So I've seen many attempts to create value across all the *items in servers and in Minecraft, most don't work very well. Now I'm not talking about stuff that stands for currency, but how to rank items based on there over all value. For example, some people value items using a control, like diamonds. So the amount/fraction of diamonds that represents something would stand for it's overall value, but of coarse that's based on opinion. Some people may thing that things like emeralds are better, because there the rarest item and most valuable. So my dilemma is to try to come up with a way to value and rank an item, using some kind of measurement.
The Possible Solution
There may be one way of doing this. In order to compare to items to each other with a kind of measurement that fits most peoples opinions, we need to look at the facts. First of, what comes to mind when you think of the block obsidian. "Solid, rare/hard to get". Basically, we're saying that each of these traits involves time, and that the time involved is very extreme because it's harder to find. So we can rank as more valuable. How about wood. "Abundant, useful,easy to collect". With this, we're saying that the block has abundancey, so it has less time involved because we can find it easily. Pretty much with every block/item that is obtainable can be valued by it's rarity and how much time is involved to find it.
How we can use this
Well figuring the problem may have been difficult, but using this method is a lot more complex than you think. You see, we're trying to figure out a way of valuing and item without bias and which is based on fact. But even opinions can seep in through measuring with time. Here, I will introduce variables into the equation. For example when we try to value diamonds with time, there many properties of diamonds. "Do you measure the time it takes to mine it, to find it, or to prepare resources to for it? Some might say the best way of doing this is to start a whole new world and time how long it takes to collect the resources to mine it, find the cave in where it is located in, and mine it. But others might argue that the data is to inaccurate because of small things like the users skill level and the world generation/settings. Here, I will introduce variables into the equation. See small little things like these may affect the whole run, so first we need to set up some control variables that should be set for the test. Let's start with the user who's doing the test. We can't just have one person do all the tests, so we bring in a whole bunch of people with various skill levels. Then, we average all the times and throw out the outliers. Now comes the world generation and the world settings. First off, we probably don't wanna use a seed to generate the world, because most people won't use the same seed and all seeds generate different terrain and may affect times. For now, let's stick with random terrain. Next we figure out what settings we want to use in all our tests. The obvious is to use the default settings the game gives you when you first create a new world: Difficulty = Normal, Terrain = Default, Host Privilages = off, Generated structures = on, etc. This is because all the default settings are original and create more of an control environment that does not effect the skill level and the difficulty of a user and the test.
From here on...
sadly, I have no time right now to continue this thread. I have the main concept planned out, but it's still a "WORK IN PROGRESS". If you have any questions, comments, suggestions about the article please leave a reply to the thread. Thank you for your time.
Notes
(please read)
* WIP Stands for "Work In Progress". Basically, the thread is not completely finished and needs work. If you have any comments, please post a reply.
-This thread was created in the MCXBE discussion page for a one reason. If I or anybody else adds on to this idea, I think it's easier to organize if all the concepts with MCXBE version exclusive features. Basically, I'm more familiar with this version and it's easier for me to explain things that are in this version of the game. Now it may not look like the info is exclusive to the xbox, but it will be soon. This is supposed to be a starting point, and more will be added onto it in the future!
I think you are over-thinking this way too much. There are really only two parameters needed to place value on any given item: rarity (or more accurately, Supply and Demand) and Usefulness. This means that it is nearly impossible to place all the items in a type of "value heirarchy" where they will retain a static, unchanging worth. Because of the way blocks generate (specifically their Y-axis location), all worlds are going to have about the same number of diamond, lapis, gold and redstone ore, even worlds composed mostly of water. But such a world would be lacking in, or even completely void of, certain tree types. So wood could therefore be considered "more valuable" than diamonds.
Let's back-up a bit a take a look at this more in depth:
Supply and Demand This includes the item's actual rarity in the world combined with some of the variables you mentioned in your counter-argument, such as the difficulty involved in obtaining said item. This is balanced by the demand for the item; who wants it and how much do they need? For example, while Obsidian is by no means a "rare" block, easily created with a simple bucket of water and renewable with portals, it does require a diamond pick to obtain. And since collection adds wear-and-tear to the pick, this increases the worth of obsidian even though it has no real intrinsic value of it's own. Now, say you already mined a bunch of obsidian and someone wanted some to build a portal. The value would be contingent on how much you had and how much they need. It can also increase based on how desparate they are.
The value of the obsidian is derived from the fact that it "uses-up" a diamond pickaxe. Essentially, the pickaxe is giving it's worth to the obsidian solely because it requires a diamond pick to mine. A diamond pickaxe does not confer it's value to other items that can be obtained by lesser means. Cobble mined by diamond is not worth more than cobble mined by stone. (This invokes the Time is Money principle: while it takes you longer to mine with stone, you can "save time" by using/spending a diamond pick.)
Usefulness Much less nebulous and nuanced than Supply and Demand, Usefulness is simply that - how many different ways can the item be used. The more uses it has the more value can be attributed to it. Now technically this can be rolled right in with the Demand side of the above parameter, but it's more beneficial to track it seperately since it's really the only place where we can be truly objective in assigning value. The more recipes the item is an ingredient for the more value it has. Items that can be placed are more valuable than those that can't. Essentially, this is the item's intrinsic, or Base, value. It is modified and adjusted by Supply and Demand.
I think you are over-thinking this way too much. There are really only two parameters needed to place value on any given item: rarity (or more accurately, Supply and Demand) and Usefulness. This means that it is nearly impossible to place all the items in a type of "value heirarchy" where they will retain a static, unchanging worth. Because of the way blocks generate (specifically their Y-axis location), all worlds are going to have about the same number of diamond, lapis, gold and redstone ore, even worlds composed mostly of water. But such a world would be lacking in, or even completely void of, certain tree types. So wood could therefore be considered "more valuable" than diamonds.
Let's back-up a bit a take a look at this more in depth:
Supply and Demand This includes the item's actual rarity in the world combined with some of the variables you mentioned in your counter-argument, such as the difficulty involved in obtaining said item. This is balanced by the demand for the item; who wants it and how much do they need? For example, while Obsidian is by no means a "rare" block, easily created with a simple bucket of water and renewable with portals, it does require a diamond pick to obtain. And since collection adds wear-and-tear to the pick, this increases the worth of obsidian even though it has no real intrinsic value of it's own. Now, say you already mined a bunch of obsidian and someone wanted some to build a portal. The value would be contingent on how much you had and how much they need. It can also increase based on how desparate they are.
The value of the obsidian is derived from the fact that it "uses-up" a diamond pickaxe. Essentially, the pickaxe is giving it's worth to the obsidian solely because it requires a diamond pick to mine. A diamond pickaxe does not confer it's value to other items that can be obtained by lesser means. Cobble mined by diamond is not worth more than cobble mined by stone. (This invokes the Time is Money principle: while it takes you longer to mine with stone, you can "save time" by using/spending a diamond pick.)
Usefulness Much less nebulous and nuanced than Supply and Demand, Usefulness is simply that - how many different ways can the item be used. The more uses it has the more value can be attributed to it. Now technically this can be rolled right in with the Demand side of the above parameter, but it's more beneficial to track it seperately since it's really the only place where we can be truly objective in assigning value. The more recipes the item is an ingredient for the more value it has. Items that can be placed are more valuable than those that can't. Essentially, this is the item's intrinsic, or Base, value. It is modified and adjusted by Supply and Demand.
Based on the info you gave me, I understand the basics. I know what you trying to get at here, that there are two main variables that can affect the value (supply and demand). Yes I see there are many flaws with my theory :/. But sadly everything leads back to opinion rather than fact. My main goal here is to try to come up with a ranking for all obtainable items in all worlds. The supply part of demand would partially be controlled by the usefulness of the items, but also by the opinions of the buyers. For example, if the buyer wants to build a house out of obsidian, there opinion of "usefulness" would change. Or if we're talking about an offline, singleplayer game, the amount something is "worth" is controlled by the needs of that player. So I guess I'll try to fix my question a bit to fit in with the new comments. My new question is: "Is there a way to rank the value of an item based on not the supply or demand, but the rarity and the time it takes to collect that item". It may not seems useful at all, but it might be in certain circumstances such as speed runs (UHC, killing the enderdragon, challenges, etc.). Thanks for the new info!
Based on the info you gave me, I understand the basics. I know what you trying to get at here, that there are two main variables that can affect the value (supply and demand). Yes I see there are many flaws with my theory :/. But sadly everything leads back to opinion rather than fact. My main goal here is to try to come up with a ranking for all obtainable items in all worlds. The supply part of demand would partially be controlled by the usefulness of the items, but also by the opinions of the buyers. For example, if the buyer wants to build a house out of obsidian, there opinion of "usefulness" would change. Or if we're talking about an offline, singleplayer game, the amount something is "worth" is controlled by the needs of that player. So I guess I'll try to fix my question a bit to fit in with the new comments. My new question is: "Is there a way to rank the value of an item based on not the supply or demand, but the rarity and the time it takes to collect that item". It may not seems useful at all, but it might be in certain circumstances such as speed runs (UHC, killing the enderdragon, challenges, etc.). Thanks for the new info!
I don't think it is possible. Even currencies IRL are ranked based on "opinion" - mostly the opinions of the buyers of that currency on things like national stability, the nation's ability to meet it's debt obligations, current trade balance/imbalance, reserves of raw materials, consumer trends, etc.. A "good" opinion of those things will create a higher demand for the currency and increase its value relative to other world currencies. The actual "value" of any given currency relative to other world currencies changes second by second. Also, in any society, there are going to be those who have an easier time "getting rich" than others... and riding the ever changing opinions on the value of items is really all just part of the IRL "game."
So I've seen many attempts to create value across all the *items in servers and in Minecraft, most don't work very well. Now I'm not talking about stuff that stands for currency, but how to rank items based on there over all value. For example, some people value items using a control, like diamonds. So the amount/fraction of diamonds that represents something would stand for it's overall value, but of coarse that's based on opinion. Some people may thing that things like emeralds are better, because there the rarest item and most valuable. So my dilemma is to try to come up with a way to value and rank an item, using some kind of measurement.
There may be one way of doing this. In order to compare to items to each other with a kind of measurement that fits most peoples opinions, we need to look at the facts. First of, what comes to mind when you think of the block obsidian. "Solid, rare/hard to get". Basically, we're saying that each of these traits involves time, and that the time involved is very extreme because it's harder to find. So we can rank as more valuable. How about wood. "Abundant, useful, easy to collect". With this, we're saying that the block has abundancey, so it has less time involved because we can find it easily. Pretty much with every block/item that is obtainable can be valued by it's rarity and how much time is involved to find it.
Well figuring the problem may have been difficult, but using this method is a lot more complex than you think. You see, we're trying to figure out a way of valuing and item without bias and which is based on fact. But even opinions can seep in through measuring with time. Here, I will introduce variables into the equation. For example when we try to value diamonds with time, there many properties of diamonds. "Do you measure the time it takes to mine it, to find it, or to prepare resources to for it? Some might say the best way of doing this is to start a whole new world and time how long it takes to collect the resources to mine it, find the cave in where it is located in, and mine it. But others might argue that the data is to inaccurate because of small things like the users skill level and the world generation/settings. Here, I will introduce variables into the equation. See small little things like these may affect the whole run, so first we need to set up some control variables that should be set for the test. Let's start with the user who's doing the test. We can't just have one person do all the tests, so we bring in a whole bunch of people with various skill levels. Then, we average all the times and throw out the outliers. Now comes the world generation and the world settings. First off, we probably don't wanna use a seed to generate the world, because most people won't use the same seed and all seeds generate different terrain and may affect times. For now, let's stick with random terrain. Next we figure out what settings we want to use in all our tests. The obvious is to use the default settings the game gives you when you first create a new world: Difficulty = Normal, Terrain = Default, Host Privilages = off, Generated structures = on, etc. This is because all the default settings are original and create more of an control environment that does not effect the skill level and the difficulty of a user and the test.
----Strong Words----
I think you are over-thinking this way too much. There are really only two parameters needed to place value on any given item: rarity (or more accurately, Supply and Demand) and Usefulness. This means that it is nearly impossible to place all the items in a type of "value heirarchy" where they will retain a static, unchanging worth. Because of the way blocks generate (specifically their Y-axis location), all worlds are going to have about the same number of diamond, lapis, gold and redstone ore, even worlds composed mostly of water. But such a world would be lacking in, or even completely void of, certain tree types. So wood could therefore be considered "more valuable" than diamonds.
Let's back-up a bit a take a look at this more in depth:
Supply and Demand This includes the item's actual rarity in the world combined with some of the variables you mentioned in your counter-argument, such as the difficulty involved in obtaining said item. This is balanced by the demand for the item; who wants it and how much do they need? For example, while Obsidian is by no means a "rare" block, easily created with a simple bucket of water and renewable with portals, it does require a diamond pick to obtain. And since collection adds wear-and-tear to the pick, this increases the worth of obsidian even though it has no real intrinsic value of it's own. Now, say you already mined a bunch of obsidian and someone wanted some to build a portal. The value would be contingent on how much you had and how much they need. It can also increase based on how desparate they are.
The value of the obsidian is derived from the fact that it "uses-up" a diamond pickaxe. Essentially, the pickaxe is giving it's worth to the obsidian solely because it requires a diamond pick to mine. A diamond pickaxe does not confer it's value to other items that can be obtained by lesser means. Cobble mined by diamond is not worth more than cobble mined by stone. (This invokes the Time is Money principle: while it takes you longer to mine with stone, you can "save time" by using/spending a diamond pick.)
Usefulness Much less nebulous and nuanced than Supply and Demand, Usefulness is simply that - how many different ways can the item be used. The more uses it has the more value can be attributed to it. Now technically this can be rolled right in with the Demand side of the above parameter, but it's more beneficial to track it seperately since it's really the only place where we can be truly objective in assigning value. The more recipes the item is an ingredient for the more value it has. Items that can be placed are more valuable than those that can't. Essentially, this is the item's intrinsic, or Base, value. It is modified and adjusted by Supply and Demand.
Based on the info you gave me, I understand the basics. I know what you trying to get at here, that there are two main variables that can affect the value (supply and demand). Yes I see there are many flaws with my theory :/. But sadly everything leads back to opinion rather than fact. My main goal here is to try to come up with a ranking for all obtainable items in all worlds. The supply part of demand would partially be controlled by the usefulness of the items, but also by the opinions of the buyers. For example, if the buyer wants to build a house out of obsidian, there opinion of "usefulness" would change. Or if we're talking about an offline, singleplayer game, the amount something is "worth" is controlled by the needs of that player. So I guess I'll try to fix my question a bit to fit in with the new comments. My new question is: "Is there a way to rank the value of an item based on not the supply or demand, but the rarity and the time it takes to collect that item". It may not seems useful at all, but it might be in certain circumstances such as speed runs (UHC, killing the enderdragon, challenges, etc.). Thanks for the new info!
----Strong Words----
I don't think it is possible. Even currencies IRL are ranked based on "opinion" - mostly the opinions of the buyers of that currency on things like national stability, the nation's ability to meet it's debt obligations, current trade balance/imbalance, reserves of raw materials, consumer trends, etc.. A "good" opinion of those things will create a higher demand for the currency and increase its value relative to other world currencies. The actual "value" of any given currency relative to other world currencies changes second by second. Also, in any society, there are going to be those who have an easier time "getting rich" than others... and riding the ever changing opinions on the value of items is really all just part of the IRL "game."