Let me just say this: If anything, the economy of the empire is improving like crazy. Right before 1.15.2 came out, Empire was doing... pretty bad. If they hadn't come out with 1.15.2 in another few months... I don't think they would've lasted a whole lot longer. But ever since the update, things have been gradually improving. LOTS of new people are joining. Just when I am on EMC for like an hour, FIVE new people join or more!! Before the update, it was an almost rare occurrence to see a new person join. With new players, bring new demand. And especially with COVID-19, lots of people are finding themselves with more free time, and hopping on the empire. Lots of older players!! All I'm saying is, Empire ain't going down any time soon. Players are joining, and the economy is improving. Empire's future is bright! As for the "griefing" side of things, no comment.
Alright let's break this down. You say you've taken economic classes, you should know that demand can change rapidly when something new comes out. The new update that just came out caused a wild spike in demand for those items, and other items that may be needed to go along with that update. I too, made millions when updates came out in the past (1.9, SUV2 etc), but this doesn't prove that the economy isn't dead, it just proves basic supply and demand (it is far too easy to make money from new updates because not enough people understand this). Using auctions as proof of anything economics related on EMC isn't a good idea, since prices there are not consistant and do not work the same way the in-game economy does. An economy being "dead" doesn't imply that there is no trade going on, it implies that multiple aspects of the market are damaged in such a way that it is quite simply irrecoverable. I said there are too many items in the economy, which there are. Supply is far too high for many items (literally any item you can farm, even beacons suffer from this), forcing their prices into the ground and completely killing those markets. I said there are too many rupees in the economy, which there are. Items have lost most of their value since EMC began, and this is due to the high amount of rupees in the economy and the constant influx of rupees from voting etc causing inflation, combined with the stupidly low prices caused by the oversupply of many items. I'm not entirely sure how you managed to say that having a large amount of rupees in the economy also means that demand is high, because that's just false. Obviously there is demand on EMC, I would be stupid to try and argue that there isn't. However supply is so much higher than demand, which is where many of the problems come from. Like I said, we've been talking about this for a long time. I personally have discussed this with many people on the server, from veterans who have participated in the economy for years, to players that have only been around for a couple years. I'm not just pulling this out of nowhere. There are many things you can say about this economy, like the lack of real competition between shops, the lack of scarcity.. of anything really, the insanely high supply compared to demand (just to list a few). Trying to say that the economy isn't dead where it is would be a falsehood. I just want to once again point out here, I'm not saying the economy has no trade in it at all, that would be a lie. Trade is simply one of the many factors that go into establishing the state of an economy, and most of these other factors are very negative when it comes to EMC. If you're trying to tell me that the EMC economy isn't severely damaged, I'm going to question your economic understanding. Any Minecraft server economy is doomed to fail for the exact same reasons, and since EMC has been around for a very long time, it already occured.
Ahoy, There are a couple of things that have changed over the 8 years I have been playing on EMC, but I would say the biggest is the reduced size of the community. I am not talkingabout the number of uneque players that visit the servers once or twice a month but the regular 250+ players on every day. There are reasons for this, players get older, go to collage, university or get a job, some get married and have children so they don't have time to play. MC Java edition does not have so many active players unlike x-box edition and slow update to 1.15.2 has also helped reduce that number, again reasons limited time for owner and Dev staff to code and resolve coding conflics/bugs. I could go on, these are not excuses just life, I am just another player who has a mall and I go weeks without a sale. At one time my shop was my life on emc but I live mainly out in the wild now and do other things. Not having so many players on here has a knock on effect to most of the issues you mentioned. When the servers were busier with more players, there were more ppl to help fix grief, use shops, donate and help, there was a big proportion of older players who got involved in a number of activities to help out or step in when an argument began to help resolve. This was the community not staff, they would /report a player if it could not be resolved and then staff would come and help. Staff at that time had more free time or were able to give more of their time. Personally for 99% of the time I ignore chat
So what does it imply? It would seem to imply something pretty damn serious. Death usually does. Or maybe you just throw the phrase around "the economy is dead" for dramatic purposes. Because it does sound pretty dramatic. I sell stuff with no problem and make a descent price for it. I auctioned off a DC of emeralds for 40K the other day. That seems like a reasonable price. And emeralds have been around quite a while now. I buy stuff with no problem and pay a descent price for it. I've been actively doing it like this for over 5 years. And I see no real changes. Sure, some prices might fluctuate. Big deal. Sure, some shops might close and others open. So what, it's a minecraft server. So what are you saying here? In one breath you say prices are dropping and in the next you say there is inflation. You talk about the huge amount of rupees in the economy from voting, etc... Which as far as I know is the only way to introduce new rupees, 100 a day. But you fail to mention how many rupees people used to get from having supporter. 1400 a day if you were diamond. And you could actually buy rupees in the past with currency. But there weren't too many rupees back then? And yes I did take several economics classes while as an undergraduate and in graduate school and the more discretionary income the population has access to increases demand. The US is currently giving $1200 to each tax payer as a way to stimulate the economy. It is a common method used to do that. So to say there are too many rupees in the economy and that causes prices to drop makes no sense. The economy is fine. Or people wouldn't buy and sell. The difference here from an actual economy is there is no cost for inputs, short of how much time a person wants to devote to acquiring items. I remember the drop in the prices of beacons. I was part of it. I wanted to sell them fast. I didn't have a new fancy farm. But to me the amount of time it took to get 3 heads and kill the wither was well offset by getting 9-12K. The people that wanted to sell them for 20K or more weren't happy but I believe they were artificially overpriced. Same thing with enchanted books. When those prices dropped there was no new method at obtaining them. They were simply overpriced too. An active economy will shake out those discrepancies and correct itself. And it did and it does.
I said what I was implying. Did you read my post? I do not throw around words for dramatic purposes, I've already explained to you exactly what I mean and backed it up, yet you somehow skipped over that. Once again, let's break this down. You seem to enjoy making out that what I'm saying makes no sense, but you simply cannot read. Prices fell due to a massive oversupply of many items, this is true. Alongside this, the value of the rupee itself fell due to an increase in the amount available in the entire economy. However, the prices stayed incredibly low and have stayed at those prices for a long time, thus the value of many items has been effectively killed with no method of recovery whilst the value of the rupee also continues to rapidly sink. Secondly, players who vote and log in everyday get much more than 100 rupees per day, but OK. I didn't mention those methods, because I quite simply didn't need to. Yes there were too many rupees back then, I never said that there wasn't. What I did say is we've been talking about this for a long time. That implies this isn't an issue I've suddenly come up with. The removal of those methods have helped to slow down the fall in the value of the rupee, but it didn't stop the issue. If you're going to try and debate this, at least argue against what I'm actually saying, and don't make things up. Third, there is a difference between a change in income and currently available wealth. How are you getting these confused? You even gave an example to show that you understand how income affects demand, so how did you confuse these? There are already a large amount of rupees in the economy, income isn't changing. For newer players this may make some sense, their spending may increase as they earn more money. However, this is a Minecraft server, everyone hits a point where they have basically everything they need and suddenly their spending starts to shrink and they sit and accumulate wealth. What I said is there is already a large amount of rupees in the economy, many of which are never spent and sit untouched for sometimes months at a time, since players do not often need things unless they start a new project or an update comes out. If you would read my post, I said the value of items dropped, not the price. The price has fallen due to an oversupply coupled with an underdemand. The value has fallen due to the rupee being realisticly worth less, whilst those prices cannot go any higher due to that massive oversupply. Every economy needs some level of inflation, as more money does enter everyday and price levels need to stay consistant. However, on EMC inflation simply cannot work properly on several items, causing a strange imbalance between items inflation does affect and items it doesn't. The items that are not affected by inflation price wise see a fall in the real value over time, damaging the economy permanently. This paragraph here outlines the problems perfectly. The price of beacons was set high for a long time. Then, all of a sudden, a massive surplus of beacons was added to the economy, forcing the price way down. This is a problem. Items that once held value and were used to value the economy suddenly lost their value due to this exact behaviour. This is exactly what has broken the EMC economy, you outlined it perfectly. The value of so many items has been hammered into the ground that even items that should be considered valuable, aren't anymore. You said it yourself, this is different from an actual economy, and that is why it was doomed to fail. I already said this. Real world economies can change and grow and new things can be introduced often and different retailers and suppliers can offer different costs etc. Competition does not exist on EMC because everything is exactly the same, scarcity of resources does not exist since everything is in such high supply, there are incredibly low barriers to entry to operate within the economy, there is nothing to incentivise setting prices high for items anymore since earning money is worthless. The economy is not fine. People still buy and sell in Greece but no one would say that economy is doing "fine". Also, it's not up to you to decide if something is overpriced. Many people were willing to buy enchanted books and beacons at their higher prices before they got slammed into the ground, indicating that people were very willing to buy at those prices, if they were overpriced people would have pushed the prices down steadily a long time ago, but these prices fell massively overnight, which is a problem. On a side note, I personally believe forcing those prices down was a stupid idea.
This is getting a bit ugly so I'm not gonna keep going with this but will say. People will price items to the extent that it offsets the perceived cost of their time spent to obtain the items to sell. If the amount of rupees they can receive for the item gets too low they will stop using their time to obtain it. Then maybe they will spend their time obtaining something else they feel better compensates them for their time. That is the way it is and always has been. I will leave it to you to complain about how the economy is "dead". And I will enjoy myself auctioning stuff, selling stuff at my shop and buying stuff from other players. You do what you enjoy and I will do what I enjoy.
i think ur only focussing on the negative and keep ur eyes closed for the posivs. And I think I have a serious right to speak my mind here... imma part of GRIP. Riddle me this... weve been very inactive b/c reasons. so i do an auction for the sole purpose to get rupees to help, i state my intend but did not post back to the thread above. we make 350k, 250k went to shops where we bought items (we dont always just ship items, more than often we buy from stores b/c that helps more ppl). Riddle me that.... i made a post about "we want 2 buy stuff b/c we want to help". ppl turned down 1500 rupees b/c they thought the cause was more important (GRIP was actually trying to push economy and help some1 out). Turning the EMC community against themselves? u my friend had 2 much to drink i think, even more than my friend Shell at his worst moments (and that's saying something, lol!). im not going here b/c im not into contests. ... if I were to post that we need help 2 help some1... we'd make a profit (and we would feel BAD about that). Happened SO many times. The EMC community is one of the most friendly and helpful Minecraft communities out there. Now... ur new... and I get where ur coming from. I think. So here's the real jist: just b/c u dont see things does not mean they dont happen. I dare ya 2 read that thread And I want 2 share something else.. Soz Khix if u already did this but... I still feel SO proud 2 still be a member.. (reminds me to ask Shell if we actually moved those items (private pun here )) https://tinyurl.com/smp8pwu THAT is an even better showcase of how much the EMC community cares! Yah, dont let the tinyurl.com fool u, Shell made that link years ago and it's still active. gee im only sharing b/c im a proud (junior) member. im allowed to make repairs as soon as I see a need, even though im not that active on EMC and I am SO proud of that still (also quite dedicated to make my rounds when i got the time ). Soz, but imma say this again... u got the wrong impression here, seriously.
Summed up very nicely. It's been too much super undercutting people to make a ton fast and then get out leaving it in shambles. Rarely do I see any prices being increased. A few times someone has said 'your prices are too high for ___, so-and-so sells for far less.' Oh and are they in stock? 'Well.. no'.. *shocked* I will not keep lowering prices because people want keep lowering it to make a quick buck. When /shop was around, most prices were about the same and if one place was out, another shop would have it for almost the same. There was balance. And if everyone just happened to be out, then /shop had it at a much higher price (aka Rupee sink). This experiment of letting players decide prices is not working. Other servers I play on have their own shops and things run pretty smooth. We could probably fix this do revert back. Have the community determine a good price for items and have /shop back as a balance. Being able to auction items doesn't mean the economy is healthy. Someone will always bid on auctions for the most part. I used to auction gold blocks for 450k a DC. I can still auction that DC without issue but you are not getting anything close to that. Just another example of an item being devalued over time.
Devaluation is a part of a healthy economy. The true issue here is that some people refuse to respect the bad stuff and only want the good parts. To them I say: grow up, get back to earth and respect the true results of a free economy. EMC's economy is healthy as it is. You only need to look for and recognize opportunities. And I intend to make true of my claim in 1 - 2 months time. In the mean time.... Today I sold all my stocks related to farmers and ICT and instead put the whole result into a franchise into gyms. I'm not that big of a player to actually produce results but I am observant enough to see the results the current Corona crisis has on the economy. And yet plenty of companies still manage to thrive. Of course others perish. Which is unfortunate but here's the thing... If you truly respect a healthy economy you should also respect the fact that some won't make it or that there will be less profitable periods. Economy isn't an entity which you can judge based on its performance (more than often from your own p.o.v.). It's an entity you should look at from a global perspective. So yeah... people still being able to sell stuff and make a profit? That IS a sign the economy is healthy. It's simply not the kind of sign you're looking for.
EMC Economy is healthy and growing, and I enjoy that very much. Economy is about exchange and development. It is healthy when you can buy what you need and when you can provide and sell what other people need. It is healthy when the shops are full and competing - and this is exactly the way it should be. Most of the shops on EMC are simply not good enough, they often have margin of 100% or more. It is a sign of a healthy economy if such shops neither get suppliers nor buyers. Running a successful, competitive shop isn't easy, I can tell. There are big changes in effort needed to get some items - especially everything related to trading with villagers has significantly changed. People and shops who adapted fast have profited from the change, or at least they were able to cover the losses. Those who overslept didn't. That's healthy. There is overproduction of some stuff, e.g. bee products. So what? It doesn't matter. People who have built giant bee farms either did know or should have known that the demand for bee products won't be (that) big. People have fun, and people and enterprises sometimes fail. That's healthy. The market is free and driven by market forces. The players choose to exchange what they want and need to exchange. That is healthy. Perhaps people aren't building that much at the moment, perhaps a part of the people prefer gathering and producing themselves what they need instead of (better!) producing what they are good at and trading. That's perfectly fine and also healthy. Perhaps people are more mature and do calculate before buying / selling / investing some effort. Economy is here to cover our needs, we're not here to cover what (someone thinks) the economy would need. Within last 4 weeks I've seen 136 people using the shop and turnover of 6.8 M rupees. That's healthy and is nowhere near "dying". Turnover by month: 10/2019 2.3M 11/2019 1.99M 12/2019 1.67M 01/2020 0.89M 02/2020 1.70M 03/2020 2.4M (put some effort into it, adjusted prices) 04/2020 4.67M 05/2020 7.18M (extrapolated / expected based on the data so far) Dying? Not at all! It's growing!
This was mentioned a while back as well as other possible ways to help reinvigorate EMC - krysyy even went as far as to ask for a detailed list of which items should be in the new /shop, so it seems as though shes not opposed to it.
There are so many more things that make a healthy economy than simply being able to buy and sell. I've already explained this in great depth. An economy may be more healthy if shops are full and competitive. An economy is not healthy if shops are overstocked and competition is basically non-existant (what currently exists on EMC). You say most of the shops on EMC aren't good enough, yet there are already an incredibly high number of shops that do "work" on the servers - and yet none of the limited competition between these stores has any meaningful impact on prices or innovation (this doesn't even exist in a great capacity on EMC). This is not healthy. People profiting from new updates is basic supply and demand actually working, this is temporary and does not show any state of the actual economy. Did you really just say massive oversupply of "some" (lmao) items doesn't matter in the state of the economy? The point that is being made here is that these items, and subsequent items crafted with them lose their value and substantially damage the economy due to mismanagement of supply. This is nothing to do with the thoughts of people who decided to farm these. This is not healthy. People being capable of indepedent thought doesn't mean the economy is healthy, it's arguable that this has made the economy worse. People gathering items for themselves and not spending at shops is fine if supply meets that demand. The reason this is a problem for EMC is that supply is so much higher than that demand for so many items, resulting in a very strange dynamic where there are far too many items that people want to sell, but cannot, so they keep forcing prices down and down until they sell. At this point those prices cannot rise back up due to how EMC players think. Thus the thing that wasn't a problem in a normal economy has suddenly caused a much larger problem. You cannot just stop halfway through the chain of reasoning and proclaim victory. The people that do actually put in time to calculate whether buying or investing effort into gathering things is the better option are the same as people who do not. There is simply a short time lag between them affecting the economy and everyone else affecting the economy, it doesn't change anything in the long run. What? I sat and thought about what you were trying to say here, I honestly cannot figure this one out. I've tried my best to make sense of the other statements you've made, but what are you trying to say here? Thanks for sharing, your personal experience has completely invalidated everything that many other players have experienced and have been talking about for years. I also think it's quite telling that your monthly profits kept decreasing... only to increase when 1.15 started getting closer and closer, almost like the economy is currently in a period of fake activity due to an update. Huh.
Any single player's perspective is going to be limited. That's OK. It makes sense that different people will make different assessments. People can have different viewpoints and it doesn't mean one person is right and the other is wrong. It's a complex system that not everyone experiences in the same way. No single player has the full picture. After all, we might not even agree with what the definition of a healthy or "dead" economy is. The only real objective assessment would be made with some data analysis looking at global server trends over time. Real life economic models have limited application as EMC doesn't have loans, investments, interest rates, taxes, government spending etc etc. (They have limitations in real life too). I'm sure it would be fascinating to do some analysis and modelling for someone who knows their stuff when it comes to virtual economies. There are a bunch of possible interventions that could be considered to try and stimulate activity. They'd need to be given some careful thought or modelling though. Sometimes things that seem good intuitively have unforseen consequences. I actually think the economy is quite functional, fair, balanced and stable. I don't think it's optimised but it is functioning. A failed economy is in a much more extreme state than anything we see on EMC. I do wish that the +shop tag was more reliable.
This discussion has a deeper meaning (also IRL). I want to invest some effort to better understand the problems and ideas. Moving to "Marketplace Discussion": https://empireminecraft.com/threads/healthy-economy.82605/
That wouldn't work and it would be a disaster. Longer answer: https://empireminecraft.com/threads/healthy-economy.82605/#post-1556670
I think you misunderstood his point about something when I read your lil statement of people using 'your' shop. He's talking about the grand spectrum of shops that are absent. You yourself may be getting lots of shoppers but that's due to the fact there is little competition that exists anymore. If I had a shop that made 5m a week, sure I'd think its a healthy economy but there would also be no other competing shops either; so is it really a healthy economy?
This is a misunderstanding - those nubmers are turnover, not profit. I've actually made quite some losses because the stock of items that are now easy to produce lost its value. But that's normal and healthy, that are normal business risks if you choose to run a shop. There very well is competition between good shops. Why there are so many shops and so few good ones? Because people think that running shop is easy and that it's kind of rupees for nothing. Well, it isn't.
