This might not be a new subject but I feel even if it has been discussed before, it should be again. Overview: Public farms (ones free to use) Are no doubt great for resources to assist with builds and projects (many of which are other farms, which is the nature of the game I guess). This is my take on them and I'm interested to hear the opinion of others. PROS: - Easy gathering of resources, especially in bulk. - They help new players get started more quickly then if they had to 'grind' for the materials.- They save players A LOT of TIME/EFFORT in building their own similar farms for the same item (basically making the public farm a co-op)-- This means less town reses are pure farms and minimizes redundant large size farms in frontier CONS: (I have a lot) - Removes 1 of the big parts of the game (gathering resources)- Public Farms are generally very large in scale to accommodate demand of all players, and thus can be very unfriendly to the Server FPS/tick depending on configs, optimization only mitigates this so much. - They reduce/destroy entire segments of the EMC economy!!! While 'Yes', the items will still have some value, any item that can be farmed en-mass is generally devalued to the point it isn't worth selling (because who will buy when you can use a farm). For many things the only way to sell it is in bulk SC/DC or greater and the value basically comes from the 'time' you took to gather it at the public farm. It is a classic example of (trying to avoid the lesson) 'that' -ism: Sharing and helping each other sounds great on paper, but w/o any reward there isn't as much motivation to produce goods. Even when an update w/ new items/mobs comes out the initial period of value for farmable items is only 2wks to a month tops. After that 99% of those items crash in value to very low value levels. (netherite doesn't count as a 'counter' to this, as it is neither auto/afk farmable, and its usefulness is arguably the greatest since the anvil/enchant table)- Related to this: Trade halls destroy most of the remaining items that can't be auto/afk farmed. This is why diamonds are basically worthless and mining for them is kinda stupid. So I put these in the 'public farm' category as well, since free access to a (basically free) pool of various tools/armor/supplies is also more a con then a pro. Suggested Solution: Transition to a mix of 'some' farms being public (for some basic materials), but other farms etc being 'membership' based, (a la Pants&Co and our affiliates). Discourage or (I hate to regulate, but 'community ban' public ones) for certain other items.This would restore value in a decent amount of items, as the gate-keeping of access to farms would assist in 1) incentive to build your own build (which could lead to more ppl subbing potentially) and 2) player shops staying open more because it is actually worth it to sell items. AGAIN, These are my thoughts and I'm interested to hear what others think about the matter.
I agree with everything you typed, but I think it might be too late to make a change. The idea of having everything available for free -- and it not being a good thing -- came to me when one of my friends IRL joined and said everything was already done on the server (but he would still play). For me, however, I've been focused on building, but I still gather my own materials (like going out to the wastelands for stuff). It makes me happy to go around and see residences with actual builds on them, rather than just a whole bunch of farms, chests, shulker boxes, furnaces, etc. -- it would be cool if more players built stuff.
I didn't want to bring up the bleak reality of what a real 'fix' would be (a server reset or making separate isolated set of SMPs that items can move across): I figured I'd let some come to that realization on their own lol. It is a tough issue to tackle for most games, even open-world ones like MC: eventually the 'goals' seem to be reached. How to change that without it being forced 'additions' is the other part of the struggle. But I feel that topic, although related, is also somewhat different than economic restoration.
To be completely honest with you, I don’t think public farms are the entire problem. People will build their own farms if public ones don’t exist, and the prices will drop just from the competition between a few big suppliers. The economy was already doing quite badly, but public farms were just the final nail in the coffin, not the coffin itself if that makes sense. Even if you could get rid of them, it’d just kick the problem down the road. People would eventually build their own farms and undercut each other until the market is so flooded the items are valueless.
Eliminating public farms isn't the answer since private farms will always exist. Actually more will be built so there will always be someone with an excess of materials. A system of price fixing could be adopted to regulate the prices but what would be the point of increasing the shop prices? One of the great aspects of EMC is the broad play style of the players. Not everyone is a builder, not everyone is a resource gatherer. It's that mix that makes shops possible. Sure, sales are very slow at my shop but I'm not in a hurry to earn rupees. I'm not a builder. I enjoy exploring the wasteland and gathering as I go. I occasionally visit public farms but not to flood the market. I offer the items in my shop at a price based on what I feel is fair, not based on quantity. I also like helping other players out so that also drives the price I set. Public farms are an interesting part of EMC and should stay.
The elephant in the room is the decreasing number of people who play EMC. Yes, many items are farmable but that's mostly just vanilla Minecraft and many servers thrive with plenty of public farms. If we want a good economy, we need more new players to join and stick around. They will create new shops and create more demand for items. Clearly an economy server with such few participants but many years of item hoarding and farm building will be damaging. Public farms are a relatively insignificant part of the economy problem and there's not any easy solutions to them anyway. And of course, as you mentioned, they are pretty important for new players who are starting off. Obviously the declining popularity of EMC has been covered comprehensively and how to fix it is a topic for a whole other thread (but it really is time to get rid of such a terrible tutorial, it's been years now and it's still as bad as always has been)
As someone with a couple public farm, and who owns a mall, and trader hall, I have a few thoughts. EMC prides itself on play your way. It's also a Towny/Economy server. When it comes to shops, it is on the shop owner to keep up to demand for any supply they provide. If they don't, players go to other shops. Those other shops don't have to have the same pricing as myself to compete. Players will pay higher prices for supplies they need. Let them complain. Oh, well. When I hear someone has netherite for 2k a bar, fine. IF they can keep up that supply, then I may or may not adjust accordingly. So far, none do, so why would I drop my cost? I won't, and I sell out regardless. As far as trading halls go and further breaking the economy, let's think about reality and not idealizations. Minecraft broke it. When you can create a simple fox berry farm with next to nothing for easily gathered resources and then have butchers give you emeralds for practically nothing, the economy is altered. End of story. I, at least, when I provide free wool and berries for customers to trade, keep rupees in the economy because I buy the emeralds they get from the villagers. Same goes for redstone and lapis pricing. You get emeralds for practically nothing, regardless if a free farm from me or doing it on your own, so it's a cinch to have massive amounts of clerics and "mine" redstone and lapis from them instead. Again, pricing tanks. It's not players like myself burning the economy to the ground. I really hate being accused of it too. Minecraft mechanics did this and it's inevitable. Once high ticket items like quartz block, glowstone, enchant books and more are all easily paid for with farms and the amounts that villagers pay for those easily farmed items. WITH THAT SAID, I have no idea why elytras are so cheap, or beacons, but apparently, they are easily farmed now too. I don't deal in weaponry, but it's not hard to do godly enchanting with how villagers are so generous now. That's a minecraft issue. If you want to lay it all at shopkeepers' feet and blame us for using these mechanics, or demand floor pricing, you're just going to frustrate if not turn off would be players from such overbearing control. Personally, I'd not come back probably. It's ridiculous to overprice items that can be easily farmed. Ofc, easily is the key word here. Wood pricing will never drop at my shop because that takes my play time to accomplish. Emerald traded items? That's a cake walk. I charge based on my effort to obtain the goods. Also, you won't see me putting supporter vouchers at the pricing I've seen, but EMC itself allows people to trade up vouchers for higher value. That's not my fault and I blame EMC management for that, not the players who have devalued these vouchers because of that stupid mechanic. And, yeah, it's really stupid. They're killing financial support for the server doing that. But, not my server, not my call. I just don't pay for vouchers on the website anymore because of it so they lose money. At the end of the day, I think it's just a new reality of how MC has changed economies on game mechanics along with player demand for items. Why would I charge 15r a block of quartz when they can farm it on their own from masons in less than two hours of work? **edited to note** A few years ago, staff would get involved with farms that significantly impacted server functionality. I agree with that 100000000%**
It's a combination of factors. It's not so much that Wither skulls are easy to farm, but so many people are doing it and trying to undercut each other that the price has crashed through the floor. There are now many times as many beacons on EMC as any reasonable player will ever need due to people stock piling them to sell at a discount and undercut the competition. Beacons for 10k are a steal until everyone has enough of them. Then they drop to 5k and the cycle repeats, until we end up where we are today where people struggle to move beacons for 500r a piece. Hell the other day Dras told me that he just gives nether stars to new players because nobody will pay for them and the price has actually dropped so low that they are very nearly not worth. As far as elytra are concerned, I'd imagine it's a combination of people stock piling more than will ever be needed and fragile elytra making them somewhat renewable.
Welp, if u want to know more, here's my thoughtouts: By default, mc does include pvp, which cause every player have to focus on defense (like the stronger and those are in faction usually get rich from poorer/those who have nothing). Emc isn't have pvp so they can focus on economy easily Public Automation, machinery will reduce effort as well as time to create product. Price also contributed about harder to get rich since many peeps can sell bulk that stuff and reduce price Thing like spore blossom will signifantly reduce over version as it renewable in furture version if some peeps reduce price of that stuff Many peeps get rich by afk in farm and sell bulk. Then they sell to those need them, if someone take their market, they will dominate these smaller market. EMC now removes many parts of them, like exploring get no effort (you can venture into waste and saw many blank lands since they focus about mass stuff) So, the world will divide into two factions: The first group: Exploring. Most effort on this group because they spend more in mc to get rich as they can, they get rich by venture into waste to get stuffs The second group: Bulk/Machinery. Get rich by afk and sell them who need To contrast, emc is like developed/advanced countries like united kingdom, netherlands and it's harder to get rich since everything is mass-produced and high quality, so thing include: Poorer economy peeps usually work by hand (e.g exploring) instead of machinery (e.g iron farm) cause efficiently reduced. The society alaways exists poor and rich. No matter how poor or rich society They will find any way to get rich. It's "play your way" as described in emc So, we have many soultions here: Remove public farm? More private farms will exists and cash will follow those have them, then they will chaos entire market. New player? Have to either choose spend effort or spend some cash. EMC Control entire market? EMC isn't communism, it's capitalism and if emc turned into communism, entire market will fell (you can look at empire shop at waste). New peeps may experience hapiness as it get rich equality as rich ones and rich one feel restricted. Eventually they will leave emc because restrictions and less freedom of economy Membership restrictions? You're create many retailer and they will fight each other to get profit into theirs, cause emc society unstable. These retailer will eventually dominate entire market, force them to follow if they don't want to pay Conclusion: 1. The great point in emc is they isn’t toxic or ruthless to new peeps, like other survival anarchy server 2. Although there are many rich peeps in emc, but they spend some cash to help new peeps for better base 3. If emc enable pvp, it would be chaos and more ruthless to new peeps and those who lack skills. Every player will concern one day they lost everything because they fell in raid created by other faction or stronger individuals. So emc disable it to create netrual peeps to live it easily, not forced to follow anyone just to live 4. If you need help, just post on emc and rich peeps will willing to help. Another great point In emc 5. Shop/prices by real currency almost non-exists in emc. Everyone is equality and have same start line 6. We need new peeps to run market since old peeps tends to self-create or produce mass item than demand/needs
I agree with many of the different points of view. I'm 100% free market (having come to EMC fresh off a long time in EVE Online), I have a strong stance that player-driven economy is better than having the host (EMC) prop up prices artificially. Zomberina, I point that out all the time: that if somebody sells 10 neth ingots for 1k/ea it doesn't mean anything about the actual market value of the item if they can't keep it in stock. The store that can keep it in stock and sell consistently at a higher price is actually the market rate. Wither, you bring up a good point that newer players may stick around more if they were able to run shops and sell.
I don't really think it's public farms that are a problem - however seeing so many trading things come out is concerning - I don't see how it makes *too* much sense to gauge a price for something based off of what one player trades it for at their exchange.
When I started there were no public farms other then the odd mob spawner or Iron Farm. Nothing close to what we have today. Public farms are a blessing and a curse. Everyone has one now. I have had one for almost 3 years now, maybe a bit more. I opened it to help others. There is almost zero profit from it, a few r here or there overall. That was how I wanted it though. Wasn't here to make a profit. What I liked about it, is it can run itself with almost zero maintainance needed. Aside from replacing a few anvils or cleaning out a clog, it runs itself. Buy this, trade it for that, sell that for R back. There is not 1 problem that if it was fixed, all would be well again. You could start with prices for almost everything. They are all mostly in the toilet. There isn't 1 solution for this. It's not solely that there are farms. I had tons of farms back when I joined and no issues selling. There were far more people though. So maybe there is not enough people to sell to. But that as well is not the only issue. People keeping lower their prices to have the best price for that few hours or day(s). Now the price could be too low to put the effort into restocking. It's basically a bunch of dominoes. They all play their part in the issue and fixing 1 of them will not fix everything. This is just how it is now. Good or bad. But to answer the OP, I believe the answer is yes, public farms do more harm then good. I don't think it was anyone's intention for them to be a bad thing, it just happened that way over time. Most of them are to help newer people get started as well as regulars but maybe since they do not have to go out and find the items they can get bored faster as it's not as much of a challenge. The intend is always been good and that kind of stuff is why EMC is great. Over time though it can hurt things regardless.
