hcblue.com

i was talking to imzo earlier and we were trying to figure out a good starting price for items. some numbers:

• 1 dirt = $0.01
• 1 stack (64) dirt = $0.64
• 1 cobble = $0.01
• 1 stone = $0.02

• 1 diamond = 9 stacks dirt = $5.76

• the thing is, we dont want diamonds to be too cheap or too expensive either. someone that logs in the first time gets $100 free and we dont really want them to be able to buy 20 diamonds right out of the bat right?

• blue, is it possible to give ppl less money when they 1st log in?
• obviously we dont wanna force ppl to buy/sell at these prices but this is just a guide so that everyone sort of has a feeling of what things cost?
• blue, is it possible so that we can buy/sell XP too?

what does everyone think?

i wanna add that in millennaire, 1 diamond = 6 silver = 6 stacks copper = 6 stacks of dirt, but in equivalent exchange, 1 diamond = 8192 emc = 8192 dirt = 128 stacks of dirt.

so obviously theres no "standard" here.

blue, is it possible to give ppl less money when they 1st log in?

Yup. Be careful about going too low, though, in which case no one can have a low buying power. If you sell dirt for 1¢, no one can sell for lower; if you sell dirt for say 5¢, someone else can still undersell you, and diamonds could still cost $25–30 instead of $5.

blue, is it possible so that we can buy/sell XP too?

Not at the moment, but we might be able to add a plugin (if there is one), or I can make one. It would depend whether we want it as a command or something else (we do have those in-game Bottle O' Enchanting items in game).

According to the wiki, on y levels 2–17, diamonds occur about 0.0846% of stone. So, it's about 1 diamond every 1,182 stone (that means if stone were 1¢, you'd have diamond at $11.82). You could use statistics like that (a rarity table), but I agree that it should only be used as a guide.

$11.82 sounds somewhat more reasonable than $5.76

but at $11.82 that means someone that logs in can buy like 9 diamonds with the $100 they get for free. what about making ppl get $10 when they log in instead?

We should use gold as currency instead.

• 1 gold nugget
• 1 gold ingot = 9 gold nuggets
• 1 gold block = 9 gold ingots

Or maybe both?

But I only have 5 gold ingots

Okay, maybe we can use both so that people who want to use gold can use gold, while others can use the virtual money?

using both seems complicated. i think ppl could still trade two things together if they want to, but having money means theres a sort of standard.

if no one has problems with it i say we set dirt/cobble at $0.04, stone at $0.08, and diamond at $94.56? that way we can have smaller money (like if ppl wanna sell or buy things at 1 cents) but a diamond still costs a lof of money (and since ppl get $100 for free when they join the first time, they can only afford one diamond).

edit: $94.56 = $11.28 * 8

blue can u work out base prices for other ores?

Any way to incorporate a fluctuating economy? Let's say that the market price of Diamonds is set at $25 apiece and there's 100 Diamonds in the chest to purchase. If people purchase diamonds then the price increases by 1% And as people sell diamonds it decreases. This is a very simple supply/demand model, but I would love to re-work it if need be.

A cool feature would be to see how many ores are left in world unmined/inventory, compared to how many there are total (including previous value + used ores like picks, etc.) and that'd let you know a price. So if there's 1,000 diamonds in the entire world, but 100 have been used in supplies, 500 are mined and 400 are unmined the price would change accordingly. This would be great since people could buy "stock" in diamonds, ie. purchasing a bunch in advance and letting the price fluctuate and then sell when its at a higher price.

My first thought would be not to overcomplicate it. I'd want to avoid anything that makes the system too complicated; I'd rather have something simple that everyone uses than something complicated that no one uses. That said, I think stocks would be cool, but stocks with such a small market—even assuming everyone on the server actually participates—would see almost no action other than a couple of people who might end up speculating prices (like me ).

Keep in mind that a supply–demand model is pretty hard to do in Minecraft, considering that it's hard to keep track of what portion of an item (say diamonds) that people would want to sell (supply) vs. who is actually looking for those items (demand). The only sure-fire way I can think of is to force people to "declare" that they're looking for an item, therefore creating a virtual demand for it.

I suppose a good alternative would be to account for PED ("elasticity"), e.g., one person purchasing a diamond doesn't cause any price fluctuation, but one person purchasing a dozen diamonds (or a dozen people purchasing a diamond) in one day would cause a drastic rise in price. Then again, this makes things a little complicated; if there's a plugin that does all the calculations behind the scenes, that'd be better.

The world is finite (survival is limited to a 1,024 radius from /spawn) and technically it'd be possible to figure out how much is still left, but I'm not aware of a program that does that automatically for you.

Going back to base prices, some ores, like redstone, is harder to determine. Redstone ore occurs about 1.025% of all stone on the lower levels (according to the wiki). A single ore produces 4–5 redstone dust, so that bumps up the occurrence to 4.6125% (1 in 21.68, or about $1.73 per dust if 1 stone were 8¢).

Some other prices, based on 8¢ per stone:

It's late, so I can't guarantee the calculations are correct, but as you see, the prices seem absurd even if you account demand; iron is really useful, while lapis isn't, but yet they hover around the same prices.

Instead of doing these calculations at 8c a stone, could we do something like 4c per stone? That'd make the price points reasonable for people to get in the market with. Other than cutting it in half I think that's great!

As for what's useful, I agree with you on that some items should be priced more if they're more useful it should be priced differently than lets say lapis/iron for example.]

As for demand, there could be a deflation algorithm that causes a 2% decrease in price for every 12 hours in real time the item isn't purchased? It would eliminate the declaring thing...

Just doing research and found this plugin... http://forums.bukkit.org/threads/econ-dynamiceconomy-v-8-5-prices-based-on-supply-demand-cb-1-1-r4.53476/

Seems really neat! Even has all the stuff I've mentioned! ^.^

ok then how do these prices sound?

• 1 dirt = $0.03
• 1 cobble = $0.03
• 1 stone = $0.04

8 cobble + 1 coal = 8 stone in a furnace, so 1 coal = $0.08. 1 log is basically 1 charcoal, so we can price that the same. 1 log is also 4 planks.

• 1 coal = $0.08
• 1 log = $0.08
• 1 plank = $0.02

now for gold:

• 1 gold ore = $25.00
• 1 gold ingot = $27.00 (worth "more" than just ore, and is multiple of 9)
• 1 gold nugget = 1/9 gold ingot = $3.00
• 1 gold block = 9 gold ingot = $243.00

this way gold can also be an unofficial money if some ppl dont wanna use the virtual money. if we use the dynamic economy plugin, gold prices could change less than other prices.

Something to keep in mind: we won't have a "global" shop where everyone shops. The aim is to have as many people be able to open their own "shops" (or rather, people would have a display case for each item, and people will visit these display cases to purchase their items).

An exception might be unobtainable items, e.g. Bottle O' Enchanting. Anyway, all these prices sound good. Let's suggest these prices, and if someone wants to sell below or above these prices, they can.

Edit: the list of prices have been moved here so that moderators can edit the prices

wat do u mean global shops? also whats the price for xp?

Global shop, meaning that most other servers usually have a central shop where everyone buys / sells, and everything is unlimited. In our case, I want a limited economy, meaning that:

• Each player can open their own shop(s).
• They can only sell items they actually have.
• They can only buy items as long as they can afford it.

The combination of this means that no one can buy items that never existed before, e.g., if everyone on the server has only mined a total of 20,000 cobblestone, no one can buy 20,001 cobblestone.

Though... A way around this is the future Mount Gojira Mini-mall! Users can setup shops within the mall and people can price comparison with many people. Encourages price competition so people can have the best price, while also allowing a one stop shop for purchasing multiple different items!

It'll be a pay once fee mechanism, I don't take cuts of money out of every sale! Pay once for your space and you'll be forever locked into a location in the Mount Gojira Mall History!

EDIT: To make this clear, there will still be the same limit above where there's no infinite amount of resources, just allows users to purchase more of a similar item, but from multiple people more easily.

@zilla how much for a store in ur place and what does the price include?

also-- anyone have suggestions on how to price XP?

@xnflydlcs The price is currently being discussed, but It'll be less than $40. We're thinking of $25, but not sure how many space I'll have. The more spaces I have the cheaper the rates will be, and if you purchase in bulk the number of spaces, for example want a larger store for aesthetics, etc. then you'd get discounts like 2 for $40 instead of $50

I sold 4 stacks of wool to @xnfllydlcs for $0.08 per item. I didn't know what to charge, so I thought I'd add the price here.

The list of prices have been moved here so that moderators can edit the prices!

Man, they have a similar thing on my other server, but the admin shop's items are infinite. Diamonds are expensive over there. (5,000 per diamond, 1,000 to sell.. I currently have over 8,000, once had 32K from selling all the mineshaft rails and mossy cobble I found)

Don't know what I could sell on this server. If I'd get to work on my pig farm and build up enough porkchops to have excess, I might start selling them. I need to get at least a stack first though.

@SilverJ17 Wow, $5,000 for a diamond? How much is a single wood log or stone?

paper, sugar, and sugar cane I think should be like $0.15

bread i think should be $0.48 making wheat $0.16

eggs idk.....

paper, sugar, and sugar cane I think should be like $0.15

But doesn't it take 3 sugarcane to make 1 paper?

3 sugarcane makes 3 paper, though.

:3 I was hoping no one caught that.