The Empire's greatest threat!

Discussion in 'Community Discussion' started by SillyWhiteMage, Feb 12, 2012.

  1. i personally saw nothing wrong with it, just saw a chance to have good banter XD
  2. haha fair enough :L
  3. I give away a lot of rupees and items.Problem?
  4. Wait, it sounds like a lot of people think there is only capitalism and communism as choices of how to relate economically with each other.

    There are surely other, even better, forms.

    What about cooperationism, for instance?

    Oh, you've never heard of it? It's the economic model of the future... the one we are about to adopt.

    Why limit ourselves only to what we know now (with our perception of things rarely extending past our own noses)?

    Regarding this, the future is tomorrow morning for all we know. We just have to wake up to it and it will become the new normal so fast it'll make your head spin (it will make our heads spin, for sure).

    You may say, "But we're not ready for that yet"

    Well, I am!
    nnnnmc1, SillyWhiteMage and ISMOOCH like this.
  5. Huzzah! *I feel a new signature coming*
  6. Well, neither capitalism nor communism's exactly perfect xD So I agree that there must be "other, even better, forms". It should be interesting if we find out what they are, we just need some creative, original thought, taking into account what we know of the past, but not being biased by it.
  7. Okay yeah, I'm in! But this one?:
    I see no problem at all in this? Correct me please?
    will_iamd likes this.
  8. A lot of people who set their stuff at low prices to help people save rupees, but then people come along buy the stuff cheap and resell it at a higher price.You don't see the problem with that?
  9. There is a moral issue with it, but there's no rule banning people from doing it, and at the end of the day, if the customers buy the higher price, then it's their decision not to do some research into cheaper shops. It's not ideal, but it's nowhere near as bad as things like stealing, or the other things you mentioned in the first post. I would like to stress that that's only in my opinion though. :)
  10. Well, this kind of profiteering is an acceptable business activity, but it's also generally really unfriendly.

    It's a competitive rather than cooperative act, and it only serves the person who is doing it.

    The profiteer profits, and the owner of the shop gets thier desired price for the items (though not selling it to the people who need it/want to use it, which is what most shop keepers want), and the community now must pay a higher price for that item.

    So the real victim in this kind of scenario is everyone... the community.

    This is why it's not cool to do this kind of profiteering.

    At the same time, this kind of ruthlessness is considered normal and acceptable with our current form of relating economically, so it's tolerated.

    But most of us have at least some inclination that there's something wrong with it even if we can't pinpoint why.

    Ultimately, it's bad for the economy and it damages the prosperity of the society as a whole... it makes everyone a wee bit poorer. So in that way, it's actually kind of like indirectly stealing from everybody.

    It's actualy pretty weird that we tolerate it at all looking at it in this light.

    Personally, I don't buy anything that I sell. That wouldn't make any sense. The goal of having a shop for me is to provide people with the things they need that I happen to have lots of and/or enjoy going to get.
    SillyWhiteMage likes this.
  11. Wow, never thought of it like that. I'm happy to know now. I will think more carefully next time I'm out shopping in EMC. :)
    But you do get quite greedy when you here about a friend that made 10k rupees on a buy and sell. :rolleyes:
  12. It is done with pretty much the same intent as stealing.Self profit is the sole motivation.
  13. Buying and selling can be done with the greater good of the community in mind as well, for sure.

    This can be done using the shop system, which can also buy items form people who have lots of stuff they don't need and don't want to be bothered with setting up and running a shop.

    Doing this is a direct service to the community, as well as those who are selling to you... and it can be very profitable too (for all involved).

    I believe if you ask d1223m he'll be able to confirm how profitable this can be.

    THIS is the way to buy and sell in a way that everyone profits from as it increases the overall prosperity of the society you are part of by facilitating the circulation of goods.
  14. thats p much how i do it. I don't like setting up a shop but I love mining so I take my stuff to a friend who has a shop and sell to him. I make money and he makes money. His shop is also one of the slightly underpriced ones so everyone sorta wins
  15. A few tips for anyone thinking of doing that (making a shop that buys and sells):

    First, start by setting your prices low (the price you are buying for; the S on the shop sign). You may suddenly find yourself with a chest full of whatever you're buying when you might not have thought about how much you wanted to buy... when you look at your rupee balance after that happens you might turn pale in the face and feint.

    So by starting low you minimize your risk of making a mistake. And then when you get a feel for it, and if you find that people aren't selling for that price, you can raise it to meet a price closer to what people are willing to sell the item for.

    Second, decide if there is an upper limit to how much you are willing to buy, and then decide what that limit is. You can control how much you buy by placing dirt blocks (or whatever) in the empty spaces in the chest the items will go in. This way you can never buy more stacks of that item than there are empty spaces in the chest.

    Also, if you do end up buying a full chest of something via a shop sign and your rupee balance suddenly drops dramatically, don't fret. You may have less rupees (for now), but you have a full chest of whatever it is that you bought, and that's the thing that has actualy value, not the rupees. And if you're selling that item back to the community, you'll end up with way more in the end anyway... it's just a matter of time.

    And finally, make sure you give yourself a reasonable profit for providing this service. A 100% markup (double what you bought for) is usually reasonable I think (someone else may have a better perspective on this and may be able to provide more detail).

    :)
  16. That's certainly a vary valid way of looking at it, and of course it's better to make money ethically, to use your example, d1223m's shop idea really impressed me.

    Basically, what I take from the comments on this thread is that the general view is that we are a community, and that we should work together instead of competing with each other where "self profit is the sole motivation".

    Of course, there is an argument that competition is a very naturally efficient way to do things, as look at how well evolution has created all the wonders on our planet. Evolution isn't exactly ethical, if you look at all the extinctions over the Earth's history, and in my opinion, capitalism works in a very similar way. Competition is therefore undisputably a very efficient way to do things, overall.

    However, on the other hand, 99% of people don't benefit from the competition, only the people who are good at it. Perhaps you could argue that efficiency isn't the most important thing, as all the extinct species would say, if most people don't benefit, it's a bad system.

    Personally, I think that cooperation should be worked towards wherever possible, but in most cases, some competition is needed to achieve anything. My best evidence for this is that competition is the way nature chose to operate, and we all know how good nature is at being balanced and suited to the task, which shows how "self profit" benefits all in the long term.
  17. why dont we take out rupees from the game... that way rich players dont get richer and poor ppl stop complaining.

    Its everyone's perrogative to buy and sell at the price they want... if there's ppl dumb enough to buy from a 1000% more expensive shop than from a "cheap" shop.. its either cause they dont bother looking for the cheap one, or they dont care how much they pay since the lazyness takes over...

    Hell i dont know who's more dumb.... The guy that wants to spend 1000r on a stack of wood or the guy that keeps arguing with him that he should only pay him 20r for the stack

    with an economy system (rupees) THERE WILL ALWAYS be someone who has more, and some others that dont have any... rule of life... smart ppl make more (also supporters) while dumb and lazy ppl dont...

    Why would you mess with the smart ppl's businesses that know how to market research, that know how to use the /purchase vault to move items from server to server, that actually roam through thw 6 EMC servers to find the best deals.

    Even worse, why would you benefit lazy ppl that wont go /wild to gather resources, that wont make its own shop, that wont travel between servers lñooking for the best price on what they want to buy.. or sell

    Now tell me that not only casiones are to be ruled by guidelines, but that this will take EMC to a "YOU CANT SELL THIS HIGHER THAN THIS" because poor ppl complain on expensive shops.

    you want to "stabilize" the economy...

    keep dreaming

    As a shop owner you are entitled to put the price you want to the stuff you have

    As a buyer... you are either entitled to buy at the price the owner sets... or turn around do /wild and go gather it by yourself... enough said
  18. I've tried to get Malicaii and ISMOOCH to leave us alone - its not happening.
  19. and darn it, we will always be right there XD
  20. So your saying the people who take advantage of the cheaper shops and then sell it higher are smart.While the people who just want to get their supplies without having to search around at all the sold out "cheap" shops are dumb?So you are saying being smart means you have to be greedy.I get it now.