Curse

Olrun The Blade · Jan 30, 2012, 01:46 AM // 01:46

My plan is to sponsor a contest where people are supposed to gather 1750 Delicious Cake. In return for the delicacies, I would give them my EL Reindeer Tonic. My goal is for this to incredibly increase the value of Delicious Cakes. Then, people would use Delicious Cakes to buy and sell items instead of the ecto (it looks like a pink moa bird took a dump). I have basically everything I want in this game, even though I am not rich or anything. I just think this would be amusing. What I want to know, you clever little people you, is whether or not it would work.
The problem is that Delicious Cake isn't really something you can farm. Would it cause an increase in PvP? Am I thinking that such a contest would affect things more than it actually would? Even then, how long would such a change last? Eventually, I'm sure people would go back to the more convenient ecto. But would this last until GW2 comes out, or for any extended period of time?

EDIT: Okay, so I guess the general consensus is that it wouldn't work. As for a couple people wondering why I was thinking about trying it, it was just because I thought it would be entertaining to see people buying and selling stuff with cake. The aim wasn't, as LicensedLuny suggested might happen, just to frustrate people. I just thought it would be a great way to entertain myself in a game where I've done basically everything I wanted to do. I haven't sold the tonic because I just don't need all that money and wouldn't know what to do with it all if I ever had it. I would just buy stuff that was essentially the same as I had just sold. I just thought that this might be entertaining, which I would see as worth it. Seeing as it wouldn't work, I won't do it. Thanks for your feedback.

Also, in case you were wondering, I chose Delicious Cake because the item itself is a reference to the video game Portal.

The Mountain · Jan 30, 2012, 02:08 AM // 02:08

it would work fantastically for you, if you had a bunch of stockpiled cake

but no, I don't think it would last too long...I'm guessing a month max until someone gathered the sweets.

JONO51 · Jan 30, 2012, 08:58 AM // 08:58

1 thing I've learned: Never, ever, underestimate what other people have. I guarantee there's one crazy guy out there who's kept 2.5k cake for w/e reason. I would guess the tonic would be gone a lot quicker than you'd hope.

LicensedLuny · Jan 30, 2012, 11:57 AM // 11:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Olrun The Blade

My plan is to sponsor a contest where people are supposed to gather 1750 Delicious Cake. In return for the delicacies, I would give them my EL Reindeer Tonic. My goal is for this to incredibly increase the value of Delicious Cakes. Then, people would use Delicious Cakes to buy and sell items instead of the ecto (it looks like a pink moa bird took a dump). I have basically everything I want in this game, even though I am not rich or anything. I just think this would be amusing. What I want to know, you clever little people you, is whether or not it would work.
The problem is that Delicious Cake isn't really something you can farm. Would it cause an increase in PvP? Am I thinking that such a contest would affect things more than it actually would? Even then, how long would such a change last? Eventually, I'm sure people would go back to the more convenient ecto. But would this last until GW2 comes out, or for any extended period of time?

Will it work to make cake an alternative currency like ecto? No. At best, you'll create a spike in the "fair market value" of cake until someone wins. Then, depending how many people you had trying to win, there could be a crash in the "fair market value" as it corrects to whatever the going rates are now. Anyone with a lot of cake already will either hold onto them trying to get enough to win or sell them off for cash or ecto trying to take advantage of the temporary price spike you caused (or hold onto them for their own collection-based reasons for wanting them, opting for their own silly game instead of your silly game.) After the contest, the only people who still want to buy cakes or might consider accepting them in trade are the ones who want them now. Once this contest is over, we're back to the same supply and demand for cake we had before. 1750 cakes is nothing compared to the total number of ectos over all inventories in the entire game.

Would it cause a surge of buy spam for delicious cake? Probably, yeah. Would it cause a surge of buy spam for the zaishen gifts? Possibly, yeah, too. Would it cause a surge of activity in the PvP formats that offer those gifts? I doubt it would be a significant surge; there have been a lot of other attempts offering more significant total value to many players compared to the total value you'd be offering the winner. So far, as I understand it, none of the attempts to lure players into PvP by offering direct plat or items desirable in player-to-player trade have really worked to bring significantly more players into the folds of those who actually care about and enjoy PvP, and I'm talking about attempts by ANet which offer incentives to every player in the game. Would it be amusing or of entertainment value? That depends on what amuses or entertains you.

As you mentioned, there's no easy way to farm those cakes. I predict most people would look at the sources and fair market value of cakes, look at your 1750 number, and write it off as a goal they're not willing or able to achieve. Some people would think, "yeah! I can totally do that!" and start spamming to buy cakes like mad, which would drive up the prices temporarily while the contest was running. A smaller group of people might decide to take advantage of the spike and sell existing or powertrade cakes for the temporarily higher going rates. You'd see all sorts of speculation in the delicious cake market for a while there.

When someone finally gets the seven stacks together and wins that tonic, the price will go back down. We'll see a surge of sell spam for cakes then from the folks who had managed to gather lots but not quite seven stacks. You're creating a new demand that will disappear as soon as someone wins. I doubt your proposal will significantly affect supply. So once the demand you created is gone, I think there will be quite a few people left holding cake they paid more to buy than the remaining market will offer. (Other than your contest, their only practical use is as 50pt-per-double-click spam sweets, right? I know of two people collecting them for no reason nearly so practical, just lulz. I doubt you can consider them a significant portion of the market.)

I predict there will be a lot of whining like, "Damn lowballers won't pay me what my cakes are worth!" Would that be amusing? Well, I would probably crack a grin while shaking my head when it happened, I admit that. Personally, I'd not be all that comfortable or amused if I felt like I'd had anything to do with intentionally causing that, though. But it's your tonic and your choice how to give it away. Reading your proposal, I'm having trouble figuring out what you're looking to get out of this. It sounds awfully manipulative ... like finding entertainment in others' struggles. That's not something I'd want to do, myself, but I think you risk breaking only your own rules with such a game.

David Moonbow · Jan 30, 2012, 12:23 PM // 12:23

well if u increase the quantity a bit more and note as JONO51 says there are ppl with enough of random stockpiled stuff and cakes not a bad thing to have stocks in i think i mite have like 4-5 stacks of it.

will be a minor surge for minor period of time and again ppl who already are ahead will have head start on everyone else and overpay whatever to get the remaining down since the ultimate price in reindeer so once that is done... everything will fall back to place