Guild Wars 2

THE ISSUE

So for those of you that are not yet aware, you can use ‘custom bid’ to purchase items for less than the going rate, and then sell them back at the going rate. This is for the most part, risk free, assuming you don’t log out with purchases pending before going to bed, and increases your total assets by a percentage ammount.

Before you claim this is an exploit, it is providing a service – players that want instaneous purchases or sales rely on this type of trader. In addition Arena Net took down the trading post to look at just such things as this and did not make any change..

In any case, the issue here isn’t the exponential growth of one’s assets – although it is a part of it. The issue is that this form of trading is the best method of making money via trading. Crafting gear provides subpar returns and runs the extreme risk that people will continue to underbid your item by 1 copper and it will never be sold.

THE SOLUTION

There are however one of three fixes that I would like to propose:

The first proposes a removal of custom bidding, and all player control from the economy. Instead items are provided a value with both a ceiling and a floor, that should be obtainable with the current market data. Sales exceeding demand reduce the value of this commodity, while purchases exeeding supply increase its value. The economy would become a living organism, rather than a manipulated enterprise, and exponential growth based on assets would be curbed.

The second proposes an enforced 10% reduction on all sales lower than the going rate. That is to say if you post an item for 2.6 gold, that next person would either have to post it at 2.6 gold or 2.34gold. The market for items that are usuable by the community (other than consumables) will undoubtedly see an increase in supply, as the risk of being indefinately undercut would no longer be present.

The third would be to offer a range of prices on all sales, where the product is sold for the highest of any available range, and only the highest value is made puplic. To explain, if an item is put up for bid at 2.2 gold to 2.6 gold the player base will see an item available at 2.6 gold. If a second person puts an item up for 2.3 gold to 2.5 gold, the original poster’s item sale price will drop to 2.5 and the player base will see two items for 2.5 gold. If someone then puts that same item up for 2 gold to 2.2 gold, the original posters sale price will drop to 2.2 gold and the second posters item will return to it’s original maximum value. The player base will see 2 items for 2.2 gold and one item for 2.5. This might slow down sales a little though, and if possible I would recommend only offering a range to end products.

I don’t see a problem in the issue part of your post. You do realize without custom bids people can buy out items and then just drive the economy mad since people would never be able to buy something even if they wanted to pay more.

the fact that there is a 15% tax on selling anything already deal with people oversupply since people wouldn’t want to post something that would not sell.

buying from custom bid is not risk free. First, someone have to decide to sell it to your lower price rather than posting a sell order. Then, when you post it up, someone have to decide to buy it at your selling price rather than putting up a buy order. Often, the spread is only slightly larger than 15% that makes the profit margin not worth the risk/time. When one is discovered through, it tends to balance out. If someone is willing to spend the time and take the risk, then they deserve the return.

Crafting was never meant to be profitable. Even if you don’t know that, the ease of maxing crafting should had told you something about it. If you still hold by the illusion taht crafting should be profitable, you do not know the laws of supply/demand.

Any price ceiling/floor only hurts the economy as a whole. Look for articles on deadweight. The market is already a living organism and price already reflects supply and demand. Your post only serves to demonstrate your lack of economic understanding. Read up the other post that addresses the issue that you are trying to “solve” rather than posting a new thread on the same topic.

The economic model of a video game is nothing like the economy of the real world. There are unlimited resources, no consequences for failure (starvation, lack of housing, etc), and everything is equal in terms of time to acquire, quality and service.

My understanding of the economy is deeper than you assert, and I fully recognize where my suggestions are in contrast with how the real world works. This isn’t the real world though, and simulations with fewer uncontrolled variables tend to work much smoother than those with more.

However, after reading over a few posts I did find another solution that I really liked, and will edit the main post with it.

Game economy and real world economy are driven by real people. In that sense, what applies in the real world economy applies in the game world as well. What the game world have is a much simpler economy in which the model is described by less variables, and with certain constrains/or lack of compared to the real world. This results in a simpler model with less simultaneous equations to solve.

My first two point has to do with considerations what your suggestion neglected to include/consider. My third point with the deadweight has to do with the efficiency of resource allocation, which if you truly know what’s the implication you’ll know it affects the game economy as well since, again, it is real people participating in it.

On your third suggestion, the visibility on sales/buy order is to increase the transparency of the market and providing more information to the participants to that they can make a more accurate guess on the market price. Removing that increases the uncertainty, which affects how a person price their goods. That “could” result in a greater variation in prices. Increasing market transparency results in a more stable price with less fluctuation. In case if you think I’m pulling this out from nowhere, there are plenty of academic articles that had proven it.

If you disagree with my points, argue on the point.

So, basically, you want to kill the market for those who enjoy that aspect of the game?

Well done OP – you just explained the basic operation of every stock market in the world – now please explain how this borks the economy?

@kwwb
You are the person providing a solution to a perceived issue. Not everyone is good at everything…and you are the the one belittling yourself with your replies. Game is not real world…but the people playing it are, and their behaviour remains the same. Or is it that you choose not to see it as such because you can’t understand how it work in the real world?

The first two point that I’ve made is pretty intuitive, pointing out the flaws in your suggestion which you had up till now failed to address.

On my point regarding deadweight and market transparency, I find it necessary to go a little deeper into the mechanics of economics to present my point.

Instead of addressing my point or admit that you have no reasonable arguments to that, you choose to call me a troll.

Not everyone is an expert in everything. You put up some suggestions, I argued against them base on my expertise. How is that trolling?

The trading post is fine. Let the free market sort itself out.

And the “exponential” returns you hear about are rare. There’s actually very few ppl able to rake in 100g+ a week in the TP in comparison to the size of the community.

I only barely make 40g a week and I have been focusing on the TP more than leveling. But I also only play maybe 10-15 hours a week.

@kwwb
You failed to justify your arguements rationally so you choose to dismiss my arguments by saying it has no relation with the real world…which by the way you could not substantiate. English is not my first language, but that has nothing to do with my arguments. There are no real world economics or game world economics. Economics just describes how various factor interacts with eachother.

I apologize for coming off as a smug. My last sentence in my first reply was provocative, my bad…it doesn’t contribute to anything. However, that doesn’t invalidate my point…or the fact that your argument is baseless.

To op,
I’ve mistaken you as kwwb in some of my replies. My apologies.

The reason the economy’s getting screwed up is gold inflation and oversupply. Basically, a lot more gold is coming into the economy through DEs, vendor sales, personal story, map exploration, etc. than is being removed by things like fast travel, repair fees, sales tax, and vendor purchases. Thus, gold is devalued. In addition to this, items are also oversupplied because in general, eveyone’s going to loot a LOT more Tiny Fangs/etc. than they will ever use for crafting, so the market gets saturated with these items at near-minimum price.

Placing buy orders and reselling for profit doesn’t add any gold to the economy, only takes it from the person buying from the reposted sell order and giving it to the person who posted it. In fact, since each of these transactions is subject to the 15% sales tax, this behavior actually REMOVES gold from the economy and helps control inflation. The real issue needing to be addressed is market saturation.

Careful….your argument is based on real world…thus according to KwwB, it does not relate to the game economy…thus your point is irrelevant.

Currency is being gradually devalued because it can be acquired through other sources – dungeons, quests, map completion etc – and I don’t really consider this a bad thing. My expectation is that items in high demand will gradually become worth more as the game continues it’s life cycle.

That wasn’t what my post was referring to. I was addressing the issue that one of the fastest ways to earn coin is to custom bid and unequally distributes the wealth as the more coin you have, the faster you can earn. The second issue is that slow to sell items run the risk of never being sold due to 1c undercutting. There is very little information on how many items of that type are actually available since it only lists the cheapest item, preventing informed decisions on what to craft.

To address the arguments against this… that I thought I already clearly did..

1. Custom bidding is not risk free.

• Custom bidding itself -is- risk free. If someone doesn’t sell you that item, you simply remove your bid at no loss. Reselling the item comes at the risk that people post lower, preventing your sale. You stand to lose 5% (not 15%) each time due to this issue. The spread is typically in the area of 30-40% and is likely one of the primary methods of gold gathering by our korean farmers (are you a korean farmer Wazabi?) :P

2. Crafting is not supposed to be profitable.

• I never said that it was supposed to be profitable. I said it provides subpar returns, and in comparison to custom bidding, there is no reason to supply other players with gear. The idea with using a craft to make money is to turn your inability to craft a piece of gear into a monetary means to purchase it. Whether you profit is not the issue. The issue is that your attempt to sell an item can easily be circumvented with 1 copper uncercutting. It then becomes random chance on if you happen to post when someone is buying. And sadly there is no information to tell you that 100 of those items are already up for sale.

3. A ceiling/floor hurts the economy

• This is only true in cases where there is a depression of the value of an item, or a sudden lack of supply. This is not a posibility in a video game where all items are always available at all times in the same quantities. However, the ceiling and floor could be made soft rather than hard to account for any major discrepencies.

4. Transparency is better for the market.

• First of all, the proposed solution would still work while listing both the floor and ceiling, and you picked on a very minor point. The only reason I indicated that other players would see the higher price is because the display would otherwise be misleading. The purpose of the third solution was to allow players to actively adjust the price of their items without actually needing to be present to do so. Heck the trading post fees could be justified then!

5. I just described the stock market! What’s the problem?

• The problem is that I’m playing Guild Wars 2, not Economy Wars 2. Becoming a day trader in order to afford a legendary was not listed as one of the features on the box.

6. These are real people, therefore it functions like a real economy.

• A real economy involves things like advertising, location, limited resources, production schedules, terrifs, shipping expenses, quality of goods, and numerous other things that a game world economy does not! The only truth about people being in control of the economy, is that people are kitten.

You guys don’t really know what you’re talking about. The economy isn’t suffering inflation. Certain items are going up because of demand, but most items are actually going down as low as they possibly can so individuals will not make much profit selling them. this is deflation. Money is becoming more valuable because there are a glut of items due to masses of bots farming and dumping.

Revenant.2691:

The reason the economy’s getting screwed up is gold inflation and oversupply. Basically, a lot more gold is coming into the economy through DEs, vendor sales, personal story, map exploration, etc. than is being removed by things like fast travel, repair fees, sales tax, and vendor purchases. Thus, gold is devalued. In addition to this, items are also oversupplied because in general, eveyone’s going to loot a LOT more Tiny Fangs/etc. than they will ever use for crafting, so the market gets saturated with these items at near-minimum price.

Placing buy orders and reselling for profit doesn’t add any gold to the economy, only takes it from the person buying from the reposted sell order and giving it to the person who posted it. In fact, since each of these transactions is subject to the 15% sales tax, this behavior actually REMOVES gold from the economy and helps control inflation. The real issue needing to be addressed is market saturation.

There is no inflation atm.
Oversupply as a result of drop structure.

1. Custom bidding is not risk free.
Yes, I’m speaking in terms of turning a profit from putting a bid then sell the item, making profit as long as the spread is sufficiently wide. I do farm items with wide spread. For items with higher transaction volume, the spread usually don’t last long. For slow moving item, there can be a 40% spread like you say. I am merely fronting the payment to those who have no patient to post and wait for their item to sell, and earning premium for it. Although it is profitable and relatively low risk, it is not no risk at all. If the flavor of the month changes or if A-net changes something that impacts the demand of said item, I stand at losing. Also, I suffer from liquidity risk if the item doesn’t sell fast enough where I could had invested in a lower return investment and flip it quickly. This is how the market works.

2. Crafting is not supposed to be profitable.
I’ll put the blame on crafting being too easy to level and a global market. Not necessarily a bad thing as I’ve manage to buy what I can’t craft at an affordable price.

3. A ceiling/floor hurts the economy
There is a complicated explanation that I don’t think you guys are interested in hearing…I don’t know how to make it simple.

4. Transparency is better for the market.
Ok, this I misunderstood what you’re trying to say. What you propose is an auction system with a range of reservation price. I must say it is one of the more interesting ideas I’ve seen in forum post. No comment on that.

5. I just described the stock market! What’s the problem?
To many (me), trading is a game within a game…

6. These are real people, therefore it functions like a real economy.
All the factors you’ve listed determines price, true. From an economist’s perspective, we look at things on a more general view..so advertising, location and such are not considered in the model. What you describe falls more on to marketing…and looking more from a single company’s perspective. For an economic model of any kind, human behavior is an important factor. A game economy simply follows a much simpler model (still complicated) with less variables, and some unique constrains. The underlying foundation applies to both. Example: people prefer to pay less than to pay more for a homogeneous goods, price depreciates when supply exceeds demand. Prices of goods are all driven by people’s action.

Maxter, look at Gem prices and the prices of valuable items. Watch the price history of precursor weapons since launch, or vanity items such as Abyss dye. They’re all skyrocketing. The reason that prices for low-value items such as basic crafting materials are dropping is simply that the devaluation of these commodities by oversupply is outstripping that inflation.

The only change I would make is that Arenanet really needs to make it clear to people how much money they will actually get after the sale. I suspect many TP noobs have no idea they are losing 15% of the sales price to listing fee + sales tax. This is why people do stupid things like sell stuff at less than what they would get vendoring it.

Otherwise, day traders provide liquidity to the market. I will often sell high ticket items to custom buyers because it removes the risk my item will be undercut by other sellers and that I will be forced to eat the listing fee.

KwwB.3895:

Wazabi.1439:

buying from custom bid is not risk free. First, someone have to decide to sell it to your lower price rather than posting a sell order. Then, when you post it up, someone have to decide to buy it at your selling price rather than putting up a buy order. Often, the spread is only slightly larger than 15% that makes the profit margin not worth the risk/time. When one is discovered through, it tends to balance out. If someone is willing to spend the time and take the risk, then they deserve the return.

Crafting was never meant to be profitable. Even if you don’t know that, the ease of maxing crafting should had told you something about it. If you still hold by the illusion taht crafting should be profitable, you do not know the laws of supply/demand.

Any price ceiling/floor only hurts the economy as a whole. Look for articles on deadweight. The market is already a living organism and price already reflects supply and demand. Your post only serves to demonstrate your lack of economic understanding. Read up the other post that addresses the issue that you are trying to “solve” rather than posting a new thread on the same topic.

Ohhhh you. Trolling another tread.

Not everyone is an professor of economics. This is once again another player providing solutions to what he perceives as an issue. Stop belittling people for trying to be constructive. It’s getting real old. I’m starting to think your actually a professor of economics with a side doctorate in trolling.

Once again, Game =/= Real World. This includes in game economy. Whilst they hold some of the same tenants they are NOT the same thing.

He isn’t trolling. He knows what he is talking about. The OP’s suggestions are creative but they will fail to serve the purpose he thinks they will serve.

As Wazabi continues to mention – REAL PEOPLE play this game and therefore economic theory can apply here. There will be obvious differences but you need only spot them and find an explanation for it.

Same “thing” or not it can still be analyzed and explained and our theorycrafting over the solutions for this mess are valuable, whether we agree or not about them.

CdrRogdan.8907:

THE ISSUE
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So for those of you that are not yet aware, you can use ‘custom bid’ to purchase items for less than the going rate, and then sell them back at the going rate. This is for the most part, risk free, assuming you don’t log out with purchases pending before going to bed, and increases your total assets by a percentage ammount.

Before you claim this is an exploit, it is providing a service – players that want instaneous purchases or sales rely on this type of trader. In addition Arena Net took down the trading post to look at just such things as this and did not make any change..

In any case, the issue here isn’t the exponential growth of one’s assets – although it is a part of it. The issue is that this form of trading is the best method of making money via trading. Crafting gear provides subpar returns and runs the extreme risk that people will continue to underbid your item by 1 copper and it will never be sold.

As I understand it this is yet another solution for getting rid of 1c undercutting because crafting isn’t profitable. No mention of the oversupply glut although you did go into it further on:

I never said that it was supposed to be profitable. I said it provides subpar returns, and in comparison to custom bidding, there is no reason to supply other players with gear. The idea with using a craft to make money is to turn your inability to craft a piece of gear into a monetary means to purchase it. Whether you profit is not the issue. The issue is that your attempt to sell an item can easily be circumvented with 1 copper uncercutting. It then becomes random chance on if you happen to post when someone is buying. And sadly there is no information to tell you that 100 of those items are already up for sale.

There is no reason for you to provide others with gear. Ok, I undertand that.
You are saying that you use profiting off of crafting to purchase gear you cannot make. Ok.
Whether you profit or not is the issue because you then explain in the next sentence why it is – because you cannot guarantee a sale. Pray tell, when can you ever guarantee a sale?

I’m also unclear why you state that there is no information telling you how many are up for sale. It’s there clear as day how many items are up for sale when you go to buy it. It tells you the quantity and the price they are selling at… so this comment is confusing.

The first proposes a removal of custom bidding, and all player control from the economy.

No. Bad idea – command control economies do not work and in this case you are putting all of the eggs in one basket by assuming ANet will make all decisions rationally. Faithful but not realistic.

Instead items are provided a value with both a ceiling and a floor, that should be obtainable with the current market data. Sales exceeding demand reduce the value of this commodity, while purchases exeeding supply increase its value. The economy would become a living organism, rather than a manipulated enterprise, and exponential growth based on assets would be curbed.

Oi vey. So you want the enterprise to manipulate the value of a good by producing a ceiling and a floor on it based upon only the data they have… and then turn around and say that rather than having a manipulated enterprise we’ll have a living organism? No.

We already have a living organism so it doesn’t need to be toyed with. Sales exceeding demand and purchases exceeding supply already happen so this is an extraneous solution.

The second proposes an enforced 10% reduction on all sales lower than the going rate. That is to say if you post an item for 2.6 gold, that next person would either have to post it at 2.6 gold or 2.34gold. The market for items that are usuable by the community (other than consumables) will undoubtedly see an increase in supply, as the risk of being indefinately undercut would no longer be present.

So instead of allowing for organic undercutting, you want to do it forcibly and cause the floor to get hit even faster. No. So what happens when you cannot undercut by 10% any more? What is this supposed to alter in terms of behavior?

You want to increase the supply of the goods on the TP? This… does not change anything unfortunately without you being more specific.

The third would… products.

So you are trying to enforce the reverse. Instead of undercutting you want people to overcut by 1c which have the exact same effect the opposite direction – it will cause the highest buy offer to increase along with the highest sell orders.

All three of your solutions take the players control of the economy and removes them yet none of your solutions solve the “problem”.

It doesn’t matter if fig newtons played the game, without limited supply of resources, difficult to calculate costs or unexpected events, a game economy does not mimic a real world economy. People that play The Game of Life, Monopoly, or Stratego don’t claim them to use real world economics, because they don’t, and some of them might even do a better job than this game does! Real people influencing the game does not determine whether it mimics a real world economy.

Consider that the gem trading system uses a controlled method of exchange. You cannot set prices, they are simply determined by supply and demand. It both works fine and is devoid of complaints, most probably because people wouldn’t want their -real money- affected by such horsemanure as 1copper (or gem) undercutting.

This is the way the trading post should work.

However, seeing as this will get a large number of players’ panties in a bunch, I have proposed a couple alternatives. I think the range thing should be implimented at the very least. Though I really want to see custom bidding removed. A 25% gain in an hour or two of total wealth, while introducing nothing new into the game world is incredibly broken.

Ahemm.. But I actually do want to hear your explanation on how price ceilings or floors would negatively impact the economy of this game. If that is not possible, you could use a real world example, and we can determine what aspects of that actually roll over to this game. I’m admitedly skeptical there would be any negative impact..

@Dishconnected How can you post pretty much everything that I posted and then misread it?!

Seriously when did I say you needed to guarantee a sale?
How is the ‘Enterprise’ doing any manipulation?
Where did you get that I was proposing overcutting?

Please actually read my posts before reposting them with replies.

CdrRogdan.8907:

It doesn’t matter if fig newtons played the game, without limited supply of resources, difficult to calculate costs or unexpected events, a game economy does not mimic a real world economy. People that play The Game of Life, Monopoly, or Stratego don’t claim them to use real world economics, because they don’t, and some of them might even do a better job than this game does! Real people influencing the game does not determine whether it mimics a real world economy.

Yet people are still going to have the same desires, motivations and arguments. People that post on antique car forums, gun forums, computer forums or porn forums may not be talking the same issues but they are all people motivated by the same things – sharing ideas, values, opinions, arguing, attempting to further their education, help others… you get the idea.

Same here. People want to have fun, they want to acquire virtual currency, get virtual items, share in group wins/losses, compete, acquire knowledge, share their knowledge…

Do you also find it deliciously ironic that you sit here and argue that real world economics has nothing to do with this yet this game wouldn’t even exist were it for real world economics?

Those real world economics had a HUGE impact on the game’s development, and all other game’s development moving forward, because there are a LOT of people out there who can make real money by circumventing the controls of the system and they will stop at nothing to make it happen.

Consider that the gem trading system uses a controlled method of exchange. You cannot set prices, they are simply determined by supply and demand. It both works fine and is devoid of complaints, most probably because people wouldn’t want their -real money- affected by such horsemanure as 1copper (or gem) undercutting.

And this is also done primarily because ANet needed to find a way to stop their revenue stream from going to third party gold vendors.

However, seeing as this will get a large number of players’ panties in a bunch, I have proposed a couple alternatives. I think the range thing should be implimented at the very least. Though I really want to see custom bidding removed. A 25% gain in an hour or two of total wealth, while introducing nothing new into the game world is incredibly broken.

Your solutions do not solve anything, however.

Ahemm.. But I actually do want to hear your explanation on how price ceilings or floors would negatively impact the economy of this game. If that is not possible, you could use a real world example, and we can determine what aspects of that actually roll over to this game. I’m admitedly skeptical there would be any negative impact..

First off, my problem is abstract. I do not LIKE controls in systems unless they serve a necessary purpose. Like not allowing the value of a good to be sold on the TP for less than the vendor price. Or not letting something be sold or valued anywhere for less than 0c.

Therefore, it is naturally against my desire to have ANet control the prices of anything in this game because it will cause an artificiality to the economy and I prefer things to be left alone because it allows for organic growth. Therefore I have an abstract problem with you wanting to artificially control the value of any good because:

1. Who are YOU to determine that value?
2. If something is naturally less than the floor it needs to be left to devalue so something of value can take its place; if something is naturally greater than the floor it needs to be left to increase in value so people can follow their natural desire to get it.

What you propose has a negative impact in that I do not like command control economies anywhere I see them because it puts the power into the hands of a few people and it ends up working out worse in the long run.

ANet, while they have an immense amount of brainpower, are here to service the customer, us. It is in their best interest to listen to us and all of our suggestions, even the ones I personally disagree with, because it provides them with alternatives. Linsey might have an ‘AH-HA’ moment and see a solution she didn’t see before reading one of these threads; likewise, so may I [and I did earlier, actually]. So abstractly the impact is that I abhor control except where absolutely necessary, prefer natural modes of things so they may exist of their own accord and their own will.

I’d rather see this market grow organically than not. (Cont…)

Let’s get into the relevant theory/math on this.

What purpose is there to creating a floor on the price? Increase the price of a good. Well, they already created a floor. On every single item in the game. It’s called the vendor price so we aren’t splitting hairs about whether or not there will be a floor but as to where that floor will be, which you clearly want higher. I’m not sure why because for items getting undercut 1c to an equilibrium price the floor provides no value in terms of increasing supply – market already decided. If the equilibrium price is lower than the floor, it creates excess supply. See butter & wood logs, eh? So you have to create demand for those items to get rid of the excess supply – see mystic forge recipes.

The negativity here is that… you are not solving anything by adding this into the game and by adding it into the game, you have to consider the opportunity cost of ANet implementing your ineffective solutions versus squashing bugs or developing a second iteration of the TP that better serves the community.

Price ceiling? This is a bit tougher but let’s think about it. Why do it? To make something more available to others who can’t afford it. So you take something people cannot afford [rare materials for crafting] and you force it down to 1s. Now EVERYONE can afford it… but it’s now a ghost town because there is excess demand. Now people will not complain because they can’t afford the materials; they’ll complain because the materials aren’t even available to begin with.

There’s the result that people will stop using the TP. Why would I sell on the TP @ 1s when I can just stand in LA and sell my goods for 20s because NOBODY has any? I make insane profit and the prices skyrocketed. Mmmm, black market.

Don’t screw with price controls. In a situation where you think a ceiling is needed, just increase supply and be done with it. A floor already exists so now what?

CdrRogdan.8907:

@Dishconnected How can you post pretty much everything that I posted and then misread it?!

Seriously when did I say you needed to guarantee a sale?
How is the ‘Enterprise’ doing any manipulation?
Where did you get that I was proposing overcutting?

Please actually read my posts before reposting them with replies.

Using explanation points doesn’t make your point any clearer. If you are interested in a discussion, explain yourself. I do not live in your head. If you aren’t then … well, stop replying?

CdrRogdan.8907:

That wasn’t what my post was referring to. I was addressing the issue that one of the fastest ways to earn coin is to custom bid and unequally distributes the wealth as the more coin you have, the faster you can earn. The second issue is that slow to sell items run the risk of never being sold due to 1c undercutting. There is very little information on how many items of that type are actually available since it only lists the cheapest item, preventing informed decisions on what to craft.

Just wanted to jump in here as I’m reading down through this rather entertaining thread.

I am going to preface my comments by saying: I actually do not understand a lot about economics. I almost never get involved in markets in any of my online doings in MMO’s or Gaia Online. I don’t have the patience or the savvy to do this.

I think there are probably a LOT of people out there LIKE ME who also don’t have this. I think there’s a good chance there’s a fair lot of casual players out there who really only use the TP to wanna sell a thing for some quick pocket change.

I know when i was selling mats like the wind to raise money for my level 40 training manual. Then, after that, I recently have earned one gold. I have to say i feel reluctant to spend it on anything since it’s taken me a while to get it. of course i haven’t completed any maps for 100% yet. I also have only done one dungeon run. Maybe I’m lacking in all this other surplus everyone else has.

I often wonder to myself if the amount or percentage of players who just spend their days at the TP reps all day making money trading over playing the game.

But, I do not like AT ALL the suggestion to fix the pricing available to be seen. If I wanna buy a new shoulder piece, and I look on the market. Why should I be forced to buy the most expensive one?

I think a problem that I saw in another thread, is the massive action of players across the game all pricing their items for sale at ridiculously low levels. She pointed out how if you sell the item to a vendor, and then you look on the buyback tab; the prices we’re selling our items at to each other is like…. obscenely low.

Players need to work together to start pricing things more reasonably.

Also, when i see orders for like 1 or 2c per item; the game will NOT LET ME sell to that person. the TP will tell me that I cannot sell an item to another player for less than the vendor price.

@ Disconnected I was actually asking Wazabi about his explanation not yours (sorry about the confusion), unless you are Wazabi.. in which case that explanation assumed both a completely poorly generated value, and that for some reason one that I proposed, nor did it provide any sort of theory..

The purpose of setting prices that move with supply and demand automatically, is to remove the ability to manipulate or exploit the market. Custom bidding as a result would be removed, but I propose this regardless. It is also important to mention that the new recipes were only created due to the lack of means to sell items that are no longer in demand. That is to say if the market already used a system simlar to gem trades there would have been no need for this. As I said the price could be soft rather than hard allowing for strange scenarios such as with the super butter bags bug.

Also don’t be a kitten please. You were shoving words into my sentences. There is no way to have a civil or educated discussion when you refuse to read my posts. If you want to address the issues I posted, first read them before replying, otherwise you are just attempting to highjack this thread, to which I reply: go make your own about how the trading post is awesome and perfect the way it is.

graceangel.3618:

But, I do not like AT ALL the suggestion to fix the pricing available to be seen. If I wanna buy a new shoulder piece, and I look on the market. Why should I be forced to buy the most expensive one?

???? What suggestion is this?

The purpose of setting prices that move with supply and demand automatically, is to remove the ability to manipulate or exploit the market. Custom bidding as a result would be removed, but I propose this regardless.

Welcome to black market then.
That is not a solution to anything, just people stop using TP.

@dish
Nice catch on the price ceiling example…that was a tricky one.

@cdrogdan
The price is already moving according to supply and demand in the current state. Removing bidding will limit speculation, but even without it, it only makes it harder to buy at whoever that decides to sell low, and and put them up for sale at a higher price when the time is right. Along with that, it removes an indicator of demand, and also removes the flexibility and convenience for someone who wants quick cash to get rid of their item.

The game already have build in mechanism to impede market manipulation through sales tax, listing fee, and a large market. It’s even harder to both manipulate and exploit it for profit under this environment. As for speculation, I don’t see that as a problem as it is between 2 consenting person (buyer willing to buy at the price seller is willing to sell). So the question that remains is that is removing bidding worth it to forfeit the option to increase the liquidity of the market.

If only I can answer questions that you directed at me, I’m afraid you’re taking this too personal and it might cloud your rationality.

This does not only eliminate the option to overcharge, but also to clear out your inventory – if necessary.
I don’t even think anything is “borked”. There is a huge gap between different kind of players/playstyles as well as a certain need of education on how the system works currently – such as people like me not clicking “sell” out in the field and begone, but to hang on for it for a second and checking pricing first.

To sum it up, no thanks, I would not like a system as totalitarian as this, but rather shake my head when I see stuff that is too expensive, laugh my head off when it’s still there after days, or click “buy” with a smile on my face.

For the record, I have started buying and selling a few things here and there, probably make a few silver a day – but I don’t spend hours to play the market.
Contraire to most other games gold has a tad more value because of the tradeability into gems.

Well my opinion anyways.

What I wonder is do arena net have people watching the economy going “Hmm there are absolutely none of x on the market we should increase spawn rates loactions they spawn etc”

I think they prefer to change the sink side of the equation. Witness the temporary recipes for the mystic forge. Creating a new sink would be much simpler than creating new sources of items, and is easier to fine tune as needed.

The problem is that I’m playing Guild Wars 2, not Economy Wars 2. Becoming a day trader in order to afford a legendary was not listed as one of the features on the box.

Then acquire gold through other means. Makes more sense than trying to destroy the system for the people that -do- enjoy it merely to make things more convenient for you.

John Smith.4610:

Just a couple of things I would add. You’re last paragraph is correct, but only to a certain degree inside a game. There is much more examples in the game, than in real life, of people deciding not to maximize profit, or to have odd trade offs for personal preference inside the game that people don’t usually have in real life. People are still people in a sense, but people’s character in games often have very different preferences than the person in real life. This is a larger issue than I want to discuss here. I would argue that we have to be careful to remember that motivations in the game aren’t necessarily the same as motivations in real life.

Ohhh, very interesting. I would suggest that players are maximizing their utility rather than profits! Of course your in game wealth impacts the pleasure you get from playing, but obtaining wealth is not free. Nothing in the game is free, they all cost you time!

We could even go one level higher and say that the real person’s utility depends on the enjoyment they get out of the game (along with all the other stuff in the real world people like). Then we would have to consider their ability to spend real $ on ingame currencies, the relative benefit that playing GW2 has to other leisure activities (which is very large!), and a myriad of other things. If there is interest perhaps we could determine the functional form of a players utility function!

The basic problem would be:

Maximize U(X) subject to T=X*t

Where X is a vector of activities you can do in game, t is a vector of how much time each activity takes, and T is the total amount of time you have to spend in game.

Ok I’ll stop now….

I find it odd how people have so little understanding of simple economic somehow get the idea that its wrong while providing solutions that do nothing to solve the problem because they person does not understand anything.

The economy is fine. Learn the basics before you complain.

The economy is fine. Learn the basics before you complain.

I’d say not fine, but that state have nothing to do with TP itself, except ability to change sell orders, but that’s minor effect overall, and won’t solve supply|demand problem, and crafting.

The problem is this and it’s a fact:

There is more than enough supply and not enough demand.

The trading post is world wide instead of just server wide. That’s the problem.

I think part of the problem here is that the people who see the Traders making 100g a week think they are pulling the money from thin air. In fact they are not.

It’s not like they manufactured the money themselves. The money was already introduced to the market, their trading is only affecting distribution, not amount.

This type of trading can actually be beneficial to the system. When people play the market they are actually feeding even more gold into the money sink in game then they would be if using the TP in a standard fashion.

Someone who is trading can make 10’s or 100’s of trades a day. This means that every sale they do, 15% is gone into the gold sink.

Eventually the money they have made will be redistributed back into the economy (most likely minus 15%) in the form of purchases for things they want.

Obviously there are other issues here. Someone who does this and makes 100g, might take that entire 100g out of the market altogether by purchasing a Commander thingy.

However. This kind of trading can actually provide a REALLY good balance for the amount of money earned in game.

The market is regulated by a few things.

1. The amount of goods available
2. The amount of goods desired
3. The amount of profit a person is willing to “live” with
4. The amount of gold a person is willing to spend

There are always going to be those who don’t conform to the average of 3 or 4. Those are the people who will be either playing into the market to make money, or are willing to sacrifice profit for convenience. These 2 feed each other. One purchases the goods of the other. The people seeking excess profit by playing the market will then reintroduce their cheaply purchased goods into the market for the standard price.

In this way it is very like a real world economy. Someone has things they just want out, or if they need to move things quickly, they will sell for a cheapened price. The purchasers can then resell the items for standard value, making a profit. And just like a real market, they end up paying taxes on the purchase. (gold sink)

If items are selling for pennies, this actually has NOTHING to do with what I described above. The cheap purchasers won’t sell for pennies, because they would make no profit. This means they are only going to be doing this on goods that actually sell for a decent price anyway.

The problem with the copper priced goods actually deals with numbers 1 and 2, also known as supply and demand.

For whatever reason, be it drop rates, excess crafted materials due to mass crafting, or simply farming for a profit, there is too much of an item compared to it’s relative demand. In other words, the cheap items are the ones that DON’T turn a profit for anyone. No one wants to touch them, so they stay on the market for prices that are too cheap. They are on the market because there is a diminished use for them compared to supply. They are not profitable for anyone, profit traders included.

This means that removing the custom buy option, isn’t going to solve the issue at all, because the problem isn’t related to custom purchases in any way.

@ Disconnected I was actually asking Wazabi about his explanation not yours (sorry about the confusion), unless you are Wazabi.. in which case that explanation assumed both a completely poorly generated value, and that for some reason one that I proposed, nor did it provide any sort of theory..

I am not Wazabi. It was not clear who you were referring to. I suggest using the quote system.

The purpose of setting prices that move with supply and demand automatically, is to remove the ability to manipulate or exploit the market.

Yet causes distortions in the market that do not fix anything you are trying to fix. It isn’t clear in this thread you are trying to stop manipulation or exploitation. It is clear that you, in addition to the other bandwagon folks, dislike 1c undercutting and enjoy control over market systems, however.

Custom bidding as a result would be removed, but I propose this regardless.

Thank you for the idea. This will not happen.

It is also important to mention that the new recipes were only created due to the lack of means to sell items that are no longer in demand.

It was created because of an excess of supply in those items that were added to the mystic recipes.

That is to say if the market already used a system simlar to gem trades there would have been no need for this. As I said the price could be soft rather than hard allowing for strange scenarios such as with the super butter bags bug.

There is no need to create a floor or ceiling because there is already a floor and the ceiling is done away with by increasing the supply of the good. The super butter bags bug wasn’t a bug at all – Linsey goofed the drop and created a SUPER ridiculous amount of supply. :P

Also don’t be a kitten please. You were shoving words into my sentences.

GETS SUPER SERIOUS, LOOKOUT
takes off glasses
Listen here, you! hehe
Dude, we’re communicating through text. Not everything you say is going to be so obvious. If you hadn’t noticed, I respond to pretty much the entirety of anyone’s post when I do – it’s self-evident I take the time to respond to people’s posts and I even made a pointed effort to read and understand what you were saying because I didn’t want to get it wrong. That obviously failed or you are being defensive because I exposed the flaws in your arguments. It’s most likely the latter because instead of explaining yourself you are just complaining I do not understand you when I specifically asked you to explain yourself to me.

There is no way to have a civil or educated discussion when you refuse to read my posts.

I agree but since this isn’t the case then the problem isn’t with me here. It’s just that there was a misunderstanding but you do not want to be understood.

If you want to address the issues I posted, first read them before replying, otherwise you are just attempting to highjack this thread, to which I reply: go make your own about how the trading post is awesome and perfect the way it is.

Did you read my responses? I responded directly to everything you said.

I do not believe the trading post is awesome and perfect; I believe that your suggestions fail to improve anything and you have yet to explain how it doesn’t.

Q.E.D.

Wazabi.1439:

@dish
Nice catch on the price ceiling example…that was a tricky one.

Thanks. I want this game to be successful but we’ve got an army of complainers out there with terrible ideas so I’m trying to filter them out. :P

@cdrogdan
The price is already moving according to supply and demand in the current state. Removing bidding will limit speculation, but even without it, it only makes it harder to buy at whoever that decides to sell low, and and put them up for sale at a higher price when the time is right. Along with that, it removes an indicator of demand, and also removes the flexibility and convenience for someone who wants quick cash to get rid of their item.

Pretty much.

The game already have build in mechanism to impede market manipulation through sales tax, listing fee, and a large market. It’s even harder to both manipulate and exploit it for profit under this environment. As for speculation, I don’t see that as a problem as it is between 2 consenting person (buyer willing to buy at the price seller is willing to sell). So the question that remains is that is removing bidding worth it to forfeit the option to increase the liquidity of the market.

No, it is not. His stated solutions unfortunately do not work.

If only I can answer questions that you directed at me, I’m afraid you’re taking this too personal and it might cloud your rationality.

And I’m afraid that other people don’t understand that you aren’t saying this to offend him, you are stating a fact about human nature and it is clear that his responses aren’t coming in the form of well-formed arguments but from a desire to rid the TP of 1c undercutting just like everyone else when it isn’t a problem.

We should not forget that gold is merely a commodity like any other drop. If the intent of a player is to gain more wealth and store it in something which has currency-like properties, then we do not know which item will be the blessed one.

Will it be ectos in some throwback to GW1? But ectos had their value even in the face of total market oversaturation.

Will it be Mystic Coins because their supply is more limited and less prone to straight forward farming?

It is certainly not going to be gold coins. Only after we have a somewhat reliable and stable proto-currency to chart values against will we be able to know how the economy is doing,

Once again, the only issue is the supply / demand ratio.

How the economy works, the systems that it is comprised of, and how players can influence the market are all aspects that are working as intended and entirely fine.

Once again, the only issue is the supply / demand ratio that is out of balance because of the trading post being world wide instead of based on individual servers.

John Smith.4610:

Wazabi is almost dead on here.
Just a couple of things I would add. You’re last paragraph is correct, but only to a certain degree inside a game. There is much more examples in the game, than in real life, of people deciding not to maximize profit, or to have odd trade offs for personal preference inside the game that people don’t usually have in real life. People are still people in a sense, but people’s character in games often have very different preferences than the person in real life. This is a larger issue than I want to discuss here. I would argue that we have to be careful to remember that motivations in the game aren’t necessarily the same as motivations in real life.

Bold mine! That is the point I have been attempting to make to others, John. People cry foul on the forum and insult other players for their ignorance because they make two erroneous assumptions:
1. That other people’s playstyles are their own and
2. That they are acting “rationally.”

Motivations in the game are not the same as in real life but they are motivations nonetheless. It isn’t that difficult to understand them, either, because we can understand the variables surrounding their motivations in a very controlled setting and them tweak the economy to match those motivations for long-term survival of this game/community.

Secondly, not related to Wazabi being correct, is that applying pressure through the trading system to attempt to modify scarcity of an item in the game isn’t the way to solve problems. If an item should be more scarce, then the faucet/sink of that item is off, not the manner in which it’s traded.

Exactly. If I may, John – “We aren’t redesigning the Trading Post.” If this is incorrect, I will accept this but I have no reason to believe it’s going to be redesigned unless a fatal flaw shows up in the system. It isn’t fatally flawed, however – the faucets and sinks need to be adjusted. :P

Overall great discussions here everyone, we have a set of clearly educated and intelligent people in this forums and it rocks.

I love this forum. My favorite of all time and I actually contribute because I find it fascinating! :o) Join us more!! :o)

I would like to point out that simple supply and demand models are equilibrium models. There is very little reason to expect that the GW2 economy has reached anything like equilibrium one month after release.

Also people motivations are the same in the game as in the real world. They just face different constraints and opportunities. Perhaps I’m getting a bit semantic, but if peoples’ tastes and preferences changed, we’d have to throw all of neo-classical economics out the window.

@John Smith
Thanks for pointing out the reason where player doesn’t maximize profit. As Siyeh.2407 puts it, maximizing their utility seems more fitting in describing player’s behavior.

I’d like to ask everyone to go back to square 1 and think things over again.

How can a game economy be borked? What is a game economy for anyways?

A game is not real life. In real life, if noone can afford food or housing or clothing, or if nothing made a profit so all businesses collapse, that’s a problem. The economy needs to be managed to avoid those sorts of outcomes.

But in a game economy, even if the TP stopped working, even if trading was disabled, even if they temporarily removed the economic system from GW entirely, the game would still be playable and enjoyable just from the drops you farm yourself. You’ve merely removed one aspect of the gameplay (the economic one.)

Think about that last line again. The in game economy is an aspect of gameplay!

So we need to ask ourselves, “What is the in game economy for?” It’s different from real life – it’s not about “making a living” by providing what people need/want. You can have a perfectly fine “living” in GW2 without participating in the economy at all.

So yeah, before complaining about problems or proposing solutions, ask yourself: What do I think the economy is for?

Personally, I think the root meaning of an ingame economy is for gameplay. For enjoyment. It’s an additional system to learn and take advantage of. So the main “players” of the economy sub-game are the traders and the crafters, who have to figure out which items to trade or craft to make a profit.

What about for the other players?

“Convenience” is one of the factors involved – trading works because it’s more convenient to buy an item than it is to farm it yourself.

It’s also fun to watch numbers go up when you sell something for a good price.

So we see that a FUN economy accomodates all of these needs:
1. There are peaks and troughs so that traders and crafters can make profits if they play their cards right. (On the other hand, it should not be guaranteed profit for anyone that crafts any old thing.) There should be risk vs. reward, like any game mechanic.

2. It should be reasonably convenient for people to get the ingame stuff that they want to accomplish other game tasks.

3. Of course, exclusivity and scarcity can be fun too – if you get a lucky rare dye drop you can sell it for a lot, if you spot a temporary spike in demand and craft a lot of one type of item you can make a big profit, etc. So it’s not like -everything- has to be cheap and easy to buy.

As far as I can tell, so far the GW2 economy is fulfilling these objectives reasonably well. At least well enough not to cry that the sky is falling, anyways.

@Dishconnected unless you can tell me when I said that the problem was that post-product traders couldn’t guarantee a sale, when the ‘enterprise’ was manipulating anything or that I proposed ‘overbidding’ (I don’t even remotely understand where you got this from) there is no reason to discuss anything with you.

People can have multiple accounts.. but the reason I asked Wazabi for his reponse was because he claimed to have an understanding of economics, and your example was incredibly pathetic. If that is the best answer Wazabi has available he needs to recinde his claim to be an economist.

There is -already- a system in place that does what I described – the gem trading post, and you do not see anything crazy like the 20 silver to mysterious 1 silver drop. The ceiling and floor are not -set prices- they move with supply and demand. They are simply not controlled by the players.

For that matter you claim that goods are based on supply and demand. Really? Are onions really worth 9 copper based on supply and demand, or are they worth 9 copper because 200,000 people have bids up for them and sell them for 12 and 13, turning capital into incredibly easy money. Chances are there will not be any market adjustments up or down in this regard because people are inherently greedy. Why fix something to some arbritrary ‘supply and demand’ value when you’ve already got a trade that earns you buttloads of money.

Many other materials are likely under this influence as well.

Undercutting by 1 copper is an issue because it creates an excessive risk for factors that have nothing to do with your pricing. Though I already proposed a range system that automatically adjusts to account for people undercutting you, that will illiminate this problem.

Custom bidding apparently isn’t going to change, so I will simply make it my duty to tell everyone I encounter how to do it and what they are missing out. I should probably point out that a secondary benefit of removing custom bids and that the number of gold sellers will plumit drastically. Compound interest is the largest cause of the current disportionate distribution of wealth.