@TimmyBoyT Darn, I think I made it home before 10pm PDT, but don't see you online. =(

Yeah, I had to turn in early tonight was pretty much nonstop trades all evening on top of an already long day. I'll try and jump on soon once I get some rest.

After today I think I'm going to drop the gold trade. I have enough gold blocks to last me for 10 years it feels like lol.

@Rybye Ill buy vip +, when can you be online?

I'll be on in about 12 hours. Please see my times in original post.

As for everyone else just send me a PM or find me during that time in the next few days.

@Qluue Are we allowed to buy VIP or VIP+ for other players using our blocks?

Sure. It's only limited $50 to a character. Nothing to stop you from buying it multiple times for various people. The goal is to spread the wealth here.

@Qluue Is the slime block = 0.40$ equals 0.40$ per stack?

No, everything is per item. A stack of slime blocks would get you $25.60 using the rates above.
Although your question makes me wonder if I underpriced everything. Oh well, I'm sticking to them.

Because there were so many interested last time, and my last trade event ended so soon, I'm opening this up once more (with adjusted prices) while I still have some free time. This one runs through until April 16. I'll make the effort to be on sometime from 3am-6am GMT (7pm - 10pm PDT), unless we can work out a time to trade through PM.

Rules are similar to before: I'm willing to trade VIP/VIP+ status to players in exchange for items in game. You give me stuff (see list below), and I'll turn around and gift you a Crafty Mynes rank.

1. Limit $50 per character - I want as many folks to benefit from this as possible with my budget.

2. I'm still a simple man, and I will conduct trades one at a time. As such expect to wait for a few minutes before getting a trade with me if there's multiple folks on looking to trade.

3. For those new to rank updates, it takes up to 5 minutes for the rank to push through (and you don't need to be online for this to happen). Expect me to stick around to verify for myself you got your requested rank either in game if you're still on, or through the CM website if you're not.

4. If you're a white name and buy VIP upgrade, you become VIP. If you're VIP and get it, you become VIP+. If you're already VIP+, your rank lasts for an extra month.

5. If I have the time to do it, I plan to add your name to a list to be added later on this post to document my trades.

The trades:
Based on the last event's trades, I have adjusted and simplified my list and prices.

VIP/VIP+ upgrade - 45 diamond blocks
VIP+ - 80 diamond blocks
1/4 server bill - 150 diamond blocks

And of course, the a la carte option: mix and match what's below to reach the desired price (rounded down to nearest cent dollar). Keep in mind VIP/VIP+ upgrade is $15, VIP+ is $25, and 1/4 server bill is $50. And of course piggy bank is an amount in dollar increments.

Diamond block = $0.30
Iron Block = $0.02
Gold Block = $0.75 == No more gold! I've had my fill, thanks ==
Obsidian = $0.05
Beacon = $4.00
Leather = $0.03
Elytra (50%+ durability, enchants not needed) = $1.00
Gunpowder = $0.08
Slime Block = $0.40
Shulker Shell = $0.50 (no more shulker boxes plz!)

Please stick to list, no substitutions or alternatives.

Same as last time, please PM me your offers and to coordinate a time. Otherwise I'll see you on CM!

--- ===List of buyers === ---

1. HustL: 192 Obsidian + 16 shulker shells, {VIP rank}
2. Fluxated: 150 Diamond Blocks, {1/4 server bill}
3. Shiba_Ina, 137 Diamond Blocks + 1 Beacon, { $50 donated to IRL charity}
4. OPtimusjag, 22 shulker shells + beacon + 20 gold blocks, {2x VIP+ upgrade}
5. r4iscool1, 150 Diamond Blocks, {1/4 server bill}
6. Rybye, 67 gold blocks, {1/4 server bill}
7. Zane_Truesdale, 150 Diamond Blocks, {1/4 server bill}
8. just_a_penguin, 150 Diamond Blocks, { $50 donated to IRL charity}
9. Agent on behalf of TopsNeverStops, 20 gold blocks, {VIP upgrade}
10. Ponze, 67 gold blocks, {1/4 server bill}
11. TimmyBoyT, 128 Slime Blocks, {1/4 server bill}
12. Carl_Sagan1, 50 Iron Blocks, 20 Diamond Blocks, 20 Obsidian, 56 gold blocks, {1/4 server bill}
13. Anon1, {1/4 server bill}
14. FireBurst_101, 40 Diamond blocks, 37 gold blocks, 3 elytras, 10 slime blocks, 192 Iron Blocks, {VIP+}
15. Anon2, {VIP+}
16. sirchristopher10, 1000 obsidian, {1/4 server bill}
17. _confederacy_, 576 obsidian, 448 leather, 128 gunpowder, {1/4 server bill}
18. Agent of behalf of Julipukki, 1000 obsidian, {1/4 server bill}
19. MasaruCyri, 45 Diamond Blocks, {VIP+ upgrade}

@HaloNest thanks so much jkeller for helpibsng, right now I can tell you my internet stats:

ping 83 ms download time 0.26 mpbs upload time 0.32 mp

im not an expert but I'm assuming those are really shitty stats

@JKELLER4000

also doing alt+ctrl+del I can see my network is 0% being used

Quality of connection seems good, but your bandwidth took a nosedive. I'd put money on a competing device in your house, or software recently installed on your machine (with or without your permission) taking up your speed. Also check into R4's suggestion. Your provider may have clamped down on your speed.

Try turning off all other devices in house and try again. Try another online game to see if the issue persists across games. Lastly, if you're doing Wifi, try a direct cable to your modem and see if that changes anything.

There's a ton of possibilities what it could be ranging from hardware, software, or IP issues. Malware, other competing devices, Your IP throttling back the bandwidth, or even the modem failing. Maybe if you remember the last Time having a good connection you may be able to track the culprit that way.

@CraftyMyner When I entered, I was only testing to see if the system was working (giving out and limiting tickets) I never thought I would have won.

I was pretty surprised too, but after thinking about it, I figure that it's better to have Crafty or staff enter in the rare chance if it's ever just you in the lottery. That way you're always guaranteed to win more than you put in.

@JKELLER4000 So what is the M0 supply of diamonds?

That is beyond the scope of my study unfortunately. I am only able to observe through a small peephole, the diamonds as they pass hands. This allows for me to determine accepted prices, perceived values, and the average velocity to which the diamonds move between players (if I had bothered to quantify that in the study). As far as how much altogether is behind the door, I don't know without going into some economic theory, which I have little experience in.

@JKELLER4000 Has the rarity of diamonds mining started producing any M1 diamond supplies?

I know lots of players are not active(some odd 1k+ new players each month but only about 30 active players). but it would be extremely cool if more people were willing to sell on credit!

I would say no M1 alt currencies. Players have been fine acquiring the diamonds through trades, raids, or mining. and it's been increasing as more players mine out the diamonds. I don't see M1 diamonds out there but I also don't see the diamond as an overly rare currency.

@OtherGreenGamer I'll write down every order I take or give for the next month ish. Once you're ready I can send it your way @Valgys (Keep in mind there won't be any names given besides mine)

Thanks, but this concludes my study. Unfortunately I will lose the free time to follow this farther and decompose into graphs and analyses. You can always study your own trades as a subset to the economy though!

@GrinningBobcat @Valgys this could be more accurate if you asked people at trade post what they traded,

You're absolutely right it would be more accurate if I asked the players at the trading post. However, it would become more of a chore to log on only to survey players at the Trade Post, and besides the time spent to do it, how many are willing to talk to me about every trade they make?

@GrinningBobcat @Valgys plus the added boost of coord selling I feel is something that will affect these graphs. The purchase of information in general would

This falls into the services category of diamond trades. This is something more difficult to quantify because it is information being bought. The selling of coordinates is mostly bounded not just by the value in the information relative to the value of the diamond at the time, but more specifically to the demand of the buyer in the transaction. As a result, there would be higher fluctuations in price that I feel would hurt my study more than help when it came trying to understand the trend in value of the diamond.

Both good ideas, but they would require someone smarter than me with more time to do them.

So what exactly does this mean to you?

There are competing interests that want different outcomes on the value of the diamond:
Producers - those who provide inventory in exchange for an increase in stockpiled wealth - drive the value of the diamond to go low. Their goal is getting the most diamonds for as little produced items as possible.

Consumers - those who use diamonds as a means to an end to acquire a desired good - drive the value to go high. Opposite to producers, their goal is getting as much produced items for a diamond as possible.

Staff: they don’t care of the value be it high or low, but are more interested in keeping the % change bounded within reason to the original value of the diamond (or at least their perceived value of it), so there is a high frequency of stable trades going on.

An active economy means an active community, with players having reasonable access to items to do whatever suits their fancy. If the value of the diamond ever shoots up or plummets, trade frequency will drop and the economy stagnates as more and more consumers don’t see value in spending their diamonds on what they perceive as outrageous prices, save only the very wealthy who could keep up, or producers stop producing because they don’t want to make something that they feel doesn’t fairly compensate them for their time creating the inventory. As a result, the community activity slows and as a corollary, the onus defaults to the staff to step up to reactivate the economy through direct intervention (a consuming task).

The trend on the value of the diamond shows to meet most of everyone’s interests, with the biggest winners being the early shops, as they are able to cash in on the lower value of the diamonds they’ve stockpiled when it was still a relatively high value.

I should add that with the introduction of the lottery system and potentially many other future staff endeavors that stem from it, where diamonds and other desired goods are redistributed among players (or possibly taken out altogether), will have an interesting impact to the economy, because if managed properly, could further stimulate the economy through increased trading from those previously lacking currency to buy desired goods in bulk. I wish I could have the time to continue this study to see what comes of it.

I hoped this was a good read for you, I had fun doing it, and surprisingly it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Hopefully someone is able to see ways this study can be improved or continued and provide us with another updated reference. But at the very least this can be used as a reference of what a free economy looks like at the startup of a new map.