Exchange Doubloons <--> Reales

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

People are asking for an opportunity to change Doubloons and Reales as they see fit. No big deal if you take a fixed exchange rate, but I suggest something more interesting and going further: the exchange for currencies, based on fluctuations on the market (gamer community driven). Access from every port.

How could this be done?

At the beginning, devs define a reasonable exchange rate. Maybe the relation historically Doubloons had opposite Reales. The game will note for each server how many players exchanged money between maintenances and will adjust the exchange rate and thus the value. So, if more Doubloons were asked than Reales, the rate will shift towards more value to Doubloons and make Reales cheaper. If players on a server 'war' or 'peace' express a higher demand for Reales than the day before, course will change with next maintenance towards more value to Reales and decrease value of Doubloons.

Capitalists even could start speculating in Doubloons or Reales, hoping for a higher value when they change back. The amount of money you exchange does influence the exchange rate. So someone who buys 1000 Doubloons executes a stronger influence than someone buying 50 Doubloons. The movements however are anonymous and you don't hear afterwards who did what to influence the rate. New exchange rate simply gets updated with every maintenance without any comment.

If things go really out of control and the course is doing some kind of tulip craze market crash (illustration from those times) devs can intervene and regulate the price back to origin. But this should only happen in extreme situations.

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

Hey, that's also good for trading in labor contracts, now as we don't have a labor office any more. Demand regulates prices, or how much the unseen workers get for their time in our services. Many entrepreneurs asking for workforce = price for labor hour packages rising. Less entrepreneurs asking for workforce = prices dropping, unemployment, wages suffer.

[Hethwill]

In Market players can buy and sell dubloons, theoretically exchanging them.

I understand the want of a fixed mechanic, but i do not dislike the player made exchange market for War server.

[Fargo]

4 hours ago, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

In Market players can buy and sell dubloons, theoretically exchanging them.

Players cant print them. Npcs can.

[Hethwill]

4 hours ago, Fargo said:

Players cant print them. Npcs can.

Correct. Captains already selling dubloons on the market by the hundreds and thousands, for reals.

So, captains that want to exchange reals for dubloons can buy them, and if you want reals you can sell them.

[Fargo]

6 hours ago, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

Correct. Captains already selling dubloons on the market by the hundreds and thousands, for reals.

So, captains that want to exchange reals for dubloons can buy them, and if you want reals you can sell them.

Havent seen this yet. Hundreds to thousands also isnt much. When just a few players want to buy doubloons for the next 1-2 ships, we are talking about 100k demand already.

The point is that players still own the inflated gold/reals. Why should they sell any valuable materials for reals. And doubloons are as much a currency as teak logs are. Both is mainly a crafting material. Why arent players selling teak logs? Or are they? In general such materials are stockpiled, not sold.

I guess for newer players its profitable to sell their doubloon for lots of reals, cause they dont own 500k reals from prepatch. Or when you dont need doubloon stuff, cause youre just using 5th rates nevertheless, you would probably sell them. What price are those doubloons selling for?

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

7 hours ago, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

Correct. Captains already selling dubloons on the market by the hundreds and thousands, for reals.

So, captains that want to exchange reals for dubloons can buy them, and if you want reals you can sell them.

However, these micromarket exchanges don't affect the currency rate, like it would be with a centralized register for transactions of this kind, as my proposal of the 'currency exchange' in the way a stock market functions suggests. I like the idea of a fluctuating value and speculation opportunities in that.

[Hethwill]

The Stock market idea, that directly affects currency value relating to commodities is a good one and fairly complex though, but is doable.

Given some commodities affects directly the performance of vessels - especially module building resources - those are fixed and ever higher prices which in turn can "cheat" the dynamic stock and in those i foresee a problem.

[Hethwill]

2 hours ago, Fargo said:

What price are those doubloons selling for?

You can check La Tortue for prices but they are really wild *chuckles*

Honestly i'd say fair and square exchange would be 8 pieces of silver buying one piece of gold  but this isn't the real world, so... think like this... how much is 9000 Dubloons worth to you ? How much do you really want that 74 gun ship ? That's their price.

[William Livingston Alden]

20 hours ago, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

In Market players can buy and sell dubloons, theoretically exchanging them.

 

That's not the point here in the game. When you want to build a first rate you need a huge of doubloons ( 12k and more) for that. So how want you achieve that. that's nearly impossible, even for hardcore player and clans when you must build for instance 10 first rate for a port battle.

Wait when the people realize that! That is the final nail in the coffin of this game. New player will quit this game in a short time, when they see that.

And when you plan to buy doubloons via DLC then the rest of players will quit.

 

[Hethwill]

Not contesting your opinion. Just pointing there's a way.

[William Livingston Alden]

1 minute ago, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

Not contesting your opinion. Just pointing there's a way.

not every way is the correct way, even when you point on it.

[Hethwill]

2 minutes ago, William Livingston Alden said:

not every way is the correct way, even when you point on it.

Oh definitely. Especially in your opinion, and mine. We might disagree on many things.

I am certain you believe your own game design to be better than everyone else's  as i do believe myself.

Alas have to play with what developers design.

Fact is, there's a player made economy for currency exchange and that you cannot deny. You may ignore and don't care about it, but hey... that's what we have at the moment.

[SirAlatriste]

I totally agree.

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

1 hour ago, William Livingston Alden said:

And when you plan to buy doubloons via DLC then the rest of players will quit.

I hear that in global chat all the time and regard it as nasty rumors, which is damaging the game's reputation. Or do you have evidence this is planned?

[AngryPanCake]

I think some sort of in game exchange for Reals/Doubloons would be a great addition to the overall economy. Not asking for an official fixed rate, but more like a market exchange where players can place their currency contracts.

The way I see it is that some players are mostly traders, others mostly warriors. The traders make the Reals, the warriors make the Doubloons. So an in game system to help bring these 2 types together in order to acquire what they don't have would be great. Maybe a section in each Admiralty where people can place their contracts

Right now there is an official Exchange tab at the admiralty where players can purchase LC and VM for D's. If we can have a PvP Exchange tab where players are allowed to place exchange contracts such as: 1000 R for 100 D or 5000 D for 10M R...etc. Whatever the player feels he/she wants the value of the exchange to be.

The drawback will be mainly for the PvP server, as many traders/crafters will not be enticed to go out into the OW to earn D's. However, it will expand the PvP side of the economy (especially on the PvE server).

[AngryPanCake]

To answer my own suggestion:

After further exploring the Shop interface, there is actually a tab for Coins & (...) something. I am not sure if it's for currency exchange or what, but Place Contract allows players to buy Doubloons for Reals. So it seems like what we were talking about in this thread is already there, just need to have people start placing contracts for Doubloons and a value will start appearing according to offer/demand.

[vazco]

On 11/3/2018 at 6:21 PM, Cetric de Cornusiac said:

People are asking for an opportunity to change Doubloons and Reales as they see fit. No big deal if you take a fixed exchange rate, but I suggest something more interesting and going further: the exchange for currencies, based on fluctuations on the market (gamer community driven). Access from every port.

Maybe you haven't noticed, but what you propose is already implemented in a simple and neat way. Everyone can buy/sell doublons for reals in ports. Supply and demand will stabilize the price, which is way better than anything devs could arbitrally do.

Right now price for doublons is appros 150-350 reals. It will stabilize with time, as now most people don't have a lot of either reals or doublons.

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

15 hours ago, AngryPanCake said:

To answer my own suggestion:

After further exploring the Shop interface, there is actually a tab for Coins & (...) something. I am not sure if it's for currency exchange or what, but Place Contract allows players to buy Doubloons for Reals. So it seems like what we were talking about in this thread is already there, just need to have people start placing contracts for Doubloons and a value will start appearing according to offer/demand.

On an individual level, yes. But this is not what the suggestion is about. No stock market type, producing an exchange rate for the day everyone can check with one mouse click.

Also, I was seeking to combine this with an floating exchange rate for your labor contracts right next to the doubloon <-> reales exchange rate.

Edited November 5, 2018 by Cetric de Cornusiac

[Hethwill]

Saw macjimm wanting dubloons, he place a contract for them ( i won't disclose the price in reals he was paying ).

Knowing him as a dedicated trader, i had absolutely no problem in fulfilling his contract for 200(?) dubloons in exchange for his Reals.

Worked perfect.

[Fargo]

3 hours ago, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

Saw macjimm wanting dubloons, he place a contract for them ( i won't disclose the price in reals he was paying ).

Knowing him as a dedicated trader, i had absolutely no problem in fulfilling his contract for 200(?) dubloons in exchange for his Reals.

Worked perfect.

What price?

You seem to not understand how this works. The market isnt working based on honest people figuring out fair prices. Prices develop based on competition. No matter how experienced you are, you cant just figure out what a reasonable price is. When there are no contracts/competition, all you can do is set the first price very low/high. So you probably made a bad deal there.

That there is zero competition on local markts has several reasons. From inflation (why sell something today thats worth 10% more tomorrow?), over contract fee (up to10% fee each time you need to adjust a contract price), to bad design (few professions allowing easy self supply, etc.). 

It was for example always about knowing the labor value in gold. You could find this out by looking at actual market prices, and see that e.g. ships usually sold for about 100 gold/LH. Then you could figure out what a reasonable price would be for every single labor based good. What was important when you tried to buy/sell something for that competition was very low, like materials, cannons or other ships. Otherwise you would pay the fee each time you need to adjust the price. What you could do constantly without contract fees to figure out when a good starts selling, or players start selling to you.

Again doubloons are mainly a crafting material, not a currency. And because local trade has so many issues, people mostly supply themselfes, and stockpile materials. If you could buy the ship you need from the market for reals, you could sell your doubloons. But you cant, so people dont sell them. A major reason that you cant sell anything for profit is that people dont rely on your labor/goods, as long as they have labor contracts. When they dont like the market price, they can use labor contracts to craft it themselfes. And they can even trade the contracts to their friend if they arent a shipbuilder themselfes. So prices drop until it becomes impossible to sell anything with any margin. The effect of labor inflation caused by labor contracts, that didnt get wiped.

Edited November 5, 2018 by Fargo

[Hethwill]

24 minutes ago, Fargo said:

You seem to not understand how this works.

... i saw someone wanting to exchange reals for dubloons by means of the market...

aka - "I give X reals for each of your dubloons!"

Is there anything else i need to understand ?

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

To spice this thing here a bit up: labor contracts could be put on the market by anyone, not like it used to be those with a 'labor office', by cutting down your own regenerative labor hours.

Say, you have 1209 labor hours at this minute.

You could chop off a 500 hours package or two 500 hours package and throw them on the market, leaving to yourself 709 or 209 hours respectively. So no socialist state distribution of hours but let's imagine your slaves (huh, we lived in political incorrect times there in the 18th century...) or 'workers' are being lent to another entrepreneur who pays you for their services to him.

And those packages, in my stock market idea, have a fluctuation worth on all labor contracts currently offered in the Caribbean. Many projects = high wages. Not so many projects/unemployment = low wages.

[Fargo]

44 minutes ago, Cetric de Cornusiac said:

To spice this thing here a bit up: labor contracts could be put on the market by anyone, not like it used to be those with a 'labor office', by cutting down your own regenerative labor hours.

Once again, labor must not be tradable! The production capacity of each person needs to be limited. 

1 hour ago, Hethwill the Red Duke said:

... i saw someone wanting to exchange reals for dubloons by means of the market...

aka - "I give X reals for each of your dubloons!"

Is there anything else i need to understand ?

That even if this guy is a dedicated trader, he cannot determine the value of doubloons. And that he wont ask a fair price if competition isnt forcing him to do so.

Also that reals and the whole economy are probably redundant for you, so you just filled that contracte because you had enough doubloons you wont need... Just tell me what the price was, and we can test it.

[Hethwill]

Correct ! He paid what he sees the dubloons are worth for him. And you can see for yourself the prices offered in LA Tortue... La Mona...etc and make your own judgement.

A automatic exchange versus player made exchange. What is your preffered method ?