Commodities & Crafting

Morwen

I'm not certain what is being done about this issue, or if it's even considered an "issue," but finding commodities for crafting is exceptionally challenging.

I understand that cities and individuals that had stockpiles prior to whatever changes created the shortage have not suffered too terribly from it yet - but as a character that was created after those changes... Crafting and stocking a shop with crafted goods is near impossible because there's simply no availability. As an example, in Enorian there is no cloth for sale... And I went to every commodity shop listed on HELP COMMODITIES looking for cloth to find none available. Every now and again I'm lucky and find 2-3 pieces of cloth being sold in each but that's hardly enough to do much with.

Effectively, I cannot find the material Morwen needs to put her Tailoring License to use with any reliability. Each design takes multiple pieces of cloth. A simple sundress, for example, takes six pieces.

I don't really know what the "solution" to this issue is, as I suspect that even if the commodity shop increased the amount of materials sold that people would just swoop in and buy out everything in bulk anyway. But I did want to raise the issue because while people who have been around forever might not yet be feeling the "crunch" too much... It's very much there for those of us who haven't been.

Antehe

It would be good if you spoke with your city leadership and trade minister. As guards now no longer require commodities, those stockpiles are free to be liberated at the leadership's discretion, which means that that is some in game communication that needs to happen within your own populace.

Teani

With cloth being scarce, clothes ought to sell for a premium, but they don't. Partly because there are people who don't care what they look like, or even if they are dressed at all, and partly because why pay extra when you can get clothes to protect you from the weather for less somewhere else?

Let's pick the sundress as an example. 6 cloth if you don't want any special commodities. Prices are around 100 per, making the cost for a sundress 600 gold (or over 700 if village comms are used) for the tailor. In the Spirean directory alone, the price range looks like this:

22 below 600 gold
77 at exactly 600 gold
47 above 600 gold

Only 47 of those designs actually yield a profit. Meanwhile, these designs probably don't sell that much, because people usually opt for whatever is cheapest and doesn't look absolutely ridiculous. I mean, if all sundresses at 600 gold were pink and fluffy, I'd probably opt for something that cost more just to -not- have to wear it.

I think that shopkeepers should do better with adjusting their prices in accordance with the commodity market. This would possibly put less strain on people chasing after cheaper commodities and thus emptying the stock in the villages so quickly.

I also think it might be a good idea to consider opening some kind of commodity market, maybe? Give the Trade ministry a little more to do, striking deals with others and perhaps making it more profitable for individuals to trade with them.

Until something like that is fixed, I suggest that you try to do some personal trading with other crafters, @Morwen. Make it an RP thing to contact people and offer gold to purchase them. I know I've sold some steel to someone, and some coal to another. It can be quite fun if you want it to.

Serrice

You can't really calculate profit like that, since you don't know the price of production.

Teani

It would make sense to add a bit more to the cost of making crafts than simply commodity costs. I was simply painting a picture of people are pricing their items too cheap. Most people are making no profit at all. That was my point.

If I calculate it simply by commodity, for a design being mass-produced from a crafting shelf in a shop, 600 gold is the cost of one single dress.

However, if you want to bring in effort, as well as the crafting guild's fees, then of course, it drives up the cost even more. 300 gold to get an empty design sheet, 300 more to pay for the approved design, and even more if you needed to buy a copy of a design template. These are things you usually take into account in the case of a design commission, as those tend to be specific to events or character.

Then the cost of a dress would essentially double. And that's without adding the effort put in by the designer, the work of the gnomes and all the headache with dealing with them! If I went by that for all dresses, the general price for a dress should be somewhere around 1200-1300 gold, which it's not, but perhaps it ought to be a standard?

Serrice

But you're wrong - you don't know what the cost of production was. That sundress might've been made when cloth was bountiful and selling for 100 gold per. Even if the cost of production NOW is higher, the good has already been made, and since the good isn't convertible back into commodities, there's no opportunity cost paid in selling it at that price.

Morwen

I understand what @Serrice is saying because it's kind of in line with my point (I think).

From what I understand, before the commodity changes commodities were fairly cheap, with things like cloth being under 50 gold per. People purchased commodities in bulk, crafted items in bulk, or stocked their caches in bulk at prices that reflected the cheaper commodity prices. So it is not actually taking a loss to continue to sell those items cheaply because the value of the commodities when purchased was much lower at the time.

@Antehe - I can certainly talk to Enorian about releasing more cloth through the commodity shop, but I imagine people will just buy it out in bulk too (with a lot more resources than I have available because I also created my character after the gold changes too)... And, isn't there a fixed amount that the cities have? If that's the case, what's the plan when "go to your city's stashes" is not an answer?

Antehe

The cities have however much they have been hoarding, and as happens with trade negotiations, it is for Trade Ministers to scout out the villages and buy and monitor prices to ensure they get the best deal they can. Cities no longer generate commodities on their own and must work with the villages to handle their supply and demand, and thus compete with the other communities.

In turn, there is nothing stopping cities from creating incentives to have citizens sell commodities back to the city for more public/distributed access, using commodities as a form of reward, or other ways to manage those sales so that there is more equitable availability (ration sales to citizens: You can buy X of the commodity per RL day/week/year, you can exchange your city reward system points for Y bundle of materials, etc).

There is definitely a bit tighter of a budget in terms of commodities, but it is not a doomsday scenario. The greatest hurdle is each other, which also provides greater opportunity to roleplay, negotiate, and work together as a community.

Rhyot

You're not necessarily going to like this answer, but you're either going to have to buy your commodities from a player or just bide your time each Howling and make a dash for each comm shop in HELP COMMODITIES and try to buy what you need. Over time you'll collect enough comms to craft what you need/want to.

Unless you do that, you're unlikely to get any comms.

Morwen

Rhyot said:

You're not necessarily going to like this answer, but you're either going to have to buy your commodities from a player or just bide your time each Howling and make a dash for each comm shop in HELP COMMODITIES and try to buy what you need. Over time you'll collect enough comms to craft what you need/want to.

Unless you do that, you're unlikely to get any comms.

I actually like this answer! It's honest and doesn't come off as disingenuous.

Zaila

Serrice's second comment has me wondering:
Have we ever had the ability to take items and convert them back into commodities? If not, could we have a crafting ability like that implemented like "it is has at least half the original lifespan left still, convert it back into commodities for 1/2 the original commodity price rounding down (sundress gives you 3 cloth back, something that cost 1 gives you nothing)"? But only people with the skill to make the thing could do the recycling of the thing or whatever. Or maybe only trade ministers? I don't know.

Not being a crafter or an economics-of-the-game follower, would this totally screw shit up? Would this even be remotely helpful or desired?

Morwen

Zaila said:

Serrice's second comment has me wondering:
Have we ever had the ability to take items and convert them back into commodities? If not, could we have a crafting ability like that implemented like "it is has at least half the original lifespan left still, convert it back into commodities for 1/2 the original commodity price rounding down (sundress gives you 3 cloth back, something that cost 1 gives you nothing)"? But only people with the skill to make the thing could do the recycling of the thing or whatever. Or maybe only trade ministers? I don't know.

Not being a crafter or an economics-of-the-game follower, would this totally screw unicorns up? Would this even be remotely helpful or desired?

I support recycling!

What I don't support is making a popular element of the game inaccessible and cost prohibitive to new players in order to bleed older players/resource rich cities dry of built up resources. I understand the premise, but at this point I just regret purchasing craft skills and a shop. I don't think that was the intended consequence of the Administration, and I am not really whining about it... I should have done my homework before making those investments. It is what it is.

Still though, in a game where anyone can buy 100 credits for $40 and turn that into 600,000+ gold at any point, there is always going to be a disparity in resources and a glut in gold among those with means. Causing shortages in supplies just makes playing the game worse for those without means.

Oleis

At this point, it's entirely on city leadership. The commodity production formulae are no tighter than they were before this problem existed. The only thing that brought this about was city hoarding in the threat of a war system, the 'need' for which we've now eliminated.

Toz

Oleis said:

At this point, it's entirely on city leadership. The commodity production formulae are no tighter than they were before this problem existed. The only thing that brought this about was city hoarding in the threat of a war system, the 'need' for which we've now eliminated.

Part of the problem, I'd speculate, is that while there's now no concrete need for stuff, the habit of hoarding because 'you never know when you might need it' is still in full force. Stuff HAS, in the PAST, relied on comms and will presumably also one day rely on comms again. Just like how you always wind up at the Elite 4 in Pokemon with like 60 billion potions, or the last boss of Final Fantasy with your first blizzard item, players like to have stuff 'just in case', even when it makes sense to use right now.

Xenia

I mean, I don't exactly craft a lot, but I have not experienced an issue finding basic coms. If cities are in fact hoarding coms, that's ridiculous!

Aishia

Oleis said:

At this point, it's entirely on city leadership. The commodity production formulae are no tighter than they were before this problem existed. The only thing that brought this about was city hoarding in the threat of a war system, the 'need' for which we've now eliminated.

That's not true.

#2493 - 1/4/2016 at 2:22 - Razmael, the Synthesist
Gold Tweaks
We've also made some changes to commodities. Commodity production for cities has also been turned
off indefinitely.





At this point the reason for petering off some stuff is because either another city would literally buy up EVERYTHING if it was made available all at once, or a player would. Especially with stuff like wood.

Apianora

Could do what Bloodloch does and sell them on a BL-only shelf in the city shop and just monitor it for abuse.

Rhyot

Bloodloch doesn't have as many crafters as that of Enorian and Duiran. So Bloodloch can actually do that and not have all of the commodities wiped out instantly by a handful of players. That and most crafters on Bloodloch side just use their horde of stockpiles to pay and fuel their crafting desire that the occasional burst through the comm shops keeps their stockpiles satisfied.

Enorian has so many more crafters that it would be unrealistic to set them up like that. If they did that in Enorian, the entire bank of "reserves" would hit 0 much faster than it would if they sold them periodically. Which, like Toz said... why sell your 'reserves' if you might need them later down the line for something?

Once again, you're going to have to negotiate with players or play the single digits in the comm shops to get your commodities. This is not going to change anytime soon and is probably the most likely way to get any of the comms you will need.

Jensen

We (Bloodloch) put a complete halt on commodity sales until eventually Cariv said fuck it and we switched to selling them in the shop. I think I had heard of 1 person in game asking me to sell X amount of wood prior to that. I'd release more than we do but our production is still 0 and I have no way of planning for the future with that (especially given how systems get released here)

Mariena

I think the City's stance on 'hoarding' comms makes sense if you look at the city like it just lost its job. It's not bringing in any comms (money) of any sort, so to allow anyone to just buy buy buy (or if you're jobless, spend spend spend) seems absurd.

Now let's expand this thought to the players, most of which are not in their teens any longer, have jobs, and understand that if something isn't coming in, you probably should not spend it and if you can, you should stockpile when you have the chance so that if you NEED to spend it, you can.

.. It's real hard to break off Real Life lessons.

Antehe

However, budgeting is also a Real Life Lesson that has not been truly discussed or applied in game.

In the end, this is a player issue now, with many ways to work around which simply aren't being explored.

Players have been told (on forums, on Discord, in the town hall meetings) that the stockpiles need to be reduced. The concerns of protecting the city are now misplaced as guards no longer require commodities.

There are many reasonable in game/in character avenues that have not been pursued, or even attempted. While awareness of concerns is certainly important to the administrative team, it is also important to exhaust IC avenues first (and really try them, not 'I sent a message and never heard back') both because these are largely in character issues now, as well as developing that roleplay and communal interaction is important.

Sometimes, hard decisions need to be made. If your leadership would rather blindly stockpile than budget, that is a point of contention to raise with them. If you've released too much to your populace and find yourself in a bit of a rough spot, you might need to pay above-market prices from allies and negotiate terms for a loan (all of which can enrich the world).

The doomsday scenario with commodities is a misconception, bottlenecked through player choices - and player choices need player reactions.

Aishia

I mean I think we knew all along that the plan was to let the stockpiles run down before WAR came out. But the thing is, if we had just opened the floodgates when the change first happened, we'd be SCREWED now. People would have bought out everything, still see people scrabbling for them, check village comm shops they're all nonstop sold out. The important stuff, wood, steel, etc, we don't have infinite or depthless amounts of. We still have no clue how long we have to make what we have last. Or no clue if there is a plan to supply us with more comms with an event or something in the event that we DO run out. It's easy to see how all the uncertainty plays into it. If one org ran out way before the others they might be at a disadvantage crafting wise.

I understand if what you mean is like, we could RP with mobs or whatever to get more stuff, but it's pretty easy to just get bound up in the mechanics of situations and that's often what drives us as players. An economy can have a hard time relying on unknown factors or random beneficence to save you out of nowhere.

Antehe

Your options have never been only either hoarding or floodgates.

There are lots of middle road avenues to be explored. Some of those come with a bit of work or a bit of risk.

You make choices.

Toz

The comm thing itself always felt like a knee-jerk reaction, just like nerfing gold drops on bashing. 'We have a problem of too much', with the solution that follows being a direct attack on the symptom, rather than trying to cut out the cause itself. Too much gold? Make less gold show up. That'll eventually drain their reserves. Similarly, with comms, starve them out. We can all see how well that's working out, I think, and expecting cities to dole out their stocks freely is stupid because off the top of my head...
Moving parts: Admin decisions, village supplies, other cities.

Case 1: Everything goes perfect.
All trade ministers sell their stock down to the exact same level, with no one holding back more comms 'just in case'. The admin have a timely release of whatever is supposed to generate new comms because village resupply is a stupid thing to pin hopes on as they currently exist (or maybe some kind of trade deal gets added beyond 'run there real fast and hope they aren't sold out'). No city tries to cheat, no city ends up with more than the others, admin are able to do whatever it is they want once comm supplies drain to a reasonable level and it happens perfectly on time. Everyone wins, and comms are now a meaningful resource to track/keep up/maintain, giving Trade Min. a fun and challenging job that gives their city an edge if done well. Yay!

Case 2: Everything goes wrong.
One/several trade ministers sell their stock down to the exact same low level, with one or several cities 'cheating' on the OOC agreement to lower comm stock artificially. The admin don't have anything happen because a few hold-outs still have more comms than is acceptable. Village resupply or RP/admin save is the only way for the 'losing' city to restock, which is now a point of contention between the haves and have-nots, because if the admin step in one city is getting a bail-out (free/cheap comms) while the others aren't, and they feel their thrifitiness and good sense is being punished. If the admin don't step in, one city can't craft/make items at all while all the others can still dole out things in small dollops and let their citizens figure it out the rest of the time. Forums get ugly, IG gets ugly, no one's happy and there's still a massive pile of comms (several piles the admin are now helping to subsidize).

Case 3: Someone cheats
One/several trade ministers sell their stock down to the exact same level, with one or several cities 'cheating' on the OOC agreement to lower comm stock artificially. The admin have a timely release of whatever is supposed to generate new comms because village resupply is a stupid thing to pin hopes on as they currently exist (or maybe some kind of trade deal gets added beyond 'run there real fast and hope they aren't sold out'). Several cities try to cheat, several cities end up with more than others, Comms are now a meaningful resource to track/keep up/maintain, giving Trade Min. a fun and challenging job that gives their city an edge -- except one or several cities cheated and now have a massive head-start. Sure is a good thing they didn't dump their comm stock.

Case 4: Admin forget the event
All trade ministers sell their stock down to the exact same level, with no one holding back more comms 'just in case'. The admin drop the ball on making comms meaningful/resupplying work for whatever reason, leaving players to try to buy out villages on cooldown to restock their comms/their cities. No city tries to cheat, no city ends up with more than the others, so now everyone is universally out of comms except for the pittance villages make, leading to an emergency situation that requires ANOTHER knee-jerk change to fix. No one's thrilled, and comm stocks don't mean anything at all.

I'm sure you could even go deeper on the analysis, but the point is EVERY SINGLE THING has to go perfect for this current strategy of 'lol cities should sell freely to deplete stock then we'll do something' to have a snowball's chance in hell of working. And it won't, because you're an idiot and shouldn't be Trade Minister if you're going to gamble on 3 other cities cooperating fully with you and taking on all the risk of selling your stock out - the incentive here is to hoard and survive this 'winter' that the comm market is currently in so that WHEN (and if?) comms ever play a meaningful part in conflict, your org can jump out of the gate with a huge head start. Additionally, being uncertain as to how comms will be doled out in the future means you can't afford to bet the house because it might be impractical to get all you need in the future. I really liked the unemployment argument as well - you have no income, you can't be sure there will EVER be an income (what is this 'trade deal' stuff people are talking about? What?), so you can't go partying every night. The only way to generate comms IG right now is to buy from villages, which is expensive and they are usually sold out - not enough comms into the system means people are going to hoard, not supplement and risk their city's stock/future place in conflict. Please stop acting like this is 'players just being dumb' when there is no admin direction on what to do other than 'lose all your stock then we'll talk' or vague suggestions we're Doing It Wrong.

Antehe

There are definitely things we can learn about this example, especially going forward.

For the Administration: Clarify expectations and reasonable thresholds, communicated just how extreme the excess and hoarding was, and make clearer that we do not intend to leave any city 'boned' at the onset of the war system.

For players: You have more options than the extreme of hoarding everything, and the extreme of releasing all of it to the public.

All of this hindsight and understanding is fantastic for making different choices in the future. The administration has compromised with guard costs, and now it is the players' turn to sort out how they want to handle their now liberated stockpiles.

You could:
- Ration commodity sales in predetermined bundles (citizens can buy up to 300 cloth per season at highest village price).
- Meter out commodity sales through an organization-run shop to better track the supply.
- Provide bundles of commodities as incentives to participating in organization events or ylem adventures.
- Brainstorm incentives for citizens with large stockpiles to sell back to the city
- Negotiate treaties with allies, that if shit hits the fan, you will do your best to take care of each other to prioritize safety of life first
- Ration city commodities to the guilds with specific class-based needs to provide necessary wares to the community.
- etc. I can come up with more when not at work.

In the end: I do not mean to imply or come across as dismissing players for being stupid. I do know it has been confusing. I do wish to emphasize that you have more options than you have explored, and that there are things you can and should do as communities and characters to find middle grounds, that are within your power and capability, that you are not currently pursuing. Especially now that you do not need to worry about guards, and selling commodities generates gold which further streamlines into guard costs.

Toz

It isn't about guards or anything of that nature. You created market uncertainty. There may (or may not) be a system forthcoming that balances comm use and requires comm investment. There may (or may not) be forthcoming changes to allow cities to replenish their comms in a reasonable way outside of village buy. It may (or may not) be fair/practical for admin to artificially boost/change comm values when/if war happens (I'll get to this last).

In this current system, comms can be used to make things. Comms have a strong, solid value AND an anticipated value for use in other systems in the future. Gold does not have a strong, solid value because it is freely available in excess- millions of gold just sits, unused, day in and day out.

Comms cannot be reasonably replenished right now. There is no way for a city that over-sells to get their surplus back outside of admin intervention. The amount of the surplus is likewise irrelevant - if I sell 1 cloth a day, I'll still eventually run out because -1/day is still a negative. Conversely, a city will never run out of gold, which is all they stand to gain from selling comms. Why should a city sell a resource that is very valuable and useful, especially when it is likely to play a crucial part in future actions, in exchange for a worthless thing like gold? It's the same reason CFS does so poorly - nothing to spend gold on, making credits far more valuable, meaning people hoard credits and only sell when they have a specific thing in mind and need gold ASAP.

This would be more organized if I weren't on my phone, BUT ANYWAY, if/when war happens it sounds like you all plan to bump up some org if they are low. Great! Except if you are going to mess with comm stock anyway to keep things fair at the outset, why bother with the farce of 'your actions matter'? Just re enable comm production for cities then set the stock down to a fair, equal value when (if) a system appears that they are useful for. Same end result (balanced comms, since you won't let a city be screwed by their comm depletion so choice is ultimately irrelevant), but crafters can make stuff in the meantime.

Alternatively, wait until your war system is done, or whatever you are working on for comms. Polish it, have the event ready. Then run an event per city that compels them to burn their comm stocks to a normal baseline.

But the tldr is this: if players do any selling of comms at all they get a worthless resource in exchange and WILL EVENTUALLY run out. And with no clear/trustworthy timeline on comm changes, and my previous post points, there is 0 incentive to risk it. In fact, you'd be stupid to.

Morwen

The only thing Enorian gets from selling me cloth, which they can't generate on their own, is some gold and the fuzzy-warm knowledge that I got to make a sundress I wanted to make. To me, it makes sense that the cities don't really care in the long scheme of things about the Crafters and, since I didn't pay Enorian for my Crafting license (I paid the Administration for it), I don't expect them to make sure that it was worth my investment.

The entire approach, if @Antehe is the voice on the Administration on this - seems to place a certain mandate of destructive irresponsibility on the players and twist it in some weird, gaslighting-esque manner. We know commodities are going to be worth something in the war system, so we're responding accordingly. But then it's our fault for responding accordingly and having our Crafters take the hit for it.

Maybe, instead, accept that the players have valid concerns, and reasonable uncertainty, and come up with a new solution.

Antehe

I would disagree, in that shops generate gold for cities via taxes, and thus successful shops are important.

You never know until you try having a discussion, however, especially with how many crafters are involved in your city's leadership (easily half). Continuing to neglect your opportunities IC and IG due to uncertainty won't help clarify anything, however.

And Toz, there are some fair points there. How do you feel your communities would react to "We're just going to knock your comms down to 5k handicap each across the board" at the onset of war, regardless of what your reserves and investments were?

Toz

Antehe said:

I would disagree, in that shops generate gold for cities via taxes, and thus successful shops are important. You never know until you try having a discussion, however, especially with how many crafters are involved in your city's leadership (easily half). Continuing to neglect your opportunities IC and IG due to uncertainty won't help clarify anything, however. And Toz, there are some fair points there. How do you feel your communities would react to "We're just going to knock your comms down to 5k handicap each across the board" at the onset of war, regardless of what your reserves and investments were?

Everyone would be pissed but it'd be objectively fair? IMO there is room for that but with an IC bent. Have a town spring up nearby that needs help building/a place each city is tight with needs some stuff. This would tie in (theoretically) with war system in a meaningful way, and would serve as a precursor to the release of the war system. Just so happens they need (city comm stock-5000) of each resource for their various projects. Now everyone is even and war system buy-in is done, but it isn't so metagame-y.

Valingar

My concerns are on the similar vein as Toz'. I completely understand that you fine admin folks want commodity supplies to go down for some system you're planning. That's cool and I can respect the goal of it. Sounds like whatever thing you've planned could be really fun once we get past these rough patches! Here's my concern, though, and no amount of negotiating with allies, or emptying people's private supply reserves, will get past that.

Let's say as an example that Enorian does decide that, "fuck it, okay, we'll open our warhouses like the admin want and don't care about selling until our comm supplies are eventually gone." I mean, Enorian already has sold pretty major amounts, but let's say they sell to nearly bare bones supplies. Then a few months later a war system needing those commodities is released again.

Now if every city did sell to somewhat equal levels of comms, then there's no problem. But let's say that in the meantime while others sold comms, Bloodloch (just an example, could easily be any city) had decided that, "we're too manly to need clothes and fuck it, vampires can fight without weapons until the comm production improves. Also we'd be dumb to sell most of our comms without any comm income."

This is where it gets ugly and the cities with large hoarded commodity supplies / people with supplies are left with a major advantage coming into the new war system. The cities that sold their commodities in more generous amounts would be in for bad times. From past experiences, I'm going to say the stance of the admin were that to happen would be 'tough luck, RP it out' to whatever city got screwed over.

And really, it's not very fun being the ones being screwed over on an org-wide level, especially if you're a leader and have to listen to the complaining. So I can't blame people for playing careful, knowing in how many ways this whole thing can backfire on a city if the others kept way bigger supplies than you and admin don't step it to balance things.

A last thought: even if every city does start to sell commodities at an equal rate, it will take a good bit longer for some cities to run out than others, due to population differences and differences in the amounts of commodities they had stored in the first place.

Xavin

Even if you look at taxes from shops as a reason cities should want crafters to have access to comms, city-based shops, and shops in general, are a very, very limited resource. There are more people with a crafting license than people who own shops. I mean, look at it like this. Say there's twenty shops per city. Knock three of them off right off the bat because each guild in a city most likely has one. Then knock off another because the city itself has probably claimed one as its own. That leaves you sixteen shops. At best, that's going to be sixteen characters that own a shop for themselves, not accounting for alts or shops owned by orders or one person holding multiple shops. or anything like that. A fraction of the people that have access to crafting. So sure, successful shops are important. But no matter what there's always going to be more demand upon the comm supply than just shop owners. And the people that don't own shops aren't benefiting the city in any way by having access to their crafting. The city literally does not care.