Sweat-economy question...

[QuintusMagnus]

Originally Posted by Tseng

That's the idea behind it. The price including for ME would drop from 2.1 pec now to 1.25-1.5 pec, which would greatly improve the economical value of Offensive Mindforce and bring it on a level almost equal to that of the other weapons.

We have to see it realisticly, the only people who buy ME todays, are the ones who use it too either gain skills for fun (Healing, Focusing Sweaters) or for the Mindforce utilities (Teleport, Warp, Resurrection).

Well yes, the ME market is INCREDIBLY small considering the number of people trying to supply it, so it makes tremendoes sense that the price of ME stays so close to the raw cost (and, consequently, further adds to the downward pressure on sweat prices.)

However, do you really think we'd see a massive increase in MF users? While I believe SOME would come to the market, I doubt there'd be a very large increase in them, though I honestly can't begin to guess that based on anything other than gut feeling.

[Tseng]

We maybe wouldn't have a massivly increase at the start (after/if ever the TT value of Force Nexus got cut by half), but in the long term i'm sure that we will see a massive increase in MindForce, if the price of ME keeps around 120-150%.

A Market value of 120-150% for Mindessence is the factor which will decide about the demand and number MF users. And this price isn't possible under current conditions (because Nexus already costs that much).

[CorwinBS]

Given that sweaters are a cost for MA (as opposed to an income), I've always assumed it is in their best (business) interest to minimize this cost. This would seem to mean they would want to keep sweater's "income" as low as possible, but no lower. I believe .5 pec is probably that floor.

Afaik, the change in sweat mechanics made sweat work like any other "loot", allowing them to exactly control the amount of sweat available in-game at any time. This is borne out by the fact that sweating seems to produce the same amt/hour regardless of who, where or when it's done (there's other threads that demonstrate this, but I'm too lazy to search).

It seems to me that the relative stability of the price of sweat demonstrates that MA is controlling it to the best of their ability; otherwise it should be much more volatile, I'd think.

[Daikiba Old]

Originally Posted by CorwinBS

Given that sweaters are a cost for MA (as opposed to an income)

It doesnt cost MA anything to give out sweat as long as the eco of Mindforce (attack chips) is lower than MA's "cost" for nexus. Sweat is pure player-payed markup for ME

[CorwinBS]

Originally Posted by Daikiba Old

It doesnt cost MA anything to give out sweat as long as the eco of Mindforce (attack chips) is lower than MA's "cost" for nexus. Sweat is pure player-payed markup for ME

It has a real-world cost, for servers, bandwidth and support people, etc. Obviously it's a strategy for MA to gain depositors, but by itself it doesn't generate any monetary input for MA. See other threads for a better argument, but in essence, nothing stops MA from making sweat available @ TT, or simply cutting it out altogether and selling ME directly.

So what I'm saying is that the only benefit MA gets from sweaters is when they deposit (and usually stop sweating). Why wouldn't they want to minimize the period between "starts sweating" and "makes deposit", by keeping sweat prices as low as functionally useful?

[Tseng]

Originally Posted by CorwinBS

Given that sweaters are a cost for MA (as opposed to an income), I've always assumed it is in their best (business) interest to minimize this cost.

Sweaters aren't a cost for MA. Sweat has a value of 0.001 pec, virtually nothing. 1000 Bottles of Sweat are worth 1 pec.

And the 0.5 pec/bottle (500 times the value of the TT) is paid by the Mindforcers. And when they use a Mindforce ability, you can bet that the decay of the Chip + Implant is much higher than 0.001 pec. Basicly Sweaters increase the overall decay. In other words, all decay resulting by use of Mindforce is solely due to the sweaters (No sweat, no ME, no MF, no chip/implant decay).

[Daikiba Old]

Originally Posted by CorwinBS

It has a real-world cost, for servers, bandwidth and support people, etc. Obviously it's a strategy for MA to gain depositors, but by itself it doesn't generate any monetary input for MA. See other threads for a better argument, but in essence, nothing stops MA from making sweat available @ TT, or simply cutting it out altogether and selling ME directly.

So what I'm saying is that the only benefit MA gets from sweaters is when they deposit (and usually stop sweating). Why wouldn't they want to minimize the period between "starts sweating" and "makes deposit", by keeping sweat prices as low as functionally useful?

You are probably right that MA would like to see non-depositing sweaters turn to depositing players, but as tseng said, even non-depositing sweaters also contribute to decay, which SHOULD cover the base costs for keeping a player ingame.
A guy sweats 1000 sweat, sell to a MF user. The sweater spends the 5ped on ammo and goes hunting a bit (=decay). The MF user pays 5 ped for skilling MF (=high decay, very uneco). In fact a higher sweat price would require the MF skiller to deposit more and spend more. If the sweat price was 0.1 instead of 0.5, the sweater would only have 1 ped to spend on ammo and decay, and the MF skiller would only need to spend/deposit 1 ped on his skilling

[CorwinBS]

Ok, you guys really aren't understanding the situation, imo. Forget sweat, there is no sweat. Sweaters don't generate sweat, there is no Nexus to use it with, and there is no Mind Force to spend it on. It's all a bunch of numbers on a computer server somewhere; it's not a real world.

MA is a business unit. They spend money, and they make money, hoping the latter exceeds the former. They spend their cash on looking flash and grabbing our attention, as well as on servers and bandwidth and coders (oh my). The only money they make comes from deposits (ignoring other financial vehicles like loans and stock offerings).

Sweaters do no deposit, therefore they do not generate income. Period (or "full stop", depending on where you live). (The argument that sweat increases the amount paid by depositors for decay & etc is facile; the sweat itself doesn't do that (since there is no sweat) - it's the depositing players who choose to spend their deposited money in that fashion who increase the amount they pay.) Other than the odd skill gain, and the ability to play for free, sweating is entirely pointless for all concerned.

If MA eliminated sweat from the equation, simply selling MF at the TT for 2 PEC, how would depositing players be affected? Wouldn't they be spending roughly the same amount they are now? Wouldn't the game (for depositors) be nearly exactly the same if sweat and sweating simply disappeared?

[Harvest]

This whole thread is sweaty and its making me sweat!

Yes, I would agree that the decay and losses of using a mndforce chip more than make up for the sweat passed out, some one gots to pay for that hanger or starkhov someone sweated to

Originally Posted by CorwinBS

Ok, you guys really aren't understanding the situation, imo. Forget sweat, there is no sweat. Sweaters don't generate sweat, there is no Nexus to use it with, and there is no Mind Force to spend it on. It's all a bunch of numbers on a computer server somewhere; it's not a real world.

I really like this quote

[Rowdoc]

Originally Posted by QuintusMagnus

A potentially useful and at least interesting sweat market question...

Given how sweat price rates have fallen overall in the past four months (please, don't flame me, it's a simple fact that while in October you were "cheating the newbs" if you paid .55 for it whereas now you're "screwing the resellers" if you charge the same), I started thinking about something:

lol, I ask not to be flamed & then calls us all cheats.....I've read enough

Google : Market value