I initially thought the trade system was a terrible idea, which I still do. Anyway, since we're stuck with it, I thought it should be a little more balanced and should directly involve an economy as a factor in decision making when trading. That said, I think items should be translated into an actual trading currency. People may think ZC is an actual trading currency, but it really isn't. It's only a failure of one of three branches that would stabilize the Zone economy. When I say trade currency, I don't literally mean cash, like gralats. I mean a translation for each item that's traded, almost like an exchange rate, but I couldn't think of a better term for it.

For example, if I was trading a pumpkin gun with someone for 300 zc, there would be an additional section on the trade table. That table would display a point system, which acts as a trade currency. The trade currency is based on average price, which will ultimately influence trade decisions. The table shows the average price of the pumpkin gun in points, i.e. 48 points, and the 300 zc is an average price of 42 points. But you don't pay with points, you pay with whatever you're trading, which is why I was skeptical in calling it a trade currency. It's more of an exchange rate. Once you notice the 48 points is worth more than 42 points, the one with the pumpkin gun might back off the trade, or he might use some sort of external judgement to make a trade, so it's either a win win situation, or there's no situation at all.

Not to mention, it would turn trading into a practically scam-free system, as you know every detail of every trade. Scams will also ultimately create an outlier in the system, which slightly changes the average points in favor to the one who got scammed, so it discourages scamming in two different ways, one way conscious and the other subconscious. Over time however, outliers won't matter too much, but it still affects the economy.

If multiple items were added to the table, points will simply be added up, but I guess there could be an option to tap the table to get more in depth information, such as the value of each individual item being traded, the difference in points regarding your side of the trade (negative or positive difference), etc.

On a separate part of the room, central to the entire trade house, it would only be convenient to have a trade database. You search the desired item, such as the pumpkin gun, and it tells you how many points it's worth, 48 points. You can also type the amount of each item, and it simply multiplies it, so if you want to know the value of 300 zc, you search Zone Coin, and type the amount 300, and it tells you 42 points. The trade database can also show various economical measurements.

All sorts of measurements can then be made on the economy, such as average value of each trade, highest amount of points received (so there could be a profile statistic that adds or subtracts your trade values that only shows in the trade house), and countless others.

Each value for each item is based on each trade, and which amount of points go to each person, so it's only math. If one person trades a pumpkin gun, and gains 8 points from that trade, the average value for the pumpkin gun goes up based on that factor, so if there has been 340 trades involving a pumpkin gun making an average of 48 points value, the 341st trade will correct the average and make it an extremely skeptical average value of 50.3402777778 (probably wrong, I also got 48.0234604106 using a different formula, which still is probably wrong). If there were multiple items on a table, say 4 items including the pumpkin gun, then the 8 points will be divided by 4, and each item's average value of points that were on the table will now include those two points. Correct me if my math and concepts are incorrect. Even I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it, but I do know it makes sense.

Of course, modifications or additions can be made to the system to make it more functional. I'm not even sure if this is feasible or possible, but I want it to be. I believe every economy should be as efficient and functional as possible, and free of blindness.

Opinions, let downs, or additions?

Im sry but I didn't read all that... Too late for me, maybe I'll go through it in the morning. I'll just post my opinion for now... I agree, I don't like the trade system, but since we're stuck with it, I think pretty much what should be tradeable is currencies (zc, graalium, trash, etc.), holiday weapons, holiday items (dances, yoyos, etc.), old store hats that are no longer available, old event hats that are no longer available, and holiday hats. VIP should not be tradeable. Defeats the purpose of it only being available at certain time periods. Auction items should definitely not be tradeable. All that does is unbalance the economy more by making people rich in the trading economy. Store weapons should not be tradeable because that defeats the purpose of having to purchase them. Minerals should not be tradeable aside from Graalium only, since people get minerals to create med/attack bots and make them in mass. The trading system has created a gameplay of get items from others without doing the work to actually get them, and that's what needs to be resolved

I agree with pig, except for the auction item thing, that ones debatable.
@twiz, i agree trades needs reworking, i like the idea of being able to know the average price of certain items, i think a database should be kept of their values and updated weekly. One issue inhave now cuz of trades is that these guns were made too easy to get, and with end game guns too available, it just ruins the idea of earning anything. I think what should be done, after the hp get raised to 100, is bring most of the guns down by a tier, and rework the tier by replacing tiers like the rippers/alien/rail tier with the upcoming guns, and anything stronger than that would be for special items like pk prize room guns or if we can get a new currency, the top guns in that shop.

I agree with pretty much everything you said, and that's why I said zc is a failed trade regulator. It is a trade currency, but it isn't a true trade currency. It sort of just... evolved into one, the same way shells did in era. Not having an official trade exchange rate is what allows this to happen, which is why I thought up the trade points system. The only thing I disagree with is the graalium thing. I believe minerals should all be tradeable. I also strongly encourage you to read my OP, as it contains the pros of my proposed system, as well as some other information and implimentations.

Ok, after thinking about it, I have come to the conclusion that in Graalian economies, NOT having an official exchange rate causes the unintentional development of subpar unofficial trade currencies, so long as there is a tradeable job item that you can exchange for currency (gralats) or some other desired item such as ZC, and having an official exchange rate prevents this. In Zone's case, ZC=Gralats, as you can both trade ZC and minerals and minerals=gralats. So if you trade ZC with minerals, ZC does equal gralats. ZC buys different items than gralats do, so it basically creates a loop. Since you can buy tradeable items with gralats, and you can trade these items with ZC, you are essentially trading ZC items. This is what I meant by the third branch of the Zone economy, it completely destabilizes it. This is also why I want the trade points system to be implimented, and why I want tradeable items to be revised to prevent that economical loop.

Just as someone regulates guns and combat systems, someone should also manage trading in Zone and other servers. Having a trade admin wouldn't create communism, if that's what any of you were thinking.

I just realized how fun it is to discuss Graalian economies

nooo the fun of an economy is bartering and making a profit
this would eliminate that

ZC needs redone too, along with a new event coin system, separate from ZC. As for trade admins, Tashkin hired them basically to overlook the trade building & try to catch scammers/glitchers, which is exactly what ZPs already did. They didn't do anything developmental & stefan/unix fired them and said not to make a position just for that.. lol. My thing with the other minerals besides graalium is those aren't ever used for sale, but are used for building bots. People buy those minerals for just a few ZC, and can create 5+ med bots that they can use at once, without having to do any work themselves. I just think the trade system has allowed for people to not do any work to get what they want in-game.

Your ideas hurt the scamming community and you thinking about nerfing my rippers again I'll nerf your face unless you keep them the way they are and make a higher stronger tier of guns and also add a portal gun

Nah

The beauty of economics is that value is subjective. This is objective value and would ruin it.

Then tell me why prices are regulated based on average price in the third best economy in the world? Because we don't want to monopolize. In graal, a monopoly is either the literal definition, or in terms of an outlier, it is a scammer.

If you want to make ZC worth more, increase the price of the items you can purchase with ZC, instead of 8,000 ZC make it 30,000 ZC and then a lot of ZC won't seem that much anymore.

Most people already have the items, so although it will raise the worth of ZC, it won't drastically change it as much as you would think. It would really just hurt new players, once again, while the current players become richer.

Its not hurting new players, its just making them actually try to get the item desired. I think raisig the price, making stuff like auction guns primarily collectors items (meaning they wont be stronger than all other guns, just fancier) and adding more hats is another option. Mmo games dont do well when everythings handed out easily

Thing is, almost every player who isn't new has the alien blade or any weapon they want in the ZC shop, so it would essentially hurt the new players who would have to pay 5x more than all the older players paid, which only makes the older players wealthier in the trading economy, especially at first. Raising the prices would in the long term decrease the amount of ZC, but it would take a while. At the beginning, all that raising prices would do would be making 1 ZC worth more, which again, would just make older players even wealthier. Someone with 20k zc would then essentially have 60k ZC. It's really a terrible option. Zone has done too many 'quick fixes' without thinking of the actual consequences, and that's caused many issues, short-term, and long-term.

Or make better versions of the weapons so everyone has to work for them, and not in zc so everyone starts anew. Raise the hp to 100 allows more options with tiers, take all guns down one and replace the high tiers with thr new currency items (untradable) and the highest tier with special items (spar/pk prize rooms). Make every style of gun in different tiers, same with melees meaning more freezeless melees. No tradable shop guns or special/zc/new currency guns, new currency untradable also. With this, everyone has to do work for thr too guns, current players get a head start at most, any tradable guns are limited edition collection items and will not be tier 1 guns (tier 1- 200k pk/20k spar win/maybe highest of new currency stuff; tier 2- auction/mid prize room/expensive guns; tier 3- railgun, rippers, alien set, old vip; tier 4 and lower-etc), use this system for both melees and guns and thatll take care of that issue.

As for hats, put more of all of them into the game, mainly thru events, no more one of a kinds. Still keep the rare ones rarer but not to where like 2 people make the price (which is usually someone greedy), therefore people have a better chance of getting a hat and at a fair price.

Auction items: no one of a kinds, and auction off more of the ones we have.

As for trade admins, theyll need to document all items of value and keep up with the low and highest selling prices and maintain it.

As for zc, add a ton of new goodies to buy, and more uses for them (like consumables, maybe pay for uploads with them, raffles, etc)

A trade admin couldn't maintain prices lol. They can't tell players "You can't sell that item for 500 ZC! It's only worth 100-300!!!" Trade admins will never come back, they're pointless.

They kinda can, wouldnt be too hard to make sure things stay fair

They really couldn't. First of all, no one would listen to a staff member telling them what they have to sell their item for. Second of all, no one would like any iZone staff if they tried to dictate players like that. Third of all, we would need more Trade Admins than ZPs just to make sure they're covering the entire building 24/7. Doing that would get unixmad to fire whoever we have as Manager if they attempted to regulate trades that heavily.

That isn't literally what a trade admin would do. Instead of directly changing the prices, they would instead directly change the economy, ultimately decreasing prices in all.

I think if the OP were to come into play, the average prices would be reset once every two months.

Once the average of all prices are decreased, it would be easy. They could do an intentional midterm average reset, as I mentioned, so the prices solidify at that lower level. How they change the economy directly, they would have to change the flow of currency, which we were arguing about in the other thread. Players likely won't even realize it.

I do agree, that would be pretty stupid to have an admin over my shoulder constantly.

You don't need a trade admin position to change the game itself in order to change the economy. I, or any staff could change the economy. It all would start with changing currency, how items are gotten, whether they're tradeable or not, etc...

If we were to not add trade admins, which yall are right, dont think itd do much, then we gotta find a way to keep prices low, and not let people like trigger ryan and hanson raise them to what they are now due to greed. I think one bug issue is that compared to eras trade, their currency is mainly sellables (shells, trash, mushrooms) unlike ours. Theirs go back into the game constantly while ours end up in an endless cycle. On era, people are gonna cash their shells in constantly so making prices high is usually a waste of time because the shells have their own use unlike zc which are basically worthless now. As suggested, adding more use for zc should help out a lot.

How? Trading is between players.

Maybe a playermade price list might work

a price list is a waste of time. Item prices chance constantly. Flame wings have been going up nonstop since trades started, and they're still growing. All you need to raise/lower the price of items is people not wanting to sell their items, or vice versa. It's called supply & demand and there's absolutely no problem with that.

I still stand with adding more of everything

That's true, I just figured it would be convenient. Frankly, I don't care as long as it gets done.

By interfering with ZC production and the proposed GC creation, as we discussed in the other thread

It would be just wonderful if the US had a 100% capitalist economy, but greed is overpowering in humans. Philosophes during the enlightenment reflects upon this argument.

Hey how about we keep the current player made economy but are new currencies and item types to make the economy get a shake up and make players find a way to put the new items to use like for example you graal coin idea let's say it could be able to buy higher tier items so the players make it worth 10zc=1GC now I look at what I say I doesn't make lots of sense

Thats the same thing basically lol :p

Ill post my idea from another thread, revolving around the gun portion mainly, cuz i need it passed to bring out the new gun system, which with the idea passed will be SIGNIFICANTLY better than trying to do it with our current one.

Its to make guns past a certain tier untradable. Along with that, im trying to get 100hp added and rework the guns to bring in a new top tier.
Lets say as of now: Tier 1: pulse sniper/soulburn, Tier 2: rippers/rail, Tier 3: siphon/heartbreaker, Tier 4: gp/whisper wind, Tier 5: stingray/streamer/er cannon, Tier 6: blue/gold laser and nail gun, Tier 7: red/green rifle, Tier 8: watermelon/plasma shotgun, Tier 9: metallic and beamer.
The idea is to drop all guns by one tier, making room for the newer stuff, tier 1 being the pk/spar prize room guns and maybe some special guns from future additions. Tier 2 would be the auction stuff, the best of the new currency stuff, event guns. Tier 3 would be high end guns (rippers,rail,etc). Tier 4 would be guns like siphons and pricier vip items. Tier 5 higher priced holiday and low priced vip, and what ever guns fall into the category. Tier 6 holiday guns and whatever fit into it. Anything tier 5 and higher would not be tradable, aside from auction guns since those are the only ones in a limited supply and people are spending a crapload of money IN HOPES of getting one, seems fair to keep them tradable. This keeps guns in the economy in a way but to get the best stuff itll require effort to do so, and with 100hp itll allow me to basically do half dmgs like intended and bring more diversity in how the guns stats will be. With this, everyone will basically have to put in work, and the only advantage current players have is a headstart, and no one can hoard all the tier 1 stuff because the tradable stuff will mainly be collectables but with minor perks compared to the rest of the tier theyre in. This being said tho, some guns may go up and down a tier due to rebalancing but it wouldnt affect their overall usability. And prize room guns will range from different tiers and have minor perks and special stuff like auras, and with the 20k spar wins and 200k pk guns and highest priced new currency stuff, they have the best stats and most likely best versatility but wont be op, as with any tier system the one above will have the upper hand but is still beatable. And im gonna try to make similar styled guns just at different tiers based in price (like a tier 3 and tier 5 version of rippers, main difference will just be dmg). With this, and with the other additions I have planned it opens the door for so much new content and combat opportunities.

Oh yeah, the melees will be done the same way, but not as strictly

Guess I need to start pking and getting some cash for the new stuff because well I'm going to be at a disadvantage now because rippers are now going to be less powerful also can you make a thread to post we weapons and ideas

Yeah ill make one

Just found out today that graalium is no longer 1:2 with zc.
Along with this all the prices just seem soooo ridiculous its unbelievable, i guess if there was teirs, then that would kinda adjust the prices,
However, making guns untradable i find stupid, i am looking for a egg launcher i had awhile back when i sold and im saving so making guns untradable will mean i cant get it again. I mean making spar/pk reward guns untradable is the right thing, because those pk reward hats sucked because they were tradable

Guns untraceable is this era

My mistake, guns like egg, pez, blue xmas will still be tradable since theyre more of a collectors item imo

Graalium isnt 2:1? Says who?

It's not.

Hasn't been since they started selling Graalium at the robot place.

Don't change anything with trades.

Taking a step forward doesn't mean progression.

Want to make a change in trading? Gather up all your trading buddies and tell them to stop selling guns or to raise the prices.

Don't change the player economy... It's meant to be a player economy.

And I don't want any "oh that's too hard" stuff since Amer basically was the person who raised the price of goons from 70 since he bought like 100 of them for 150 and sold them for like 120.

Don't want any guns being given to noobs? Buy them all, take it from the players point. Don't be waving your staff powers when you don't need to. Don't just resort to server change because y'all lazy to make some actual change.

Good leaders don't enforce. They set guides that people are willing to follow.

Geno honestly I've seen you everywhere I've been and that's saying something. You have as many if not more connections as I have. Go spam people to just not trade items to make it more balanced. Like people already do this on a low scale with hats, now do it.

Don't let your dreams just be dreams.

just do it.

Nike.

Jk.

I only wear reebok.

Mk.

i have been trying to sell my 1700 grail for about 1-2 weeks now and the only people who offer (id say a few) have said either 500 zc for 1200 graalium or something similar.

No one is going to voluntarily just raise their prices, and no one is going to voluntarily lower them either. If they raise them too much, it isn't going to sell. If they lower them too much, they aren't getting anything out of the deal. Why would you restrict players from getting a certain weapon? This only makes the rich richer and the poor poorer.

I don't care if Amer did, because not everyone is going to just voluntarily buy 100 units of an item, either. This will only monopolize.

And those are the people that are legends.

Mad props to fp who lowered the burrito price.

Mad props to Kayla for basically establishing the unicorn hat... And for a low price.

Like if you really want to help the server, don't help the server. Help the players.

Like if you buy in bulk you could have like 30 rippers for 3k. Not even a jokes. Like I'm pretty sure that Faz with his like 100 stingrays are what's keeping them at that price. He constantly sells them for that price which is why the price is stabilized. Now buy rippers for 500zc and ask your friends to do so... People will believe that the price has gone up and etc etc.

It's not difficult.

Like I'm still rolling on 2000zc that pride gave me when he left. Sell them for those prices and ask people to buy them. I'd buy them.

My belief is, trading is what caused the graalium prices to drop, this game lost so much money due to dang near everything being tradable and at a much lower cost ratio than buying with gralats. No one buys packs for store items anymore when theyre all tradable and people just have to get a few zc to buy, or be donated, decent enough items to use til they save up the zc for rippers or sabers. With a large loss of income due to trading, buyable graalium had to be added as a buyable alternative to zc, and the payouts of graalium and junk had to be lowered to influence people to buy packs instead of spending even more time grinding for them.

As of gun trading, all variations of guns will be buyable in stores one way or another, and the collector stuff (vip, holiday, auctions) are best left to be the only thing tradable, doing so will decrease their prices because the only thing making them sell would be their visual (and sliiiiight stat buffs) perks. Lets say the pulse sniper is like 100k zc (or whatever stupid price its at now), with the railgun, pk/spar prize guns, and future high end guns i have planned, the only perk to owning a PS would be its fancy and has a slight edge over whatever gun is supposed to rival it, and the prize room guns (most notably the pk ones) would be better than it stat-wise (same slight edge perk similar to the Snipers perk over its buyable counterpart). Why would someone then want to buy the Sniper for combat purposes at a completely unreasonable price? Even if its rival was 60k zc in the zc shop or even 100k gralats in a store, thats still far better than spending 100k for a slightly better gun. Having less items influence zc, even in the slightest bit will help lower prices along with adding more copies of an item (whether exact or similar enough). Plus, people need stuff to work for, its what help mmo games to become biigger. And the new gun system and future gun economy will benefit much much better with this change.

Re-reading this i coulda reworded the first line better lol, but the point im making should be clear

Like the ideas. I do believe that every gun that's 'proer' than at least the siphon pistols should have more or less the same stats with just small benefits. Because if you make one gun really good then everyone will use it... And then we will be in the situation we are now... (I will admit that since geno stepped up there's more diversity. Gg)

Also na. Screw the gun prize rooms. We need melee prize rooms.

We should also just get a death room.

Like I'm at 8000 deaths. Everyone shoots me when I try to quick scope melee dem D:

Make a room for all weapons really.

Like there should be like an advantage to getting 1000 er beamer kills...



But in terms of making money; I've said it multiple times. Isn't it obvious?... Just add more skybases. Duh.

But real talk if you want more money give us a reason to buy VIP.

Because I only buy packs for VIP cus 7.5k too hard to get in a day D;

There will be guns, melees, hats, ganis and other goodies in the prize rooms.

And i have the weapon vip items taken care of, they'll all be worthwhile

ew prize rooms... Just another encouragement for boosting, especially in spar.

We gotta treat the players for their time. With your slawn idea added, boosting will be minimal, and spar boosting is much easier to prevent than pk boosting. But lets not focus too much on the negatives

Spar bosting is much, much easier. I've said this before and I'll say it again; spar & PK should not have rewards. People should do it for the stats/they like it.

Zone needs goals, and i already started making them

You noobs got off topic

AND SO WILL I!

here's some goals- Take skybase one. Take skybase 2. Now 3. Now 4. Now hold for as long as possible.

The only goals I've ever needed. And its constantly an ongoing process. Very fun indeed.

Real talk though the achievements are just the worst. They aren't even those like little surprises you get from Easter eggs in games. Like I'd rather have the ONE TENTH(.1%) extra health in portal than the zc. Like actually.

As for actual goals however y'all can idk... Use the planets for quests... Want player turnout? Make a daily quest. Like you always see people at Pyrat Bay. Js.

To stay on topic however I will tie my concluding statement to this thread.

Trading is a finesse. Talk to me when you have learned every price and the top traders etc etc.

Don't try to change things you have no business in changing.

Like I always quote Albion since I work for it but also since the staff in the game actually make a game democratic. Wanted to change the boots. They did. We said no. They restored them. Now they always ask us players that are known for said things for advice. Like I have the highest jump level, I was asked on how to nerf getting levels.

Want real advice? Don't ask me pig or twiz. Pig is always in trades but is always afk and never forks up the big bucks. I don't trade anything over 3000zc since I'm poor and cheap, and fairly I don't care about the hat trades. Twiz... Well I've seen twiz in the trade house a lot in the day but honestly I haven't seen him a lot. And I've been on every day on noob accounts just asking random people questions.

Again, we are NOT experts. We talk about trades from the outside, when we have no real idea what is what's up.

Ask people like Faz who's always trading what he thinks.

That's a viable source.

Mk.

I was on the toilet writing this, in the words of the great CronoX (degree mark) San"(triangles)(I use Fleksy keyboard and can't do those symbols mk), "Slim, I seriously wonder if you are ever busy". And to that I say-... I was in the bathroom for 7 minutes writing this. You be the judge.

@SKTSangue not everyone enjoys basing.
Some people want actual achievements to work towards.

Continue reading you metal pleb. You are not a cyborg and never will be. You are simply a shell.

Oh I laugh when people don't get my references. (but fr I talked a lot more than just basing)(fr though this noob who claims to be fancy didn't even spell my username right<3)

Oh I agree. I don't base anywhere besides skybase. Too much teamwork. Eww. There's no skill needed taking any base other than sb. Like it's all really just about who has the most people with slight deviation of skill.

Like I said, plot based events would actually help the server a great deal.

Like I know that at least my friends and I spent like a day on Classic last year over the summer in my room writing things on the wall and on our projector trying to connect the dots. Like there's a WHOLE conspiracy in Graal and era and classic take advantage of that.

On zone it's like... Mk... We're on an island... And we kill aliens... That's all you can give us... Uhm... Thanks?

Achievements are different than prizes. People spar & PK plenty already. The prizes will encourage people to do it who don't like to do it, which means they'll try to find shortcuts. The people who already like to do those activities will already be doing them... so it doesn't encourage them at all.

I hated that they made a 3k BS prize room, but I BSed every day (P.S. I was the first one to get 3k BS wins <3 That's my moment of bragging). I'd much rather the robots have just been in a store, rather than a prize. It's especially stupid to make you purchase it after you unlock it without any discount... Although, when they make 20 items, none of which are necessarily 'special,' what would you expect? Zone's been so much about quantity instead of quality. A quality, cool-loking gun achivement (1 gun) for PK & Spar at a high # so people actually have to like the activity, or go through endless grinding, can get it. A quality, cool-looking robot achievement would then be acceptable. The achievements would have to be hard to achieve, though. Making multiple prizes at different stages is a terrible idea. Honestly, though, I really dislike a spar reward idea since boosting in spar is so easy and requiring a certain amount of wins will only encourage boosting...

They're being added. I already started on them.

so? I'm explaining why that's a bad idea.