Guild Wars 2

Let me first say that I love the overall concept of the trading post working more like a stock market than an auction house. I find it far more convenient than traditional MMO interfaces.

That said, there is one additional bit of information that would normally be available on a stock market that is not available on the TP: in addition to showing the current highest buy bids and lowest sell offers, the TP should also show the price that the last successful sale occurred at.

Right now if there is a huge gap between the buy and sell prices, there’s no way to tell which of the two offers is closer to the most recent market activity.

I would be happy with a 24 hour median transaction price and volume. But for traders the skill comes from divining information where none is given.

While 24 hour volume and transaction price may calm the inflation/no drop rate crowd a bit, it would give the traders a lot more information to find those markets that aren’t being targeted for flipping a heck of a lot easier. And once those markets collapse to under a 15% gap all that will be left is speculation for traders.

Behellagh.1468:

I would be happy with a 24 hour median transaction price and volume. But for traders the skill comes from divining information where none is given.

While 24 hour volume and transaction price may calm the inflation/no drop rate crowd a bit, it would give the traders a lot more information to find those markets that aren’t being targeted for flipping a heck of a lot easier. And once those markets collapse to under a 15% gap all that will be left is speculation for traders.

I don’t see anything particularly wrong with that. If anything, that would be a good thing as it would normalize prices and then we would stop getting all those “TP is OP” threads every 15 minutes.

Behellagh.1468:

I would be happy with a 24 hour median transaction price and volume. But for traders the skill comes from divining information where none is given.

While 24 hour volume and transaction price may calm the inflation/no drop rate crowd a bit, it would give the traders a lot more information to find those markets that aren’t being targeted for flipping a heck of a lot easier. And once those markets collapse to under a 15% gap all that will be left is speculation for traders.

I think this will actually be counterproductive for the average player.
Lets take an item that has highest bid of 70s and lowest listing of 1g, with a median transaction price of 85s.
Normal players might be more inclined to list at 85s instead of 70s or 1g, which leads to small price spikes up and down in short intervals. So the price spread will be between 85-100s in prime time and between 70-85s in off peak hours, which means higher profit margins for savvy people that buy at 70s and sell at 1g because they monitor thes short spikes.

Median, not average. If the median price of transactions are closer to the high bid than low sell it convinces players that the current outrageous low sell price is just that, outrageous, an outlier, wishful thinking.

Just because it’s low sell doesn’t mean players are paying that. Showing either a median or range over the last 24 hours for that item gives players some sense as to how to price their sell order.

Let’s face it, one reason players may not place sell orders is the fear that the price is too high so it doesn’t sell in a “reasonable” amount of time but not to low as to leave money on the table that they could get in their reasonable time frame. Players have different definitions of “reasonable” amount of time. And since sell orders cost 5% and is non-refundable, they don’t want to be mistaken. But without pulling up at gw2tp chart of the last 24 hours/week and define a range of prices the item seems to be selling at, they are stuck with guessing. Whether that’s eyeballing a midpoint or some other means.

The point of the OP is to provide additional data about recent sales. I like the idea, but I think it’s a TP 3.0 feature.