Restore Cavecash gifting or make legit CC trade system

calib • 24 April 2013 at 5:38 PM

To my friends from my #WinCC riddle/immortal contest: I'm sorry. Until this is resolved I can't give you any more prizes!

Please help get this fixed by turning on adblock and refusing to purchase any CC until this is fixed. Make Ian feel the pinch and maybe he'll listen to us!

Also please pass this thread on to your friends. If enough of us do something then something will get done.

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Everyone got the mail saying that cavcash gifting is gone.

Ian claims this is due to people using CC to buy things "under the table" and that it causes inflation. Firstly, inflation happens natrually as a population goes up due to demand outrstripping supply. Using a currency doesn't cause inflation by itself.

Limited access to a resource like CC is what causes inflation. More access to CC creates many sellers. Many sellers creates competition which will drive down the prices. Less competition = higher prices. The real problem is probably people trying to control the CC market.

With few sellers there's no other option for many people than to buy pets/items directly from the CC market runners. Market runners are BEING REWARDED because there's no other way to get those CC pets/items when you can't donate.

If this actually is all about a downturn in donations they decided to blame on people trading art for CC or something, then it's also a bad idea.

If your parents won't buy CC finding other means of getting CC like selling art is important. People know this and were buying CC to be able to pay others for their work. This means less donaters. Also kids are being punished for not being able to buy things on their own by being forced to pay whatever the hoarders want in order to get that pet.

Banning CC transfers is also going to destroy most contests. Not everyone wants the pet of the month. Being able to win CC so you can save and get a pet/item that actually interests you is far more attractive. Expect to see even less people running contests now that the prizes are going to motivate a lot less people to join. This is going to mean even less donations.

There are options.

If the problem actually is inflation due to people running the market, Make a traceable legit CC trade system and outlaw running the CC market. Handling problem players is better than punishing everyone!

If the problem actually is lack of donations, turn gifting back on and give more small things in the shop that people will want to buy.

april__ • 24 April 2013 at 5:46 PM

@calib

While I see some of your points, I don't think boycotting will make a difference in the matter.

I think the pros outweigh the cons.

Best of luck, nonetheless.

shelby • 24 April 2013 at 5:59 PM

The reason Gifting CC was removed is because players were Scamming others and stealing their creatures. Or promising to trade certain creatures to people and then getting CC but then not trading the creature.

Also trades in the trade center become "CC Only!" Trades. Making it completely unfair to those who cannot buy CC and newbies.
Having this happened, the site become something where if you didn't have access to buying CC, you wouldn't be able to do anything. Also newbies felt obligated to buy CC.

The point of CC was to buy things that were in the Cash Shop, not to buy creatures from other people for it. The point of the gifting CC feature was for just that, Gifting it to someone. Not trading creatures for it. Or travels or art or anything.

The Staff is currently working on how to make CSP Items more available to people who can't buy CC. @OrderedChaos stated that they are considering making CSP items, items that go into your inventory, similar to travels. But they are still tossing around ideas, because they don't want CSP items to replace CC in the trade center. Meaning they don't want people to open trades for "freezes" only.

I don't think gifting CC is ever going to come back. I also highly doubt it's going to be tradeable in the Trade Center the way EC currently is, because then people would go back to "CC ONLY". Bringing up the same issue that made CC gifting removed in the first place.

You may want to visit this page and then Scroll down to Ian's post and read it:
http://eggcave.com/forums/topic/40003/270

boxofcrayons • 24 April 2013 at 5:59 PM

@calib I am sorry, but I am with @april__ on this one :/ I think that removing CC gifting was te best possible choice Ian and the staff could have made.

calib • 24 April 2013 at 6:13 PM

@april__ Boycotting is a way to make your displeasure known. Just saying you're unhappy doesn't do much when nothing else changes. This is about money coming into the site. If the money changes to show we're unhappy, then things will have to change.

Also... what pros? This change does the opposite of everything intended!

The inflation is going to get worse. Less people will have less reasons to donate which means less money for the site. Less people will have access to the monthly pets. Contests will happen even less often beacuse less attractive prizes = less entries. Contest runners want lots of entries! People who were already running contests with CC prizes now can't give their prizes.

The only people who will get any benefit are those with huge stores of CC already (like the people running the market and acutally causing the inflation) because now players MUST turn to them instead of being able to win/earn small amounts of CC from other players and save up.

Sure, other people can donate, but the market runners will be the ones who buy up the pets first. They already are wealthy and can afford to do this. They will just buy out the compettion and keep on running the market by owning pets/travels/items instead of hoarding CC. If someone sells lower than them they buy it and keep controlling the market. Inflation stays high and the same people keep on running the market.

The only way to kill the market runners is to ruin their market or rule that they can't run the market. Eliminating comeptition sources like being able to earn CC through art or contests won't help!

Orderedchaos • 24 April 2013 at 6:17 PM

@calib I'm going to just copy and past what @Ian last posted in the CC Update thread since it addresses several of your points, and he says it better than I could.

"You guys have said many times that this change is motivated by profit. It's not. @elluwah brought up a great point earlier (allow me to kindly steal!). In order for CaveCash to physically exist, somebody had to buy it to begin with. Any CaveCash you've ever traded for without buying it yourself was bought by somebody else.

By limiting under-the-table currency trading, the demand for random CaveCash is going to go down. This will not make more money for the site. And if you insist that it's still motivated by profit, please explain the paradox you claim: how does bolstering Egg Coins' value (relative to CaveCash) increase the demand for CaveCash?

I have noticed that the three of you all joined Egg Cave at some time in 2012, shortly after CaveCash gifting came into play. I have noticed that our "newer" players (<1.5 years playing), like you, are generally less accepting of these changes. In contrast, our older players (playing before CC gifting was around), are supportive of these changes. So, I'll say this to those of you who have been playing <1.5 years: you have only ever known the free markets with CaveCash trading present, so you're accustomed to thinking that CaveCash is the "gold standard." The challenge: stick around to discover what Egg Cave's free markets were like back in the glory days. Trading, in my opinion, is about to get way more fun. Just wait and see."

hedwig68 • 24 April 2013 at 6:20 PM

@calib

Only the first five pings work, just saying. 😋

And I agree with everyone out, I'm sort of neutral on all of this, though I'm kind of against no CC gifting. However, scamming was getting bad and they had to do something about it. This was pretty much the only solution. Boycotting this isn gonna work, we're just ginna have to live with it, and I don't think this is all about money. I believe that this was really made to help us, not for money. I don't think boycotting this will work and there's really no point in it.

calib • 24 April 2013 at 6:26 PM

@orderedchaos @shelby

If scams are an issue make a legitamate market for trading pets/items/ect for CC. Yes it costs money, but actually fixes a problem! This doesn't really fix anything- the problems remain under different names and new problems arise.

Also ban scammers. Keeping logs of conversations as proof and allowing a dispute to come up will fix this. Make trade logs easier to access. If there arent' trading logs there needs to be some.

Scams will still happen with this change. Now people will ask for monthly/holiday pets and CC items in their scams instead of stright up CC. Fix the root of the problem (hard to catch scammers, no legit trade system) instead of the symptoms to make things better.

The reason people trade pets/items for CC is because the pets they are selling are monthlies and holiday pets which come out only once. All this change is going to do is make a flood of "super rare pets in trade only!" instead of "CC only" trading.

Even without CC newbies will feel obligated to buy because thwy won't be able to trade for anything without monthly pets. Same problem, different name.

If you really want pets to be availiable to everyone for less than millions and millions of EC, make them come out more than once. Supply and demand is at work here.

And again: I WAS GIFTING TO PEOPLE! I've been running a contest for months. I had dozens of people come by and play.

shelby • 24 April 2013 at 6:34 PM

@calib

I'm not going to post further, as to avoid an argument.
I'm only going to say gifting CC HAD to be removed in order to make the site fair to everyone not just those who had old CC/LE's and access to CC.

Newbies won't feel obligated to buy once the Cave Monthlies are released. This gives them access to LE's without having to buy CC.

I was not stating that you were not gifting CC. Others were no longer gifting it and using it as means to scam people.

I'm going to let @OrderedChaos, @Ian, and the other staff handle this now. I was merely trying to help but I know if I continue it will get out of hand.

Orderedchaos • 24 April 2013 at 6:37 PM

@calib Monthlies are going to be changed, starting in June, to 2 CSP creatures and 2 non-CSP creatures. This and some of the other things we are working on for this year will help bring balance to the economy. Egg Coins will gain more value in trading. This is a resource that is available to anyone with time.

As has already been mentioned, we are also looking into ways to make freezes and the other CC items tradeable without them becoming the replacement for CC.

This change is taking trading back to the way it was before CC gifting was introduced, which was only a year and a half ago. Trading back then wasn't impossible. People traded creatures and EC for the creatures they wanted. With the introduction of the non-CSP monthlies this will actually help this kind of trading.

Just give it some time. You'll see that this isn't such a horrible change as you claim it to be.

Edit: Scams were only part of the reason this happened. And yes we realize that they will still happen, just in a different way. We know this. But the larger reason this change came about was to bring balance to an economy that was becoming too focused on CC. CC is not the gold standard and never should have become the gold standard. We are trying to fix this and give EC back some of the value that it lost.

novrain62 • 24 April 2013 at 8:55 PM

@orderedchaos - Thank you!

mokat • 24 April 2013 at 9:04 PM

@calib It's sad how some bad apples scammed CC and ruined it for us :/

boxofcrayons • 24 April 2013 at 9:07 PM

@mokat Ah, but it was more tha just scamming. The fact was that trading was becoming almost impossible for those without CC, and CC was becoming the only thing of value here. I see you weren't here before CC giftung, and so you can't quite understand how the new (But really old) system will work. Trust me and the otehr oldies on this one, It's great. 😊

whitefall • 24 April 2013 at 9:10 PM

@calib
Instead, he could just add CC into the Trade Center so you could offer it on a lot (:

Meteoroid • 24 April 2013 at 10:25 PM

@whitefall @calib
That would defeat one of the purposes for the removal of the Gifting feature. CaveCash should never had been used for Trading in the first place. The Gifting feature should have been used for just that; Gifting. There were people who did use this feature as intended, but the amount who did use it for Trading heavily outweighed the others. It admittedly should not have went on for as long as it did (a year and a half). However, cutting off the ability as of right now is more preferable than waiting until the true point of no return.

It's going to be a rough first couple weeks, but ultimately this is the decision that the website has decided to follow. It will be a bit painful on those who Traded quite heavily with CaveCash, though there did exist a time where the website was currently in this very same state (CaveCash existing but unable to be Gifted). It cannot be stressed enough that a 'lack of donations' or any similar insinuations was the reason for this being implemented. Ian has even acknowledged this and admitted that there is no profit to be gained by this update at all.

I know words can only do so much to assure people, since actions speak considerably louder, but it is advisable to just have a little patience for right now as everything tries settles back down into place. Every opinion and voice is being heard, both positive and negative, and the Staff here at Egg Cave really do appreciate it.

mrsgiggles • 24 April 2013 at 11:07 PM

I believe removing CC is a good move, because it allows casual players to have more breathing space when it comes to getting retired pets with EC.

@calib, it's telling that you talk about "sellers" in your post, because a CC-centric economy creates just this: a system where everyone is forced to hoard and speculate on future CC value in order to get anything they want.

This turns Egg Cave into more like Egg Monopoly or Egg Cave Exchange, and ultimately, only a dedicated handful of traders will monopolize the whole thing and everyone else is forced to either buy CC to deal with these traders or trade away all their current hard-earned LE pets to get something else they want. (This is my observation based on my years on EC, by the way, not speculation.)

And, seriously now, no CC trading destroys contests? And prevents people from earning CC by other ways? We can still do this, only, CS eggs instead of CC becomes the currency.

The sky isn't falling. Not at all.