[Looking for feedback] Newbie weekly market - an alternative to traders

You seem like a nice person, so you think that the world is a nice place. But real life is not always nice (nor is it evil). It just is what it is.

Look at their latest financial report:
http://www.mindark.com/investor-relations/financial-reports/documents/ANNUAL_REPORT_MindArk_2013.pdf
p.10 has Income Statement, which computes the profit.
First line is Net Sales, which is 46m.
"Net" means something was subtracted from it.
Go to p. 19. Both table and text above it say that Net Sales are Deposits minus Withdrawals.
Nowhere in the document it says that MA only earns money from decay or item use.
If they kept deposits in a bank, Balance Sheet (p.11) would have much larger Cash and Bank Balances.

I believe casino's use the same convention: customers buying chips is added to sales, customer redeeming chips for money is subtracted from revenue:
http://www.casinochecker.com/casino_knowledge/economy/revenues.htm

I am glad you made analogy to casino, b/c this game operates on a very similar principle -- people gamble with their money, and lose either to the casino, or to other people. So a typical customer loses, and people who think they can "earn" money by gambling are considered addicts.

PS Isn't it kinda late night where you live? Go get some sleep, you will need a fresh head to figure out this game

 

I don't think it's particularly germane to the discussion of the OP so lets not get too sidetracked but MA net revenue is indeed Deposits - Withdrawals. Without going into too much detail that is has been covered in a number of previous discussions, decay and in game fees have a couple of impacts:

1. Some unknown proportion of the decay/fee amounts is used to reduce contingent liability (the the risk that liability will be incurred through player withdrawals) on the company balance sheet.
2. the net reduction of TT value of player assets means that someone at sometime will need to deposit, adding to net revenue for MA.

None of which really invalidates Lovefall's proposal. I do see some other issues but I'll put those in another post (after lunch)

 

Yeah, I guess is time to admit that you are right and I was wrong.

I probably idealized too much the concept; to me that idea (of never touching the money that can be withdrawn - and eventually only enjoy some interest for the time they are kept in banks) looked like the fairest and safest one of all: MA was never in danger even if a very important part of players would have decided to cashout and the players would have their assets backed up by real life currency in the banks.

 

Personally, I think all of you are overthinking what she's suggesting...
What I see, is a method for the New/Smaller/Poorer players to get their loots sold at a fair price, without dumping into the TT or having what little gain they can get wiped out by AH fees.
The whole Idea makes me think of something along the lines of a small, country farmer's market, where the little farms come together, and both trade amongst themselves as well as sell to interested outside buyers. Is there some reason why this wouldn't work? Does the small amount that would be involved mean that MA will go under, financially? I don't think so. I actually like the concept. It would be a place where someone like myself, who CAN'T afford the huge piles that are sold in auction, can get some of the materials I need for my smaller crafting jobs.

 

I like this idea a lot. I tried to start something like this when I was a cub but failed it spectacularly (mainly due to my lack of patience).

One word of caution though, try and use a trusted player to act as seller/broker for your syndicate and get them to shout out all trades/values of transactions so that there is a log. Even though your syndicate will be operating on a small ped basis there is often room for some arsehead to shout "scammer" and try and spoil everything. Never ceases to amaze me how pathetic some people can be for a few ped so make sure you're protected against baseless accusations.

Hope it works and gl.

 

I have played a game in the past that allowed players to buy a temporary market boots to sell their loots on to other players.

It might be better to allow new players to buy a booth in the TT or make it a lootable item from puny's, and you can set it up for an x amount of hours to try and sell your loot on it, no matter what size of the stack and maybe even be able to post the loot you want to sell with two digits behind the dot.

That would be in my opnion better than trying to get a bunch of people together at a set time of time and day in the week.

 

There are many ideas that would be better, Lizzy.

Thing was that I was looking for a solution that would be achievable with current existing game mechanics; something which we could do by ourselves, right now, instead of waiting that, maybe, some day, MA will implement that better solution.

 

Sounds like a new version of stts. http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/f...ution-(STTS)&p=1485471&viewfull=1#post1485471 worked back then but got too big and a hassle to manage. Something similar on small scale like a farmers market you seem to describe could work... For the tt stuff, the model would be more like UBER was I suppose. (UBER was United Buyers Exchange Resource... a sort of meetup/market place back in the stts days where folks swapped stacks to one another at tt value instead of anyone paying markup. It worked well so like if you had one resource at 105% mu and wanted some other thing at 105% that someone else held, etc... you just swapped same tt value back and forth, or p2p traded to make up differences if markup or tt value was too different... but no pecs/peds involved in the swap)

 

PPL you are derailing from the subject ^^ which is feedback on an idea not MA's financial issues.

 

Having read half the thread (not interested in yet another MA debate about how they work or don't work) I could see myself take part in this.
So to answer your questions...

- Would you be interested in this? Do you think this will benefit you?
Yes. ...and yes. I'm a pack rat. I don't TT anything anymore (except decayed L items).
- About how much worth of loot you would have for sale on a weekly base?
A few PED at most. I play mainly Friday evening to Sunday with little to no time/energy any other day.
- What day/hour interval would best fit you schedule?
Friday to Sunday, UTC +2 afternoons/early evening.
- How you're handle your loot selling/disposal problem atm?
I rely on saved PED from my days as a EntropiaParters user. If I find a buyer of something I have, I sell. I also have a very nice mentor who is a bit too generous at times.