So the Rikenfriez market is now open again, unfortunately, it is now broken in the same way that Ptoma and Ixthiaxa are... with the price cap incorrectly set, and the stock prices fluctuating unexpectedly with production tics. I've bugged the first two, sent pretty detailed emails, and had no feedback and seen no fixes. I realize that the administration has been incredibly busy with the new guilds, but I'm hoping that maybe the situation with commodities could get some attention now that they're up and running.

Between skillflex and the increased commodities costs, I'm finding that demand is well outpacing supply for the most-used commodities. (Wood, gems, cloth, silk, silver, fruit, steel) This is what the administration wanted - to force us to use up our surpluses. But it's been a while now, and maybe we can revisit the subject to find a better equilibrium point.

I'd been thinking that maybe one of the reasons our supply was diminishing so rapidly is because I had lowered the prices at the market across the board. However after readjusting, even selling these things for more than we were before skillflex and the commodities requirements changes, we're still running out. Whatever I put for sale is gone within a day in the case of wood, silk, and gems - even when the prices are 30-40 gold more per item than the village prices. I buy out the villages very frequently and we still do not keep pace.

I'm wondering if the other orgs are having similar problems. I suspect that in the case of a few, they simply don't even bother trying to maintain stock of the things that sell out. At the same time, we still have ludicrously huge amounts of the commodities that people don't often use (rope, meat, fish), which only continue to grow.

In addition to the other changes, with two new orgs and many new characters to equip and supply, I'd assumed that the new village markets were in part intended to help with this, but broken as they are, they're not doing a terrific job. So yeah. Anyone else seeing the same things?

While we're at it, can we have exactly -how- commodity functions are supposed to work explained to us? There's been a lot of little things that people think are features and turn out to be bugs, and the sweeping change to tradeskill commodity costs across the board still makes no sense to me whatsoever, and seems indicative that things are not functioning how the administration believe they should be. We can't bug it if we don't know what we're looking for!

Well, for Seren, it's quite a similar situation, though not as bad cause wehaveveryhighmetalpricessothatpeoplejustgobuyelsewhere. We have enough of the useless comms... but for the rarer ones like wood, silk, silver, definitely. During my brief time managing comms, releasing more of the rare comms just feels futile when they are swallowed up so quickly.

Buying out villages is just too slow to keep up with demand.

Commodity production is largely determined by your government type and political style, as well as commodity quests (and a base, hidden, unaffected value).

Glomdoring, for instance, will be producing very little in terms of commodities - as Conquest already receives a massive penalty to commodity production, and as a benign state, will receive a further penalty.

Serenwilde, being benign religious, is in the same boat (though I think they produce slightly more commodities than a conquest government).

I'm curious how Hallifax feels they're doing, in the 'grand scheme' so to speak, on commodity production.

Right, but I'm not talking about how much we get tithed, but rather, how much -exists-. As I understand it, a village produces x amount in a day. Depending on your government structure, you are directly tithed a portion of this amount (large percentage for commercial, very small for conquest), and the remainder goes on sale at the village market. I'm saying that I buy out the villages (all, not just the ones we hold) as often as possible and it's still not enough.

I was going to put an edit to my above post about how the admin will talk about tithes and production as related to governing style - but I never realised Conquest had even less commodity tithes than Religious!

@Talan: As far as I was aware, what you said above was what happens for benign/neutral/despotic. But then, given Eventru's explanation, I think the commercial/religious/conquest affects the actual base x production. I could be wrong, though.

Edit: and yes, Serenwilde has pathetic tithes.

I -think- it just affects tithing (it's been a few months since I looked), but it's hard to say how much you aren't tithing when other people are likely buying them too.

And buying them out is going to drive the price through the roof, ouch.

Sort of. Tithing is semi-predictable, and like pretty much any recurring thing, if you do it enough you learn when things are tithed, how much usually appears, and can tell if others have bought it out. As far as prices going through the roof, this is actually a good thing, as it allows some additional supply to be built up while you do the quests to bring the prices back down!

I'm curious about Hallifax as well, though I imagine their demand is as great, if not greater than ours, as they have so many new characters that need new equipment. Maybe Tekora will divulge some tithe numbers so we can compare.

You say nothing about the new villages being all weird though... *plead*

Funny you should mention this. It used to be that buying out a commodity completely, let's say gems, then doing the appropriate commodity quest (in this case, rockeater turn-in) would result in the price instantly skyrocketing before it could slowly creep down. However, just in the last week or two, the price has been staying the same, and only shifting after an indeterminate amount of time.

Example.

1. I buy 84 gems at Dairuchi for 108 gold per.
2. I turn in 35 rockeaters.
3. 35 more gems show up in Dairuchi's wares at 108 gold, still.
4. Repeat a few times with no consequence.
5. Return next RL day, Dairuchi has 77 gems at 140 gold per.

I can't say for sure, but I'm guessing the price change occurs when the village tithes the given comm.

I had assumed that this was a sneak change to help ease some of the current comm woes, but maybe I'm way off base.

Also! I believe I heard you say that the Mountain Villages are supposed to produce gems on their own, without rockeater turn-ins. I would contest this as being false, in the game's current status, unless the code was rewritten in the last month or so. Rockeaters have always accounted for at least 99% of all observable gem tithes from what I've seen, even in Rockholm or Southgard (or the almighty OP Angkrag).

Rockholm's tithe numbers last weave:

Any idea how many rockeaters were brought in? I can promise you, as I jumped around to different villages trying to pump out as many gems as possible to satisfy my next cutting binge when I go jeweler again, I must have dumped at least 70 in Rockholm. That's only me, too - no accounting for actual Hallifax citizens.

The commodity code is extremely problematic for a number of reasons I don't want to get into which makes it near impossible to "fix" some of the problems that have been brought up (though we've layered quite a few patches over the years that ultimately makes the code even harder to tweak). We've actually talked quite recently of scrapping the entire commodity system and starting from scratch. Needless to say, this would be a huge project which is why we've always dragged our feet on it. However, maybe it is time to bite the bullet and take a month off to work on the commodity system.

Ogawd.

Fair enough. I can certainly believe it after trying to piece it together from the player side.

Right now costs seem to be all out of whack, such to the point where we don't know what we're expected to be buying commodities at. What's too high for what comm, what's proper for someone putting sweat into it, in your eyes? What's the average price, realistically, you think someone should pay for a set of silk robes, or for a gemstone brooch?

These questions should be answered before any more major changes occur. As a shopkeeper, I feel rather in the dark, and I feel like there is a definitive gap between what is intended and what is practiced.

I can handle that. From what I've heard over the years, Lusternia inherited a lot of "legacy" code that, for whatever reason, doesn't work as the Admin intend it to work. But since it is part of that "base" code it is extremely difficult to fix. That was the problem with forging wasn't it? But maybe that's what's required. I haven't heard a single complaint about the new forging mechanics outside of the "monk weapons need to be temperable" complaint. I'd gladly give up some of the other issues we bring up if it means taking the time to rework a system that doesn't work like it should anymore.

Of course, my vote doesn't mean much, since I'm not the one who has to go in and code it . So if now isn't the right time to do a major overhaul, I understand.

ok, personally i've been farming off the rockeaters for a few weeks now. Been turning in around 40 rockeaters per run, 21 on the mountains, 9 in the three mountain villages, and the marine rockeaters. So as per rockholm, why are their prices so low, is it because i'm a halli citizen? I've been trying to do something in which I farm a commodity warehouse by not putting any rockeaters in there, keeping the prices high, and have the gems continue to grow. many times I cannot take all the rockeaters, but enough so the prices don't dip significantly. That way, I have ankrag being kept up at 240 gems at around 200 gold per gem, and if I drop off 40 or 50 rockeaters (including the undervault's ones) you can get the price drop to 120g or 110 g per gem.

But price wise, except for rockholm, i've seen that if the gems in stock already are around 40-60, then the difference of dropping in 30 rockeaters will not be too much, just maybe 20, 25 gold. But if the stocks are over 100-200, then for each rockeater you drop off you can get the price drop 3-5, 7 gold.

Now remember to take into account the south/rockholm king quest. and hunting the dwarves or killing the undeads, as that did significantly affect the tithes i imagine. Give me a few more weeks and I should be able to come up with an equation for the day to day amount of rockeaters, dwarves killed to saved, and the king crowned = to amount tithed.

Oh hi.



When I took office, Hallifax's trade situation was as much a mess as Gaudiguch's is. Since then, I've fought tooth and nail to keep supplies available and to grow our stockpiles, which did not exist when I started. And if production didn't meet with demand, I arranged for bulk purchases from either villages or in one case, from Glomdoring. If anything, the changes made by doubling commodity costs for everything has made this task even harder. I've tried to keep pricing at a reasonable level so that people would still buy while not causing the city to lose out on profits or our stocks. The increased gems demand since the Institute opened is worrying... already it's cut our supply in half with little sign that it's going to let up. I'm going to have to raise prices once our stocks fall below 2,000 unless something is done.



See below, though like I said, we've managed to meet with demand, despite being a new org /and/ having few villages. It hasn't been easy.



It's worth noting that those numbers are from Rockholm when it has full miners and Thoril crowned. Since Thoril died, these are typical numbers when we have miners.

2010/07/09 02:07:08 - Rockholm tithed 9 platinum commodities
2010/07/09 04:11:09 - Rockholm tithed 15 steel commodities
2010/07/09 05:17:11 - Rockholm tithed 6 gold commodities
2010/07/09 08:50:13 - Rockholm tithed 21 marble commodities
2010/07/09 08:51:13 - Rockholm tithed 61 gems commodities
2010/07/09 09:02:13 - Rockholm tithed 10 silver commodities
2010/07/09 09:05:13 - Rockholm tithed 15 steel commodities
2010/07/09 09:52:13 - Rockholm tithed 9 coal commodities
2010/07/09 12:39:14 - Rockholm tithed 11 silk commodities
2010/07/09 14:00:15 - Rockholm tithed 15 steel commodities
2010/07/09 14:34:15 - Rockholm tithed 8 platinum commodities
2010/07/09 17:45:19 - Rockholm tithed 4 gold commodities
2010/07/09 18:44:19 - Rockholm tithed 21 marble commodities
2010/07/09 18:52:19 - Rockholm tithed 15 steel commodities
2010/07/09 21:17:20 - Rockholm tithed 58 gems commodities
2010/07/09 21:32:20 - Rockholm tithed 18 silver commodities
2010/07/09 22:14:24 - Rockholm tithed 9 coal commodities
2010/07/09 23:35:25 - Rockholm tithed 4 meat commodities
2010/07/09 23:43:25 - Rockholm tithed 15 steel commodities

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I have to agree with the sentiment that commodities need to be completely re-done. The way it is now will only keep it difficult for Gaudiguch and Hallifax to get established.

speaking as a cook now, one of the reasons Hallifax might be holding steady on cooking supplies is that it is absolutely stupid for a cook to buy comms in Hallifax. They are so expensive compared to Glomdoring. And since Glom cooks are our main competition for food in Hallifax, raising our food prices would not be a good solution since the business loss would be immense.


It does not help most people refuse to spend more then needed gold on food. Which made the comm increase ouch like. (few people spend over 200 gold on platters unless it is con food)

And don't forget that the people with large amounts of disposable income don't need to eat, for the most part.