Inventory crafting

[Metsfanmax]

Nevertheless, we do know that if you enable star-crafting, then this would create more stars,

I get the feeling that you're misunderstanding the star-crafting system. If anything, star-crafting would decrease the equilibrium number of stars, because you'd trade in multiple bad stars for better stars. There's no way that it could create more stars.

[BigBallinStalin]

Nevertheless, we do know that if you enable star-crafting, then this would create more stars,

I get the feeling that you're misunderstanding the star-crafting system. If anything, star-crafting would decrease the equilibrium number of stars, because you'd trade in multiple bad stars for better stars. There's no way that it could create more stars.

And what happens to the supply of better stars? It somehow... decreases right? (No, so we should agree on this).

I'm not talking about stars on net. I'm talking about the equilirbrium of each star--not all stars. Again, inflation on net could be zero or negative, but this overlooks the fact that there's inflation in some stars and deflation for others. So, with deflation/inflation going on, you'd still get my list of consequences (deflation flips the relationship between x and y, i.e. it could inverse the relationships, but there's no need for me to clarify those relationships because the conclusion remains the same: problems will ensure).

[Metsfanmax]

Nevertheless, we do know that if you enable star-crafting, then this would create more stars,

I get the feeling that you're misunderstanding the star-crafting system. If anything, star-crafting would decrease the equilibrium number of stars, because you'd trade in multiple bad stars for better stars. There's no way that it could create more stars.

And what happens to the supply of better stars? It somehow... decreases right? (No, so we should agree on this).

I'm not talking about stars on net. I'm talking about the equilirbrium of each star--not all stars. Again, inflation on net could be zero or negative, but this overlooks the fact that there's inflation in some stars and deflation for others. So, with deflation/inflation going on, you'd still get my list of consequences (deflation flips the relationship between x and y, i.e. it could inverse the relationships, but there's no need for me to clarify those relationships because the conclusion remains the same: problems will ensure).

I don't think it's obvious that the equilibrium for each star will significantly change with time. For example, a red star is useless for entering an 8 player autotournament, and if that's how I really want to spend my stars, I may just cash in the red star for 1000 auburn stars.

[AndyDufresne]

I barely understand real markets, let alone madeup star markets. Junk.


--Andy

[BigBallinStalin]

Nevertheless, we do know that if you enable star-crafting, then this would create more stars,

I get the feeling that you're misunderstanding the star-crafting system. If anything, star-crafting would decrease the equilibrium number of stars, because you'd trade in multiple bad stars for better stars. There's no way that it could create more stars.

And what happens to the supply of better stars? It somehow... decreases right? (No, so we should agree on this).

I'm not talking about stars on net. I'm talking about the equilirbrium of each star--not all stars. Again, inflation on net could be zero or negative, but this overlooks the fact that there's inflation in some stars and deflation for others. So, with deflation/inflation going on, you'd still get my list of consequences (deflation flips the relationship between x and y, i.e. it could inverse the relationships, but there's no need for me to clarify those relationships because the conclusion remains the same: problems will ensure).

I don't think it's obvious that the equilibrium for each star will significantly change with time. For example, a red star is useless for entering an 8 player autotournament, and if that's how I really want to spend my stars, I may just cash in the red star for 1000 auburn stars.

The problem is that we have no idea what the future prices will be because we don't know the prices that would emerge from people's various valuations for each star. Without the coordinating element of prices, you won't get equilibrium. Supply and demand will be all over the place.

So, now we're getting back to my point about constantly changing (a) the star prices of tournaments and/or (b) conversion rates of star-crafting in accord with the changing supplies and demands of different stars.


With the random generator alone, this is easier. (A).

With the random generator + star-crafting, this becomes more difficult (because you'd need to be constantly changing the rules over star-crafting in order to 'fine tune' it). (B)

Without a Star Exchange, this 'fine-tuning' becomes chaotic because there's no market prices to equilibrate the supply and demand of each star. You'd be missing a necessary feedback mechanism, thus (B) becomes a "shooting in the dark" policy. (A) is "less shooting in the dark" because there's less 'moving parts'.

So if you want star-crafting, you should go with (D) because the Star Exchange is easier to manage and will do the heavy-lifting for you. When you want to change conversion rates, it'll provide the prices for you, so you don't have to shoot in the dark--e.g. by using arbitrary conversion tables (a la Soviet Union).

With a functioning Star Exchange and with a functioning Star-Crafting (D), you can do more fun things while reducing CC administration costs. This would also enable more possibilities. If you do with (B) or (C)--implement star-crafting and ignore/underestimate problems, then you'll get a much more dysfunctional system, higher administrative costs, and less options to do more fun things. (A) is status quo, and it's probably the cheapest in admin. costs, but it provides the least opportunities.

[Gamefreakguy]

I was just thinking... a much better option for upward conversion of stars, rather than instant crafting, would be to offer tournaments to be joined with a higher entry fee of lesser stars which reward stars of a greater-than-normal value for the trade.

For example, offer a tournament that requires 50 or 100 gray stars to join, which will reward 1 green star for 1st place. Stuff like that. It would be a much more appropriate and gameplay-oriented option rather than instant conversion would.

I have 30-60 of each of the lowest tiers of stars now, and I would not think that has earned me a free higher-level star. But among those that have excess common stars I think it would be fair to compete for one.

[DoomYoshi]

I realized I don't care. Change my support level to neutral.

[Metsfanmax]

And I concede to BBS's argument. We should either do the star exchange, or just change the formula for how often stars are handed out.

[GioDuce]

Suggest 1001 probably and maybe online already.

But i support the possibility of trading the low ranked stars.

Click image to enlarge.

An example could be a sort off trade Graphic of the 6 lowest colour.A graphic Resembling the amount of low stars owned by the community. ( orange,silver,violet, electric green, auburn, drab )
This can determine the prize of how much you can trade it for a High ranked Star.

[agentcom]

BBS, I love to read your posts because they're so rooted in sound economic principles. And I didn't think that I'd find myself defending a centralized control solution against you. But I think that the centralized system is better in this case. First, I think that you assume that the important part of the valuation of the stars is to the owners of the stars. That is not correct. Second, I think you are treating this too much like modern currency market, when again it is not.

First, the value of the stars is extrinsically created. The value of one red star is determined by the value of the things you can do with one red star. Right now there is only one option: You can trade one red star for a 1/8 chance of winning a portion of a prize pool worth $600 (well Amazon dollars or "AMZD"). That means that each red star is worth around 75 AMZD. You can look back at the other tournaments and regressively calculate the values of the other stars.

Now, BW is "paying" us a certain rate for certain activities. He, of course, has access to almost perfect information for this market: how many stars (liabilities) are out there; how much revenue each player brings in (through ads, premium purchase or other); and he can also calculate averages of what each player brings in and then apportion some part of that value to the many activities that each player does (logging in, winning a game, etc.)

Plus BW has another powerful tool. He can set the value of the stars by changing prize levels. Right now the value of a red star is $75 Amazon (AMZD) as mentioned previously. BW isn't concerned about what a red star is worth to any given player or what 75 AMZD is worth to any player. He's only concerned about how much $75 AMZD costs him, which is probably 60-70 USD.

From there, he knows that 1 red star plus 5300 CC points is exchanged for 8 green stars. This means that 1 green star is worth (75 AMZD + 53 CCD)/8. 53 CCD (Conquer Club dollars) is worth some amount to BW based on his revenue model and $75 AMZD is worth whatever as discussed above. Again, a value can be regressively calculated in this manner for all the stars.

So, where does that leave this suggestion?

Basically, BW would want to incentivize people to turn in more for less. That is, he wants people to exchange 9 or 10 green stars for a red star instead of 8.

That means that really he could do any of the things mentioned in this thread. He just has to convince us that the stars have more cash value (or equivalent) to us than they cost him to produce.

He could do this through any number of means:

1) Making exchange or collection of stars "fun" increasing the value to the user of engaging in activities at a low cost to CC, thus, convincing people to engage in trades that result in a positive cash flow to CC. This could be done through a crafting system or a trading system, although there is a good possibility that the crafting system would be seen as more "fun."

2) Making collection of stars available for some cash price that is higher than the cost to CC of the liabilities inherent in those stars. This also results in a positive cash flow. This basically means that people could buy stars for a set price. E.g. One red star might cost 85 USD.

3) Changing the value of the stars by adjusting the back-end. This means lowering the prize levels for any given tournament. Perhaps one red star now gives you a shot at a tournament prize pool of 500 AMZD instead of 600 AMZD. Or, equivalently, maybe that tournament now has 16 players instead of 8 and a prize pool of 1000 AMZD.

4) Artificially constrain star values by creating rules around their use. That is even if the value (to CC) of 1 red star = 8 green stars, you would want to make certain activities that you could only do with 1 red star or 8 green stars; e.g. enter a tournament. For those people that want to enter the tournament, they would likely be willing to trade 9 or 10 green stars for the 1 red star rather than trade 8 green stars for a ~1/8 chance of winning a red star. This augments any trading/purchasing/gambling system.

In all of these cases, positive cash flow is achieved by decreasing the total liabilities, which are equal to the cash value of each star, by some amount greater than the increase in revenue the site gets from people engaging in those activities (calculated directly or by averages).

So, in the end, I'd say it doesn't really matter which of these ideas he does. If I were him, I'd work on all of them. And I'd be trying to encourage people to engage in all types of transactions. Convince people to keep chasing that dragon of getting the cash prizes. And then keep an eye on the market ensuring that he's profiting off each transaction.

[MrBenn]

A red star is like a mint condition Spider-Man 300. You can get a reprint, and those don't lower the value of the original but if there is no way of telling if it is original or not, then the value drops, as the value is not based on how much paper is used, but rather how rare it is.

Why not be able to create "forged" stars using your crafting skills, so that you can still trade them in but so you can tell which ones have been earned and which have been crafted/traded.