[Suggestion] Increase Melon Prices

The thing is, I think Melon Swords are supposed to be un appealing. They are made so not many want to buy them because their price to money/hour ratio is low. This will help combat inflation because the amount of people farming without even looking at their screen for hours on end is lowered.

 

I don't know how much more per hour should be added but I agree it needs an increase. Right now, I have absolutely no interest in getting a melon sword simply because I could farm nwart and get 14k per hour. If it were to raise to about 20k per hour, I might think about getting one but right now, there is no point in me getting one.

 

Because of the amount of NStars required, and the major amount of profit difference/hour between a Melon Sword and an Eff 7, the block prices need a serious change.

+505

 

+1

 

I agree

 

This is an interesting topic. Farming here on ECC has the ability to make or break the Economy. It's one of the few thing that all users, new or old, do for money.

Melon farming is one of the easiest, most simple ways of making money. I can make 14-15k an hour, for two hours, and watch a movie at the same time. I share a Melon sword with pat2100 (it's his but he lets me mooch off him) and I'd say I've made about 400k total over the last month two months I've had access to it. What does this figure mean to me? I don't view it as I still have $600,000 to go, I view it as $1,400,000. The Melon sword is still something of value. It still has weight. That 400k I wouldn't otherwise have. However, my point it, the sword still represents money. Melon Swords have sale value, and can be sold at any time.

Owning a Melon Sword is, in modern civilization, like owning a sports franchise. You can purchase the franchise, and you'll have some cashflow/profit off of it. You'll me making money. However, you'll never make those 100's of millions that you paid for the franchise.

So why do people do it? Because the franchise represents value. You can sell it later for the same or more than you paid. Lets say, you pay 400m for a team, and keep it for 8 years. At the end of those 8 years, you make 200m, and sell the team for 400m. You never made back the 400m you paid for the team, but that team still had value. It represents money. When you buy a Melon Sword, your money doesn't disappear, it's just represented in the form of an asset.

Now, with regards to the farming it's self. When I said Melon Farming has the capability to break the economy, I really really meant that. There is absolutely no trade for melons, it's basically just printed money. The reason why Japanese currency - USD is about 10-1 is because Japan went through a recession. They basically "printed" money, and the value of each Yen decreased. It became to "common", and thus people with over 1,000,000 Yen wouldn't be considered rich. It can also work with objects as well. Some Nike shoes sell for $1,000+, but there isn't any real difference between them and $100 shoes. What makes them more valuable is their rarity.

What I'm getting at here is we want to keep the value of an Eco-Dollar high, and show how strong the economy is. In a weak economy, Diamonds would cost $500+, and people would have a lot more money, but wouldn't be considered "Rich".

Also, I'd like to point out I was the one who suggested the last farming nerf: http://www.ecocitycraft.com/forum/threads/rank-price-increase.78436/#post-381442

 

+1

 

-1, I feel that if this happened, melons words would cost well over what they do now, which is plenty, mswords cost 750-900k around atm, if this happened they easily go up 2-400k maybe more, they are a very easy way to make $ and shouldn't be made easier

 

I understand your standpoint, as well as the rest of the melon farmers, but in the end, this will not happen. A lot of people like to compare farming to mining. But in essence, you can't. They're two different fields of work and require different things and such. Farming requires very minimal effort and you can watch TV or do whatever, so long as you're not AFK. Mining requires attention. That's why mining makes more money per hour on average, but not consistently. With the recent nerfs in the mining prices, it got hit hard. Making less money per hour, like with the melon nerf. But, a $0.60 increase? That's absurd. At $1.65 already, that's a decent price. Making it more than $2 is outrageous. I'd be able to go with at best a $0.10 increase, but not a $0.60 increase to $2.15. That'll inflate the economy so much. At a $0.60, making each melon worth $2.25, it would make $20,520 an hour. That's outrageous, inflating the economy to smithereens. That makes more than mining, and that's insane. At $1.75 per melon block, it still is a little over the top on the pricing, but much more reasonable than the $20,520 per hour. It will make $15,960 per hour. That's still a lot of money. To the server, a melon sword is only worth $300,000. Not the player value of $1,000,000. Honestly, this shouldn't be added, at all. Farming is a minimal effort job, and makes a decent amount of money. $15,000 is good money, and still enticing to a player to melon farm. I'm against this suggestion. Please rebut me if you think I have something incorrect. Thank you.

-1

 

I can farm around 8725 melons per hour. (Extcommands+ and speed.) At 1.65, this is about 14.4k per hour. At 1.75, it's about 15.3k per hour. I'd be happy with any raise of melon prices.

 

At best, a $0.10 increase would be my maximum as that would satisfy miners, SG players and the melon farmers themselves. Nothing more than $0.10, then you get into arguments and inflation.

 

As players, yes it's only human nature for us to want that increase. We want more money, it's as simple as that. However, with any realistic economy, we have to take into account the affects of the change. Big or small, if a lot of people do it, it's going to have pros and cons. Where do I see them? I'll break it town

Pros

• More people have more money, which means more money circulating the economy. This can be be taken right out if people apply for towns, etc. If towns are applied for, more builders will get jobs, and stay.
• Newer players rely on farming a lot, typically more than mining or any other form of money. Being able to rank up quickly might be attractive to them.
• People will be able to purchase perks, and make the server a nicer place

Cons

• The affects this would/could be drastic. As I said earlier, and increase with farming would be equivalent to printing money into the economy. It leads to inflation which causes serious problems, increases in cost, and weakening of the Eco-Dollar.
• Increasing the price leads to easy semi-afk money for players. I can spend 2 hours doing something completely irrelevant on my laptop, such as watching a movie, and still be farming. In that time span, I could literally "spawn" money into the economy.
• To counter the point earlier about builders being able to rank up quickly, it also makes the server lose it's staying power. If all players can go to Mayor in a week or less, there's really no reason they will stay. There's no challenge, or at least less of one. What made ECC so entertaining for me was the challenge it's self

In conclusion, I think we all want the prices of Melons to go up. Of course we do. However, when we think of the potential impacts that might have, we have to realize what the fate of our economy would be, and how that can change the server.

 

The current price is $1.65, which is, as you say about $15k an hour. If you were to add $0.60 to it then it would be $2.25, a 74% increase. 15000 * 1.74 = 26k. I've got no idea where you got the number 20k from, but you couldn't have been more wrong.
As andrew said in a previous suggestion:

 

Um, $20k is what I got, as well as maco. Here were my calculations:
15,000/60 = 250 (Income per minute)
250/1.65 = 152 (Blocks broken per minute)

152 * 2.25 = 342 (Income per minute at $2.25 per block)
342 * 60 = 20,520 (Income per hour at $2.25 per block)

The calculations are correct. You cannot use fractions in this kind of equation. You have to find the amount of blocks per minute, then multiply the monetary value of the block to get the answer.

 

9000 is unrealistic. Earlier today, I went from 5:55:00 -> 6:00:00 and made $1199.55.