Guild Wars 2

I was selling an Emberspire and noticed there were no sell orders. I checked out the spidy… all 70 that were there.. gone. About 30 min later… 1 up for 50g. Clearly manipulation but I just want to know … why this item? It’s not like it’s a super desirable skin. I’m just baffled as to why. Sorry if this breaks any rules.

Following spidy charts that situation never happened. Why would one invent such a manipulation ?

Its not SUPER desirable, but its decent enough. Its probably one of the more popular staffs, at least. Not that most of the staffs are popular at all.

Someone probably figures its a decent item with somewhat limited supply and cheap enough that they can afford to buy it out completely, so they’re going to take a chance with hoping to catch a few people unaware and make some money. If they sell a handful of them at the price they’re asking they can break even, then continue to sell the others even at lower prices for more profit. Perhaps they’re even planning on dropping the price down gradually, start at 50g, then drop it down to 40, then 30, 20, ecf, perhaps stopping at 10 to try and push sales of people looking at it thinking the price is going down. Assuming someone happens to check the game today and see 50G price, then look a couple days from now and sees 10G, it’ll seem like a deal. Of course, if they look at Spidy or something then not so much.

Very risky regardless, though. Getting a monopoly on a single limited-supply item is easy if you have the money to do so, but even limited-supply there will inevitably be more being given, and then the manipulator either has to buy up all the new ones that go up for sale (putting himself further in the hole) or drop out entirely. And who knows if it’d actually sell at all at 50G, or even 10G.

It can be fun to make a profit off the manipulators if they try to use buy orders to keep the supply from getting into the system. At one point someone was trying to manipulate a few of the Godskull weapons, bought them all up, put them up for 70s a piece (this was back when they were usually around 40s), then put in a bunch of buy orders of 60s to keep people from underlisting too much. I proceeded to make a bunch of them (were costing something like 30s to make even buying the ingredients from the TP) and filled all the buy orders the guy placed. A bit of money for me, a bit less for him. And in a week the prices bottomed out back to their normal price anyway, so I doubt he made anything.

Raion.5280:

I was selling an Emberspire and noticed there were no sell orders. I checked out the spidy… all 70 that were there.. gone. About 30 min later… 1 up for 50g. Clearly manipulation but I just want to know … why this item? It’s not like it’s a super desirable skin. I’m just baffled as to why. Sorry if this breaks any rules.

In a forest, if an undesirable item is overpriced, and there’s no one around willing to buy it, does it still make a sound?

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Raion.5280:

I was selling an Emberspire and noticed there were no sell orders. I checked out the spidy… all 70 that were there.. gone. About 30 min later… 1 up for 50g. Clearly manipulation but I just want to know … why this item? It’s not like it’s a super desirable skin. I’m just baffled as to why. Sorry if this breaks any rules.

In a forest, if an undesirable item is overpriced, and there’s no one around willing to buy it, does it still make a sound?

The real answer to that question, when written properly, is yes, the tree still makes a sound.

This is because sound is merely friction/waves or vibrations being bounced around objects and the air.

However, in regards to an object being overpriced, it will not make a sound because people will ignore it. There is the off chance that someone notices it and complains, but why complain when you can just undercut it since it’s so obviously being manipulated?

John Smith.4610:

A couple of people underestimated the velocity of the market and it cost them quite a bit of gold, this is what happens 99.999% of the time in GW2.

It’s official, John Smith has CONFIRMED that 0.001% of markets are being successfully manipulated!!!!!

Let the sky begin the fall!

(Sorry couldn’t help myself…)

John Smith replied to my post star struck

Raion.5280:

John Smith replied to my post star struck

But it’s nothing to brag about when it’s to confirm that your misunderstandings are no conspiracy.

John Smith.4610:

A couple of people underestimated the velocity of the market and it cost them quite a bit of gold, this is what happens 99.999% of the time in GW2.

So youre saying that only 1 in 100.000 items posted on the Trading Post are actually selling?

Wanze.8410:

John Smith.4610:

A couple of people underestimated the velocity of the market and it cost them quite a bit of gold, this is what happens 99.999% of the time in GW2.

So youre saying that only 1 in 100.000 items posted on the Trading Post are actually selling?

1 in 100,000 items are being manipulated.

Wanze.8410:

John Smith.4610:

A couple of people underestimated the velocity of the market and it cost them quite a bit of gold, this is what happens 99.999% of the time in GW2.

So youre saying that only 1 in 100.000 items posted on the Trading Post are actually selling?

Wanze, I bet your guild is behind this mischief.

I tried to manipulate the sigil of torment but i failed because i was 6hrs late.

He didn’t say that in 0,001 percent of the cases people manipulated, he said that in 99.999 of the manipulated cases people lose their money bigtime. And that therefore, 0,001 of those cases is successful.

I think what John was trying to say is that many people attempt to try and control or monopolize sections of the market, but fail miserably due to having underestimated the volume of sales per day and end up losing a lot of money.

Of course, it doesn’t rule out somebody managing to eventually pull this off, but it would need to strike a very precise balance between low volume and not-too-expensive prices for someone to do it without bankrupting themselves. (And even if they do, I imagine that if they succeeded, and it started to actually affect the market, ANet would simply intervene by increasing drop rates.)

Yet another poor speculator discovers that market corners do not work without leverage.

It’s always nice sneaking in a few wins from other people’s failed attempts though. Of course you eat the listing fee when that doesn’t work.

Tamaki Revolution.3548:

It’s always nice sneaking in a few wins from other people’s failed attempts though. Of course you eat the listing fee when that doesn’t work.

This is why my Eir mini is still on the TP for 89g. Hahahaha. And that was actually 20g under the lowest TP listing.

Zaxares.5419:

I think what John was trying to say is that many people attempt to try and control or monopolize sections of the market, but fail miserably due to having underestimated the volume of sales per day and end up losing a lot of money.

Of course, it doesn’t rule out somebody managing to eventually pull this off, but it would need to strike a very precise balance between low volume and not-too-expensive prices for someone to do it without bankrupting themselves. (And even if they do, I imagine that if they succeeded, and it started to actually affect the market, ANet would simply intervene by increasing drop rates.)

I think John only looks at manipulation in the short term but that doesn’t consider the successful cases which are generally long term.

Esplen.3940:

Wanze.8410:

John Smith.4610:

A couple of people underestimated the velocity of the market and it cost them quite a bit of gold, this is what happens 99.999% of the time in GW2.

So youre saying that only 1 in 100.000 items posted on the Trading Post are actually selling?

1 in 100,000 items are being manipulated.

correctly

Afya.5842:

Esplen.3940:

Wanze.8410:

John Smith.4610:

A couple of people underestimated the velocity of the market and it cost them quite a bit of gold, this is what happens 99.999% of the time in GW2.

So youre saying that only 1 in 100.000 items posted on the Trading Post are actually selling?

1 in 100,000 items are being manipulated.

correctly

He never said “manipulated”, he said “in GW2”

Wanze.8410:

Afya.5842:

Esplen.3940:

Wanze.8410:

John Smith.4610:

A couple of people underestimated the velocity of the market and it cost them quite a bit of gold, this is what happens 99.999% of the time in GW2.

So youre saying that only 1 in 100.000 items posted on the Trading Post are actually selling?

1 in 100,000 items are being manipulated.

correctly

He never said “manipulated”, he said “in GW2”

99,999 in 100000 items on the trading post are not in GW2.

Esplen.3940:

1 in 100,000 items are being manipulated.

So is it more likely that precursors are being manipulated than one dropping?

The various sites are showing us snapshots with loads of time between samples. It’s like going into a grocery store and counting the number of Froot Loops they have on the shelf two consecutive days and then use that to guess the actual amount sold. We have no idea how many items are posted and sold between those samples.

When you see an item with a high price and low number for sale consider the possibility that they reason you don’t see either the price drop or numbers increase is that when somebody posts an item for less that it’s snapped up right away so when the market stats is sampled again we still see the same X items we saw the last time it was sampled.

This is what JS means when he says “velocity of the market”. We aren’t seeing the actual volume of transactions, the rapid turnover of items between these snapshots.

Next time you are looking at the buy screen on the TP scroll the price list down and see how the prices shoot up toward the end. Now imagine what happens if there is a rush on the market and everyone it buying up supply, what happens? We start seeing those out of wack prices as the low sell price. They could have been there for months left be someone who doesn’t play anymore.

I don’t play or log-in much anymore but I just had to for this

LOL

What kind of speculator would go after this?!

Why would you waste soo much gold on a regular skin?

Why?!

Why why why

Mika.9815:

Esplen.3940:

1 in 100,000 items are being manipulated.

So is it more likely that precursors are being manipulated than one dropping?

That 1 in 100,000 must be precursor, no doubt!

Vol.5241:

I don’t play or log-in much anymore but I just had to for this

Vol, did you make so much money on the TP, that you retired early?

In any case, you shouldn’t stop coming to the forums completely. You’re one of the more respected players with these economic discussions.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Vol.5241:

I don’t play or log-in much anymore but I just had to for this

Vol, did you make so much money on the TP, that you retired early?

In any case, you shouldn’t stop coming to the forums completely. You’re one of the more respected players with these economic discussions.

I’ll try when anything major happens (like new legendaries).

I’m playing over in BF4 and it’s hard for me to justify logging in now. I don’t even do dailies anymore, and that’s a dangerous threshold I’ve crossed!

Who knows, maybe when my gossamer investments go up and I sell it off, I’ll go on a gambling spree and try to make more gold, and hold a community 50/50 draw.

Mika.9815:

Esplen.3940:

1 in 100,000 items are being manipulated.

So is it more likely that precursors are being manipulated than one dropping?

Probably the best forum post I’ve read here… ever!

Behellagh.1468:

We have no idea how many items are posted and sold between those samples.

You can get a pretty good idea of the number of items posted and sold between samples from observing the volatility of the bid/ask volumes over time. Take a bunch of price data, account for time of day and price volatility, adapt a Poisson regression model for buy/sell clumping, throw in some control variables, and I’d bet you’d get pretty close to the average trading volume.

If you were so inclined.

Or you could try to actually control something. It’s an enlightening experience.

Long, long ago I set myself a modest warchest buying and converting gems, then set out to control an item I perceived as substantially more important than it was being priced for, and of an extremely finite supply.

It took me less than an hour to figure out there were THOUSANDS of them in the system, not visible but ready to boil out of the quantum foam seemingly just by putting a buy order 1c higher than seemed to be the stable floor.

Now when I see people try to equate the lingering FAILED offers to buy or sell to Supply and Demand, I just burst out laughing.

Hmmm… Your story makes me wonder if I shouldn’t try posting another offer for a now discontinued item, but higher than the price range the buy offers have been sticking to for several months now. I originally thought that all supply of this item was probably used/destroyed by now, but now I have to wonder if there might not still be some lying around in some hoarder’s inventory, just waiting for the chance to be sold once the hoarder gets bored/desperate for gold.

There undoubtedly is. 1c will put you at the front of the line for a desperation sale, but you’d be shocked how often adding 5s to the top offer even on an item being bidded the multiple gold range will shake something out. Hoarders sometimes set very arbitrary limits. Hit one of their invisible tripwire values and BANG! deal’s done.

Ensign.2189:

Behellagh.1468:

We have no idea how many items are posted and sold between those samples.

You can get a pretty good idea of the number of items posted and sold between samples from observing the volatility of the bid/ask volumes over time. Take a bunch of price data, account for time of day and price volatility, adapt a Poisson regression model for buy/sell clumping, throw in some control variables, and I’d bet you’d get pretty close to the average trading volume.

If you were so inclined.

Right ….

I personally get a feel by hitting refresh repeatedly while looking at the buy screen for an item. It’s like watching waves wash up over a beach, some coming in far, some not but always in motion. Of course that’s high volume items like ectos.

Maybe because emberspire is the only good staff in the game because of lack of good staff designs.

Kudzu is manupulated as well. It jumped from 500 to 585g last week. Day later 15 kudzu’s appear within 5 gold margin of each other (5x 2 kudzu’s at same price close to each other), this rarely happens with precursors cause there’s lot of risk involved. If the reseller failed i don’t know. But it’s clearly anoying, and it drives the buy price up (or the reseller takes care of this).

While the manipulator may loose money, he succeeded in manipulating nonetheless, and it’s very frustrating for people who want to get their precursor at fair price.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Kudzu is manupulated as well. It jumped from 500 to 585g last week. Day later 15 kudzu’s appear within 5 gold margin of each other (5x 2 kudzu’s at same price close to each other), this rarely happens with precursors cause there’s lot of risk involved. If the reseller failed i don’t know. But it’s clearly anoying, and it drives the buy price up (or the reseller takes care of this).

While the manipulator may loose money, he succeeded in manipulating nonetheless, and it’s very frustrating for people who want to get their precursor at fair price.

There’s something you seem to be mistake on. It’s more of “attempted manipulation”. The market is too large and dynamic for someone to actually “manipulate” anything. But I digress. If I go by your understanding of how the market works, each time put up Lodestone for 1 Copper less than the current price a few times, you would think I’m manipulating that item?

Also, if someone attempts to manipulate something, and loses money, then the system is working as intended.

Having studies the precursor market, when 17+ precursors are sold at same time, it becomes ‘competitive’. When it’s 20+ it’s almost always. That means, prices will fall, sooner or later, cause people, are afraid it won’t sell if they don’t undercut enough. But with 24 kuduz’s supplied, this is the first time i saw this rule broken. The price increased 80g at first, and the undercutting, only brought it 30g down, meaning there’s still 50g price increase manipulation succes. It might take more time to stabalize but its anoying.

Perhaps this guys is fully loosing money and just wants to troll Kudzu makers. And he suddeeded in ‘precursor trolling’.

I’m glad i could avoid most of the issues by having a buy order up in the downtimes of TP. For 4 hours in primtime, nobody (luckely), overcutted my offer, and i got a hit, just in time. Guess what happened after this? Buy price went up 50 gold Atm it still hasn’t reached the price i bought it at.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

While the manipulator may loose money, he succeeded in manipulating nonetheless, and it’s very frustrating for people who want to get their precursor at fair price.

What is a fair price? The price of the precursor is set by it’s rarity, it’s utility and it’s demand. If precursors were being sold at 500g and also at 600g, then it means that the value of the precursor is at least 600g and those who sold at 500g threw their money away.

The market of precursors is set entirely by the players. If players are willing to shell out 600g for a precursor, then that’s the fair price. If it sells at 1000g, then that’s the fair price.

Omer.5096:

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

While the manipulator may loose money, he succeeded in manipulating nonetheless, and it’s very frustrating for people who want to get their precursor at fair price.

What is a fair price? The price of the precursor is set by it’s rarity, it’s utility and it’s demand. If precursors were being sold at 500g and also at 600g, then it means that the value of the precursor is at least 600g and those who sold at 500g threw their money away.

The market of precursors is set entirely by the players. If players are willing to shell out 600g for a precursor, then that’s the fair price. If it sells at 1000g, then that’s the fair price.

It’s simply poor people complaining that a luxury item is priced such as that.

It’s like me earning 20K a year and complaining that Audi’s are too expensive and they should be priced to suit me.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Kudzu is manupulated as well. It jumped from 500 to 585g last week. Day later 15 kudzu’s appear within 5 gold margin of each other (5x 2 kudzu’s at same price close to each other), this rarely happens with precursors cause there’s lot of risk involved. If the reseller failed i don’t know. But it’s clearly anoying, and it drives the buy price up (or the reseller takes care of this).

While the manipulator may loose money, he succeeded in manipulating nonetheless, and it’s very frustrating for people who want to get their precursor at fair price.

If people are willing to pay 585g, then 585g is the fair price. You can try your own luck in the forge if you think it isn’t “fair”.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Having studies the precursor market, when 17+ precursors are sold at same time, it becomes ‘competitive’. When it’s 20+ it’s almost always. That means, prices will fall, sooner or later, cause people, are afraid it won’t sell if they don’t undercut enough. But with 24 kuduz’s supplied, this is the first time i saw this rule broken. The price increased 80g at first, and the undercutting, only brought it 30g down, meaning there’s still 50g price increase manipulation succes. It might take more time to stabalize but its anoying.

Can you please link me to the rules that tell me how to buy and sell on the Trading Post? I didn’t know that prices are supposed to decrease once a set number of items are posted.

Afya.5842:

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Kudzu is manupulated as well. It jumped from 500 to 585g last week. Day later 15 kudzu’s appear within 5 gold margin of each other (5x 2 kudzu’s at same price close to each other), this rarely happens with precursors cause there’s lot of risk involved. If the reseller failed i don’t know. But it’s clearly anoying, and it drives the buy price up (or the reseller takes care of this).

While the manipulator may loose money, he succeeded in manipulating nonetheless, and it’s very frustrating for people who want to get their precursor at fair price.

If people are willing to pay 585g, then 585g is the fair price. You can try your own luck in the forge if you think it isn’t “fair”.

The problem with “fair” prices on limited quantity items is that they are only “fair” to certain players……ie those with highest profit potentials (tp traders + atm champ grinders). For the rest of the player base that does not participate in one of those avenues the prices maintained by those are not possible. Thus we have a funneling effect into certain play styles that don’t really benefit the game’s positive health.

Essence Snow.3194:

Afya.5842:

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Kudzu is manupulated as well. It jumped from 500 to 585g last week. Day later 15 kudzu’s appear within 5 gold margin of each other (5x 2 kudzu’s at same price close to each other), this rarely happens with precursors cause there’s lot of risk involved. If the reseller failed i don’t know. But it’s clearly anoying, and it drives the buy price up (or the reseller takes care of this).

While the manipulator may loose money, he succeeded in manipulating nonetheless, and it’s very frustrating for people who want to get their precursor at fair price.

If people are willing to pay 585g, then 585g is the fair price. You can try your own luck in the forge if you think it isn’t “fair”.

The problem with “fair” prices on limited quantity items is that they are only “fair” to certain players……ie those with highest profit potentials (tp traders + atm champ grinders). For the rest of the player base that does not participate in one of those avenues the prices maintained by those are not possible. Thus we have a funneling effect into certain play styles that don’t really benefit the game’s positive health.

That would be true, if Precursors and Legendary weapons were required by Anet to own.

Required? What does required have to do with it?

Esplen.3940:

Wanze.8410:

John Smith.4610:

A couple of people underestimated the velocity of the market and it cost them quite a bit of gold, this is what happens 99.999% of the time in GW2.

So youre saying that only 1 in 100.000 items posted on the Trading Post are actually selling?

1 in 100,000 items are being manipulated.

Hum. I think, would that be the spicy veggie chili, was it? (My memory may be fuzzy)

I bought all that out some months ago as it was all under priced, listed one at 1 gold, so that spidy and other tools would list it as profitable to make, then used the rest. Result, supply went up significantly!

Success! I was able to manipulate the market into producing something I wanted in quantities I could use, at prices I was ok with.
//Portable Corpse

Yamagawa.5941:

Esplen.3940:

Wanze.8410:

John Smith.4610:

A couple of people underestimated the velocity of the market and it cost them quite a bit of gold, this is what happens 99.999% of the time in GW2.

So youre saying that only 1 in 100.000 items posted on the Trading Post are actually selling?

1 in 100,000 items are being manipulated.

Hum. I think, would that be the spicy veggie chili, was it? (My memory may be fuzzy)

I bought all that out some months ago as it was all under priced, listed one at 1 gold, so that spidy and other tools would list it as profitable to make, then used the rest. Result, supply went up significantly!

Success! I was able to manipulate the market into producing something I wanted in quantities I could use, at prices I was ok with.
//Portable Corpse

Wow that’s brilliant!

I’ll add that it wasn’t “market manipulation” Yamagawa…

They just “underestimated the velocity” of the spicy veggie chili market and lost a lot of gold as a result.

/end sarcasm

Essence Snow.3194:

Required? What does required have to do with it?

It seems you want a fair price for all player types, am I correct? One person has a lot of money due to dedicated farming, or using real money to buy Gems to convert to Gold. Another person is a Casual who plays 1 hour a week, and has less than 10 Gold in their bank. So if I’m understanding this correctly, you want a rare item that’s limited in quantity, to be made available to the person with a lot of money, and the person with little money?

That’s called Entitlement.

Now if Anet required all players to have said rare item, but still allowed us to have an Open Market where we dictate our own prices, then I would agree it’s unfair.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Essence Snow.3194:

Required? What does required have to do with it?

It seems you want a fair price for all player types, am I correct? One person has a lot of money due to dedicated farming, or using real money to buy Gems to convert to Gold. Another person is a Casual who plays 1 hour a week, and has less than 10 Gold in their bank. So if I’m understanding this correctly, you want a rare item that’s limited in quantity, to be made available to the person with a lot of money, and the person with little money?

That’s called Entitlement.

Now if Anet required all players to have said rare item, but still allowed us to have an Open Market where we dictate our own prices, then I would agree it’s unfair.

As an example wvw player who plays 2 times as much as a trader or a champ grinder does not have a chance at such things unless they get an extremely lucky drop. Entitlement for them…you betcha. There is no balance in effort/time spent/reward in this game atm thus the entitlement justification does not fly.

Nothing in the game is really required so that as well does not fly as justification.