I understand that people who by credits aren't supposed to have advantages over people who don't by credits or perhaps what I mean is that they aren't supposed to be able to hinder the advancement of people aren't able to buy the out of game credits.

I could be wrong but is the ingame credit market controlled by people who buy credits out of game only to sell them at extremely high prices, making it harder and harder for people who don't by credits out of game to advance?

In game credit market is controlled by those who want to sell credits in game. Simple. I don't know where the aren't supposed to have advantages bit comes in to play, as yes, OOC credits give you advantages (such as quicker learning, artifacts). The fact that you can transfer credits for gold is much better than not being able to. And yes, the market is abnormally inflated at the moment. This is due to a handful of things: one, a lot of credits were used up in the Artifact sale; two, people with a lot of money competing for a handful of credits; three, sellers will always sell at the highest price that they can get their credits out. I sold 150 credits at 1700 per RIGHT before the credit market inflated.

High market price is not based off people who buy OOC, infact the more people that buy OOC the lower prices go. It's called supply and demand, right now supply is low, demand is ALWAYS high. Also the biggest thing that raises prices, are people that buy and resell, which is done ALL in IC funds.

The only ones controlling how much the credits get sold for are the ones buying them off the market with gold...

None of these economic statements are true in ALL cases. First the market has to develop; when MUDs open, prices aren't low because tons of people are selling credits. The more the MUD develops and the amount of customers AND suppliers increases, the more elastic the market will be, and then the aforementioned trends ^^^ will actually apply.

You mean, 'prices are low', rather, yes?

Instead of there being constant equilibrium of credits going into the system and credits being sold, there is a ton of credits going in, and then a ton of selling, causing a lower price.

And if people would just be patient and don't buy at such high rates the prices would go down to reasonable amounts again...but patience is a virtue and a lot aren't patient.

Plus, people don't always want to sell low - If I say, go and spend 20 dollars on 40 credits, and sell them on market, I'd much rather sell them at 3.5k apiece, than 1.5k apiece.

All the talk about free market forces is baseless when it comes to the in game credit market. I buy ooc credits and I can tell you the credits for sale market in game is nothing more than a suckers market for people who buy ooc credits to convert credits to in game gold at inflated prices. Theres no way in hell Id bash for 3 real life days to make 100k when I just sell 30 credits and have somebody who cant afford credits do the in game gold collecting for me and then buy my inflated priced credits.

Credits are about 3k now and if you try and sell at below 3k people just buy them at 2 or 2.5k or whatever is below 3k and then put them up at 3k and make a profit ontop of that because there are always newbies who will buy 1 or 2 or 5 no matter what the cost. They dont care about people who are trying to advance chars with in game gold and since this puts pressure on non-credit buyers to buy ooc credits the divine just say well its free market forces and we cant do anything about it.

Nonesense, if they wanted to make an even playing field for the non-credit buyers they would put a cap on credits for sale but since that wouldnt help ooc credit sales they let it get to ridiculous levels.

But again even that argument is baseless because if you dont buy ooc credits your odds of fully mastering even one skill set in a real life year is about nil unless you are a total shut in and do nothing but play this game and bash.......or maybe get into a trade position and steal all the cities comms or come up with some other type of scam.

Even though Im benefitting from the market as is Id do away with it if the divine where serious about keeping players because even the slowest player eventualy does the math, hmmmm, about 300 credits to trans one skill. 300 x3,000 is 900,000 game gold. Yikes. And really quickly they decide if they are going to buy ooc credits or just pack up and leave.

I feel sorry for the really good players who hang in there for six months or so RP super well but just cant get anywhere in their skill development because they cant afford ooc credits and actually have lives so their in game bash time is limited so the credits for sale market is more of a roadblock than a help to these types of players.

Eventually all non-credit buyers wither and leave the game unless they are just using the game as a chat channel or again, have no lives and just bash endlessly for the inflated credit prices, but meh to each their own.

I don't really think the amount of people with ooc credits really determine how cheap/expensive ic credits will become. It will always be the merchant who will be able to place the price tag on whatever they sell, and normally they will want as much buck as they can get for their "wares". So, anyone who is selling credits will be free to sell at whatever price they want, because they are of the few sources some people can actually acquire credits from. It is not like the credit market will actually ever have an alternate market competing against them, keeping their prices at bay. Like some kind of mob selling credits, always at a definate price (if you may remember when free credits where given to people for Lusternia going gold, that for a brief while served as if a mob had been "selling" credits, actually forced credit market to drop prices for a period of time).

Though, what surprises me, is that within Lusternia credit prices did manage to increase by leaps and bounds. Quite cheap at some point, excessively expensive the other. Wouldn't surprise me if eventually we reach Achaea's prices (about 5k per) in 5-10 years? Or maybe we just managed to hit jack-pot

I do wonder what factors did really influence credit market's prices. Inflation? Of course... but what determined such price increase, when it does appear to be like most everything within realms does currently already require a high sum of gold. So I am sure that most of the average players don't really count with over-flowing coffers.


So yes, as long as a market has no competition there will no other control within the market other than the price the merchant places on their wares. Though, I must say 1.8k-2.5k are much more reasonable prices than 3k+, especially on such early stages of the realms.

So far, the only alternatives to purchasing credits for people who can't or don't want to purchase credits ooc is purchasing city credits, guild credits, or knowing someone who would sell credits to them bellow credit market prices. I believe I did well on spending most (actually all of it) of my gold purchasing credits as soon as I started my life within realms. I was able to "study" enough of my skills to get to very descent skill ranks.

EDIT: Allow me to clarify something. I hope it is clear that when I said I spent all of my gold purchasing credits... I meant ic credits. This was at a time when credits where selling for about 1k-1.5k, almost half of what credits cost now.

EDIT: Just a small edit... I am not sure how I forgot to do this. Thanks to the higher ups in Lusternia for celebrating realms going gold the way they did. I am sure everyone of us found it immensely gratifying, much more than we actually deserved. Thank you!

The reason the market price of credits has lept so dramticaly is because people do roll over. Everytime you see credits put on market at lower than 3k you buy them up and immediatly put them up at 3k stopping anybody from selling lower than 3k. Other rich players then buy your 3k credits and put them up at 3.1k and buy anything out lower than 3.1 to edge out any attempt at lowering market prices and up and up the prices go.

And for those who argue its free market its not, this is a game and people are not willing to wait 5 months real time for credit markets to fluctuate so they can buy in game credits at fair rates. Yes yes thats the way real markets work but....duh....this isnt real and if people are expected to stick around then there has be at least the illusion they will advance if they work hard enough at it.

Also this kills any lowering of credit prices because who in their right mind will sell credits at 2k when newbies are still buying at massivly inflated prices? Some really cool people do try and make a dent by selling at lower prices to their guilds or cities but they are very rare and 9 out of 10 times the people who they sell to just put them on market anyway for a quick turn over at the 3k price.

I dont play achaea but I was talking to people who do and they were saying before the credit market hit there adverage price of credits held steady at 2-3k for years, soon as the market goes in....bam...5k per.

I understand credit buyers pay the bills but....umm....when the number of people who I can lourd my wealth over drops to ridiculously low levels, whats the point in sticking around? So I got a ton of artys and Im rich....lot of good that does if theres nobody around to admire it and Im alone in a dead world.

In Achaea, I think the massive credit prices were partially due to fishing. According to many people, fishing provided much more gold to people (before fishing was tweaked), so this equalled as more gold on peoples hand (not necessary more gold on a bigger group of people's hand). So prices increased and stayed at about 5k. Of course, this is what I am assuming that happened. Though, it is interesting how only credit prices seemed to have increased, instead of everything entirely. Seeing how people could now be richer

Though, I actually think that assuming that one of the major reason for people to purchase credits ic cheap, is to simply resell them at more expensive rates is a bit absurd. It does happen (I sold some credits in Achaea for about 1.8k once when I was able to get them for almost 2.5k from someone else to see them sell at about 3.k seconds later), but it is ridiculous to believe that everyone does the same. I think the amount of people who actually want credits for personal use is far greater than those who resell them.

And yes, there is no way most of the people who sell ooc credits will want to act as good guys and sell those credits for cheap, when they know they can actually sell them at whatever price they want and eventually get their gold. So is credit market a free market? I believe it is, but I am prone to believe that a bigger amount of people may consider credit market as an act of extortion from sellers to potential ic buyers.

Probably credit prices would lower if people did in fact stop purchasing credits, but I've been witness of how some people as soon as they gather a decent amount of gold... are desperate to purchase any credit they can get their hands on. I guess nothing will really change until us purchasers really manage to coerce sellers to lower their prices. Of course, right this instant, it does seem like credits are scant. Though, I wonder who will be the brilliant person who will end up purchasing those 8 credits for 5k...

Do you know who controls the credit market? The buyers. Sellers can not force you to buy. It IS governed by free market forces, and there is currently a huge shortage in supply.

Edit: To expand on that, and provide a hypothetical counterexample to arguments as to why it's not free market (sellers buying everything below their price). If buyers were to hold out, eventually said seller would run out of coin, and prices cheaper than theirs would exist. Unfortunately, as a buyer, not a seller, that is very unlikely to happen. I sold 150 credits at 1.7k per to raise the last 250k for the Hallifax clan, right before the huge increase in price. Why? I tried putting them at 2000, 1900, 1800, and got undercut to 1700. Supply was temporarily high, and those who could buy them out weren't about, or were holding out for cheaper prices.

Rexali knows what he's talking about. They rest of you...well your ignorance is more than irritating.

I won't repeat what Rexali said, but I'll talk about some things that haven't been mentioned. One this isn't Achaea, I can bash 10k in under and hour. Thats far faster then anywhere else. I personaly raised 2.5k credits in under 1RL month. Care to explain that if it takes so long to get gold?

Now all you talk about people buying OOC, but you seem to forget city/guild credits, guide credits, mortal builders/coders, and other ways I can't even think of right now to get credits withouit money.

Right.

If you think about supply and demand then it may make sense. It may be hard to judge demand fluctuations (though my conjecture is that it remains fairly steady), but it should be easy to guess where quantity of supply has gone by considering two factors. 1) The game got out of a credit discount sale last month. By removing the discount and estimating steady sales measured in dollars (and it is unlikely that removing a sale will spur *increased* dollar sales), the quantity of credits available for supply would go down. 2) October and much of November, based on the QW size, was pumped up with a temporary "initial rush" crowd one would expect from a new product release. If you follow where these two lead, you should expect a surplus in those first month or two of the game. It will be interesting to see what happens to credit prices when there is another credit discount sale. Note that the current artifact sale could be theorized to do the opposite. Those that do buy for the purposes of the sale would be immediately consuming the credits for the artifact rather than putting them on the market. Indeed, it may cause a shortage in credit supply since it encourages consumption of credits by everyone (increasing demand) without increasing the quantity in supply.

As an aside, if you want to trans skills than one thing to do is mentor people and teach lessons to others. I gained a lot in my days as a player from doing that. Plus I got to meet a lot of new and interesting people in my guild and created a better sense of community in the guild.

As the credits don't decay, don't take up space, don't weigh, cannot be stolen, the seller can have them at a sell price of 4k and wait until somebody buys them, until he decides to use them for something else.
Thus, not buying won't help the prices go down due to forcing the sellers to get rid of their credits at a cheaper price, but I admit it can help with all those who just speculate with the credit market for a few lousy hundreds of gold (buy at 1750, sell at 1800, a great amount of 50 gold per credit! *woooow* *sarcastic).

One problem with the rollover theory is it does not account for buyers who don't do rollover. So if credits are on sale for various prices, if one person is going to buy at 3000 and turn around to sell it at 3050, why didn't someone else who wanted to consume it buy it when it was at 3000? That rollover trick only works for a short time until the price is too high and everyone who wanted to do a rollover ends up with excess credits they didn't want to hold onto; they would then need to sell at a lower price or actually work for their gold. Stock market daytraders tried that trick in the 1990's and it came crashing down on them. Not buying would bring down prices since those who are too lazy to rat would be forced to unload their credits if they wanted to continue life without ratting. That's what it comes down to: you sell credits for profit so as to not kill rats. When you are forced to kill rats, you have an incentive to drop prices.

On another note, I'm wondering if gold is easier to come by here due to the increase in tradeskill availability and influence begging skills. If so, perhaps credit prices when measured in gold would be inflated here, but the prices in real value would be about the same. With easier access to gold, the value would go down. For example, if you could get 2 gold here with the same physical effort it takes to get 1 gold in Achaea then doubled prices in gold would come out to equal real price value in Achaea. The best way to measure it is in time. If you have to expend X amount of time to buy 1 credit here and the same X amount of time somewhere else then the value is equal regardless of how much gold it costs.

I think too many people still look at rats and ratting as the best source of income... which is not accurate.