The Economist ~ Notes on the bot price changes
Spite313
Dear friends,
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.
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.
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:
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Best wishes,
Iain
Comments
Love the part about buying gold directly from admin in exchange od cc
Great article, voted.
well said
playing the economy-route here is searching for botprice and countries with bot. fixed monetary market will just kill the trading on the MM too. then you have nothing but the god named admin who is saying how much he would like you to pay for gold. and because they want you to buy it with RL-money - do you really think it will be a nice price on MM like 1500cc, please...
with open bot-prices you dont have anything to do as a manager just sell like on the list
with fixed MM you cant get some more money with trading
the only thing you have then is the military-module
The only way you can make a profit on the MM now is if some idiot buys currency instead of selling gold.
The only way you can make money on the markets is if you're too stupid to notice when your stuff isn't selling.
Making money out of Plato's incompetence isn't a skill. You need to decide which way to make the game- 1 player or multiplayer. At the minute it's a horrible hybrid.
Vote
You rule.
Voted.
Fix your game Plato.
V
After the "world currency" has been implemented, I wrote something like this in a shout comment: "the next step in the plan will be a decrease in BOT prices, in order to smash the players' daily income". This is what I would do if I was in charge.
http://prntscr.com/79osp
votado
eRepublik Labs must of course make a profit and earn money. Considering that eGreece can make 932 google plex points in one day we can figure out that the game is making huge profits. As far as that continues there won't be any radical changes in the business concept.
I thought this game should take a different path, a path toward a simulator with an advance economy and military module. I think we can forget all about that now, the game we have today is the game we will see tomorrow.
You can never kill all the enemies on the battle field since they are only shadows, you can click a billion time. Same with the goods, what others don't buy, plato buys. There will never be a shortage anywhere. If you want to play a simulator game where you can organize players and have a huge influence in economy and military, well then you should probably look for another game since that can't be done in eRepublik anymore and that wont change in the future.
what is the boot buying prices?
Looking at old articles about 350k players
I wonder what the number is now. After all the multis have been disregarded
@Iain Keers Day 1,595, 09:49
"The only way you can make a profit on the MM now is if some idiot buys currency instead of selling gold."
well that idiot buying gold thats me, because i have an offer on market for 24/7 which wasnt bought even once from the starting of world-currency untill now
+ you can buy when 1g = 1630cc and sell it when its 1g = 1700cc
its not comparable to the old days in V1 but its something...
+ earning on market:
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/i-earned-more-than-42000-cc-in-last-24-hours-learn-it-and-do-it-yourself-1983201/1/20
manager-working is the cancer killing the "economy"
10g limit + world currency is the cancer killing the MM-trading
To be honest I don't understand what admin are doing. We have seen the same economic module for over a year. Come on, we love this game. We love the community around it. But if the game dies out the community will die out and you'll have nothing left.
nice
this information is confirmed??
Very true voted
The descent in the bot buying prices is part of the strategy of the admins... Plato said in a MP, they want change the way the market behaves, Because they wanted players to focus again in working for companies, and owning companies of manufactures.
So this is the first step toward that goal, i guess they will destroy the raw materials wammers, first by fixing lower and lower the bot buying prices...
¿the second step?... wish i knew....
Voted, lets see were this will end...
I'm not the economist, but in my 2cents opinion administration should stop selling gold and start a new credit system like Erep credits which will be not trade able between players. Only this way you will get true economy simulation by stopping inflation which increases by adding gold to market from nowhere.
Voted.
This is what i call an "ARTICLE" with capital Letters
I agree with Ian, the WAM has destroyed the game, although has given the possibility for every noob to fight 180 times / day it makes it impossible for a below 10k str player to keep training and properly fighting unless he buys gold. The only way to reverse the effect is by periodically increasing the aggregate consume potential as the aggregate production increases (increase from 2400 o 4800 for ex). Atm we have a maxed out demand (driven by choice ofc) and an increasing offer. Or we can, as the author suggested, shut down WAM altogether (i second this suggestion).
A non WAM, erepublik with such high potential demand level (2400 worth of wellness) would be a bliss for producers. either they are in manufacturing or land, lower q in weapons would become a viable alternative, hard to say about food since there is no direct gain in using a q6 instead of a q1 food. Same for land companies, although a bit of tweaking might be need since the gap between q1-q2-q3-and so on is too large. Instead of having a 2400 wellness limit maybe a 240 units of food would be more rational and interesting, and candies or WP instead of giving 100 wellness they might work better if the just increase the limit for food consumption with 10 units. At least now weapon and food consumption would go on par.
Another important WAM effect would be on military strategy as now people should start choosing wisely f today they spend or they make stocks. In the old days this was a viable strategy. As market value for goods will increase and gold value might decrease since we have no bot (would make sense not to have anymore), BH and RH hunting would decrease in popularity since it wouldn't not be as profitable (for some) as it is now. So again less wasted dmg, less randomness in damage drains and more organization and planning in the military field.
The effects on MM are harder to predict since now it is unified, but i might speculate that we will have a rate around 0.004 on one side and max 300 on the other side ( the point from where printing becomes profitable) since every national bank will try to squeeze every cent of profit. It's not like they will shake hands and keep the market at the beloved 0.02 - 50 like old times, competition to make profit will such efforts futile.
This does not mean that making those daily 2.3 gold / day to maintain a fair 46.8 str / day will be easy, on the contrary, but at least the quality of a gamer will play a higher roll in the general equation, for those who don't buy gold at least.
┏(😑)┛┗(😑 )┓┗(😑)┛┏(😑)┓
http://www.erepublik.com/en/newspaper/god-of-erepublik-265374/1
the problem is to consume more. how can you do it:
a. admins can do it- by changing the rules i.e. allow players to use more weapons and bread
b. users can do it- new players.
these quantitative and qualitative changes will increase consumption. without it, there is just an imbalance between offer (everyone has companies) and demand which will drive prices down (in gold terms).
They can also limit production and increase potential consumption to the point there will be no need for a bot.
For ex increase consumption up to 4800 health, decrease production by a factor of 10, and limit the work action to 240 per user 🙂. But the concept of self sufficiency will be thrown down the window for 90% of us.
vote
good idea with fixing the gold price
(good point whit using "contact" 🙂 ... but i can't because have bugethere, is just a blank page)
+1 (emphasis mine)
In addition ... 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 !!!
why not cut production of raw materials? This would decrease supply while demand remained constant
And everyone would get their production cut proportionately based on the amount of companies they own
because that would be injustice towards some players and will not change the problem. if raws will become a bad deal they will just switch for smth else and also the general reaction will be very negative. the overproduction will just switch to the next profitable thing that takes raws place if not still raws 🙂
Trying to make the current system fit a simulation model is impossible. If you want a sim, then delete everything, give everyone the value of their shit in gold and restart the entire system with new formulas, new companies, new everything. Or go the full way to RPG mode. No half measures.
you should be banned for properly analyzing the game and coming up with suggestions.