As those who frequent Celest have heard, I'm becoming quite vocal about completing the commodity quests as frequently as possible. The two most popular commodities in Delport seem to be Cloth and Leather - both of which are almost always at 0.

So, here are my questions.

How do the commodity quests influence commodity production in a village, specifically Delport here?

How often are the commodites "produced" in a store after the quests have been completed?

What relationship is there between the commodities produced in, say, Delport, and the Tithe given to the city?

As a side note/rant, it seems that the majority of Celest is really interested in power quests and not so interested in commodity quests. I'm not going to use the information gleaned here IC but I'd like to know how much of a difference my seemingly singular effort can possibly produce.

There's a reason I can walk into Acknor most days and buy 200 meat, poultry and eggs. *nod me*

Well, thats helpful as heck. I have no idea how much effort people have put into Acknor's commodity quests. For example, I'm unsure whether doing the commodity quests ups the production rate (eg, adjusting the amount thats made every month) and not doing the quests results in a drop in the production rate or simply adding a fixed amount to the production amount (eg, each completed quest adds 5 leather).

All these questions, nowhere near enough information.

Well, I used to take cows (dead, as many as I could find) and chickens (live, take them to the one that squeezes the eggs out of them) to the orcs whenever I'd remember, about ever 2 or so hours, more when I was peaced. and I'm fairly sure someone else would do them as well and, just about every second rl day, there'd be 225 poultry, meat and eggs.

I'm at work, so I don't have specific numbers. Even if I weren't, the numbers aren't great. It's all just sketchy enough to give me an idea of what's going on. It does, however, all apply to Delport.

Commodity quests affect the production cycle, rather than adding a set number to the output. If you put a ton of trout into Delport, significantly more fish is produced the next time comms come out, slightly more than the baseline the next month, and decreasing there on out. While there's no real way to get good numbers , it also seems that the amount of the benefit depends on how much of that particular comm the village would produce if left alone, and a rough estimate of that can be obtained from the minimum price for that commodity in comparison to other villages (Delport eggs cost 25 gold. Chicken costs a little over half of that. Therefore, the chicken goes to Wallace, not Percy.)

Like I said, the numbers are questionable at best. Perhaps someone has done a more controlled experiment. Otherwise, I'd work with that guideline.

You don't do your quests enough, those prices suck

I know they're not done often enough. Thats a completely seperate rant which I won't go into in depth here for fear of blurring IC/OOC stuff.

The reason delport never has any real amount of comms isnt because your citizens arent doing the quests its because your comm shop is always closed.

Celest will......never.....make any gold or be able to supply your citizens with what they need to make items with a closed comm shop. Your shops will continue to have nothing in them and people will continue to go eleswhere to buy their comms and goods.

People find a locked comm door and go right to delport and buy their comms from there and buy as much as they want bringing the amount down to zero and raising prices or causing shortages. The comm nazis cant control all the supply routes and free market forces just do what they do naturaly which is ignore any obstacles in the supply chain (that being the celest city comm shop) and go get them from where they can.

Also people from other cities go to villages especially when a city only has one village under control and buy out certain comms to artificially raise prices just to stick it to that city.

Ive beat this issue to death in the past but realized like so many others that this is one of those things that is never going to change. When I had a celest char I didnt even bother putting any lessons into the tradeskills all I had to do was go walk around Seren or Magnagora and see their shops packed with goods and an open and flourishing commshop to realize Celest was just packed with people who couldnt even understand free market forces and Id never make a profit within the city itself.

Having a tradeskill in Seren or Magnagora is a challenge but at least the city isnt working against you. Its the difference between being able to go into a supermarket and buy what you want anytime you want vs the communist (Celest)equivalent of standing in line with a ticket to buy one loaf of bread at a time (having to ask to be let into the shop and only being able to buy set amounts) Unless your a city official with a key then their are no set amounts and you just enter and buy what you need whenever you need and Im sure your officials never buy over any limits youve set right?

The funny thing is even after 10 game years celest is still scratching their heads on how to attain the holy grail of achieving a positive and steady comm flow. The other cities are laughing their arses off but you'll notice there is no constructive critisicm coming from them since they are profiting from your folly.

Heres an idea why not let free market forces reign and although initialy there will be a rush on comms.......lets face it youve been starving your population for 10 years and the poor sots will be thinking this is the last time they will ever be able to get into the shop on their own.....over time it WILL stablilize and then your city will prosper like the other two.

Im amazed your cartels havent taken to the streets but I think thats because even they after 10 years of scarce comms have begun to ignore the city comm shop and have secured alternate supply routes realizing the city gov is incapable of getting its act together. I myself even supply some of your merchants because they dont want to bother with the hassle of the Celest comm shop.

Im curious....does anybody shop in Celest?....Since Ive stopped playing my celest char Ive never been back once to shop. All the best goods, or at least steadily supplied shops are in the other two cities.

I really would like to see Celest make a profit if for nothing else than its more fun for players to be rich than poor. I dunno maybe your trade minister could start taking some polls on these forums to get a sense of what the population is thinking or could ask for advice from the other cities trade ministers.

I have to totally agree with Delver. I have my serenwilde character hit every single comm shop, be it village or city, once a month and I never visit Celest because they are always closed. In addition to that i've been to celestian stores and the availability of goods just isn't tthere and what is available is usually priced slightly higher then I can get elsewhere. Celestians need to open their market so the comm prices will stabilize. On to the main topic. I've found that doing the comm quests for villages doesn't give a great boost to the amount of comms produced unless it's done on a continual basis. I can't give exact figures because I never seem to be around when the comms get produced in the shop.

I don't even ask to get into our comm vault anymore. Aside from the fact that I haven't seen Jem in nearly a year, Seren's prices are lower anyways.

And I went and publicized that on the cartel newsboard.

I agree. The celest government keeps the comm shop locked to prevent people from buying the commodities outright, leaving Celest with nothing.

I think its a bit of a silly policy. If the shop was open and was always empty then maybe it might spur others into going on a bit of a commodity quest rampage. I've had a few people over Celest CT comment on how they don't know what the city is lacking because the commodity shop is closed.

Shrug. Someone has to break the circle.

Yea I dont understand that logic. If magnagora and seren have their comm shops open all the time and are doing fine why cant celest copy what they are doing and be just as profitable? Unless Im missing something majorly about the local economics of celest.

I know one reason they dont have it open is so they only sell to citizens which in theory sounds nice but in practice just fails miserably because people regard asking to be let in to a comm shop all the time a total hassle and over time just stop asking and go get their comms elsewhere.

Morik, dont tell me who has comm shop keys but ask around in your city and see if its only the head of trade and their aides or if everybody over a certain city rank gets one. It just doesnt smell right. I think the celest comm shop is a little club with only those who know certain people getting keys and easy access while the great unwashed masses do all the grunt work collecting comms for a shop they cant easily access. Their own private little moleman army who toil to mine comms but never get to actualy buy any of them themselves. Dont mind me though, thats just my conspiracy mind working.

Although when I was a citizen its one of the reasons I stopped doing comm quests, I was busting my butt and stunk of dead cow but if I tried to go buy some leather from my own comm shop all I got from the key people was......Im busy.....can you wait 20 min?......be there in a sec (10 minutes go by). Bah, a year of doing that and it was no more comm collection from me I just started walking to seren or bought from a village shop directly.

I used to think in time it would just get corrected but fortunatly I realized that was never going to happen and was a big reason I left the city before trying to buy a shop and since then I dont even think about where Im going to get my comms.

Which is unfortunate because I know the celest merchants would be really great if they were just allowed to do what they do without somebody trying to control such an important aspect of buisness. That being the purchase of the base end commodities to make what they need. But Im more than happy to pick up the extra business in the meantime.

there isn't a conspiracy. Here are the facts:

* i'm a trade aide - and I don't have keys. Morik IC hasn't asked for keys and, due to this thread, probably won't own them unless he's offered a set
* the baseline production rate of the popular delport commodities (being cloth, leather, gold) seem to be rather low
* the citizens of celest aren't all on top of the commodity quests. a few citizens run around and do them but the bulk of them are quite happy doing the power quest breeding turtles for experience
* the fear of the trade minister, which I've actually heard from her as a trade aide, are our commodities being bought out by the other cities, leaving celest with gold but no resources..
* .. and unless the citizens up the production rates over time, these resources won't be replenished very quickly

Prices prevent people from buying out comms, not locked doors.

and correctly set reserves, as I remember from other IRE realms.

Seren hasn't been bought out by Mag or Celest. Mag hasn't been bought out by Seren or Celest. Someone kick your trade minister, get him to stop smoking whatever it is he's got in his pipe and actually look around.

Heh I went to the Celest Comm shop the other day hoping to get cheap steel. (When Rafael was trade minister the price was 120g) Though when I actually got in it was 200g! Some people may say thats cheap but I can get steel for less than 120 per without trying.

Dont ask as I wont tell you how its a secret.

if something starts cheap its not gonna stay cheap..as soon as people find out its bought out and the price goes up, though now that we can get more comms hopefully prces will drop again

But the shops been closed and run the communist way where you can only get so much of each.

which is stupider then just letting people buy them out...