While physics laws may not apply to a game,
as long as human mind has not changed.
The behaviour of players follow economical principles.
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In almost every game,there is a shop for both buying and selling.
Players can buy items from it and sell items to it.
It is obvious that the price it sell to you is much higher than the amount you sell to it.
Now,assume you buy an item and sell it immediately,
you generally suffer a loss.
The loss equals to the difference between the buying price and selling price.
We can call this depreciation.
To be more specific,the depreciation rate in this game is 65%.
It means you suffer a loss of 65% of the buying price of an item if you buy it and sell it immediately.
It is unavoidable but there is method to minimise or at least reduce it.
This method is trade.
As a player,of course we want to get what we want.
If people are rational,
buyers want to buy with the lowest price possible while seller want to sell at the highest price possible.
If the only source of getting an item is from shop,buyers have to pay 100% of the buying price.
Sellers can only have 35% of the buying price back.
This is not favourable to either buyer or seller.
However,the action of trade can benefit both buyer and seller.(only if price lays between 35%~100% of buying price.Otherwise,only one of them is benefited but we assume they will not accept such a trade.)
If they agree to trade at 55% of buying price,the buyer can buy the item with 45% discount.
The seller can have 20% more money returned.
As you can see,a trade benefits both buyer and seller.
In a long run,trading can benefit the whole community.
For price determination,
it is related to demand,supply and elasticity of them.
For more information,you may want to check this:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15
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There is another benefit from trading over buying/selling in-game.
It is the currency flow.
The depreciation you suffer is lost forever,it cannot be retrieved.
But in trade,the amount you pay equals to the amount the other buyer receives.
The currency is conserved.
I know this does not seem to bring the slightest benefit to anyone.
Yes,it does not.
This is the society/community as a whole we talking now.
For an economy to be flourish,it is important to keep the currency flow running.
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This also brings up another interesting conclusion.
The act of self-satisfying eventually improve the society/community.
This is to be cherished because it is not always granted.
In fact,it is more common that we claim something on the cost of having others gave up/failed.
There is one question unanswered,what is the effect of the 60% resale?
Would it change how we trade?
Is it good for all of us?
I may consider answer them when I have time.
Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand