Guild Wars 2

Since there is already a fee for listing items for sale, and a fee for profit, why can’t we have a fee for submitting buy orders for buying items in large quantities. I use the TP every day, and I notice that more and more people (who are getting insanely richer) have the potential to manipulate the market prices by creating fake buy orders to either inflate the prices so that they can sell their huge stocks for a much higher than average value. They can also use the method to fill up their orders faster preventing others from doing it. Because there is no fee in submitting buy orders, they have no consequences and can just withdraw their fake buy orders without losing money.

Some of these people are banding together (partnership) to increase the effectiveness.

This in game market can be as realistic as in real life. Therefore if someone default on their orders, there should be some form of consequences.

I propose that this fee (perhaps a 5%) only applies to huge orders likes 200+ which means that it will affect ingrediants and raw material goods. It will not affect people buying gear, which is of a much higher value than the raw material goods and would incur a much higher fee if it had applied.

What’s a fake order?

Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxqviXuS1vY&feature=player_embedded#!
and go see the section time marked 1:15:00 Pay attention to the guy trying to explain the process in the excel spread sheet.

This clip was made back in August and teaches you how to manipulate the market using “fake orders” – which inflates price, and creates an illusionary market which they will take out when they make the money they want. They are using copper in this example, but can be applied to all kinds of mats. People can buy low and sell high to make money. But by manipulating the market you can buy high and seller higher. When a group of people pool their wealth together, they can magnify the manipulation.

So if i place a big order on intricate totems(2 × 250 for 1s50c each. =7.5gold x 0,05=37,5silver to list my buyorder), and someone else outbuyorders me by 1 copper with an order of 500, and someone else outbuyorders him and me, and so on and so on.
I need those totems to craft so i am going to have to cancel my buyorder and lose my 37,5 silver, or wait for buyorder to fill for god knows how long and not be able to craft. Bad.

Yeah, it would be the same problem as a seller already has..

I am not saying that it should be there either way, just that this problem would not exist only related to a buyer.. ^^

While I agree with the idea that not having a non-refundable fee on buy-orders is imbalanced, I don’t think there’s any problem with people creating a “false market” in an item. It’s pretty difficult to pull off and make significant gains, and people who do do this can stand to lose a lot of money if the market doesn’t stay in their favor.

It happens a lot. Someone will buy-out a significant amount of stock of an item-of-interest, then try to establish a higher price, then the value slowly crawls back to closer to where it was when more and more people decide they don’t want to pay the higher prices. Silver doubloons are a good example, not to long ago, someone bought up all the stock that was priced up to 1g, people freaked out, and then the price dipped back to about where it was before.

My main point, is that just because someone (or someones) have a lot of capital, doesn’t mean they have the power to establish prices on whatever items they feel like. They just have the ability speed up the process and put themselves in a position to take advantage of any opportunities. (And, that it’s too easy (zero risk) to make money via tons and tons of buy orders)

You know, “fake” orders get really filled, and if you try to drive the price of something up too far beyond equilibrium your fake orders will begin to get filled very quickly. It’s playing with fire.

IMO all you guys who want to “fix” market “manipulation” in this game are tilting at windmills. Placing lots of buy orders on commodity goods lasts only as long as the placer of such orders is willing to fade the pain of having them filled faster than he can sell at the higher price.

Jiro.6589:

So if i place a big order on intricate totems(2 × 250 for 1s50c each. =7.5gold x 0,05=37,5silver to list my buyorder), and someone else outbuyorders me by 1 copper with an order of 500, and someone else outbuyorders him and me, and so on and so on.
I need those totems to craft so i am going to have to cancel my buyorder and lose my 37,5 silver, or wait for buyorder to fill for god knows how long and not be able to craft. Bad.

Perhaps those orders that are placed higher than yours are fake buy orders, and implementing a fee will prevent that. In any case, 5% of 1s50c is like 7 copper. If you can afford over 6 gold of lesser mats, then 37 silver in fees shouldn’t be out of your reach.

I was looking at the price of a certain T5 mat earlier and it was around 85c each. Just as I finished creating this post on this forum, the buy order jumped to 1 silver each. I placed an order for 250 x T5 mats, and in less than 10 min I got 250 mats. I paid close attention to the price and buy orders that are beneath me for over 30 mins. And surely they are not being filled as quickly as mines were. Which tells me that they are being manipulated at the time. I would rather pay a 5% fee than see all this artificial inflation and being taken an advantage of. The way that mat went up by 15c is 15% jump in price.

majorkong.9073:

You know, “fake” orders get really filled, and if you try to drive the price of something up too far beyond equilibrium your fake orders will begin to get filled very quickly. It’s playing with fire.

IMO all you guys who want to “fix” market “manipulation” in this game are tilting at windmills. Placing lots of buy orders on commodity goods lasts only as long as the placer of such orders is willing to fade the pain of having them filled faster than he can sell at the higher price.

totally agree

Neodaystar.4279:

Jiro.6589:

So if i place a big order on intricate totems(2 × 250 for 1s50c each. =7.5gold x 0,05=37,5silver to list my buyorder), and someone else outbuyorders me by 1 copper with an order of 500, and someone else outbuyorders him and me, and so on and so on.
I need those totems to craft so i am going to have to cancel my buyorder and lose my 37,5 silver, or wait for buyorder to fill for god knows how long and not be able to craft. Bad.

Perhaps those orders that are placed higher than yours are fake buy orders, and implementing a fee will prevent that. In any case, 5% of 1s50c is like 7 copper. If you can afford over 6 gold of lesser mats, then 37 silver in fees shouldn’t be out of your reach.

I was looking at the price of a certain T5 mat earlier and it was around 85c each. Just as I finished creating this post on this forum, the buy order jumped to 1 silver each. I placed an order for 250 x T5 mats, and in less than 10 min I got 250 mats. I paid close attention to the price and buy orders that are beneath me for over 30 mins. And surely they are not being filled as quickly as mines were. Which tells me that they are being manipulated at the time. I would rather pay a 5% fee than see all this artificial inflation and being taken an advantage of. The way that mat went up by 15c is 15% jump in price.

So, wait, the orders below you were not filling as fast as your own order, that makes you believe that it’s market manipulation?

Tarang.7562:

Neodaystar.4279:

Jiro.6589:

So if i place a big order on intricate totems(2 × 250 for 1s50c each. =7.5gold x 0,05=37,5silver to list my buyorder), and someone else outbuyorders me by 1 copper with an order of 500, and someone else outbuyorders him and me, and so on and so on.
I need those totems to craft so i am going to have to cancel my buyorder and lose my 37,5 silver, or wait for buyorder to fill for god knows how long and not be able to craft. Bad.

Perhaps those orders that are placed higher than yours are fake buy orders, and implementing a fee will prevent that. In any case, 5% of 1s50c is like 7 copper. If you can afford over 6 gold of lesser mats, then 37 silver in fees shouldn’t be out of your reach.

I was looking at the price of a certain T5 mat earlier and it was around 85c each. Just as I finished creating this post on this forum, the buy order jumped to 1 silver each. I placed an order for 250 x T5 mats, and in less than 10 min I got 250 mats. I paid close attention to the price and buy orders that are beneath me for over 30 mins. And surely they are not being filled as quickly as mines were. Which tells me that they are being manipulated at the time. I would rather pay a 5% fee than see all this artificial inflation and being taken an advantage of. The way that mat went up by 15c is 15% jump in price.

So, wait, the orders below you were not filling as fast as your own order, that makes you believe that it’s market manipulation?

Well, let me paint the picture for you since you didn’t have time to watch that video clip.

The mat on average price is 85c, the manipulator places fake buy orders to increase it little by little to the desire price…

10,000 units 1s20c
.
.
.
100 units 99c
200 units 98c
100 units 90c
100 units 88c
600 units 85c

If I need the mats badly, I will place an order for 200 units for 1s21c seeing how that huge 10,00 units order will take a while to fill. In which the manipulater will sell it to me right away as soon as I close the TP window. I then check the order lower than me, which is his artificial order for 1s20c each, its not filling as fast or instantly as mines was by the hundreds. As soon as I place another 200 units over his fake order, he will sell it to me again. After a short period of time, he will then withdraw all of the artificial orders he placed between the real average price and his last fake order, and teh price will fall again. After factoring the 15% TP fee, he will still end up with a profit.

Psychology comes into play in manipulating the market, not just number figures. With a lot of money, you can greatly influence the market, 1000 gold is pocket change to a lot of wealth players out there already. With 1000 gold you can control the price of charged load stones like someone is doing now since its supply is very low. Who ever it is, he’s smart enough to buy out a large amount of the charged cores, frags, and shards too. Just open the trading post and look up charged shard. You’ll notice there is someone selling 800+ shards for 10 silver each, while the other prices after his are in the quantity of 1-3.

No buy order fees of any type. You won’t be punishing your intended marks, the people with overwhelming amounts of money don’t care about fees.

You’ll just be irritating people like me. >_<

No. I make a little gold off other people’s manipulations (I just follow their cycles). I also save money by putting in buy orders for things I need (and reposting if I get overbid).

If I can do it, anyone can. I’m horrible at math and I’m no Donald Trump (and not just because I lack the ridiculous toupee and shark-like stare of the true predator).

Neodaystar.4279:

Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxqviXuS1vY&feature=player_embedded#!
and go see the section time marked 1:15:00 Pay attention to the guy trying to explain the process in the excel spread sheet.

This clip was made back in August and teaches you how to manipulate the market using “fake orders” – which inflates price, and creates an illusionary market which they will take out when they make the money they want. They are using copper in this example, but can be applied to all kinds of mats. People can buy low and sell high to make money. But by manipulating the market you can buy high and seller higher. When a group of people pool their wealth together, they can magnify the manipulation.

Posting the buy offer has little or no effect over simply relisting at the higher price. You’re making more out of that than it really is. This is just a guy attempting a flip, only doing it in a much riskier way (because of the elevated prices he is working with) that also causes overall prices to rise. He’s outsmarting himself into thinking that this risk is offset by his “manipulation”, but the actual price manipulation here occurs in the way he buys up the item stock, not in how he resells it.