You should be granted flesh harvesting perms as soon as your name hits the logs that you're GR3. :/

Bother.

To the people complaining about Hallifax's prices being so high compared to Glomdoring's, you need to realize the following.

Glomdoring holds IMMENSELY EXCESSIVE stockpiles resulting from over a year of controlling no less than 5 villages at a time. Hallifax does not have the luxury of vast stockpiles, thus we have to price higher due to a lack of supply. And when demand increases while supply is low, that's when prices go /really/ high. That's Economics 101 right there.

Glomdoring commodity prices are unrealisticly and unsustainably cheap. Hallifax commodity prices are based upon available supply and consumer demand. And that's why Glomdoring doesn't have gems in stock right now and Hallifax does.

Any questions?

Yes, I have one.

Why do I love that smiley so much.

You should totally add it to the forums' vast IMMENSELY EXCESSIVE collection.

YOU CAN'T. That's MY favorite smiley.

Anyway, yes, this forum has a billion smilies, and unless I know what one is called, it takes me 3-5 minutes to actually find it in that list. I usually give up before I find it.



It already is in the collection (that or its identical twin).

You just haven't seen it yet, because there are a billion smilies. (I'd put an appropriate smiley right here, but I doubt I could find it!)

Our stockpiles are only excessive on the things that no one uses. We have been trying to liquidate some of the excessive stock, as per strong administrative suggestions that org comm shops sell things too expensively and hoard too much. Also, we had a few months there where we were way down on villages - as I've stated before, most of our stock comes from questing and buying comms, particularly the comms that people actually use often.

Glomdoring does have gems set aside, fear not. Unfortunately I'm not willing to sacrifice our entire store of them on a couple of people who routinely buy them out to stock their aethershops or offer their bulk cut gems on market every ten minutes - which is why you may see none for sale at times. They're made available to our people whenever they ask, but as we can't control who buys without enemying, nor create separate price schemes for Gloms vs. non-Gloms, there are certain things I just won't make generally available in bulk. (Price policies for comm shops please!)

I don't consider selling the high demand things for 40 gold over the village prices to be excessively cheap... that's actually a pretty hefty convenience charge to my mind. For the things which don't sell as much, we certainly do sell those cheap... but uh, at least we're selling them.

Bravo, and well said.

Agree, but there is a far bigger picture to consider. In the grand scheme of things, it really doesn't matter for the org how vast the quantity being stockpiled in reserve is (hallifax/gaud excluded, but they'll hoard enough to be in the following proverbial boat before too long as well). With or even without the tens of millions of gold that orgs have in the coffers, it becomes a moot point to sell at exorbitantly high prices that negatively impacts the playerbase in being unable or hindered in acquiring comms for basic needs.

(Comm shop logs would be nice too.)



It also doesn't make sense for a newly-founded org that is still on shaky financial footing to throw away the benefit of one of its most potentially lucrative sources of income. As such, I won't allow it. It's as much the job of the Minister of Trade to make money for the org as it is to ensure commodity supply. And at least in Hallifax, accomplishing the former ensures that I'll have the gold I need to be able to accomplish the latter through bulk sales from the other orgs. You know, the ones that are actually established and on secure footing.

Actually, the amount of money made by trade is overshadowed by far by the credit sales.

... if your Trade ministry isn't doing its job very well, I suppose.

I don't know. While on some days I see more coming in from the credit sale, for me (as treasurer) my main income supply is Trade. There are days where I can get a million gold from it in one go; if I leave it alone for a couple of days, even more. It can be amazingly lucrative now that commodity costs are doubled and people need to buy twice as much. It also keeps going even when the credit sales inevitably cease.

This does not change that the increase in commodity costs does not really impact the stuff that was in extremely high quantity (eggs, milk, meat), and heavily impacts the low-quantity things (wood, gems), to the point where the latter have to be rationed.

Even if you're in an organization with a Trade style.

Edit: I suppose I should state that getting a million in a day is pretty rare, though it has happened. Getting it over the course of a few days, however, isn't rare at all; especially when we have, say, Hallifaxians bringing us their gold instead of keeping it close to home.

Saving this spot to respond to Xenthos later because my disgust with his elitism and condescending attitude cannot be adaquately expressed with the limited resources that my cell phone provides. Back in 8 hours.

Alternatively, you could re-examine your prices, keep Hallifaxians closer to home, and impact my bottom line quite dramatically.

Up to you!

However, if the gold's going to be spent, it does seem like it would be better to encourage it be spent on your behalf and not go off to another organization.

Gems are also used in some cooking designs. Just FYI. Gems are very popular comms.

Yeah. And not helped by being used up for guardians now.

They were already somewhat difficult to keep in stock with the whole bulk-gems market (and desire for powerstones), but plausible; it seems pretty much impossible now, though.

And bookbinding designs. Oh, and tailoring designs.

Yeah, gems are just plain popular. They should double the population of rockeaters now that there is a guild who eats gems, just to give other folks a chance at them!

Well this is the reason why people don't go above certain limits, even with easier methods of obtaining gold the willingness to pay for goods (not just cooked) goes down. (now cooking is still a better tradeskill then some others so I suppose we shouldn't complain to much!)


I never buy in the villages because they tend to be expensive too (I always wondered if they had a minimum price or if someone just buys them out regularly), though yes food comms have a low demand because food is in low demand. For reasons Sylphas mentioned.

Now as for the hole hallifax comm prices, it is an observation more then a complaint, I don't survive on my trade so in the end I do not really care.

Villages have a minimum price. Organizations usually base their prices by examining a village's minimum and maximum prices and determining somewhere in that range based upon supply and how much work is required to do the quest. The whole "supply and demand" argument has some issues since it's not anywhere near as simple as that; you have each of the villages acting as a competing supplier, each with their own price ranges, and so unless you are constantly buying them out to drive prices up you can't price based on what you feel is the correct value for the supply. You have to price based upon the competition, if you want to compete. This works for pretty much any personal purchase you might want to make; the only time it breaks down is when you want to buy in bulk (at which point you have to go to the organizations because villages can't stock the same totals). Most purchases are not on this scale, however, and so organization prices often try to compete with village prices.

Also, if you do some commodity quests for the comm you want to buy in a village, you can drive the price down considerably. Collect 20 rockeaters, turn them in, then buy your gems from the village at a much reduced price.

As to one of your other points... I think demand actually has increased a bit, even though people are buying much less. The requirements went up enough that even with reduced buying, commodity consumption is up on what remains, but work orders are down.

I also get the feeling cooking comms get bought out, at least from doing a village check just now. Probably by orgs rather then cooks though.

I am a convenience buyer though, large portions, as little walking as possible. Normally I even stick to my own org unless my own org's comm shop makes product prices unrealistic for competing with others of my trade.

Less so than generating income, I feel the Trade Minister's job is, more specifically, ensuring that there are commodities available for citizens to use whenever necessary (and available as close to "at all times" as possible). Cost is less of an object.

This includes looking into the future, looking at rate of consumption, and judging if there is some efficient way to curtail the complete loss of a comm before it runs out completely.

People will always need more comms, especially of metals, wood, cloth, silk, and gems, most particularly. People keep mentioning all these uses for gems, but you're all still forgetting the really big ones: vials and bottles. Vials and bottles! Nothing sucks gems out of this game quite like those.

So, if you are losing gems at a significantly faster rate than you are bringing them in, what can you do? Aside from withhold stock, you can raise price. However, this is only effective so long as other sources of gems are cheaper than your own. If every other org raises their price higher than yours, then you got the best bargain in town, and people will still ravenously buy it out. Sure, a few will quest in villages to get more produced through their own merits, but not everyone has the time or energy for this. And if they -did-... could you imagine a dozen or so people having to scour the basin and compete for rockeaters, just to get gems they need for basic containers?

Yeah, no thanks.