Cowpat economics
Posted: October 5th, 2007, 3:35 am
Salutations all.
Todays lecture is about the economics of The Land, and economic policy therein. I'm including it in the "Guides" section because it contains some potentially usefull data, as well as being worth a chuckle.
While recently bored and starting yet another lowbie character, I decided to go on a cowpat collecting spree, just for grins. (I was already there for the necklace quest.) Here is the data I uncovered.
1. Cowpats are apparently essential for brewing medicine. You can't just use ordinary sticks. Considering that Heathcare is such a massive industry, I can see this being a potentially lucrative market.
2. Cowpats can only be found in haystacks. This is an unusual phenomenon, as there are never any cows to be seen nearby, and no hay to be found that is not in stacked form. Cowpats are also never found near the actual cows in starting villages.
3. It took around 20 minutes to collect a stack of 255 cowpats at the location I chose.
4. Only 1 cowpat will be found in any given haystack, destroying the haystack in the process. However, because The Land is such a mystical, magical place, Haystacks reform themselves after a period of about 10 seconds, complete with a potential new cowpat! That makes cowpats a tremendously valuable renewable resource! Completely environmentally friendly!
5. A stack of 255 cowpats sells at the npc vendor for 1,020 gold pieces. That means a person harvesting these natural wonders can achieve a remarkable income level of 3,060 gold pieces an hour! During a standard "2000 hour work year" (8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks per year), that results in a remarkable fortune of 6,120,000 gold pieces per year!
Now.. since ancient China (what The Land is based upon) did not use gold for coinage (only iron and bronze), and that gold and silver were used as high-denomination trade bars called "Tael" (a measure of weight equating to approx 1.2 troy oz.) and "Half Tael" (half a tael's worth of weight, or .6 troy oz).. and that 1 Tael of silver was worth 100 bronze "cash coins"...
Gold is almost beyond value to the everyday ancient chinese. (at one time, commoners were forbidden to own gold. the emperor had a monopoly on it.)
However, if we're to take the creators of the game at their word.. and that what we are finding is *indeed* gold.. then, even assuming conservatively that each "gold" is a 1/2 Tael trade bar (the smallest denomination of chinese gold currency)... then each gold piece translates to approximately $365.50 USD in terms of the current real-world economy.. (gold being valued at $731 / oz right now.)
This leads to the following conclusion:
A guy who spends 8 hours a day picking dried cow poo out of haystacks is getting paid $2,236,860,000 USD per year... to shovel sh*t....
And people wonder why prices are so high on Nirvana server.. *chuckles*
Just food for thought, folks.. and a potential source of extra cash if your lowbie needs a new weapon.
Todays lecture is about the economics of The Land, and economic policy therein. I'm including it in the "Guides" section because it contains some potentially usefull data, as well as being worth a chuckle.
While recently bored and starting yet another lowbie character, I decided to go on a cowpat collecting spree, just for grins. (I was already there for the necklace quest.) Here is the data I uncovered.
1. Cowpats are apparently essential for brewing medicine. You can't just use ordinary sticks. Considering that Heathcare is such a massive industry, I can see this being a potentially lucrative market.
2. Cowpats can only be found in haystacks. This is an unusual phenomenon, as there are never any cows to be seen nearby, and no hay to be found that is not in stacked form. Cowpats are also never found near the actual cows in starting villages.
3. It took around 20 minutes to collect a stack of 255 cowpats at the location I chose.
4. Only 1 cowpat will be found in any given haystack, destroying the haystack in the process. However, because The Land is such a mystical, magical place, Haystacks reform themselves after a period of about 10 seconds, complete with a potential new cowpat! That makes cowpats a tremendously valuable renewable resource! Completely environmentally friendly!
5. A stack of 255 cowpats sells at the npc vendor for 1,020 gold pieces. That means a person harvesting these natural wonders can achieve a remarkable income level of 3,060 gold pieces an hour! During a standard "2000 hour work year" (8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks per year), that results in a remarkable fortune of 6,120,000 gold pieces per year!
Now.. since ancient China (what The Land is based upon) did not use gold for coinage (only iron and bronze), and that gold and silver were used as high-denomination trade bars called "Tael" (a measure of weight equating to approx 1.2 troy oz.) and "Half Tael" (half a tael's worth of weight, or .6 troy oz).. and that 1 Tael of silver was worth 100 bronze "cash coins"...
Gold is almost beyond value to the everyday ancient chinese. (at one time, commoners were forbidden to own gold. the emperor had a monopoly on it.)
However, if we're to take the creators of the game at their word.. and that what we are finding is *indeed* gold.. then, even assuming conservatively that each "gold" is a 1/2 Tael trade bar (the smallest denomination of chinese gold currency)... then each gold piece translates to approximately $365.50 USD in terms of the current real-world economy.. (gold being valued at $731 / oz right now.)
This leads to the following conclusion:
A guy who spends 8 hours a day picking dried cow poo out of haystacks is getting paid $2,236,860,000 USD per year... to shovel sh*t....
And people wonder why prices are so high on Nirvana server.. *chuckles*
Just food for thought, folks.. and a potential source of extra cash if your lowbie needs a new weapon.
