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原文連結：The Economist ~ Notes on the bot price changes
原作者：Iain Keers

Dear friends,
親愛的朋友們，


In an economy which is increasingly reliant on the admin bot, the change of the buy price of that bot is incredibly important. Slight changes might have a small effect on you personally, but on a macro scale it makes a huge difference. The most important change of course is the marginal tip in favour of WRM buyers- namely people who own Q6 weapons companies but don’t self supply WRM. These people are for the most part tanks, since the marginal cost of working as a manager is nevertheless far more expensive in terms of damage potential than any fiscal benefit gained from working. In other words, it costs half a gold to gain ten health more for tanking, and even working in a Q6 doesn’t make you that much.
在日益依賴雞吃的經濟系統裡，雞吃價改變造成的影響越來越重要。小改變對你個人而言可能沒有太大的差異，但巨觀而言卻會造成龐大的改變。對那些少數剛買下Q6武器廠但不自產武料的玩家而言特別有利。這些人供給了大多數的Q6坦，因為換算為同體力的輸出之後來看，身為經理工作所消耗之體力的機會成本已不再遠高於作為受薪階級工作的機會成本。換句話說，輸出要多花0.5G才能回復10體，但就算在Q6場工作的成本也不用那麼多。


Until recently the bot price was fixed at 0.33 in the minor economies and somewhat lower – probably around 0.16 (though it’s unconfirmed) in the major economies. This was based on the variable exchange rate- PLN and RSD were twice as valuable as-for example-SEK or SIT. Since the unification of the money markets, we’ve seen a gradual fall in the buy price from the bot. This has been matched with an upward trend in the cost of gold. It gets a little ridiculous after a while- the admin push towards devaluing currency has got so extreme that it’s not ridiculous to imagine a future where gold training is actually impossible without buying gold. At the minute it costs around 6000 currency a day to do so. Once the value of currency-gold gets below 2800-1g then you’re looking at normal players – no matter how talented- being put out of the market. I’ll be honest and say that although I can afford to gold train normally, my financial support for the UK whilst it was wiped effectively barred me from taking that path, and I’ve spent several hundred gold training over the past 3 months that I effectively paid for.
直到最近之前在小經濟體雞吃價都固定在0.33而在主要經濟體的某些地方則可能低到0.16(但這並沒有被證實過)。這是依據匯率來決定的，比如說PLN和RSD的價值是SEK和SIT的兩倍。但在貨幣統一後我們可以看到市場價格正逐漸的降低。這正好符合G價的逐漸上升的趨勢。這狀況曾經有點失控 – 貨幣貶值到刷卡買G訓練的未來不那麼的荒謬。在那時候一天訓練大概花費6000貨幣。一旦G價高於2800:1，只要是正常玩家(不管事老鳥還菜鳥)都會退出金融市場。我得承認，雖然我能負擔全餐，但這使我不能金援英國(當時英國處於滅國狀態)，而在此之前我吃全餐之餘已經金援英國三個月了。


The catch 22 situation we find ourselves in here is that the production and use of raw materials- which is the best mode of profit for 95% of players- is also the main cause of the collapse of the value of currency. Lowering the bot price does have the effect of marginally decreasing the rate of currency value inflation, but it doesn’t really help in the long term. What that admins need to do is address their own future head on, and ask themselves one very simple question:
我們陷入一個兩難：對95%的玩家來說，海原料廠利益最高；但也讓整體匯率崩潰得更快。降低雞吃價短期內確實可以減緩G價的通膨，但以長期而言這並沒有幫助。無頭雞需要的是有遠見的腦袋，並捫心自問下面這個問題：


Do you want to create a realistic economy, in the sense of a simulator, or do you want to create character progression, like you would get in an RPG?
你想要創造一個藉由模擬結果所推導出的擬真經濟體系，還是一個像是RPG般的成長過程？


If you’re aiming for a realistic economy, then the whole thing needs binning and starting again. Reimburse people the capital value of what they have, change the formulas, change the nature of purchasing, remove WAM and create player-driven demand. This system would have a few big winners, a bunch of smaller wealthy players and the vast teeming multitude of the poor- basically like the real world.
如果你致力於擬真經濟體系，那你需要砍掉重練。以等價資產賠償人們當時所擁有的，改變公式，改變購買的本質，廢除武料並創造玩家導向的需求。這套體系可能會產生數個大贏家，一群小康玩家和一大群貧窮-普通玩家，就和現實一樣。


If you’re looking for character progression, which from observation is what the admins have been aiming for the past year or so, then it’s a different story. Each individual player develops themselves by investing and saving, but since they’re not selling to anyone real 90% of the time there is no economy- you’re rewarded by your accomplishments by the game, not by other players. If this is the case, a half-baked job won’t do. At the minute we still have a huge amount of detritus in the game from when it was a rubbish sim, now making it a rubbish RPG. Stuff like the money market, the markets themselves, are very good for when you have such things as supply and demand, and a stable economy. What we have now is a continuous downhill slide.
但如果你想要的是像RPG般的成長系統，據觀察無頭雞過去都是致力於此類，那麼就是另外一回事情了。每個玩家都是藉由投資及儲蓄來發展自身實力，但當每個人90%的時間都不賣東西的時候，那就沒有經濟可言 – 每個人的獲利都只來自任務獎勵及成就，而不是其他玩家。如果是這種狀況，這種考慮不周的計畫就不可能成功。當這遊戲只是個爛模擬時我們擁有的只是一堆渣渣，而現在的狀況更是個垃圾RPG。拿金融市場來說，在你有充足的供需要求時是個非常好的東西，也是個很穩定的金融體系。但我們現在有的只是無止盡的向下滑落。


The admins did recognise this when they introduced the bot and fixed the global money market, but they didn’t go far enough. Although the currency side of the market was fixed, the gold side wasn’t. The admins need to go one step further and delete the money market altogether. It needs to be replaced by a currency exchange. In this exchange you can buy currency and gold directly from the admins, not from third parties. If the rate for currency was 0.01, it’s reasonable to say “make the gold cost 1500 CC” or something, to encourage people to buy gold. But fix the price, because the idea of an actual market is a costly illusion, and the bot is doing nothing except constantly devaluing all the money anyone has ever spent. When I bought my first Q4 company it was worth around 10 gold. Now it’s worth around 5. That’s how far the markets have collapsed. In addition, although the concept of markets is fine and can be left alone, messing around with the bot, or the bot price, is as unacceptable as messing around with the battle timer, the counter or people’s money. It’s changing the rules of the game halfway through, and is as bad as deleting people’s strength or rank. You’re cutting people’s character progression for no good reason and it is killing interest. Finally, the admins need to openly come out and acknowledge the price the bot buys at.
無頭雞在引入雞吃價和固定全球市場的時候就認清這件事了，但是改的還不夠多。雖然市場中貨幣這部分被固定了，但G的那部分卻沒有。無頭雞需要更進一步的把整個貨幣市場給砍了。取而代之的是貨幣兌換功能。在這個兌換功能中你可以直接從無頭雞那買入貨幣或G，而不是從第三方買入。當匯率為0.01時，說1G=1500貨幣或之類的話是很合理的，人們也比較有買G的慾望。但在固定匯率下，因為金融市場是個珍貴的幻象且無頭雞除了壓低貨幣價值之外不會做任何事，因此沒有人會這麼做。當我買入我的第一座Q4廠的時候約值10G，現在只剩大約5G。你就可以看出市場崩壞的多麼嚴重。此外，雖然市場這個概念不錯而且可以不用管它，只要靠雞吃就好，但對戰爭觀察者、斤斤計較者、還有玩家們的錢而言雞吃是沒辦法接受的。它正在改變玩家支配遊戲的方式，但這和砍力量或軍階等方法一樣糟糕。無頭雞把玩家的成長過程給砍了並且扼殺了玩家的興趣。最後，無頭雞終究得出來承認雞吃價的存在。


I don’t expect everyone to agree with my solutions, but everyone agrees with the problem. Please vote and shout, and more importantly use the “contact” facility at the bottom of the page to send this article to the admins so they can actually read it. I’ll be emailing them myself, but it’s important they see as many names as possible saying the same thing- from all backgrounds, gold buyers and free players.
我不會期望每個人都同意我的看法，但每個人都應該承認這個問題。請vote和shout，更重要的是請按下畫面下方的” contact”按鈕把這篇文章寄給無頭雞，這樣他們才看的到這篇文章。我會親自寄給他們，但讓他們看到來自四面八方的眾人 – 有買G也好沒買G也好 - 的憤怒也是很重要的。


Best wishes,
祝好


Iain

1st edition：感謝Donki Lu指正，原來有典故的(汗