PED and You: Why New Players Should Avoid the Trade Terminal Whenever Possible

Good day everyone,

As promised, this Sunday I am focusing on a more "issue-driven" post and less of an update. For those of you who aren't already aware, I'm setting a new posting schedule! I will be doing one "Update" post each week on Wednesday, and one "Issues" post each Week on Sundays. I feel this will give you, the readers, predictable times to check the site and give me ample time to bring you quality content.

That being said, let's dive into the topic for today. Recently I have had a lot of people asking me things like "Why are you focusing on sweat so much?" and "Are you sure you're pushing the right ideas?"

And to be honest, I'm glad that question has been asked. As I outlined in my blog which proposes that traders buy sweat at 4 ped/k , the price of sweat is important in EU for a lot of reasons, and MindArk is very specific about making sure that sweat always has some value - and I believe that value should be higher. But what good does that actually do for us? I mean, sure, it get's some PEDs into the hands of newer players, but won't that also drive up crafting costs and cause other problems?

Nope. And that's what this blog is about today. We're going to talk about the overall impact of sweat price on the economy of Entropia and how new players (and player retention) affect the business owners and traders of EU. In other words, I want to tell you why helping new players put PED in their pocket is good for your business, too.

Let's start with sweat.

The price of sweat has a great deal of importance to the economy of the game that extends far beyond the obvious. The price of sweat is more than just the number that sweat trades at. It's a measure of how lively our economy is.

How, you ask?

Well, it's actually pretty simple. Sweat value is (essentially) a measure of how much PED is in the hands of new players, which directly correlates to how often those new players are buying and selling - and, more importantly, where those players are buying their products from.

Let me explain that in a little more detail. 

Sweat demand is relatively constant, and because of this, value is often determined by the current volume of players still in the "sweating Phase" of their career. Often we see the value of PED begin to decrease as MindArk ramps up their advertising efforts. The more players that are sweating, the higher the supply of sweat. This results in the sellers becoming more competitive to win over their buyers, who are frequently over-saturated. At the end of the day, the value of sweat begins to drop.

New players frequently have a hard time making ends meat when this occurs ( we see it happen most often when MindArk pushes for new players) and the turnover rate skyrockets. Of course, MindArk could fix this by increasing demand through new recipes, etc., but it's safe to assume that they won't do that for a number of reasons.

Therefore, it's on the buyers to buy higher. Naturally, no buyer wants to hear "hey,spend more money" - but there is a good, and profitable reason for it.

When a player sweats an animal and sells their sweat, they want to be sure that their hard-earned PEDs are spent in the most efficient way possible. Often times, for new players, this means buying a gun from the Trade Terminal, some ammo, and heading out to begin skilling. Although this seems like a good scenario, there is a negative:

The PED that the player just spent on that gun is gone forever.

It has been filtered out of the economy and into MindArk's wallet through the Trade Terminal. Now, don't get me wrong, I know MindArk needs to make their money - however, it's absolutely vital that the economy has a healthy balance of TT purchases and Player trade for our sake. When sweat PED disappears into the Trade Terminal, it slows down the economy, because that PED is not making it's way up to the traders and shop owners.

If newer players have more PED in their hands, they're less likely to buy from the trade terminal and more likely to buy from other players. This is nothing but beneficial to the economy and is the effect that the "4 PED / K" push is trying to produce.  

Imagine for a second that it was possible cut TT purchases in half, and re-allocate all the PED spent at the TT to the auction house and the Entropia Shops. The positive benefit that would have on our economy would be staggering! The trading profession would explode, and PED would really begin to move around the world. The way to make something like this happen is to start at the bottom and put money into the hands of those people who can't currently afford to make purchases.

In this way, raising the price of sweat is like raising the minimum wage in the real world. If you bring up the value, you bring up the level of "expendable income" a player has.... and that expendable income will make it's way back to you, the trader.

The Greater Economy

In this past week, a number of people have expressed concern over my sweat proposal, telling me that "If sweat goes up, my crafting costs will go up and it will be harder to turn a profit".

The reality is that this is only partially true, and is only a logical observation when considered in the short term. Let's say for a second that the price of sweat went up to my proposed 4 PED / 1000 units, and let's assume (for the sake of argument) that the main gatherers of this resource are non-depositors. For the sake of argument, we'll take a sample of 1,000 of these people.

Now, let's say that these 1,000 people each collect 5,000 units of sweat. Under the current conditions, this will net the player about 10 PED of sweat (give or take).

That's enough to get yourself a TT gun and some ammo. This sounds fine, but if this is the 8th time that a player does this, they begin to run into a few issues:

• They may no longer be in the learning period for that weapon
• They are likely getting tired of grinding the same creatures
• and of course, that PED is gone now.

and all three things will contribute to new player turnover and a slow economy.

But now, let's say that the say the same player makes 20 PED off of their sweat. Now, instead of buying a TT gun, perhaps they'll visit the auction house, and buy a more advanced gun from you, the trader. They'll be able to hunt new mobs, continue to skill, get better loot, and maybe put that last ingredient you need up on Auction for cheap.

So, maybe you invested an extra 2 PED to purchase your sweat - but if you're selling twice as much product, you'll make that up in your margins and then some. Knowing that, it's clear that raising the price of sweat has a positive benefit all the way around, and this, of course, is why we want to make it happen.

To add to this, I also can't stress enough the importance of guiding new players to buy from other players before buying from the Trade Terminal. Mentors specifically should be sure to let others know about this. At the end of the day, the ultimate goal here is to keep PED in the economy, and the TT is one of the biggest consumers of economy-stimulating PED there is.

Conclusion, and The Road Ahead

At the end of the day, I'm basically trying to get across one key point: help keep as much PED flowing in the game as you can. The more money that changes hands, the better, and every idea I have put forth on this blog has worked towards that goal. 

Entropia Revival Project is about a lot more than just sweat, of course. We want to stimulate the economy as a whole, and this post is my segway into that by demonstrating how the price of sweat can affect us all positively. That being said, this will be the last post for a while on the price of sweat. I think I've hit this point from all angles, and starting next week, I will be moving on to some other important topics. A few of these big topics are going to include: 

• Mall Shops, and why you should buy from them
• A Broad Overview of PED flow and the intricacies of trade
• A Review of the 2015 State of the Universe
• CLDs, how plots work and how they have brought a substantial level of value to the game

and I will be posting these every Sunday, so keep an eye out. As always, please let me know your thoughts. I'm looking forward to hearing from all of you!

Good Luck Out There,
-Faucon