Why manipulate that?

Why manipulate that?

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Posted by: morrolan.9608

morrolan.9608

Here is my stance on this subject:
The TP is part of Tyria and is a part of the game.

I would disagree with this, the UI makes it clear that it isn’t, and isn’t immersive.

Jade Quarry [SoX]
Miranda Zero – Ele / Twitch Zero – Mes / Chargrin Soulboom – Engi
Aliera Zero – Guardian / Reaver Zero – Necro

(edited by morrolan.9608)

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Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

Except regular players don’t – if every player consistently priced their items for sale properly on the trading post, there would be no profit in it for a trader.

But “properly” isn’t really a thing here. Whatever the price someone sets, that is the “proper” price. If someone prices something too low, and someone else buys it, well hey, they just got a good deal, good for them. But if the customer then turns it around for a higher price, then not only is the original seller missing out on what could have been, but the next guy who buys it will be paying more than he would have if the middleman had never existed, and this third player had been able to buy it for that bargain price. All the middleman does is make things worse for everyone else, paying less to the guy who created the item, and charging more of the eventual owner of the item.

This is pretty clear evidence that your average player cannot actually list items for sale at the same prices ‘TP Farmers’ do. If they could, they would.

Part of it though is that regular players can’t afford to buy up stacks and stacks of goods and then resell them later. There will naturally be ebb and flow in the prices of items, and people can end up in better or worse shape for riding them well, but the person who should profit from buying at a low point should be the person who actually needs that item. The person who profits from selling at a high point should be the person who brought that item into the game world. Nobody else should be involved in that object’s lifespan but the person who made it and the person who puts it to use.

You can glorify the role of the middleman all you like, but at the end of the day they’re nothing more than parasites on that very simple equation.

From the perspective of the casual player, the presence of power traders on the TP allows them to sell the items they acquire for higher prices, and buy items they want for lower prices, than they would be able to without traders on the trading post. Please explain how this hurts the average player.

I don’t believe that your premise is true. Outside of the very high-end items currently being traded, the best of the best stuff, I do not think that average prices would be all that much better for anyone. At most, the difference would be that the prices wouldn’t fluctuate as much as buy/sell orders get filled, and high end goods would come down in price to more affordable levels. For example, as it stands now, items get bought “when the pice dips low enough,” regardless of the buyer’s actual use for that item. Without TP Gold Farmers being involved, purchases would only be made relative to how much use people had for the items, so items wouldn’t sell as soon as a certain price was met, they would just sell as people had a need for them.

Besides, even by your own admission, TP Gold Farmers only buy items when they are at their absolute lowest, and only sell them at the highest they can get. Doing otherwise is for the foolish rabble they prey upon. So if the TP Gold Farmers are at all doing their jobs at all well, then it would be almost impossible for the average player to “sell their items for higher prices,” or “buy their items for lower prices.” The ideal peaks and valley have all been taken.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

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Posted by: Zaxares.5419

Zaxares.5419

Ohoni basically sums up my stance on the situation. There’s a reason why in real life, cost savings come from cutting out the middleman. I really don’t think that flippers provide a “service” for ordinary players, considering that goods on the TP remain there forever and are not perishable. If a seller sees that he’s being undercut by another seller, he either re-prices his goods or has to wait longer for a sale. If a buyer sees he’s outbid, he either increases his bid or has to wait. The flippers don’t do anything that the market wouldn’t have done on its own anyway; all they do is reduce the time involved, and given the quick turnaround on many goods, I’m not convinced that many players would even notice. (Especially since the impatient players just go straight to buy/sell orders anyway.)

That said, I don’t think it’s as big a problem as others have made it out to be. The market is big enough and fluid enough that, even though the top percentile of TP Barons have gotten very, very rich doing this, it’s unlikely that they could actually use this wealth to hinder the wider player base. JS has said numerous times that attempts to control or monopolize the market have always failed in the end, and on the off-chance that they succeeded, to the point where they could actually dictate prices, I’m certain ANet would just step in and increase drop-rates or the like. This isn’t EVE Online where ruthless economic tactics are celebrated or admired; I’m sure that knowledge that somebody was able to control even a portion of the market in GW2 would be harmful to the game because it would erode trust of the players in the TP.

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Posted by: Ensign.2189

Ensign.2189

If someone prices something too low, and someone else buys it, well hey, they just got a good deal, good for them.

Good for them, too bad for the guy selling the item they worked to acquire? Why does the benefit of the guy getting the steal outweigh the seller getting robbed?

You can glorify the role of the middleman all you like, but at the end of the day they’re nothing more than parasites on that very simple equation.

How are they parasitic? How have they taken anything away from anyone else in these exchanges?

purchases would only be made relative to how much use people had for the items, so items wouldn’t sell as soon as a certain price was met, they would just sell as people had a need for them.

Do you think that a game economy where it is much more difficult to sell the items you’ve acquired after a play session is superior?

How do volatile, uncertain prices and slower market movement benefit the casual player?

(edited by Ensign.2189)

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Posted by: Thelgar.7214

Thelgar.7214

I think the issue with those 99.999 percent of people who fail is that their failure impedes the ability of someone else to get the item or causes someone else to have to overpay for an item.

In the real world, the idea of saving and investing is all well and good. And if this was a stock market sim or some sort of trading simulation, dealing with this would be expected.

But having to deal with arbitrary and unfair price fluctuations (especially in cases where someone did save and saw their target skyrocket out of their reach) doesn’t add a lot of enjoyment in this kind of game. In the aggregate things may go back to normal, but that doesn’t take away the loss or disappointment of people who just wanted to buy something and go play with it. A system where one guy messes up, a few traders get rich, and a bunch of other people are unhappy seems like it builds a great economy for the few but a lousy game for the majority.

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Posted by: DeShadowWolf.6854

DeShadowWolf.6854

but the person who should profit from buying at a low point should be the person who actually needs that item. The person who profits from selling at a high point should be the person who brought that item into the game world. Nobody else should be involved in that object’s lifespan but the person who made it and the person who puts it to use.

Read the bold, underlined words. Now, two questions:

Why? Can you logically (not because then the traders would profit ) justify to me why that should be so?

Also, Ensign made a few good points a couple posts up.

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Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

No. They are creating nothing. The items they’re selling were created by a different player that mined/looted/crafted that item, put it on the TP, then the TP Gold Farmer bought it and sold it for more. They add nothing to the game, all they do is sap money from the other players and into their own coffers.

Regularly players are perfectly capable of listing items at the same prices TP Gold Farmers do, or better.

Except most don’t put it up for sale but sell it to the high bidder. Guess who the high bidder is 99 times out of 100? It’s true that a regular player can post an item for sale it’s just that most simply don’t bother.

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

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Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

Good for them, too bad for the guy selling the item they worked to acquire? Why does the benefit of the guy getting the steal outweigh the seller getting robbed?

Yes, too bad for the person that sold the item, but middlemen don’t solve that. Putting a middleman in there does not mean that the original seller sees a single additional copper from the process.

If you’d like to make a suggestion that would balance it out, that would ensure that the initial seller would make all the money a flipper would, or that he would make half-way between his asking price and what a flipper could get for it, then I’d be happy to listen, but the way things are, if people post too low, there really isn’t much that can be done to compensate them, the best case scenario at that point is that at least the buyer will get a good deal out of it. There is NO reason why a middleman should get a good deal off of it.

Honestly I think that the system could do a better job of keeping the players informed, by not just listing the available buy and sell offers, but also listing more data, such as the average transacted sale price over the past week (or last ten sales if it’s a slow moving item), so that people would know what actual players were willing to pay for it.

How are they parasitic? How have they taken anything away from anyone else in these exchanges?

I explained that. Player A sells the item low. Player C actually needs the item. Player B (the parasite) buys the item low from Player A, and sells it high to Player C. Now Player A isn’t any worse off, nothing can be done for him, but Player C is out the difference that Player B pockets. He is worse off. Player B has gained money without doing anything positive for anyone else. That is, by textbook definition, a parasite.

Do you think that a game economy where it is much more difficult to sell the items you’ve acquired after a play session is superior?

If it means no parasites, then sure. As you’ve pointed out, only a fool uses the “sell it now” function, the only reason for it is if you desperately need cash immediately, and 99/100 the player can afford to wait. Whenever I decide to sell something, I check the available sell offers, and price mine relative to that, usually a tad lower unless I think they seem off. This system works with or without TP Gold Farmers being involved. I have no need to recoup that cash immediately, I have plenty on hand to cover my day to day expenses, and that’s true for most players above level 10 or so. I’ve had items sit in my selling list for weeks or even months if I misjudge, but they almost always sell eventually. TP Gold Farmers in no way make anyone else’s lives easier.

How do volatile, uncertain prices and slower market movement benefit the casual player?

They don’t, necessarily, but they also don’t hurt the casual player as much as market parasites do.

How do volatile, uncertain prices and slower market movement benefit the casual player?

They seem to be “shoulds.”

Why? Can you logically (not because then the traders would profit ) justify to me why that should be so?

Because it’s in the best interests of the majority of players. This is an adventure simulator, not a market simulator. If you’re in this game because you want to be a market tycoon, there are other games for that, go play them. The rest of us don’t want you around.

Except most don’t put it up for sale but sell it to the high bidder. Guess who the high bidder is 99 times out of 100? It’s true that a regular player can post an item for sale it’s just that most simply don’t bother.

Yes, but imagine a world in which any item you bought off the TP was Bind on Purchase. In that world, guess who the high bidder would be 99 times out of 100. I’ll give you a hint, it wouldn’t be people planning to flip the item, or at least not smart ones.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

(edited by Ohoni.6057)

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Posted by: Syeria.4812

Syeria.4812

The issue is, many people (like certain ones in this thread) don’t understand preferences and value.

An average player earns an item, pops open the TP, and in a few clicks has gold waiting in their pickup tab. Could they have gotten more money by posting it for a different amount? Probably. With limited exception, they could have researched the market, posted a manual sell order, waited a sufficient period of time, and made a few more copper or silver on their one item. Should they have done that? Probably not.

That’s the issue people who think traders are somehow “parasites” have. They simply don’t understand any of the mechanics behind the markets or player behavior, and immediately resort to childish insults about people who have something they do not.

If I’m a “casual” or a player who touches the TP with the bare minimum frequency, or any number of other people who choose not to be involved in intricate profit maximization on the TP, the 5 seconds I save by posting for instant sale are worth far more than the few copper I would have earned with any other sell tactic. They could also post for the current insta buy rate, but there’s no guarantee that would net them a higher return. Depending on the items they sell, the time of day, the day of the week, and a number of other factors, they could easily end up pricing too high and needing to waste time and money reposting some day in the future. The hassle just isn’t worth it.

Why “should” these people then earn an excess profit on these items? They’re obviously willing to take the smaller profit (otherwise they wouldn’t post the items for sale, they’re voluntarily entering into an exchange). To them, the minimal extra profit isn’t worth the time or effort to enhance. If it’s not worth it to them, it stands to reason they must not value it nearly as much as the so called “middlemen” who end up making money off of it. From a macro value maximization perspective, this is the most efficient distribution. It’s also rather egalitarian (again from a value perspective). By any reasonable measure, distributing things differently would be less fair/efficient/useful/desirable than this distribution.

As for the “middlemen” themselves, people continue to blind themselves to reality again and again. They provide a fantastic service. In fact, without them the TP would perform much less efficiently and the costs of the efficiency loss would be fully borne by those same people everyone’s so up in arms about. The fact is, purchase and sale behaviors aren’t equal. Item generators produce items one at a time. Sometimes they may bulk up slightly and sell 5, 10, or 50 of an item, but the vast majority of items they sell come in very small numbers. Consumption behavior, however, generally occurs in bulk. Some items are bought 1 or 2 at a time, but any crafting material, forge supply, or consumable is generally purchased in bulk. Without “middlemen” keeping supplies and demands liquid, price volatility would be through the roof.

These people keep coming in, throwing their petty insults out, then declaring with absolute certainty that the good honest people of the world are being robbed blind by “parasites.” It’s too bad their ideological rage is too great for them to ever actually try to understand how any of the market actually works.

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Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

An average player earns an item, pops open the TP, and in a few clicks has gold waiting in their pickup tab. Could they have gotten more money by posting it for a different amount? Probably. With limited exception, they could have researched the market, posted a manual sell order, waited a sufficient period of time, and made a few more copper or silver on their one item. Should they have done that? Probably not.

If the average player does “sell now” on the TP then he’s an idiot. There’s really nothing that can be done for him beyond education. We aren’t talking about fixing that guy because there isn’t much that can be done there.

There’s absolutely no reason to “sell now” except that you need that cash immediately, and no player leaving for the night does. You don’t need to research anything to get a better deal, you just need to check the highest buy orders, and place your sell order vaguely in that range. It’s super easy and will ALWAYS make you more money than “sell now.” If he does that before logging off, chances are the item will sell before he logs back on, and he’ll have a good amount more waiting for him.

If he chooses not to do this, that’s his business, but it doesn’t mean that it’s fair for someone else to come along, buy his item, and resell it for a higher price. Whatever fool price he listed the item for, that’s the price that someone should pay who is going to use the item.

That’s the issue people who think traders are somehow “parasites” have. They simply don’t understand any of the mechanics behind the markets or player behavior, and immediately resort to childish insults about people who have something they do not.

I’m not using insults, I’m using the textbook definition of words accurately. If the term “parasite” applies to your own behavior, and this bothers you, then your problem isn’t with me, and you should try correcting those behaviors.

If I’m a “casual” or a player who touches the TP with the bare minimum frequency, or any number of other people who choose not to be involved in intricate profit maximization on the TP, the 5 seconds I save by posting for instant sale are worth far more than the few copper I would have earned with any other sell tactic. They could also post for the current insta buy rate, but there’s no guarantee that would net them a higher return. Depending on the items they sell, the time of day, the day of the week, and a number of other factors, they could easily end up pricing too high and needing to waste time and money reposting some day in the future. The hassle just isn’t worth it.

Statements like this make it seem that you don’t understand how the market works. If they find that they typically have to reslist, and this bothers them, then could still undercut the best sell offers by a considerable amount, and STILL come out ahead on the buy price. Just looking at a recent commodity, Pristine Spores, the lowest list price is currently 2.2s, the highest order is 1.8. Now these might fluctuate wildly during the day, but if our seller were to put his up at anything over 2.0, that certainly wouldn’t be the best deal he could get, but it WOULD sell, and he WOULD be making a profit over just accepting the best buy order.

Again, maybe a player is unaware of this, but that doesn’t make it right to victimize him.

Likewise, the opposite is true, a player might want some pristine spores, but so long as he doesn’t need them right this second, he could place a buy order at 2.0, be guaranteed to have it filled in short order, and save a considerable amount on the deal. And again, not knowing this does not mean that they deserve to be victimized by market predators.

Now some people need items immediately, so buy now is more common than sell now, but even then, if all TP Gold Farmers were removed from the equation, the items that “buy now” people need would always be on the marketplace, because that’s where the TP Gold Farmers would get them in the first place.

Some items are bought 1 or 2 at a time, but any crafting material, forge supply, or consumable is generally purchased in bulk. Without “middlemen” keeping supplies and demands liquid, price volatility would be through the roof.

Most commodities are available in the hundreds of thousands on the market, this would be the same with or without middlemen. Again though, if volatility is the concern, there are better ways to solve it than with parasitic infection. Better players feedback as to what the reasonable price is would do the job considerably better for the average player.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

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Posted by: Draygo.9473

Draygo.9473

There are many things wrong with this post….

If the average player does “sell now” on the TP then he’s an idiot. There’s really nothing that can be done for him beyond education. We aren’t talking about fixing that guy because there isn’t much that can be done there.

There’s absolutely no reason to “sell now” except that you need that cash immediately, and no player leaving for the night does. You don’t need to research anything to get a better deal, you just need to check the highest buy orders, and place your sell order vaguely in that range. It’s super easy and will ALWAYS make you more money than “sell now.” If he does that before logging off, chances are the item will sell before he logs back on, and he’ll have a good amount more waiting for him.

There are absolute reasons to sell now, I will put down a couple:

The item is VERY slow moving, and has little activity over time ex (Permanent Hair Stylist Contract)
Any time you put up a sell order there is a small amount of risk that the price will drop, this risk is proportionate to the total activity of the item, its ease of supply, and the strength of the demand plus other factors.
-There have been several times where I did what you just said here and that item took weeks or months to sell, or I was forced to relist because the market settled at a lower amount EVEN ON FAST MOVING ITEMS.

I’m not using insults, I’m using the textbook definition of words accurately. If the term “parasite” applies to your own behavior, and this bothers you, then your problem isn’t with me, and you should try correcting those behaviors.

You are calling people “idiots”.

Statements like this make it seem that you don’t understand how the market works. If they find that they typically have to reslist, and this bothers them, then could still undercut the best sell offers by a considerable amount, and STILL come out ahead on the buy price. Just looking at a recent commodity, Pristine Spores, the lowest list price is currently 2.2s, the highest order is 1.8. Now these might fluctuate wildly during the day, but if our seller were to put his up at anything over 2.0, that certainly wouldn’t be the best deal he could get, but it WOULD sell, and he WOULD be making a profit over just accepting the best buy order.

There is no guarantee of sale if you put up a sell order. I defy you to prove this. I have evidence to the contrary.

Again, maybe a player is unaware of this, but that doesn’t make it right to victimize him.

How exactly does this victimize someone who AGREES to sell an item at a particular pricepoint. The “victim” is assuming no risk, the trader is buying the risk.

Likewise, the opposite is true, a player might want some pristine spores, but so long as he doesn’t need them right this second, he could place a buy order at 2.0, be guaranteed to have it filled in short order, and save a considerable amount on the deal. And again, not knowing this does not mean that they deserve to be victimized by market predators.

Buy orders are a little bit different because of the fact that there are no fees associated with buy orders. So I can list and relist by buy orders over and over until I get all the mats I need. Now there are times that people buy in bulk because they need something now instead of later. You do note this. I would also note that TP traders tend to push buy orders up, if the traders wernt in the market we would see much larger price gaps between buy and sell.

Most commodities are available in the hundreds of thousands on the market, this would be the same with or without middlemen. Again though, if volatility is the concern, there are better ways to solve it than with parasitic infection. Better players feedback as to what the reasonable price is would do the job considerably better for the average player.

Right click sell item, gives you pretty kitten good feedback. Most people are aware of this.

Anyway, trading on the trading post is buying and selling risk. The more risky an item is the larger the overall gap between sell order and buy order will exist. This isn’t predation, the seller is fully aware in gw2 what the sell now price is, they are fully aware what the current lowest sell order price is. All sell orders involve risk.

Delarme
Apathy Inc [Ai]

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Posted by: DeShadowWolf.6854

DeShadowWolf.6854

If you’d like to make a suggestion that would balance it out, that would ensure that the initial seller would make all the money a flipper would, or that he would make half-way between his asking price and what a flipper could get for it, then I’d be happy to listen, but the way things are, if people post too low, there really isn’t much that can be done to compensate them, the best case scenario at that point is that at least the buyer will get a good deal out of it. There is NO reason why a middleman should get a good deal off of it.

If the initial seller sells it to the trader for 1g, those 85s he got is all profit (presuming that he got it as a drop, as you advocate). If the trader then sells that item for 2g, then he gets 70s, 15s less than the original seller. If the trader then holds onto it for a while and sells it for 6g, then he gets 4g 10s in profit, which, yes, is far more than the original seller, but at a time investment. If the initial seller had decided to hold onto it for a while, he could have sold it for much more, similarly. The trader could also lose money if the item devalues while holding, and he could use those 70s to do other things.

Honestly I think that the system could do a better job of keeping the players informed, by not just listing the available buy and sell offers, but also listing more data, such as the average transacted sale price over the past week (or last ten sales if it’s a slow moving item), so that people would know what actual players were willing to pay for it.

I can agree with this, to a certain extent. Anyway, the trader can only sell items at prices people will pay, without losing at least some money, and can’t artificially lower the buy price by the fact that multiple people have posts there.

How are they parasitic? How have they taken anything away from anyone else in these exchanges?

I explained that. Player A sells the item low. Player C actually needs the item. Player B (the parasite) buys the item low from Player A, and sells it high to Player C. Now Player A isn’t any worse off, nothing can be done for him, but Player C is out the difference that Player B pockets. He is worse off. Player B has gained money without doing anything positive for anyone else. That is, by textbook definition, a parasite.

This makes a couple assumptions that make the average player (that you say you are advocating for) look quite incapable and dumber than is accurate:
1) The trader will always be able to buy from Player A before Player C has the chance to. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m fairly sure that there aren’t enough traders to be watching every item 24-7 well enough to do this
2) Player C is incapable of placing a buy order. If this is true, then there is no hope, and indeed in this case the trader would be making it easier through undercutting. If this is false, then if Player C is not fine with paying what the trader has listed, then he can place a buy order and not have to buy from the trader, who has failed at pricing their items.

As you’ve pointed out, only a fool uses the “sell it now” function, the only reason for it is if you desperately need cash immediately, and 99/100 the player can afford to wait.

Then either a lot of people need cash desperately, or we have a lot of fools on our hands.

Why? Can you logically (not because then the traders would profit ) justify to me why that should be so?

Because it’s in the best interests of the majority of players. This is an adventure simulator, not a market simulator. If you’re in this game because you want to be a market tycoon, there are other games for that, go play them. The rest of us don’t want you around. [/quote]

Half strawman. You make broad statement, then fail to back it up logically and resort to saying “Go away.” If all I wanted was to be a market tycoon, then I could go play some of those games. But maybe, just maybe I want to play this game, and just maybe I’m allowed to play a game whether or not you want me to play it.

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Posted by: Smooth Penguin.5294

Smooth Penguin.5294

It amazes me that people who don’t understand the economy keep arguing that an Open Market is bad.

Player A sells “red ball” to Player B for 10 gold. Player B sells “red ball” to Player C for 15 gold. Player C keeps the “red ball” to use.

Player C got what he wanted, for a price he deemed fair The issue isn’t that Player C could have gotten it for 10 gold. No, the issue is that Player C got what he wanted, and Player B made money. If Player C felt 15 gold for the “red ball” was too high, he wouldn’t have bought it.

Not sure how much more simple you can get. This system is fair and balanced, since each player makes the choice to make purchases. If a Casual player can’t afford to pay the prices for a certain item, then they weren’t meant to have it. Just like how not everyone is meant to purchase a Tesla.

Now if the people here feel it would be fair that everyone should be able to purchase a Tesla, then we’re right back at “entitlement”.

In GW2, Trading Post plays you!

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Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

As I’ve stated before, I believe that the players who use the sell now/buy now feature of the TP are either impatient or indifferent to the price difference they could have gotten by putting up a bid or posting a sale.

Often it seems the behavior revolves around keeping their inventory as empty of “junk” as possible and doing so as fast as possible. Thus the number of threads about not being able to sell to the TP as fast as they want and taking a few extra minutes that they could be spending doing whatever was filling up their inventory to begin with. These are the suppliers to TP traders.

Nobody is twisting their arm, forcing them to sell for coppers on the gold. They believe what they lose from optimal pricing they will make up in volume.

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

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Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

It amazes me that people who don’t understand the economy keep arguing that an Open Market is bad.

Player A sells “red ball” to Player B for 10 gold. Player B sells “red ball” to Player C for 15 gold. Player C keeps the “red ball” to use.

Player C got what he wanted, for a price he deemed fair The issue isn’t that Player C could have gotten it for 10 gold. No, the issue is that Player C got what he wanted, and Player B made money. If Player C felt 15 gold for the “red ball” was too high, he wouldn’t have bought it.

Not sure how much more simple you can get. This system is fair and balanced, since each player makes the choice to make purchases. If a Casual player can’t afford to pay the prices for a certain item, then they weren’t meant to have it. Just like how not everyone is meant to purchase a Tesla.

Now if the people here feel it would be fair that everyone should be able to purchase a Tesla, then we’re right back at “entitlement”.

One additional point. Player(s) B can’t buy up the entire supply from sellers. So it’s not like Player C can only buy the item from Player(s) B which I know is going to be the next point that Ohoni is looking to make.

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

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Posted by: Smooth Penguin.5294

Smooth Penguin.5294

It amazes me that people who don’t understand the economy keep arguing that an Open Market is bad.

Player A sells “red ball” to Player B for 10 gold. Player B sells “red ball” to Player C for 15 gold. Player C keeps the “red ball” to use.

Player C got what he wanted, for a price he deemed fair The issue isn’t that Player C could have gotten it for 10 gold. No, the issue is that Player C got what he wanted, and Player B made money. If Player C felt 15 gold for the “red ball” was too high, he wouldn’t have bought it.

Not sure how much more simple you can get. This system is fair and balanced, since each player makes the choice to make purchases. If a Casual player can’t afford to pay the prices for a certain item, then they weren’t meant to have it. Just like how not everyone is meant to purchase a Tesla.

Now if the people here feel it would be fair that everyone should be able to purchase a Tesla, then we’re right back at “entitlement”.

One additional point. Player(s) B can’t buy up the entire supply from sellers. So it’s not like Player C can only buy the item from Player(s) B which I know is going to be the next point that Ohoni is looking to make.

To add: Player C could have bought the “red ball” from Player D for 13 gold, but didn’t want to wait for his Buy Order to be filled, since Player B was selling his right away. Player C decides that a 2 gold difference isn’t much to worry about.

In GW2, Trading Post plays you!

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

There are absolute reasons to sell now, I will put down a couple:

The item is VERY slow moving, and has little activity over time ex (Permanent Hair Stylist Contract)
Any time you put up a sell order there is a small amount of risk that the price will drop, this risk is proportionate to the total activity of the item, its ease of supply, and the strength of the demand plus other factors.
-There have been several times where I did what you just said here and that item took weeks or months to sell, or I was forced to relist because the market settled at a lower amount EVEN ON FAST MOVING ITEMS.

But relisting is still the best option, at least on anything that sells for more than the TP fees, ie, “anything TP Gold Farmers would bother with”.

You can certainly make a bet on offering something that doesn’t pan out, but any bet you do make is going to be better than “sell now.” As I said, if you’re really that worried about the item not selling, just split the difference between the “sell now” price and the highest sell order price, you’ll still turn a profit and the item will sell.

You are calling people “idiots”.

That was after Syeria said I was using insults. And again, it’s accurate, so not an insult.

There is no guarantee of sale if you put up a sell order. I defy you to prove this. I have evidence to the contrary.

There’s no absolute guarantee, but within a reasonable margin of error there is if you place your sell order cautiously (ie well closer to the buy orders than to the nearest sell listing). You might not make as much money as if you place it just under the sell listings, but the item will almost certainly move (again, within an acceptable margin of error). If you’re selling a ~1.5g item for 1.48g, then yeah, it might not move, or it might, you’re taking a risk. If the highest buy order is 1.2g though, and you place it at 1.4g, you might lose a little money, but it WILL move, and you will make more than if you just sold it at 1.2g.

How exactly does this victimize someone who AGREES to sell an item at a particular pricepoint.

I’m boggled. Are you saying that nobody can be the victim of anything they’ve agreed to? You may well have revolutionized the field of confidence artist defense law.

To be clear, just because someone agrees to a bad deal doesn’t mean that it’s right. I highly doubt that most players that sell low are doing so with fully knowledge of the situation. If you were to tell them “I’m going to buy your item, mark it up 20%, and by this time tomorrow have back all the money I paid you, plus a profit,” do you really think most players would go “great!”?

Buy orders are a little bit different because of the fact that there are no fees associated with buy orders. So I can list and relist by buy orders over and over until I get all the mats I need. Now there are times that people buy in bulk because they need something now instead of later. You do note this. I would also note that TP traders tend to push buy orders up, if the traders wernt in the market we would see much larger price gaps between buy and sell.

Perhaps so, but so what? At the end of the day, the people buying the goods would be people who were end users, not people intending to re-offer them at a higher price, so everyone makes the money they went out to make and spends the money they went out to spend, and there are no parasites distorting the outcomes.

The sort of “ideal situation” you posit earlier in your post only really makes any sense “without” middlemen involved. Otherwise, all other participants are just rubes waiting to be fleeced.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

If the initial seller sells it to the trader for 1g, those 85s he got is all profit (presuming that he got it as a drop, as you advocate). If the trader then sells that item for 2g, then he gets 70s, 15s less than the original seller.

Yes. I take it from your emphasis that this is intended to be shocking in some way? The reseller should make less profit, he should make zero profit. Any profit he makes is bonus. The initial seller earned that item by going out into the world and adventuring. He spent time and effort doing that. He caused the item to exist in the world. The reseller did nothing, just just spent money and made back more money, and that brought zero added value to the system. It doesn’t matter whether he makes a 20% profit or a 1% profit, he shouldn’t be making any profit at all.

This makes a couple assumptions that make the average player (that you say you are advocating for) look quite incapable and dumber than is accurate:
1) The trader will always be able to buy from Player A before Player C has the chance to. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m fairly sure that there aren’t enough traders to be watching every item 24-7 well enough to do this
2) Player C is incapable of placing a buy order. If this is true, then there is no hope, and indeed in this case the trader would be making it easier through undercutting. If this is false, then if Player C is not fine with paying what the trader has listed, then he can place a buy order and not have to buy from the trader, who has failed at pricing their items.

I’m not saying that scenario happens every time, but considering that it’s the only scenario in which Player B has a role to play, it’s the only one relevant to this discussion. Sure, C can get there before B does, and I’m sure that happens all the time, but those are situations with a happy ending, we don’t need to worry about those. Traders spend enough time watching the market, and knowing what deals to look out for, that someone is likely to jump on a good deal early enough in the process. No single trader controls all of the market, but there are enough traders that any given element of the market is likely monitored closely by one or more of them at any given time.

And sure, Player C could avoid buying at Player B’s prices, but 1. Players are far far far more likely to need a given item right away than they are to need to sell something right away, and 2. buy orders that will get filled are judged relative to listed sale prices, so even if C does place a buy order, it isn’t likely to be fulfilled if traders have given the illusion that the going rate is considerably higher. There’s basically no point in saying “I would only pay 200g for a Dawn, so that’s the Buy price I’ll list!”

Then either a lot of people need cash desperately, or we have a lot of fools on our hands.

Little of both, most likely, but that doesn’t mean it’s right to fleece them, and if the system can be tweaked to make that less likely, why not do that?

Half strawman. You make broad statement, then fail to back it up logically and resort to saying “Go away.” If all I wanted was to be a market tycoon, then I could go play some of those games. But maybe, just maybe I want to play this game, and just maybe I’m allowed to play a game whether or not you want me to play it.

You are, but if your doing so makes the game worse for the majority of players, then it would be in ANet’s interests to get rid of you. That’s why they have a rule against bots, after all. Why should gold-farming bots be ejected from the game if gold farming traders aren’t? All in all, I think I prefer the bots, they at least give you amusing scenes of naked rangers with bears swarming Frostgorge Sound like locusts.

Now if the people here feel it would be fair that everyone should be able to purchase a Tesla, then we’re right back at “entitlement”.

Why do you feel entitled to the ability for Player B to turn a profit for doing nothing? That’s the only entitlement I see here.

Often it seems the behavior revolves around keeping their inventory as empty of “junk” as possible and doing so as fast as possible.

Items you list on the TP as a sell order as just as gone from your inventory as items you “sell it now” on. If the player’s goal is to dump items from his inventory either method works just as well.

One additional point. Player(s) B can’t buy up the entire supply from sellers. So it’s not like Player C can only buy the item from Player(s) B

Part of the problem is though that there is more than one Player B out there, and they’re all running the same playbook. Certainly one player can’t corner a whole market, but a lot of players, all individually attempting the same trick, end up distorting the market well above where it naturally would be. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s a gestalt.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Syeria.4812

Syeria.4812

There are absolute reasons to sell now, I will put down a couple:

The item is VERY slow moving, and has little activity over time ex (Permanent Hair Stylist Contract)
Any time you put up a sell order there is a small amount of risk that the price will drop, this risk is proportionate to the total activity of the item, its ease of supply, and the strength of the demand plus other factors.
-There have been several times where I did what you just said here and that item took weeks or months to sell, or I was forced to relist because the market settled at a lower amount EVEN ON FAST MOVING ITEMS.

But relisting is still the best option, at least on anything that sells for more than the TP fees, ie, “anything TP Gold Farmers would bother with”.

You can certainly make a bet on offering something that doesn’t pan out, but any bet you do make is going to be better than “sell now.” As I said, if you’re really that worried about the item not selling, just split the difference between the “sell now” price and the highest sell order price, you’ll still turn a profit and the item will sell.

With the extremely rare example of items where the difference between buy/sell price are significantly more than 5.25% at any given time (which is largely limited to items which have major risk associated with posting at the higher price), relisting is always a net loss. Even with items where the spread is in the >10% range, without careful, educated, time intensive behavior, it’s usually still a net loss.

One of the concepts that’s so brutally over your head, and evidently far beyond your comprehension is that time and risk have translatable monetary value. You’re demanding that risk averse people risk 20s for a 10% chance for 1g without changing any of their playstyle, or that they do the same with a 30% chance but requiring a significant investment of time.

There’s no point in anyone even bothering to read your post beyond the first seven words.

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Yamagawa.5941

Yamagawa.5941

You can glorify the role of the middleman all you like, but at the end of the day they’re nothing more than parasites on that very simple equation.

Vocabulary to help: Opportunity Cost.

The middleman pays the opportunity cost, and assumes the associated risks of owning an item. These are real things to the market place, and they can and do benefit the person who crafted the item, as that crafter can now go out, buy more mats and make something else. Sure, that middleman may make a 20%, 50%, or 2000% profit when that item sells in a month. Sure, its more work for the crafter. Sure, its a smaller margin, but the crafter has not paid that cost. The crafter can roll over that one gold at 30% a day, and keep rolling it over for (in an idealized economy) a final value of 2500 gold after a month. Oh woe is the flipper, who took spent that one gold and made a meager 20 gold when the item finally sold at the end of a month.

//Portable Corpse

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Ensign.2189

Ensign.2189

Yes, too bad for the person that sold the item, but middlemen don’t solve that. Putting a middleman in there does not mean that the original seller sees a single additional copper from the process.

One middleman does not solve this, that is true.

Two middlemen solve this. They solve this because they compete with each other for margin on the resale, pushing the buy price up and the sell price down. When there are two or more middlemen in a market, the original seller will see additional copper when they sell.

Honestly I think that the system could do a better job of keeping the players informed

I agree. Lack of information is uncertainty and risk, and keeps spreads high. It’s just not possible to judge the risk of a sell order over filling a buy order from a single look at the trading post; you need to study it for some time to make an informed decision. Stats like the 1/3/6/12/24 hour high/low, volume, and volatility are all hugely valuable bits of information that would help to lower spreads if they were widely available, and make it easier for the everyday player to make an informed decision.

only a fool uses the “sell it now” function

I suppose I’m an enormous fool then, I use that function all the time.

When I’m buying and selling items in markets that I have a lot of experience in (or markets that I’m entering to gain that experience) then I’ll put in the time and effort to research the market, understand the trends, the risks, and know how to price items to get them to move at an acceptable rate and margin of profit. I’ll do this because the volume of trading I intend to do in that market justifies the time and effort it will take to understand how prices move.

On the flip side, when I get an item as a drop where I know nothing about its price, I am happy to sell it to the highest buyer; in a particular case yesterday, I got a couple mid-40s rares as drops, with a buy order at 270 copper and low sell around 700 copper – and I immediately sold that to the high buyer. I did this because there are traders in that market. The traders know so much more about that market than I do; they know how fast things will move, the volumes, the volatility of that sell price – and the margin that was still there told me it was not worth the time or effort to try and get more money out of that item.

Similarly, when I am making a purchase to change a build or piece of gear on one of my characters – a rune, exotic weapon, something moderately priced – I usually purchase it using the buy it immediately feature. I again have no intimate market knowledge of the time it will take for my buy order to fill, I don’t know how much I’ll have to watch my buy order like a hawk for 1c overbids over what period of time – and I want to do it now so I can get back to playing the game. It’s simply not worth it for me to sit around playing TP tycoon over a single piece of gear to save a few silver when I could just get the item, equip it, and get back to playing the game (and quickly making up the difference in price).

Again, I can do both of these things at a relatively low cost because there are people trading in these items. If there were not traders, the buy orders would exist at much lower prices, and I would receive much less for those naive sales. I would also pay a substantially higher price premium on buy instantly orders to cover the additional risks sellers took to list that item.

Market making is in fact providing a real service. Market velocity is a real thing that benefits naive players. I know this firsthand – there are plenty of markets in this game where I know very little, and I benefit from market makers providing liquidity and stabilizing the prices in those markets.

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

The middleman pays the opportunity cost, and assumes the associated risks of owning an item.

He’s gambling. That doesn’t mean he’s entitled to winning anything. Taking a risk does not automatically entitle you to a reward, if the people managing that system determine that your gambling with it is to the detriment of everyone else.

The parasitic middleman is still not adding any value to the system at all. The initial seller is adding value to the system because he brought the item into the world, the final buyer is adding value because he’s ultimately bringing gold into the economy by buying the item, the middleman brings nothing, because all he’s doing is stepping into the middle and fleecing money off the final buyer.

Two middlemen solve this. They solve this because they compete with each other for margin on the resale, pushing the buy price up and the sell price down. When there are two or more middlemen in a market, the original seller will see additional copper when they sell.

That’s an overly idealistic view of things. Middlemen value that gap. They want the difference between the buy and sale price to be as far apart as possible. This is why TP Gold Farmers rarely post about this great gap they found on X commodity. Middlemen aren’t likely to compete. If they see a highly competitive commodity, one in which the price gap seems to be shrinking, they will just move to some other item and wait for that commodity to cool off. There are thousands of different items to work with.

As for the idealized positive role you posit, middlemen are absolutely unnecessary to that, because final buyers can fill that role just as well. If two different crafters have a use for mithril ore, then they will compete for the best buy order, without needing a single middleman to drive up that price. People won’t pay more than they’re willing to spend or take less than they’re willing to take, and that’s true with or without middlemen. The real difference of value is that without middlemen, the overall concentration of wealth would be lower, so high end items would not be based on the spending habits of TP Gold Farmers.

On the flip side, when I get an item as a drop where I know nothing about its price, I am happy to sell it to the highest buyer; in a particular case yesterday, I got a couple mid-40s rares as drops, with a buy order at 270 copper and low sell around 700 copper – and I immediately sold that to the high buyer. I did this because there are traders in that market.

You’re leaving easy money on the table then. Whenever I get an item worth selling, I put it up just under the lowest sell offer. This may not be the ideal price point, but it always makes me a decent profit over just selling it to the highest buy offer. If I have a few extra seconds then I’ll also check the existing sell offers to make sure that the lowest one is not way lower than the others, if so, I price it relative to the 2nd or third highest. Again, this whole process takes less than thirty seconds. I could take the time to do more research and maybe get a slightly higher profit, but it’s not necessary to just better the sell it now price.

The item occasionally takes a few weeks to sell this way, but typically it’s gone by the next day, if not sooner, and I haven’t been so desperate for cash that I couldn’t wait 24 hours for it to come in since I was level 10. Occasionally the gap is small enough that the difference would get eaten up by transaction fees, in which case it’s not worth bothering, but this would be a market that TP Gold Farmers wouldn’t be bothering with anyways, so it’s not particularly relevant to this discussion. There really shouldn’t be any reason for people to be using sell it now in 99% of cases.

Similarly, when I am making a purchase to change a build or piece of gear on one of my characters – a rune, exotic weapon, something moderately priced – I usually purchase it using the buy it immediately feature.

Similarly, I have bought items using “buy it now” from time to time, mostly materials for crafting that I didn’t plan ahead for, but in most cases, if I can give it even a day then there are significant savings to be made by just placing a buy order. Again, it doesn’t usually take any comprehensive research, just check the available buy orders, find a good point that seems likely to be filled and make your play. If you’re desperate to have the order filled soon then you bet above the highest buy order and it’s almost guaranteed to be filled within 24 hours. In most cases where I’ve placed an order 1c above the highest offered, I’ve had it filled within an hour or two as I played, and at a significant savings over using “buy it now.”

I’m against middlemen skimming off the top, but I’m not against players making wise movements on the marketplace.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: mtpelion.4562

mtpelion.4562

The middle man long served as the only way a buyer even had the option to buy something, as the middle man was the one who procured the item from the seller and brought it to market where the buyer shopped.

Modern advances have eliminated most of that benefit (since fast travel and internet access have made most economies “global” to a degree), however a degree of it still remains.

The other benefit that the middle man brings to the table is one of simple convenience. By buying in the margins, he increases the speed at which an item reaches price equilibrium. This allows both the buyer and the seller to engage in a transaction more quickly and at a better price sooner than if no middle man was present.

Would the price eventually equalize? Probably, but by then the seller would have already suffered a lot of lost opportunity and the buyer would have spent a fortune in “extra” costs.

Server: Devona’s Rest

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

Ohoni is not going to believe anything we say. He honestly believes with all his heart that TP traders bring nothing positive to the economy.

Until the devs make it so anything bought off the TP becomes account bound and not resellable he will see with his own eyes bids dry up, prices plummet (good for buyers but lousy for sellers) and watch the game economy collapse. But even then he would likely find some other scapegoat as to why the economy is bad, for him.

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Yamagawa.5941

Yamagawa.5941

The middleman pays the opportunity cost, and assumes the associated risks of owning an item.

He’s gambling. That doesn’t mean he’s entitled to winning anything. Taking a risk does not automatically entitle you to a reward, if the people managing that system determine that your gambling with it is to the detriment of everyone else.

The parasitic middleman is still not adding any value to the system at all.

You quote the words… Would you like a dictionary to look them up with? I ask this because its clear you don’t understand their meaning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost

Is the middle man an actual parasite? Is he sucking blood out of the crafters? Or is that hyperbole?

The middle man offers a service. He backs the supplier by buying the good instantly, and then listing it for a sale that may happen the next day or the next month. The supplier need not wait for an end user to turn up before he can receive gold. The cost for this to the supplier is the difference in price between where he chooses to list it, and the price where he could instead list it.

Ohoni,
If you buy a lottery ticket, do you mark the option for the annuity (full payout) or the lump sum (partial payout)?
//Portable Corpse

(edited by Yamagawa.5941)

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: DeShadowWolf.6854

DeShadowWolf.6854

If the initial seller sells it to the trader for 1g, those 85s he got is all profit (presuming that he got it as a drop, as you advocate). If the trader then sells that item for 2g, then he gets 70s, 15s less than the original seller.

Yes. I take it from your emphasis that this is intended to be shocking in some way? The reseller should make less profit, he should make zero profit. Any profit he makes is bonus. The initial seller earned that item by going out into the world and adventuring. He spent time and effort doing that. He caused the item to exist in the world. The reseller did nothing, just just spent money and made back more money, and that brought zero added value to the system. It doesn’t matter whether he makes a 20% profit or a 1% profit, he shouldn’t be making any profit at all.

In case you didn’t catch my drift last time, should always implies opinion. By the fact that you use should to describe your main point here invalidates it.

This makes a couple assumptions that make the average player (that you say you are advocating for) look quite incapable and dumber than is accurate:
1) The trader will always be able to buy from Player A before Player C has the chance to. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m fairly sure that there aren’t enough traders to be watching every item 24-7 well enough to do this
2) Player C is incapable of placing a buy order. If this is true, then there is no hope, and indeed in this case the trader would be making it easier through undercutting. If this is false, then if Player C is not fine with paying what the trader has listed, then he can place a buy order and not have to buy from the trader, who has failed at pricing their items.

I’m not saying that scenario happens every time, but considering that it’s the only scenario in which Player B has a role to play, it’s the only one relevant to this discussion. Sure, C can get there before B does, and I’m sure that happens all the time, but those are situations with a happy ending, we don’t need to worry about those.

So we should only look at the negative cases that support your argument? Rather than looking at the whole picture?

2. buy orders that will get filled are judged relative to listed sale prices, so even if C does place a buy order, it isn’t likely to be fulfilled if traders have given the illusion that the going rate is considerably higher. There’s basically no point in saying “I would only pay 200g for a Dawn, so that’s the Buy price I’ll list!”

That example does not work, because the cost of getting Dawn on average from the mystic forge (the only non-drop method currently) is probably far more than 200g. Traders have not created an illusion of Dawn being hard to get, it IS that hard to get.

Half strawman. You make broad statement, then fail to back it up logically and resort to saying “Go away.” If all I wanted was to be a market tycoon, then I could go play some of those games. But maybe, just maybe I want to play this game, and just maybe I’m allowed to play a game whether or not you want me to play it.

You are, but if your doing so makes the game worse for the majority of players, then it would be in ANet’s interests to get rid of you. That’s why they have a rule against bots, after all. Why should gold-farming bots be ejected from the game if gold farming traders aren’t? All in all, I think I prefer the bots, they at least give you amusing scenes of naked rangers with bears swarming Frostgorge Sound like locusts.

Do I need to pull out a dictionary? A bot is short for robot, and is a program designed to do something without the player dictating it, like moving around without the player input. In my opinion, Bots that place orders on the TP should be ejected, but human TP traders should not.

Now if the people here feel it would be fair that everyone should be able to purchase a Tesla, then we’re right back at “entitlement”.

Why do you feel entitled to the ability for Player B to turn a profit for doing nothing? That’s the only entitlement I see here.

This is the most interesting definition of nothing I have seen unless you are referring to the bots above.

Often it seems the behavior revolves around keeping their inventory as empty of “junk” as possible and doing so as fast as possible.

Items you list on the TP as a sell order as just as gone from your inventory as items you “sell it now” on. If the player’s goal is to dump items from his inventory either method works just as well.

True.

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

Ohoni is not going to believe anything we say. He honestly believes with all his heart that TP traders bring nothing positive to the economy.

Because that’s the truth. I can also assure you that you’d find little luck in convincing me that the moon is made of cheese.

Until the devs make it so anything bought off the TP becomes account bound and not resellable he will see with his own eyes bids dry up, prices plummet (good for buyers but lousy for sellers) and watch the game economy collapse. But even then he would likely find some other scapegoat as to why the economy is bad, for him.

You’re not making sense. Prices would plummet only where the items have no value. Otherwise the price on an item will settle at the value it is worth, with or without middlemen.

Is the middle man an actual parasite? Is he sucking blood out of the crafters? Or is that hyperbole?

It’s metaphor. He’s sucking money, not blood.

The middle man offers a service.

He does not “offer” anything. He insists on it. If middlemen offered their services then that would be fine, because nobody would take them up on it, but this is essentially like going into a Starbucks, and when the barista calls your name, a complete stranger grabs your cup and offers to give it to you for a modest fee. Nobody asks the middleman to get involved, he does so anyways. You cannot call it an “offer” without an offer actually being made.

If you buy a lottery ticket, do you mark the option for the annuity (full payout) or the lump sum (partial payout)?

I don’t buy lotto tickets because lottos are a stupid tax, but if I did I would take whichever one made the most sense at the time, but that would be my choice. Nobody has the choice of avoiding the middlemen and just dealing directly with each other.

In case you didn’t catch my drift last time, should always implies opinion. By the fact that you use should to describe your main point here invalidates it.

That would be your opinion. Most things are opinion, consensus is the sum total of opinions. Most issues cannot be resolved one way or the other without opinion playing a role, so saying “you raised an opinion, therefore you lose” is just nonsense people say when they know they are in the wrong but for whatever reason do not want to admit to it.

So we should only look at the negative cases that support your argument? Rather than looking at the whole picture?

Not necessarily. You presented, however a condition that is at best a neutral one, one in which the parasites have not caused harm, but neither have they provided any significant benefit. Given that, they really don’t bring anything to the discussion, they neither reduce nor offset the example I provided, so why raise it at all? It’s like saying that plenty of smokers die from things that have nothing to do with smoking. Well true, but plenty of them do still die of smoking, and the other things they die from they would have died of regardless, so why bring it up other than to try and distract from the flaws in your own position?

That example does not work, because the cost of getting Dawn on average from the mystic forge (the only non-drop method currently) is probably far more than 200g. Traders have not created an illusion of Dawn being hard to get, it IS that hard to get.

And yet there are always drops too. Not every price has to be based entirely on the mystic toilet. Even John Smith said that increasing precursor drop rates is unlikely to actually lower their sale price, and he knows the secret numbers.

Do I need to pull out a dictionary? A bot is short for robot, and is a program designed to do something without the player dictating it, like moving around without the player input. In my opinion, Bots that place orders on the TP should be ejected, but human TP traders should not.

It doesn’t matter to me, all that matters to me is the impact they have on other players. If they are harming the game experience for their fellow players, then they should either be prevented from doing so, or, if that is impossible to achieve, they should be ejected so that the other players can go about their business without them. I believe there are ways to curtail TP Gold Farming without actually banning anyone though.

This is the most interesting definition of nothing I have seen unless you are referring to the bots above.

It’s an accurate one. A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. It’s taking an item off the shelf, putting it back up, and pocketing cash for doing so.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

No prices will plummet because since there won’t be a lot of bids anymore, since only those who would want the item for their own use will bid but most players will still buy now, those bids will be a lot lower. This means sellers will have to list the item rather than sell it off immediately which will lead to a undercutting war that will drive prices down as sellers once again try to get rid of their items ASAP.

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

No prices will plummet because since there won’t be a lot of bids anymore, since only those who would want the item for their own use will bid but most players will still buy now, those bids will be a lot lower. This means sellers will have to list the item rather than sell it off immediately which will lead to a undercutting war that will drive prices down as sellers once again try to get rid of their items ASAP.

Nah. Players will continue to place bids because they want items but don’t need them immediately. Players will continue to sell items for the same prices they always do, because the prices people are willing to pay will be the same. There’s no reason for everyone to panic. You’re like the fifth wheel on a car insisting on your own relevance to it’s stability.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

No prices will plummet because since there won’t be a lot of bids anymore, since only those who would want the item for their own use will bid but most players will still buy now, those bids will be a lot lower. This means sellers will have to list the item rather than sell it off immediately which will lead to a undercutting war that will drive prices down as sellers once again try to get rid of their items ASAP.

Nah. Players will continue to place bids because they want items but don’t need them immediately. Players will continue to sell items for the same prices they always do, because the prices people are willing to pay will be the same. There’s no reason for everyone to panic. You’re like the fifth wheel on a car insisting on your own relevance to it’s stability.

You’re mistaken. I’m not a TP trader. I do put in bids but I buy to salvage or promote for coin and TP players like me will still exist in your trader free TP. I just understand that TP traders are a necessary part of the economy for all the reasons people have listed that you dismiss.

My ilk and I may still be there bidding in your trader free TP until the it ceases to be worth our time and effort at which point the markets we are involved with collapse as supply builds while demand evaporates and you’ll end up with loads more items with hundreds or thousands posted for sale at +1c.

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: tolunart.2095

tolunart.2095

My ilk and I may still be there bidding in your trader free TP until the it ceases to be worth our time and effort at which point the markets we are involved with collapse as supply builds while demand evaporates and you’ll end up with loads more items with hundreds or thousands posted for sale at +1c.

An example of this has already happened. Before salvaging for Luck/MF was introduced, the market was flooded with blue/green quality gear that no one wanted. As a by-product of crafting for XP and drops, players ended up with many more pieces of gear than they can use. Almost any toon played for more than a few hours reached a level where rare/exotic gear was easily obtainable, so finding or crafting greens and blues at that point was useless. As a result hundreds or thousands of units for each piece of gear was available on the TP for barely more than vendor price, and a lot more of it was simply vendored because it was pretty much impossible to actually sell it within a reasonable time frame.

There were no buy orders because the sell orders were already at the minimum price, and no one interested in making money would touch them because there was no money to be made, even if you salvaged them. Even tossing them in the Mystic Forge in hopes of upgrading to a rare was not enough to create a market for them. Only when they introduced Luck as a way to permanently increase Magic Find was there a demand for these items, and because there were millions of cheap items already for sale the TP quickly emptied and it became worthwhile to sell them.

For a while… I haven’t been very active in the game lately, but last time I looked the prices were dropping as the impatient and hardcore players got their MF stats up and slowed down the rate at which they purchased items, while Ascended crafting motivated players to level crafting abilities and increased the supply even more.

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

You’re mistaken. I’m not a TP trader. I do put in bids but I buy to salvage or promote for coin and TP players like me will still exist in your trader free TP. I just understand that TP traders are a necessary part of the economy for all the reasons people have listed that you dismiss.

Yeah, but that’s fine, you’re actually doing work with the materials, converting them into other things. That’s fair.

My ilk and I may still be there bidding in your trader free TP until the it ceases to be worth our time and effort at which point the markets we are involved with collapse as supply builds while demand evaporates and you’ll end up with loads more items with hundreds or thousands posted for sale at +1c.

Except that wouldn’t happen, because both supply and demand would be unchanged. All that would change is the people juggling in between supply and demand, providing nothing.

An example of this has already happened. Before salvaging for Luck/MF was introduced, the market was flooded with blue/green quality gear that no one wanted. As a by-product of crafting for XP and drops, players ended up with many more pieces of gear than they can use. Almost any toon played for more than a few hours reached a level where rare/exotic gear was easily obtainable, so finding or crafting greens and blues at that point was useless. As a result hundreds or thousands of units for each piece of gear was available on the TP for barely more than vendor price, and a lot more of it was simply vendored because it was pretty much impossible to actually sell it within a reasonable time frame.

But what you’re talking about was a problem with actual supply and demand. The actual supply was well higher than the actual demand for the goods. That would be equally true with or without middlemen being involved. Whether A sells to C or A sells to B who sells to C, if A has way more of something than C needs, then no matter what B does, even if he’s out of the picture entirely, the price will be low. If B can’t make a profit, then of course he wouldn’t even bother, but whether he leaves or not, the prices involved will be what they will be.

Basically, removing TP Gold Farmers would not automatically make all markets behave perfectly, those that are a mess now would be a mess after, those that are working fine now would work fine after.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Risingashes.8694

Risingashes.8694

Except that wouldn’t happen, because both supply and demand would be unchanged. All that would change is the people juggling in between supply and demand, providing nothing.

Wrong.

Let’s assume a market with equal supply (S) and demand (D) as you’ve suggested.

And a spread of 20% buys starting at 80c and sells at 1s. A traderless market will stay this way forever as those buying will use the items and those selling simply get the drops and relist at current minus 1 or current.

Now introduce traders. Traders see this and know they can D at 81c and S for 99c and make close to a 3% profit. Since consumers were only willing to pay 80c and 20c as a convieniance tax they’ll likely move from orderers to buyers.

So traders make 3c under this new system. But buyers now get their product for 1c less than previously. But traders are pvpers, so very soon a new trader will come along and see this high velocity market and realise that they can D at 82c and S at 98c and still make a 1% profit.

Now buyers are gaining a 2c discount and traders are only getting 1%.

But that’s not all. Farmers previously sold at 80c but were willing to pay a 20c convienaince tax. Now they are also getting 2c more for their goods as they move from placers to forfillers.

As was clearly said in the post you dismissed out of hand. Traders provide liquidity, and they also bring buy prices up and sell prices down. Without traders prices would be even further away from equilibrium.

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Smooth Penguin.5294

Smooth Penguin.5294

~~~snip~~~

I think I know how to end this discussion, since we’ve already proven our arguments to be true and correct.

Player A has “Superior Rune of the Traveler” for sale at 7 gold.
Player B buys “Superior Rune of the Traveler”, and relists it for 9 gold.
Player C buys it from Player B, and decides to use it.
Ohoni sees this happening, and disagrees with Player B’s actions.

Summary (excluding all taxes to make the numbers simple):

Player A – Sold rune for 7 gold.
Player B – Made 2 gold profit
Player C – Satisfied with rune
Ohoni – Not happy to see rune resold, but his opinion doesn’t matter since Player C is satisfied with the price he paid.

Moral of the story – Capitalism works. Any argument otherwise means that person wants a state controlled distribution of wealth.

In GW2, Trading Post plays you!

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

Risingashes, that’s a lovely picture you paint, but based on nonsense. The markets aren’t a rigid without middlement as you make it seem. If the market would sustain 82/98, then they aren’t just going to sit around at 80/100 regardless, out of, what, stubbornness? No, if the market would sustain prices of 82/98, then those are going to be the prices set by the initial customer and the end buyer.

Not every buyer/seller is savvy enough to set those prices, no, but some would, and they would shift the markets to those price points without needing any third party to do it for them.

Your model only works if we assume that everyone who isn’t actively flipping items is some form of sheep, incapable of setting his own prices and content to sit at poor prices without some kindly third party to do that work for him. If a flipper can make a profit at 82/98, then an initial supplier can and will too.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

(edited by Ohoni.6057)

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

I think I know how to end this discussion, since we’ve already proven our arguments to be true and correct.

Player A has “Superior Rune of the Traveler” for sale at 7 gold.
Player B buys “Superior Rune of the Traveler”, and relists it for 9 gold.
Player C buys it from Player B, and decides to use it.
Ohoni sees this happening, and disagrees with Player B’s actions.

Summary (excluding all taxes to make the numbers simple):

Player A – Sold rune for 7 gold.
Player B – Made 2 gold profit
Player C – Satisfied with rune
Ohoni – Not happy to see rune resold, but his opinion doesn’t matter since Player C is satisfied with the price he paid.

Moral of the story – Capitalism works. Any argument otherwise means that person wants a state controlled distribution of wealth.

But C is only happy with it because he is ignorant to the fact that he could have gotten it for 7g instead. He would be very annoyed if he realized that someone had scammed him for 2 gold. And player A would be annoyed if he realized he could have charged 2g more and it would still sell. Ideally he would have just charged 8g and they both would have been happy. The one least deserving of any returns in that scenario is player B, who did nothing bout making the whole thing worse.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Smooth Penguin.5294

Smooth Penguin.5294

I think I know how to end this discussion, since we’ve already proven our arguments to be true and correct.

Player A has “Superior Rune of the Traveler” for sale at 7 gold.
Player B buys “Superior Rune of the Traveler”, and relists it for 9 gold.
Player C buys it from Player B, and decides to use it.
Ohoni sees this happening, and disagrees with Player B’s actions.

Summary (excluding all taxes to make the numbers simple):

Player A – Sold rune for 7 gold.
Player B – Made 2 gold profit
Player C – Satisfied with rune
Ohoni – Not happy to see rune resold, but his opinion doesn’t matter since Player C is satisfied with the price he paid.

Moral of the story – Capitalism works. Any argument otherwise means that person wants a state controlled distribution of wealth.

But C is only happy with it because he is ignorant to the fact that he could have gotten it for 7g instead. He would be very annoyed if he realized that someone had scammed him for 2 gold. And player A would be annoyed if he realized he could have charged 2g more and it would still sell. Ideally he would have just charged 8g and they both would have been happy. The one least deserving of any returns in that scenario is player B, who did nothing bout making the whole thing worse.

No. Allow me to explain why your argument is wrong:

Player A is happy he has 7 gold from the sale.
Player B is happy he made 2 gold profit off the resale.
Player C is satisfied, as he made the choice to pay the 9 gold for something he wanted to use.

In GW2, Trading Post plays you!

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: tolunart.2095

tolunart.2095

I think I know how to end this discussion, since we’ve already proven our arguments to be true and correct.
.

So do I, fire John Smith and hire Ohoni as his replacement, who is clearly far more experienced in such matters. LOL.

Or do as I do, and ignore him. Some people are incapable or unwilling to ever admit they are wrong, as is clearly the case here. You can re-explain the situation a thousand different ways and he will never budge from the “I’m right, you’re wrong” line.

We can all take comfort in the fact that the TP is in the hands of a professional who already knows that O’s argument is never going to lead to a change in the way the TP is run. He can rage against it all he wants, it will never have an effect on the game or its economy.

(edited by tolunart.2095)

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

Player C wanted it now. Putting in a bid at 7g introduces an unknown factor, when will that order will be filled. He’s willing to pay the 2g to both eliminate that unknown and allows them to get the item immediately.

That’s no different between someone buying something from Amazon Vs the Mall. Sure Amazon may save you money but you can get your hands on it now at the Mall for only $X more. It’s the buyers choice whether the difference in price is worth the immediacy of acquisition.

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: mtpelion.4562

mtpelion.4562

Player C wanted it now. Putting in a bid at 7g introduces an unknown factor, when will that order will be filled. He’s willing to pay the 2g to both eliminate that unknown and allows them to get the item immediately.

That’s no different between someone buying something from Amazon Vs the Mall. Sure Amazon may save you money but you can get your hands on it now at the Mall for only $X more. It’s the buyers choice whether the difference in price is worth the immediacy of acquisition.

Choice is the most important aspect of a free market, while simultaneously being meaningless to authoritarians. This is what leads to the incompatible economic ideals of the two sides.

Server: Devona’s Rest

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Rouven.7409

Rouven.7409

The TP is part of Tyria, absolutely. The same as everything else, from dynamic events over dungeons to champions, it serves a purpose, it is a tool. As such it should be subject to change and improvement.

The same as there are no dmg meters and the like needed in this game, there should be no need for additional programs and websites for trading. The sell window does not really allow anyone to make an educated choice. Improve on this and everyones experience will be improved.

“Whose Kitten is this?” – “It’s a Charr baby.”
“Whose Charr is this?”- “Ted’s.”
“Who’s Ted?”- “Ted’s dead, baby. Ted’s dead.”

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

I rarely met a player market that was transparent enough for a firmly educated choice.

In City of Heroes the double blind consignment market did provide the time and price of the last five transactions for that item but not the quantity for instance. Here we can inspect the number of buy and sell orders at each price but we don’t know how long some of those orders have been hanging around.

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Ursan.7846

Ursan.7846

I am always all for more efficient markets. More information to the players can only mean good things.

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

No. Allow me to explain why your argument is wrong:

Player A is happy he has 7 gold from the sale.
Player B is happy he made 2 gold profit off the resale.
Player C is satisfied, as he made the choice to pay the 9 gold for something he wanted to use.

But would A not be happier if he’d had 9 gold instead? Would C not be happier if he’s has 2 gold left over? Would both not be happier if the price had been 8 gold? A and C might be satisfied with what they got, but they are both LESS satisfied than they would have been had B never existed. B did nothing positive for either of them.

Or do as I do, and ignore him. Some people are incapable or unwilling to ever admit they are wrong, as is clearly the case here. You can re-explain the situation a thousand different ways and he will never budge from the “I’m right, you’re wrong” line.

Would it surprise you to know that I feels the same way about you guys? You seem confident in your position that middlemen skimming off the top are a good thing, however ridiculous that might seem to someone who isn’t drowning in Kool-aid.

Player C wanted it now. Putting in a bid at 7g introduces an unknown factor, when will that order will be filled. He’s willing to pay the 2g to both eliminate that unknown and allows them to get the item immediately.

That’s no different between someone buying something from Amazon Vs the Mall. Sure Amazon may save you money but you can get your hands on it now at the Mall for only $X more. It’s the buyers choice whether the difference in price is worth the immediacy of acquisition.

A middleman isn’t necessary to ensure an immediate purchase though. Initial sellers are perfectly capable of placing sell orders, I do so myself on a nightly basis. In an idealized world middlemen would only be in the business of speeding up the process, of buying reasonably priced sales and reselling them as reasonably priced sell orders, but you know a well as I that middlemen more often buy things up at times when they are cheap, creating artificial scarcity, and then dribbling them back in the market to attain the maximum price for each. This is good business sense from their self-interested perspective, but is not the behavior of someone looking out for the best interests of the community.

Choice is the most important aspect of a free market, while simultaneously being meaningless to authoritarians. This is what leads to the incompatible economic ideals of the two sides.

Choice is important, but so is information, and even pro-middlemen posters are well aware that there is a significant information gap between those that work the markets as a primary gameplay activity, and those that merely use it to buy and sell stuff they use. The players that benefit from the system are those that make well informed choices, while those they prey on are those that do not. I believe that the system should not reward that disparity, that the average player should not HAVE to spend time and effort researching proper market strategies in order to make the most of the market system. That is not a skill that should be necessary in this game.

Take an average player who just pops open the Trading Post and spends thirty seconds selling and buying stuff and then closes it again, who doesn’t check web sites, follow trends, or have any understanding of economics. If the system can be designed so that this player is likely to make the same moves in the market as a highly-involved trader, if he can be expected to ONLY make a deal when he is fully aware what the relative costs of that deal would be, then I could accept the “player choice” argument here, and accept the role of middlemen.

I don’t believe that’s the market we have right now though. I do not believe that the market would be nearly so profitable for the traders if there weren’t players who are incapable or unwilling to stay on top of trading mechanics. I also do not believe those who claim that the role of the middlemen could not as easily be filled by standard A and C players.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Ensign.2189

Ensign.2189

No prices will plummet because since there won’t be a lot of bids anymore

If I remember correctly from a toy model I built months ago, a large drop in liquidity (velocity) would cause a short run crash in prices, but would also trigger a longer run increase in savings, which eventually would push prices back up to where they were before the crash. That is, in the long run, traders don’t move aggregate prices, they deplete aggregate savings.

What you’d see if all the traders left markets is the spreads increase; sell offers would rise in price and buy offers would drop in price. You’d also see increased volatility in those prices, as they have more opportunity to bounce around at lower velocity. So the whole system would be much less efficient and more risky. Equilibrium prices, however, would be unlikely to change.

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Ensign.2189

Ensign.2189

You’re leaving easy money on the table then.

I’m leaving difficult money on the table – high risk, slow moving money. By taking the risk free quantity, I lost roughly 7.5% of the value of the item, my half of the trading post fee. The rest of the ‘loss’ I took was compensation for risk, uncertainty, and time preferences that I cannot quantify – but someone else has.

I’m perfectly happy to pay them for that risk, uncertainty, and time, and to put that money into markets I do know, with risks and time lags I know well and correspondingly less uncertainty.

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: mtpelion.4562

mtpelion.4562

Choice is important, but so is information, and even pro-middlemen posters are well aware that there is a significant information gap between those that work the markets as a primary gameplay activity, and those that merely use it to buy and sell stuff they use. The players that benefit from the system are those that make well informed choices, while those they prey on are those that do not. I believe that the system should not reward that disparity, that the average player should not HAVE to spend time and effort researching proper market strategies in order to make the most of the market system. That is not a skill that should be necessary in this game.

Take an average player who just pops open the Trading Post and spends thirty seconds selling and buying stuff and then closes it again, who doesn’t check web sites, follow trends, or have any understanding of economics. If the system can be designed so that this player is likely to make the same moves in the market as a highly-involved trader, if he can be expected to ONLY make a deal when he is fully aware what the relative costs of that deal would be, then I could accept the “player choice” argument here, and accept the role of middlemen.

I don’t believe that’s the market we have right now though. I do not believe that the market would be nearly so profitable for the traders if there weren’t players who are incapable or unwilling to stay on top of trading mechanics. I also do not believe those who claim that the role of the middlemen could not as easily be filled by standard A and C players.

In that respect (information availability), the TP is really no different from any other segment of the game.

If you want to play PvP, you join. If you want to play PvP well, you have to leave the game and find websites/spreadsheets/etc. to min-max your profession, assemble the right comp, etc.

Likewise, if you want to play the TP, you use the in game window. If you want to play the TP well then you are going to need outside resources.

While I’m always down for more information at my fingertips, I recognize that there are many aspects of the game that are far more popular and will thus have far more attention to information in game added well before the TP gets that kind of attention.

As in real life, people only know what they are told, unless they take it upon themselves to know more. In my line of work the current trend is required disclosures. We prepare hundreds of thousands of notices containing information that would help everyday people make better decisions about their financial future and even with this information being forced upon them, they simply throw away the disclosures and continue knowing as little as they did before.

The reality is that if you provide more information in game, the TP traders will benefit with easier access to the information while the average player will not take the time to gain any benefit from it at all and will continue to simply “sell now” and “buy now” because they simply don’t care enough to do any research, even if the results are published on their screen.

Server: Devona’s Rest

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Behellagh.1468

Behellagh.1468

But would A not be happier if he’d had 9 gold instead? Would C not be happier if he’s has 2 gold left over? Would both not be happier if the price had been 8 gold? A and C might be satisfied with what they got, but they are both LESS satisfied than they would have been had B never existed. B did nothing positive for either of them.

But Player A and C got their money and item immediately. Sure A could post the item for sale at a higher price and C could have put in a buy order for less but they would have to wait for someone else to come along and complete that transaction.

Remember there is a 15% margin that TP traders can’t cross into and still make a profit. All that A and C needs to do to get paid more or spend less is the set the price inside that region. Who knows, a trader may decide to fulfill that order simply to remove that bid/item from the TP to reestablish the gap.

They aren’t being forced to take the offer or pay the amount, it’s their choice to forego the extra coin because (chorus) they are either indifferent to the savings or simply impatient (they want the instantaneous gratification).

We are heroes. This is what we do!

RIP City of Heroes

(edited by Behellagh.1468)

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Ursan.7846

Ursan.7846

People who run world events, or people who access online build sites for optimized PvP builds use outside-the-game resources to maximize efficiency.

What’s wrong with this?

Why manipulate that?

in Black Lion Trading Co

Posted by: Ohoni.6057

Ohoni.6057

What you’d see if all the traders left markets is the spreads increase; sell offers would rise in price and buy offers would drop in price. You’d also see increased volatility in those prices, as they have more opportunity to bounce around at lower velocity. So the whole system would be much less efficient and more risky. Equilibrium prices, however, would be unlikely to change.

What if that were combined with a system that told customers, in bold print, what the average transaction price was over the past 10 days? If it told customers that a given item averaged 1.25g over the past ten days, how many people would ask significantly more than that, and how many would accept significantly less?

The only argument I’m hearing here is that TP Gold Farmers are, at best, highly inefficient and exploitative patches for a lack of proper documentation.

I’m leaving difficult money on the table – high risk, slow moving money. By taking the risk free quantity, I lost roughly 7.5% of the value of the item, my half of the trading post fee. The rest of the ‘loss’ I took was compensation for risk, uncertainty, and time preferences that I cannot quantify – but someone else has.

I’m perfectly happy to pay them for that risk, uncertainty, and time, and to put that money into markets I do know, with risks and time lags I know well and correspondingly less uncertainty.

In most cases you can place a sell order with minimal risk. You might not be able to place a razor thin sell order with minimal risk, like undercutting the competition by a copper or something, but if you undercut them by a couple of points, the item WILL sell, almost 100% certainly, and usually within the day, and you’ll still make significantly more than if you went with the highest buy order. There’s no real risk involved at all.

I’m not suggesting that everyone should make wildly aggressive sell orders in markets they don’t have a complete grasp of, but you can make some VERY safe sell orders and still come out way ahead of any buy orders out there. Any market in which that isn’t true, there are probably better things you could be doing with that item than selling it on the TP.

If you want to play PvP, you join. If you want to play PvP well, you have to leave the game and find websites/spreadsheets/etc. to min-max your profession, assemble the right comp, etc.

Likewise, if you want to play the TP, you use the in game window. If you want to play the TP well then you are going to need outside resources.

Yes, and as I’ve said, I do not want a PvP Trading Post. I want to play a PvE-only trading post, where players help other players find items they need, and pay a reasonable transaction fee for doing so, and nobody tries to skim money off of either of them. I do not want the TP to be a game in and of itself, I just want it to be a way of facilitating the rest of the game.

The reality is that if you provide more information in game, the TP traders will benefit with easier access to the information while the average player will not take the time to gain any benefit from it at all and will continue to simply “sell now” and “buy now” because they simply don’t care enough to do any research, even if the results are published on their screen.

It really depends on how clearly and in plain English the information is displayed, ie “YOU WILL MAKE MORE MONEY IF YOU USE THIS OPTION,” and even with more information they probably do need to prevent reselling.

But Player A and C got their money and item immediately. Sure A could post the item for sale at a higher price and C could have put in a buy order for less but they would have to wait for someone else to come along and complete that transaction.

And if they had complete information about the relative times and values involved, then that might be a fair choice for them to make, but that can’t possibly be the case if there’s any use of “sell it now” at all (on items in which the buy and sell prices are more than a few copper apart, at least).

Remember there is a 15% margin that TP traders can’t cross into and still make a profit. All that A and C needs to do to get paid more or spend less is the set the price inside that region. Who knows, a trader may decide to fulfill that order simply to remove that bid/item from the TP to reestablish the gap.

Yes, removing the item from the grasp of someone that might actually use it, and forcing them to pay their higher price instead.

People who run world events, or people who access online build sites for optimized PvP builds use outside-the-game resources to maximize efficiency.

What’s wrong with this?

The trading post should be a utility, not a game.

“If you spent as much time working on [some task] as
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”