer item for some time was a desktop model, had a single core processor, 128mb of ram and a 30gb hard drive, it come preinstalled with windows98 and cost me £1200.
my current desktop computer I bought about a year ago has an 8 core processor, 16gb of ram and a 2TB hard drive when installed with windows 7 the whole thing cost me £320.
I am also earning a lot more now then when I bought my first desktop.
not everything goes up in price.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
While the things on the exchange have increased in price significantly over the past couple years the ability to earn currency, ec and dilithium included, has also increased pretty significantly. What we are seeing now is what you see in the real world, but at an accelerated pace. It's like your grandparents telling you how a can of Pepsi was ten cents and oh so cheap back in the day. Yes cheap relative to today, but near equivalent to today based on total income.
Think of it this way. Your grandparents made 2 dollars an hour and paid 10 cents for a Pepsi in 1950. Today you make 25 dollars an hour and pay a dollar fifty. The price of the product has increased, but so has your income.
LOL, I don't know about you, but there are millions of people who do not even come close, to making $25hr.!
In fact, many do not even make 1/2 or 1/3 of that!!!
Now that $1.50 can of soda, is looking much more expensive huh?
Factor that for well over the past 2 decades, the average wage has only increased by roughly 1.5%, while products keep increasing in cost surpassing the average wage increase by years!
Inflation in the demand/supply market, always tends to exceeding increase/decrease far faster, than what peoples wages tend to balance out to be.
never mind a coke what about the price of a PC, the first pc I bought after they had been a consumer item for some time was a desktop model, had a single core processor, 128mb of ram and a 30gb hard drive, it come preinstalled with windows98 and cost me £1200.
my current desktop computer I bought about a year ago has an 8 core processor, 16gb of ram and a 2TB hard drive when installed with windows 7 the whole thing cost me £320.
I am also earning a lot more now then when I bought my first desktop.
not everything goes up in price.
Didn't say everything, but the newest wang band doodle to come out, always carries a hefty price tag usually, until supply grows astronomically along with production costs decreasing equally.
Which still doesn't get over, the whole wage factor barely budging!!!
And yet, I can go into any grocery store and buy thier store brand 2 liter soda equivalent for 79 cents,and have the same utility of the name brand for wbout half the cost. 40 years ago, there wasnt store brands on the same level as they are now, store brand bread can still be had for 99 cents.What the other guy was saying about technology is true as well. I spent $2,400 for a Gateway GS400 computer system in 1998, the equivalent level of performance and features today would cost me less than $1,000.
The fact still stands that one doesnt need all of the nice shineys to do very well at this game, and complaining about the cost on the exchange for lock box items is only available to the "STO 1%" is ridiculous , and crying for punishment of the higher EC/Dil sale buyers is akin to a child's temper-tantrum when they dont get what they want for Christmas.
The OP can Cry out all they want for "Occupy Starfleet", its not going to work.
And yet, I can go into any grocery store and buy thier store brand 2 liter soda equivalent for 79 cents,and have the same utility of the name brand for wbout half the cost. 40 years ago, there wasnt store brands on the same level as they are now, store brand bread can still be had for 99 cents.What the other guy was saying about technology is true as well. I spent $2,400 for a Gateway GS400 computer system in 1998, the equivalent level of performance and features today would cost me less than $1,000.
The fact still stands that one doesnt need all of the nice shineys to do very well at this game, and complaining about the cost on the exchange for lock box items is only available to the "STO 1%" is ridiculous , and crying for punishment of the higher EC/Dil sale buyers is akin to a child's temper-tantrum when they dont get what they want for Christmas.
The OP can Cry out all they want for "Occupy Starfleet", its not going to work.
Store brand cola doesnt have the same utility as actual coca cola if you like actual coca cola and that's why you buy it.
I just want to say. I read this and I'm not sure what happened to my brain, but I'm pretty sure it not good.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
And yet, I can go into any grocery store and buy thier store brand 2 liter soda equivalent for 79 cents,and have the same utility of the name brand for wbout half the cost. 40 years ago, there wasnt store brands on the same level as they are now, store brand bread can still be had for 99 cents.What the other guy was saying about technology is true as well. I spent $2,400 for a Gateway GS400 computer system in 1998, the equivalent level of performance and features today would cost me less than $1,000.
The fact still stands that one doesnt need all of the nice shineys to do very well at this game, and complaining about the cost on the exchange for lock box items is only available to the "STO 1%" is ridiculous , and crying for punishment of the higher EC/Dil sale buyers is akin to a child's temper-tantrum when they dont get what they want for Christmas.
The OP can Cry out all they want for "Occupy Starfleet", its not going to work.
Store brand cola doesnt have the same utility as actual coca cola if you like actual coca cola and that's why you buy it.
I just want to say. I read this and I'm not sure what happened to my brain, but I'm pretty sure it not good.
Well, just like any good politician/business man would say. "It makes perfect sense, if you don't think about it"
@shadowwraith77 get a better job hippy! Jk While I agree that wage stagnation is a problem in the United States I still stand by my analogy. I know I personally am collecting a lot of dilithium and ec with very little work.
@shadowwraith77 get a better job hippy! Jk While I agree that wage stagnation is a problem in the United States I still stand by my analogy. I know I personally am collecting a lot of dilithium and ec with very little work.
About computer prices, I cannot speak for the UK or the US but there was a long time (15 years? 20 years?) where they were incredibly stable here in Germany. You could always get a state of the art computer (nothing fancy for high end gaming but you could do everything) for around first DM 2000 then € 1000 (which is the same basically). All the while wages were rising. You could get working PCs for less but then you couldn't run the most recent games, you could get better stuff for more.
These days, prices are way below that, though. Maybe not for the high end latest stuff, it seems to stagnate at a higher level.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
@shadowwraith77 get a better job hippy! Jk While I agree that wage stagnation is a problem in the United States I still stand by my analogy. I know I personally am collecting a lot of dilithium and ec with very little work.
Yes, if only it was that easy in RL!!!
just what I was thinking.
at the end of the day people will pay whatever they think is reasonable for an item and while items are scarce they will be happy to pay a little more, they will only pay for stuff they have the wherewithal to pay for and if they cant afford a thing they will make do with what they have or what they can afford.
there will always be the haves and have-nots in this world and ironically the haves and have-nots can often be traced back to the dids and did-nots.
and always remember, do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
You do know that the store brands are actually made by the name brand companes, right? Unless the store brand is a really bad variation off of name brand, the taste isnt that distinguishable. There have been multiple research studies that prove people cant taste the difference. Back in college My Marketing professor even did it in my class to prove a point; he had two store brands and Pepsi and we had to guess which one was the store brand, out of 40 students I was the only one that could tell, and it wasnt because of the taste, Pepsi irritates my gums. So the difference 99% of people are getting in store brand soda is the packaging.
A side note, to the statement of inflation of the price of single serve bottles of soda, the amount of soda in the single serve bottle has also grown 20-30% in the last 50 years as well.
You do know that the store brands are actually made by the name brand companes, right? Unless the store brand is a really bad variation off of name brand, the taste isnt that distinguishable. There have been multiple research studies that prove people cant taste the difference. Back in college My Marketing professor even did it in my class to prove a point; he had two store brands and Pepsi and we had to guess which one was the store brand, out of 40 students I was the only one that could tell, and it wasnt because of the taste, Pepsi irritates my gums. So the difference 99% of people are getting in store brand soda is the packaging.
A side note, to the statement of inflation of the price of single serve bottles of soda, the amount of soda in the single serve bottle has also grown 20-30% in the last 50 years as well.
So to does the price, you pay by the fl. oz., not to mention the container that holds those oz.
You do know that the store brands are actually made by the name brand companes, right? Unless the store brand is a really bad variation off of name brand, the taste isnt that distinguishable. There have been multiple research studies that prove people cant taste the difference. Back in college My Marketing professor even did it in my class to prove a point; he had two store brands and Pepsi and we had to guess which one was the store brand, out of 40 students I was the only one that could tell, and it wasnt because of the taste, Pepsi irritates my gums. So the difference 99% of people are getting in store brand soda is the packaging.
Apart from the fact that I consider them "indeed not that distinguishable from the outset", when you are used to a certain product you are more prone to taste minor differences and recognize "your" brand - whether it be a store brand or a major competitor doesn't matter that much. (And while many store brands are indeed produced by major companies, not all are, and those that are may or may not have different recipes and lower quality ingredients than the main line by said company)
But similar things could be said about other products as well, yet people still insist on buying the old stuff. And it's not only the product itself people are buying (many, not all). Remember the fiasco that was "New Coke", where Coca Cola had to go back and reintroduce their old product as "Classic"? The very same product, the "old coke", that was losing significant market shares over years and years suddenly started kicking Pepsi's proverbial backside.
My mother was an epohh and my father smelled of tulaberries
"Last note please try to keep the replies positive so that any possible changes will benefit the community as a whole. If you are one of the ultra rich or have access to virtually unlimited funds because of who you know please refrain from posting, as your perspective on this is most likely going to be askew. I would mostly like to hear the opinions of newer players, and players who feel the economy in this game is broken."
Humm I guess what I'm hearing is if your one of the people that we want to tax dont post...sounds familiar
Far out, overly complex, self-contradictive made up internet analogies 101.
... that are off-topic.
Read OP's post again
/edit.
ps. it's like if my grandma had 11 blue cats on a hairy wednesday on the 11th of the 10th of the three quarters of the last hour of the 3rd part of the day!!
MMORPG magazine even listed STO as the best F2P game on the market. It is literally listed as the most generous free to play game in existence and even that isn't enough for you whining morons!
Seriously?
You should read something else, coz the best F2P is Path of exile. And you should also read this.
I love the part where it says "The game is completely free and will never be "pay to win". I wish STO was like that.
Comments
I wouldn't say the side loot is worthless, as 1 of the traits alone has been going for some decent moola', not to mention what 250 keys worth of lobi [@4 per box min. = 1k] can buy to be sold.
Despite the odds of 1:750, it is still possible to obtain 1 or more, and if that 1 or more happens, than it like I said, more than makes up the difference just by itself.
Not that I even really care, because I don't bother with such rediculous prices for things anyways!!!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Think of it this way. Your grandparents made 2 dollars an hour and paid 10 cents for a Pepsi in 1950. Today you make 25 dollars an hour and pay a dollar fifty. The price of the product has increased, but so has your income.
Or you could introduce an accessible class of item that, irrespective of how much you already have, has continued value.
Like tech upgrades. If you need more EC in STO just get into industrial manufacturing [ie. tech] and commodities [ie. dilithium, as translated into lock box keys, and those materials you don't use to create tech upgrades.].
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
LOL, I don't know about you, but there are millions of people who do not even come close, to making $25hr.!
In fact, many do not even make 1/2 or 1/3 of that!!!
Now that $1.50 can of soda, is looking much more expensive huh?
Factor that for well over the past 2 decades, the average wage has only increased by roughly 1.5%, while products keep increasing in cost surpassing the average wage increase by years!
Inflation in the demand/supply market, always tends to exceeding increase/decrease far faster, than what peoples wages tend to balance out to be.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
The lockbox shops are a luxury product of this game but they do follow the law of supply/demand, otherwise people wouldnt bother supplying them. If there were tons of them available he supply would exceed the demand at the high prices and the supplier would have two main choices:
1) Supply at a lower demand scale price (lower the price to where someone buys it)
2) Keep listing it at the higherprice until demand meets the supply price (there is no holding cost to incentivize dumping it) but then the supplier risks the product falling on even lower demand once the next luxury item shows up.
What the thread OP is missing is that the lockbox ships (a luxury) doesnt offer that much more dramatic of a performance over free of Zstore ships. The elite people that he is disgusted with are just as likely to mop the floor with him when they fly in a free T5 ship of the elite players choice, with mkXII gear that is pretty much easy to access by all players.
What the thread OP needs to do is to find some of those same players to help him learn the game and his playstyle and teach him what he/she needs to do to improve thier performance. If they were to contact me via ingame email, I would be more than happy to intro some people that would be more than happy to help.
I was interested so I looked up some stuff. (The amount of stuff you can buy from your earnings or most often thought of as "how long do you have to work to get product X" indeed changes over the years, with very basic and technical products usually getting cheaper when adjusted to inflation).
Bottom line: typical income 50 years ago was 1/8th to 1/10th of what it is today (depending on whether you go for median, mean, household or family income the numbers vary). The retail price of coke was 1/10th to 1/15th of what it is today depending on source.
So yes, soda is a bit more expensive now when compared to your income than it was 50 years ago. Still, it is far from the raise on the price tag. Which lets the point stand: buying a lockbox ship off the exchange these days is a multiple of what it was a year or two ago. But so is the amount of ec players have.
never mind a coke what about the price of a PC, the first pc I bought after they had been a consumer item for some time was a desktop model, had a single core processor, 128mb of ram and a 30gb hard drive, it come preinstalled with windows98 and cost me £1200.
my current desktop computer I bought about a year ago has an 8 core processor, 16gb of ram and a 2TB hard drive when installed with windows 7 the whole thing cost me £320.
I am also earning a lot more now then when I bought my first desktop.
not everything goes up in price.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
Didn't say everything, but the newest wang band doodle to come out, always carries a hefty price tag usually, until supply grows astronomically along with production costs decreasing equally.
Which still doesn't get over, the whole wage factor barely budging!!!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
The fact still stands that one doesnt need all of the nice shineys to do very well at this game, and complaining about the cost on the exchange for lock box items is only available to the "STO 1%" is ridiculous , and crying for punishment of the higher EC/Dil sale buyers is akin to a child's temper-tantrum when they dont get what they want for Christmas.
The OP can Cry out all they want for "Occupy Starfleet", its not going to work.
I just want to say. I read this and I'm not sure what happened to my brain, but I'm pretty sure it not good.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
Well, just like any good politician/business man would say. "It makes perfect sense, if you don't think about it"
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Yes, if only it was that easy in RL!!!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
These days, prices are way below that, though. Maybe not for the high end latest stuff, it seems to stagnate at a higher level.
just what I was thinking.
at the end of the day people will pay whatever they think is reasonable for an item and while items are scarce they will be happy to pay a little more, they will only pay for stuff they have the wherewithal to pay for and if they cant afford a thing they will make do with what they have or what they can afford.
there will always be the haves and have-nots in this world and ironically the haves and have-nots can often be traced back to the dids and did-nots.
and always remember, do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
A side note, to the statement of inflation of the price of single serve bottles of soda, the amount of soda in the single serve bottle has also grown 20-30% in the last 50 years as well.
So, in other words, become a banker/investor, you know the ones besides the government and companies, who rob the not so well to do!!!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
So to does the price, you pay by the fl. oz., not to mention the container that holds those oz.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Apart from the fact that I consider them "indeed not that distinguishable from the outset", when you are used to a certain product you are more prone to taste minor differences and recognize "your" brand - whether it be a store brand or a major competitor doesn't matter that much. (And while many store brands are indeed produced by major companies, not all are, and those that are may or may not have different recipes and lower quality ingredients than the main line by said company)
But similar things could be said about other products as well, yet people still insist on buying the old stuff. And it's not only the product itself people are buying (many, not all). Remember the fiasco that was "New Coke", where Coca Cola had to go back and reintroduce their old product as "Classic"? The very same product, the "old coke", that was losing significant market shares over years and years suddenly started kicking Pepsi's proverbial backside.
Humm I guess what I'm hearing is if your one of the people that we want to tax dont post...sounds familiar
... that are off-topic.
Read OP's post again
/edit.
ps. it's like if my grandma had 11 blue cats on a hairy wednesday on the 11th of the 10th of the three quarters of the last hour of the 3rd part of the day!!
I love the part where it says "The game is completely free and will never be "pay to win". I wish STO was like that.