Bandalf Prices Are Too Cheap.

I am running numbers now for awhile, and it while I understand you don't want people to make a fortune selling cheap tools to Bandalf, well, I don't see anyone selling tools to Bandalf at all.

Maybe it is early? But all my numbers say it is selling at a loss comparatively. I can't be certain though, because my only max skill involved is carpentry, which is the cheap cheese curdle. My math comes out to a cheap cheese curdle costing me about 20 silver to make...

Making a Cheap Cheese Curdle will require:
- 2000 units to complete - 10 silver
- 10 Wood  - 2 silver
- 3 Leather Squares - 1 silver
- 1 Cheap Steel Ounce - 7 silver?

So, much as I really want to help new people and make a couple cheap cheese curdles, I am looking at the buying prices:

Wood Axe		12 Silver and 60 Bronze
Pickaxe		18 Silver
Plough		13 Silver and 68 Bronze
Cheese Curdle		14 Silver and 64 Bronze

I'm just wondering if these prices might need to be adjusted, being as they are now at their maximum- meaning once someone sells some tools to Bandalf, he will offer even less money to purchase the next.

Or am I missing something here?

Eek, I haven't done the math, but having put effort into making a axe and pickaxe, that doesn't even seem to cover costs.

A pick axe blade needs 2 iron bars(I guess the average price to be apx. 3S 50B) 3 wood at apx 20-40b each, and a cheap steel ounce, which I don't have a price for but was more then the iron bars when I bought them. I'll call it 5b for lack of something better.

going with wood at 25b, that brings the cost of a pickaxe BLADE to 12.75 assuming I'm right on steel ounce price and there is never any inflation.

To make a pickaxe out of a blade, you need to add 2 more iron bars and a cheap shaft. I only see a normal shaft up for 2S, Seems Anto is the master of the shaft so he can come back and correct me on a cheap one. Using the normal shaft price, that's 21.75 for a cheap pickaxe just in materials. That's a loss of 3 silver and 75 bronze.

How about to account for inflation(or deflation) you design the code to go with the average market price of the materials being bought plus a labor wage. and if there's no material, going off the last average plus 50B lets say. It's alot more short term work, but you can reuse the code for each item just changing the variables, and I believe in the long run it will save you time and headaches, plus I think you'll likely end up stealing the code for similar projects.

The plough is actually the only one that seemed about fair to me.  I usually sell the cheapest iron bars in Spero (when I have them to sell) and I sell for 250 bronze.  Because I have a pretty good blacksmithing skill, I can still make a profit on the plough.  The wood axe takes more iron bars and more stamina but the price is less than the plough!  Pickaxes are a pain to make in both materials and stamina; 18 silver seems pretty low.  I'm not much of a carpenter (I buy all my carpenter stuff from Anto) so I didn't really look at the cheese curdle numbers, but I'm sure the numbers Anto posted are good.

I think the main problem is that iron isn't only an investment of stamina and materials.  It's also an investment of time.  Because of the travel issue of the two mines (if you want iron in Spero you have to travel across the map, same if you want coal in Camaar) no one generally goes out and mines for a day and comes back.  When I go to the mines, I empty Spero of health potions (coal mining kicks my butt), bring a lot of bread, and stay out there for weeks.  Not a lot of people are willing to do this, but they are not willing to go out for a day and come back with the waste of travel time as well. 

I've no doubt that Aro's numbers on iron are technically correct.  But the setup creates a supply and demand issue that drives the prices up.  Mining is an investment for the player of potentially weeks of game time, or else wasted stamina traveling long distances.

Hey Aro, do you play the game? Do you start up new accounts now and again and start as a new player to see how things are going for them?

If you don't I think you should do that now and again. It gives you another perspective. I realize that your trying to make the profit margin razor thin for new players, which is fine and I agree with it, it makes sense. However, those numbers don't really make sense from the perspective I have.

You can't buy the goods to make the tools from the market and make a profit, which means you have to gather them all your self. Which is fine, but it's also a major pita and going to deter people from doing it. Not to mention all the effort put into making your own tools(which you really have to with the population we have) I imagine you could have several week long outings just to be able to make one tool to sell. Not to mention as Jill has mentioned there is also the investment of potions, followers, and such. May not change your mind, but it should be taken into account.

as i am am some kind of new i did the math too..
probably you wrong arogandor,i can make for 1 stam 1 bronze when i help creating a grand master pickaxe in the labor hall like i did. i liked the price which payed me, it was .50 bronze per stam,so i can do 2 units with 1 stam it makes 1 bronze per stam.now the calculation shows different results...

making a cheap wood axe

2000 units to complete makes it worth 20 silver
and with the rest according to market prices the wood axe comes to at least 31 silver.
people which are skilled can make it cheaper for sure,but i doubt that they can make it that cheap to make even a smal profit
dunno who it was who offered that nice price in the labourhall to doin that pickaxe,i hope he do it again
that was a nice pay for a smal char like me...
thanks for it

I'd like to thank the person who made the pickaxe I got after the tutorial quests

However, there were only cheese curdle and pickaxe to choose from, and so I'd like to put my calculations into the debate about town buying prices, so there will be more options available to the next new player:

1 stamina = 1 bronze, even for new players. There are constant offers of 45-50br for cultivate/sow/harvest in the labour hall. (i.e. 1,12-1,25 bronze per stamina)

Aro's calculations above does NOT include "overhead", which is decay of equipment (axes and pickaxes decay very fast!) and 1 bread per day PLUS 15b/day to pay the caretaker so your animals won't die when you're out chopping wood or mining. Since there's no bread or wheat available at the market, we will have to bake it ourselves. With my newbie skills, and with hired help for Milling and Baking, I calculated that I needed about 45 stamina per bread.

In other words, even if I had skills in the +50's, I think they prices does not reflect the cost properly. Making new tools (i.e. to cover decay cost, not the actual item to sell) takes especially a long time, but I haven't calculated exact stamina use per unit of axe/pickaxe. I will set it up in a spread sheet if I can find time for it

My blacksmithing is around 30, my carpentry is around 60.  With either, the absolute only Bandalf item I can profit with is the cheese curdle.   I sold the pickaxe you got I believe to collect my one honor, but I made it and sold it at a 10 silver loss just for the honor!  The wood axe is about a 6 silver loss for me.  The cheese curdle comes out to about a 5 silver profit if I count the labour cost as my standard .33/unit.   Still, that's with me being a rather proficient carpenter, and still not a lot to encourage me to produce them!

The prices are quite a bit better now than they were. Notice the bonus money.

Wood Axe	15Silver	+7 Silver and 50Bronze
In stock: 0	Amount sold: 1

Pickaxe	20 Silver	+10 Silver
In stock: 0	Amount sold: 1

Plough	17Silver	+8 Silver and 50Bronze
In stock: 0	Amount sold: 1

Cheese Curdle	17Silver	+8 Silver and 50Bronze
In stock: 0	Amount sold: 1

Actually the estimations were always based on 1 stamina = .5 bronze, but I agree this may need to be revised upwards closer to 1:1.

However, there should be some flexibility to it all- for example a grail bed is 25 wood and 12000 units; which would cost about 1.3 gold at a rate of 1:1. No one would buy at that price, especially something that will eventually break.

Inflation is occurring massively in the game it seems.  These prices will never get anyone to sell to bandalf except for the achievements of it.

inflation is getting to be more and more of a problem - someone under a year old has 2 gold on his bank + 50 silver on his player....which is slightly more then what used to exist in all of TGL

i think the prices are fair now. i can buy a grail pick for 30 silver i can sell a cheap pick to a npc for 30s - if the price went any higher people would do nothing but make cheap tools all day and that would bring in more coin only making inflation worse. if you take the material costs and stop thinking your stam is worth 1000bil b each plus take into account that its helping a new player -the main part of the whole ability to sell to the npc- you can easly get over it.

ps im the one who brought up that the prices where way to low to aro. hence he never had tools- i noticed that while i was new. -thats why it got updated-

-if we are on the topic of inflation. and you think theres to many coins in the game please think of ideas -ways to spend coins like a money sink.
some games do upgrading equipment, -just an example.

Nice & fast price update Helfdane  

Inflation...
For every new player there's roughly 45b x 45 + tutorial quest money put into the economy, but no more goods. When there's more money added than goods, inflation occurs. And the older players have amassed gold, but must compete to transform it into stamina through the Labour hall, but where there's probably not enough new players to reduce the prices to say 0.6b/stamina. Together, it's the recipe for inflation. 

One suggestion: The newbies cannot use the 10 stamina plow/sow/harvest helper in the labour hall (like I did). That way, there will be more goods into the economy, and less gold to go around. If the newbie was encouraged to produce wheat so it could be used for the Ploughing helper (+30 skills for 2 days with 1 wheat), that would help too. I planted potato, which wasn't very useful for me, so I sold it, instead of using the crop I got to produce more stuff.

Another thing: Quit giving bronze bonus for voting. It'd be nice if we could trade in, say 50 votes, for a special Honour, or change the 10 bronze for 1-5 stamina (random, with bell distribution), and the 90b bonus to say 15 stamina. Stamina encourages production of goods, whereas bronze only adds to inflation.

*you cant use the npc from the quest in the labor hall. it only works on your field. he also requires you give him most of the harvest after that quest.

there are other ways to bring new coins into the game besides just new players, like working for the graillords . selling tools to the npc. combat . events voting ect. they all add to the total coinage in the game.

things that take money out atm are buying beer from the tavern. *thats all i can think of atm*

Money sink work best, ideas to implement fixes are easy.

Auctions for special items
(limited) Ability to pay bronze to train certain abilities, or gain certain favors
More NPCs to hire (bodyguards [defensive] and henchmen [offensive]) for PVP flavor
More mini games like the cards and lotto
..just off the top of my head, will try to give more thought about it later when I am not so tired.


If it gets bad enough, can always place hidden taxes or take away functions like daily dice rewards; but rather than taking away it always seems to be better to make additions.

Mena32 wrote:ps im the one who brought up that the prices where way to low to aro. hence he never had tools- i noticed that while i was new. -thats why it got updated-

Hi,

I made this thread 2 years before you even join the game...? ^^

yea but as a new player i pointed out to aro in chat that it was an issue. it didnt change 2 years ago correct?  pps who nercoed the tread lol -nerco to bring it back from the dead- zombie brainz~!

No worries, to be honest I think it has been changed a few times, but who is counting.

Mena32 wrote:*you cant use the npc from the quest in the labor hall. it only works on your field. he also requires you give him most of the harvest after that quest.

there are other ways to bring new coins into the game besides just new players, like working for the graillords . selling tools to the npc. combat . events voting ect. they all add to the total coinage in the game.

things that take money out atm are buying beer from the tavern. *thats all i can think of atm*

I used the npc in the labour hall. Fast cash  As long as you use him 10 times, it doesn't matter if it's your own field or anyone else's.

Money sink: The best money sink in the game would be the grail tokens, which can be bought for less than 1S. I'm guessing experienced, rich players have traded in hundreds of coins to add 1 skill stat on top of the other. There are a few people who have bought thousands of grail tokens and are grand master or grail master in several fields.

We should hope the grail tokens are a sink good enough for most players, but I'm not sure how rich the richest players are

grail tokens are not a money sink heres why, it simpley makes the cash they spend trade hands because players are selling the tokens not a npc. a money sink is something that takes cash out of the game. like hireing a npc or buying beer from the tavern. -and im not talking about the taxs after hiring said npc cause that goes into the town and does not leave the game,
 
if you really used the npc from the quest in the labor hall it was a glich cause that didnt work for me, it only applyed the 10 stamina per unit to my own field,

You are right about the grail tokens. No sink there.

One idea: How about letting people buy deeds, i.e. one plot on the world map where they can set up their own house, even castle! There they could offer their goods without any taxation, and they could set orders for building materials for their house/castle. The deeds should be very very expensive, so it'd take out tons of gold. The deeds could come with some kind of title, so to separate the owner from the landless

New players also start with a big stack of stamina (500 i think), which also is detrimental to inflation (like every online game, a lot of people play 1-2 days and never return)

Aro, maybe change this to a claimable reward after 1 week? I suspect this would also slightly increase player retention

Mena32 wrote:i think the prices are fair now. i can buy a grail pick for 30 silver i can sell a cheap pick to a npc for 30s - if the price went any higher people would do nothing but make cheap tools all day and that would bring in more coin only making inflation worse

I disagree about the prices being fair now.  I see this topic has deviated into far deeper problems than the topic, but where exactly is this place you are buying a grail pick for 30s mena?   In Camaar there has been a master pickaxe on the market for 2-3 months for 60s and some odd change, and that is literally the only pick I have seen other than the cheap ones I have made the whole time I have been playing.   30s is shooting a little low, and its not about what the market is for after production picks anyway, its about how much the shafts, ounces, bars, other materials and stamina cost to produce it.   If there had been no tools in bandalf when I started playing I probably would not have continued playing-- I wouldn't even know what to do, can't even do the ruined farmer quest.