Some may have noticed the value of resources dropping and the settlers world sort of falling into an economic depression. Things not being valuable as they once were and a steady downward trend has been happening for most items in general. We as the players could fix this simply by adapting into a new economics system where the value of things are based on the gem.... a "gem standard" as some would call it. In this post i will be discussing the idea of a gem standard and how it is to be implemented and the math to support it.
Let us first look at the cost of coins in the trader: 350 gems for 100 gold coins..... if this is what we are to base the values from then 1 coin would equal 3.5 gems which i agree is terrible for those folks who sell gems and spend their real money on this game, but before totally shooting it down we should take a look at what the implications would be as far as resources are concerned....
To start lets look at something that we all see as being fairly cheap.... pine logs.... in the trader 100 pine log is 28 gems..... now at the rate of 3.5gems = 1gc...... 28 (gems) /(divided by) 3.5(the rate of coin to gem)= 8 gold coins (the amount 100 pine log would cost)
Applied same math formula for the other resources and you you can see that implying a standard would raise the value on almost every item, accept for gem items and granite......
The downside to implying a standard is that the gem and granite will lose value. In today's market you could see as high 4gc per 1 gem and as much as 1.5gc for 1 granite. Under the standards system the gem will depreciate in value to 3.5 gems for 1 gold coin and granite would depreciate in value to roughly 2 granite per 1gc.... while this is all well and good for the people buying the gems and granite... what about the seller? Do we leave him or her screwed? i think not....
Going back to the old "supply and demand" concept you'll realize that once most are drained of their gems from selling for cheap demand will outweigh supply..... bringing most to either offer more for the gem item or others to begin charging more for the gem.... But the standards system will also keep this in check, making it so that gem prices are not ever unreasonably high. It will do this simply by bringing up the cost of resources while gem sellers are selling their gems at a higher rate than 3.5gems=1gc, as the cost of the gems goes up so does the resources only because we would be using a standards system to retain value on the coin and resources by backing them in a gem value.
In the end if this is at all to be taken seriously or implemented i also see Ubi needing to do their part in this as well.... If they lowered the gem values in trader..... say for example 1 gem =1gc then the trading market would be at a bit of a more level playing field, using my equations im sure you could see how much of an easier task this would be to accomplish if things were not so expensive as they are in gem trader. You can also see how the only time prices would fluctuate would be during times of high demand for gems or if there were a gem sale.....
I honestly believe that setting a price standard would make the game market more stable over all as well as bring the depleted value back to the common resource. We can continue to watch the value of items go from fair to stupidly low all the time or we could have resources who's worth is hard to deplete as well as have a stable economic system with the coin.