Whether an item release is "good" or "bad" for the economy.
 

From the scavenger hunt, it's become clear that neither Maroku nor Tig seem to have a genuinely logical way of determining whether or not an item release is "good" or "bad" for the economy, and just go off of what they "feel". I myself also cannot say for certain whether something is objectively "good" or "bad" for the economy, because it depends on how you define "good" or "bad". I do, however, have a method that I use which I believe is far more developed than any method used by the staff.

My definition of "good" and "bad": Something is good for the economy if it increases the amount of "value" in the economy, something is bad for the economy if it decreases the amount of "value" in the economy.

How I measure how an item release changes the amount of "value" in the economy:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...lueformula.png

Obviously, this formula requires explanation.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v46/googi/deltaV.png - This is the overall change in value in the economy as a result of the addition of the new item. I (and most people) measure value in diamonds, but we can use platinum, RoWs, or any other item that has value so long as we use it throughout the rest of the equation and the item being used doesn't have its value affected by the item addition.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...recteffect.png - This part measures the direct effect of the item addition. That is, the effect on the quantity and value of the item being added. qn is the quantity of the item in the economy after the item addition, and vn is the value of the item after the item addition. qo and vo are the quantity and value of the item before the addition. The addition of a brand new item always has a positive direct effect unless vn = 0.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...recteffect.png - This part measures and adds the indirect effect of the item addition. That is, the effect of the item addition on the value of other items. qi is the quantity of the item in the economy, and delta vi is the change in value of the item as a result of the item addition. The indirect effect can sometimes be considerable. For example the release of Moon Shields is considered to have reduced the value of Dustari Shields a great deal.

Short version: If tripling the amount of an item in the economy results in its value being cut in half and has no affect on other items, it would be good for the economy to have that item's amount trippled. If doubling the amount of an item in the economy results in the value of that item being cut to a third of what it was, it would be bad for the economy to have that item's amount doubled.

There are a number of problems with this method that I should point out:

1. It requires that the item being used to measure "value" not be affected by the item addition. This generally wouldn't be a problem, but could be if we were talking about an item addition that was going to change the value of diamonds.

2. It only looks at the change in value in the economy, not how evenly the economy's total "value" is distributed among the players.

3. It isn't clear how to define whether or not an item is "in the economy". Are all items that exist "in the economy"? Only those on active accounts? Only those people are willing to sell?

4. It would be almost impossible to measure the variables needed to actually use the equation numerically, and it's completely impossible to accurately predict what the variables will be. Therefore it can only be used as a guideline for how to think about item additions.

It should also be noted that this method can be used for any item addition, not just those done by the staff (this is a good thing about it).

Despite the problems with it, I think it would be good if staff were to use this method as a "rule of thumb" when considering item additions. You can see me using this method when I've supported/opposed/questioned changes that would influence the quanitity and value of items. For example, I opposed making Ice Dagger easily craftable because it would destroy its value and therefore decrease the amount of value in the economy regardless of how many Ice Daggers were created (a million times zero is zero), yet I was silent when they were given out on Halloween because I wasn't sure whether the quantity-value balance would work out positively or negatively.

Regarding Maroku's scavenger event, I think it would have increased the total value in the economy and should have been allowed to continue.

The reason I didn't allow Maroku to continue his event with the given prizes was because had already given out a Tainted Grace, Inferno Dagger, Great Leaf Shield, Talefung, and more. Keep in mind, these are all supposed to remain rare in the economy. Understand that an over stimulation of anything will eventually ruin any economy and decrease the value of the overall economy. Handing out an excessive amount of items destroys the competitive balance that GK's economy contains. There's absolutely no reason and no explanation as to why any event should be able to hand out that many rare items at once, and that's why I requested that it stopped. It would be different if GK's economy was formed differently and didn't mainly rely on competition, I'd like to change that some day soon, but releasing a plethora of rare items is not the way to do it. It takes strategic planning and careful consideration.

Releasing a lot of different rare items into the economy is very different from releasing a lot of a single rare items into the economy. As I saw it the likely end result would be a lot of rare items released with each retaining most of its value because only 1 to 3 of each item was likely to be released and there were no copies of most of the items on the market anyways.

I require further reading. Does this formula have a designation?

No. I created it, and I only created it to illustrate a concept.

I think the prizes given out by Maroku's event were adequate for the difficulty of the event, but it should of been limited to 2 or 3 winners, with the first getting the most valuable ect.

AFTER the 3 winners it should of gone to say 10ec for completing, or having 2 dice and rolling a number as a winning prize, then after that that prize is replaced by EC.

I think we have a bigger problem about kingdoms rather then giving out the items, but rather people hording them completely removing them from the economy and jacking the price so high that nobody can buy them without resorting to the magical USD method.

I don't think that there was something wrong with the event and it's items. It was actually nice and also fit for what you had to do. An event that goes over 3 days deserves such good things to win. If they are old or not doesn't matter but if they are not around anymore why not put them back.

An otherwise one of a kind item for a scavenger hunt? Not even hard items were needed, it was just time consuming. A FID should be the most valuable thing being given out, not things like Talefung and Great Leaf.

first , you cant control my events without my agree tig, you just made a suggestion and I said its ok.

on the 12 july all ppl who still complete the new scavenger list gets a chance to win a rare item but only 1 more will be evented off.

It didn't take days to complete. People completed it in a matter of 4-7 hours. Other people who didn't complete it was only because they were busy with irl stuff. I agree that an event that lasts that long should receive a good prize, but not everybody who does it.


That's stupid. There is a good reason as to why this was changed, and you're ruining it. Just because everyone complains doesn't mean you just go and continue listening to them. You already evented off 5 very rare items, why must you continue to do more damage?

This isn't very respectful of you, Maroku. I told you that I would take the responsibility if the players were upset and now look how you're treating me.

if its a scavenger hunt, OBVIOUSLY theres going to be people who can just buy all the items off people in a matter of 7 hours (way to pull 4 hours out of your ass). now those are the only people who get a good prize? i played like 6 hours yesterday to try and get this **** and now its 10 goddamn event coins.
way to **** up on every level, goddamn retards

I easily spent 12 hours mining and working for my prize. If you had started when I did, and worked as hard/fast as I did, you would have gotten a prize.

The event shouldn't have been so unorganized to begin with. So I have two choices:

A.) Just let tons of rare items be released (which would have probably been over 15 rare, overpowered items released by now, destroying a lot of competitive balance of GK's economy).
B.) Stop the destruction of our economy, but in turn upset some of the players.

It was an easy choice. Try to look at it from both angles.

Do people only go after items because they're rare on GK, regardless of the item's performance or what?

Pretty much ... an Inferno Dagger isn't much better than an Ice Dagger.

(aka several thousand diamonds versus thirty)