In GW2, Trading Post plays you!
Why manipulate that?
And what of the effects excessive amounts of gold in a very funneled proportion of the population have on various item prices?
Regarding this second part. I wouldn’t know. As it seems to me, none of importance. But I’m happy to be enlightened.
Please for my 5th grade mind my answer them once more in plain english, directly and to the point.
Why are game written limitations put on all other methods of earning gold and not on trading?
And what of the effects excessive amounts of gold in a very funneled proportion of the population have on various item prices?
I can formulate a direct answer if you would like an example for reference.
Direct answer from my post above:
The very nature of the TP and its component markets make artificial barriers irrelevant.
You’re welcome.
I’m sorry Essence Snow, but you’re wrong. Smooth Penguin/tolunart have repeatedly answered your questions. You call it sidestepping, I call it just you not understanding the points they are trying to transmit to you.
I’ll give you my two cents, though.
Why can’t a player buy items from other players and sell them for a different price? The matter at hand is as simple as that. Why would you restrict me from buying an item at a price I want from a person selling at the price they want?
That’s great but, why am I wrong? Am I wrong b/c there are no limitations on all other methods? Am I wrong b/c those limitation don’t count b/c exploits and avoid them or knowledge can minimize them(yet not get rid of them)? You can say I’m wrong all day but with out saying why…….it’s meaningless.
Serenity now~Insanity later
I’m sorry Essence Snow, but you’re wrong. Smooth Penguin/tolunart have repeatedly answered your questions. You call it sidestepping, I call it just you not understanding the points they are trying to transmit to you.
I’ll give you my two cents, though.
Why can’t a player buy items from other players and sell them for a different price? The matter at hand is as simple as that. Why would you restrict me from buying an item at a price I want from a person selling at the price they want?
That’s great but, why am I wrong? Am I wrong b/c there are no limitations on all other methods? Am I wrong b/c those limitation don’t count b/c exploits and avoid them or knowledge can minimize them(yet not get rid of them)? You can say I’m wrong all day but with out saying why…….it’s meaningless.
I told you why. You ignored it. As you have been doing this whole time.
Please for my 5th grade mind my answer them once more in plain english, directly and to the point.
Why are game written limitations put on all other methods of earning gold and not on trading?
And what of the effects excessive amounts of gold in a very funneled proportion of the population have on various item prices?
I can formulate a direct answer if you would like an example for reference.
Direct answer from my post above:
The very nature of the TP and its component markets make artificial barriers irrelevant.
You’re welcome.
If you think that is a direct answer…wow…..a generalized answer yes, much like a fortune cookie…so generalized it covers most, yet still doesn’t answer anything specific.
As a side note…It’s odd that fortune cookies have started having less fortunes and more random sayings.
Serenity now~Insanity later
(edited by Essence Snow.3194)
I’m sorry Essence Snow, but you’re wrong. Smooth Penguin/tolunart have repeatedly answered your questions. You call it sidestepping, I call it just you not understanding the points they are trying to transmit to you.
I’ll give you my two cents, though.
Why can’t a player buy items from other players and sell them for a different price? The matter at hand is as simple as that. Why would you restrict me from buying an item at a price I want from a person selling at the price they want?
That’s great but, why am I wrong? Am I wrong b/c there are no limitations on all other methods? Am I wrong b/c those limitation don’t count b/c exploits and avoid them or knowledge can minimize them(yet not get rid of them)? You can say I’m wrong all day but with out saying why…….it’s meaningless.
I told you why. You ignored it. As you have been doing this whole time.
You told me something that did not directly pertain to the questions, just as they have time and time again.
I can make a summation of all of the posts if you like.
Serenity now~Insanity later
If you think that is a direct answer…wow…..a generalized answer yes, much like a fortune cookie…so generalized it covers most, yet still doesn’t answer anything specific.
Apparently, it was too complicated for you. I’ll make this really simple for you then:
- Because there should be no restrictions to buying/selling at prices users think is fair to them. And even so, there’s already DM in place, which causes the TP to be a big economic sinkhole, but that’s another topic.
Why are game written limitations put on all other methods of earning gold and not on trading?
The very nature of the TP and its component markets make artificial barriers irrelevant.
If you think that is a direct answer…wow…..a generalized answer yes, much like a fortune cookie…so generalized it covers most, yet still doesn’t answer anything specific.
.
Sure, whatever. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you actually are intelligent enough to realize that your questions have been answered and stop there. Because I don’t want to get an infraction for using the T-word.
(edited by tolunart.2095)
It’s like eating a pizza. If two people share a pizza, each can have half of it to himself. If six people share the same pizza, each gets a decent-sized slice. But if twelve people share the pizza, then the slices are a lot smaller. If twenty people try to share the pizza, each person gets a tiny taste of it.
I like this analogy a lot. When I’m arguing with folks that are concerned about “inequality” in economic matters I use a variation with a slightly different focus. Most folks debate who should get how much of that pizza based on some subjective measure of worthiness instead of realizing that it’s better to have 1% of the world record largest pizza than 90% of a personal pan pizza. Growing the economy benefits far more folks than creative slicing schemes.
Traders are good for the economy, which is good for the every player’s virtual standard of living. The idea that everything can be affordable to everyone is just like an Escher print – really cool in theory but impossible to actually implement in the real world without hiding the tricky bits.
Don’t ever think you know what’s right for the other person.
He might start thinking he knows what’s right for you.
—Paul Williams
He might start thinking he knows what’s right for you.
—Paul Williams
Oh wow b/c there shouldn’t be….lol
Let me give ya’ll an example………
1)The profit potential from the trading post is not limited because it does not create gold fueling inflation. It further is not limited because it acts as a gold sink acting as a check measure for inflation. Limiting profit potential from the trading post would act as a deterrent for those who would help serve as gold sinks. (since other methods of sinking gold effectively require more development…another issue)
All other methods create gold, thus adding to inflation. They must be regulated as such to not exceed current acceptable inflation rate checked by gold sinks….see above.
Thus we accept that one method of acquiring gold is okay with out limitation due to inflation and gold sinks.(ofc higher quality item drops could alleviate lots of this but yikes…..that’s scary)
2)The effects that funneling in game wealth has on the game is far reaching. It allows funneled methods to dictate prices on low supply items as well as item of which need surpasses supply.
As widely known items serve as incentives to play in this genre. As such players are drawn to methods or simply refute methods. The former is self defeating. The latter keeps the former in check via subjectivity. Thus we have incentive disparity, where only methods are option for obtaining certain items.
As we can see the answer to the second question gets complicated and admittedly I kinda fouled on asking that in regards to a direct answer…….oops….see I can admit when I have made a mistake…..lol
Serenity now~Insanity later
1) I don’t understand your point, my apologies.
2) You are fundamentally wrong when it comes to dictating prices. Let me explain why:
Reason a) The more money you try to move, the quicker attentions are drawn to you and other people start trying to get their share, destroying the monopoly before it begins.
Reason b) The way making money works is buying low, selling high. But you can never control the lowest selling item. Therefore, people can always sell lower than your stipulated price again. And, you would have to continuously increase the buying price in order to maintain the monopoly of the item, which would inevitably cause the profit to disappear. And that’s just unavoidable.
Let me give you a practical example of reason b.
In an alternate reality, one person wants to take control of an ascended material’s market (from now on, referred to as “item”). To do that, he buys the 1000 available items for 10g each and puts them up to sale for 100g each. This would make for a 80g profit, for each item, theoretically. However, people will not buy them right away, as the price is just ludicrous. As the new selling price is now very high, buying prices raise too. Then, other people begin to sell lower then you. He could buy them all again, trying to maintain the monopoly. That would cause the sellers to be happy (since he bought the items) and cause the subject to pile up even more of his items. Realistically, he would never get rid of those items he was selling for that huge amount of money (and would lose money by listing them).
You might argue, “but that price increment was too big”. Well yea, but if he tried to sell them for 20g after buying for 10g, what would be the result? Buying prices would go up a notch and people would still try to sell lower than him, ultimately leading to the profit margin getting really small. Eventually, the prices go back to normal and he is stuck with the items selling way over their given value.
This is only a rough example, there are many more variables into play and I find it quite hard to put these concepts into words, as English is not my main language.
Khally on point 2 I am not inferring they dictate prices via selling. I am however saying they dictate prices via buying. They have enough capital to sustain prices on certain items. As long as those with elevated levels of gold > supply of certain items, those items’ prices will be dictated by such. This is a product of point 1.
Serenity now~Insanity later
My problem is that TP gold farming does not require skill, clearly it does. My problem is that TP gold farmers ONLY make money by taking it from their fellow player. Any item that a TP Gold Farmer sells for a higher price than he bought it for, is an item that some other player is now paying more for because he wasn’t able to buy it at the price the TP Gold Farmer bought it for.
When Player A lists an item for X amount of money, and Player B buys and resells it for X+10%, then Player C buys it for X+10%, then that means Player B makes that 10%, great for him, but it also means that Player C is out that 10% over what he would have paid if B never existed, and that Player A makes no more off the transaction than if Player C had bought it directly, so why should either of those players be happy with the situation?
This is a game that encourages cooperation between players. Every system of the PvE gameplay is designed to minimize griefing. You cannot kill-steal, you cannot open world PK, there’s very little one can do to make another player’s experience less fun. But you can still grief people on the Trading post, buying low and selling high, profiting yourself at the expense of your fellow players. I really hate that, but there’s very little that we can do about it.
There are ways that ANet could limit it though, to make the TP, by making it easy to sell things you don’t need, easy to buy things you do, but very difficult to buy things you don’t need and sell them for more. Ideally most items in the game would be made “Bind on Purchase,” Account bound if you buy them off the TP, so that you can buy anything you might need, and sell anything you don’t, but if you buy something you don’t need, you’re stuck with it.
There would still be ways to game the TP, but they would certainly be reduced.
“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.”
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”
This is a game that encourages cooperation between players. Every system of the PvE gameplay is designed to minimize griefing. You cannot kill-steal, you cannot open world PK, there’s very little one can do to make another player’s experience less fun. But you can still grief people on the Trading post, buying low and selling high, profiting yourself at the expense of your fellow players. I really hate that, but there’s very little that we can do about it.
There is one very important thing you can do: You can be smarter than the players who sell to the TP flippers and put the item up for sale a little lower than the current selling price and thus be first in line to sell the item, as well as force the TP flippers to lower THEIR prices below yours in order to sell.
The entire system is dependent on impatience – the idea that it’s better to get 10s now than 15s in a few hours/days. The only difference between the flipper and the player who sold him the items is that the flipper is willing to wait for that extra 5s.
Essentially you’re asking Arenanet to step in and stop smart players from playing smart and allow foolish players to profit from being foolish. This particular request has been going on for quite some time without a response, I think it’s safe to say they would rather reward smart TP players than foolish ones.
Of course, the champ trains run 24/7 and create money out of thin air, if you don’t like playing the TP. It requires nothing more than the ability to move your character from place to place and press 1.
Of course, the champ trains run 24/7 and create money out of thin air, if you don’t like playing the TP. It requires nothing more than the ability to move your character from place to place and press 1.
Be careful. People will start to say it’s unfair for that player to press only 1, while the other guy needs to press 2, 3, and sometimes 4. Then they’ll want more cooldowns, so you can’t press 1 so often.
In GW2, Trading Post plays you!
There is one very important thing you can do: You can be smarter than the players who sell to the TP flippers and put the item up for sale a little lower than the current selling price and thus be first in line to sell the item, as well as force the TP flippers to lower THEIR prices below yours in order to sell.
You’re offering ways to better compete with them, I’m saying I don’t want to compete with them. I don’t want competition to be a thing on the trading post.
The entire system is dependent on impatience – the idea that it’s better to get 10s now than 15s in a few hours/days. The only difference between the flipper and the player who sold him the items is that the flipper is willing to wait for that extra 5s.
No, that’s not a difference. “The player” may be willing to wait too, he’s just not trying to make money by taking advantage off his fellow player. The difference between the player and the TP Gold Farmer is not patience, it’s the willingness to buy items at a price that people are willing to offer them for, and sell them for prices people are willing to pay, rather than the other way around. If the TP Gold Farmer wasn’t involved, then the prices would be much more stable somewhere in the middle, because people wouldn’t be “speculating” on whether the price will rise or fall later in the day, week, or year, they would just be putting the items up for what they intended to get for it and that would be that.
Essentially you’re asking Arenanet to step in and stop smart players from playing smart and allow foolish players to profit from being foolish. This particular request has been going on for quite some time without a response, I think it’s safe to say they would rather reward smart TP players than foolish ones.
Why? What benefit is there to that, for anyone who isn’t a TP Gold Farmer? It’s like PvP. Let’s say you could PK anyone, anywhere in the world, and get various loot for doing so. Would the people who tended to get PKed a lot enjoy that? Probably not. Would the people who tended to PK people a lot and get a lot of loot enjoy it? Probably.
When confronted on it, the PKs would of course reply “it’s your own fault for dying, you shouldn’t be in X location under Y conditions, you have to know you’ll get ganked like that.” And they would be right, under those circumstances, but that doesn’t mean the victims should have to like it, or ask that the company prevent it if it’s reducing their fun. It’s the same here. Yes, the PKs are having fun, and yes, I could choose to join them rather than attempt to beat them, but I don’t want to PK.
Plenty of people enjoy competing against their fellow players, and that’s fine. If you enjoy that, there’s sPvP and WvW to play. I don’t want other players competing with me on the markets.
If they really need to keep the TP Gold Farmers happy by allowing them to compete with each other, then just set up an “sBLTC” option, a marketplace that is entirely separate from the normal GW2 economy (accessed from the Heart of the Mists), one in which they can trade sBLTC items for sBLTC currency without distorting the prices that normal people have to pay or receive on the trading post.
Of course, the champ trains run 24/7 and create money out of thin air, if you don’t like playing the TP. It requires nothing more than the ability to move your character from place to place and press 1.
Making some money is not hard. Making TP Gold Farmer money through other means is a ridiculous investment of time. If you tell me you can’t make more money sitting in front of the BLTC interface for an hour (assuming that some of the moves you make might not go through for days) then someone can make running a Frostgorge train for an hour then you aren’t nearly as good at this as your competition.
“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.”
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”
“TP Gold Farmers” are making their money because a large portion of the player base lets them by not trying to sell any unwanted items themselves but simply selling them to the current high bidder. They also choose to buy from low seller than bidding for an item themselves. It could be because those players are impatient, wanting coin or the items now than waiting or because they are indifferent over the difference in price. Either way it’s those players that make playing the TP possible. And with the volume of trades that are made daily, there is a lot of coin passing through so skimming a little bit off the top is all you need to make a lot of coin.
We are heroes. This is what we do!
RIP City of Heroes
RIP City of Heroes
(edited by Behellagh.1468)
Comparing TP selling to PvP is like having another player come up to you and jump on your sword while you just stand there. Then your “opponent” says, not fair! You killed me!
The other player made a choice to sell to the highest bidder rather than list it for sale at a price he wanted or at the price the market will bear. He wasn’t forced to sell, he chose not to make more money when the smart player will do a little research on the prices and/or set a price he wants and wait for it to sell.
(edited by tolunart.2095)
Plenty of people enjoy competing against their fellow players, and that’s fine. If you enjoy that, there’s sPvP and WvW to play. I don’t want other players competing with me on the markets.
Ok, you don’t like it. Farm mats, craft whatever you need, and never go near the TP. What you describe is one of the more interesting aspects of MMOs compared to single player games – having a real, player driven economy. I believe the game would be a lot less interesting without it.
Making some money is not hard. Making TP Gold Farmer money through other means is a ridiculous investment of time. If you tell me you can’t make more money sitting in front of the BLTC interface for an hour (assuming that some of the moves you make might not go through for days) then someone can make running a Frostgorge train for an hour then you aren’t nearly as good at this as your competition.
I make A LOT more money playing the TP. But it’s difficult and risky and takes time/patience, things which are not part of the champ trains. If you don’t like to play the TP there are plenty of other ways to make money.
Then why won’t anyone answer the question directly? They always sidestep it and argue things that are not pertinent to the case at hand. I explained why they are not, yet every reply I get is exactly the same sidestep.
You might as well be asking us why the sky is periwinkle.
It’s not periwinkle, so we won’t tell you why it is that color. It is blue, and we explain this blue phenonom repeatedly in different ways. You sir, are arguing from a point that doesn’t exist in our world-view (that the game is unfair), and you are seeking a remedy to it (make it fair).
How many different ways can we say that the game is fair, and still have you refuse to accept that. Fairness in our world-view is equality of opportunity, and this game has that. You have equal opportunity to participate in all the same aspects of the game, same as any other player. This then gives you equal opportunity to get anything in the game, same as any other player.
The alternative is equality of outcome, where no matter what anyone does, they all get the same thing. Few things could be less fair. Even though I put countless hours of effort into something, I should get the same reward as someone who only showed up for ten seconds? Preposterous! I did all the work! That person who merely showed up did none! I came in first in the championship, why should the person who didn’t even participate get all the same things rewards as me?
If you cannot see the nose on your face, in spite of the neon paint we put on it and mirror we hold inches away, I have only this left to say:
If equal opportunity is unfair in your world view, then please, take up a game where the only thing that matters is having a login, and awards are doled out regardless of participation. That way, you can be in a game where you are special, just like everyone else.
I am quit of this topic. Good day to you, sir.
//Portable Corpse
Other money making methods create money out of thin air. Putting limits on these methods of wealth creation is necessary to limit negative impacts of developer oversights, ensure people are experiencing a variety of content and keeping the various wealth creation methods balanced so one group of people are not overly wealthy.
Trading does not create money, it destroys it. All money and items placed on the TP were put there purposefully by players, if limits were put on trading you’d effectively be “double-limiting” people listing items- as they’d be limited once on creation and once again on trading.
The limitations of profit for megatraders is determined solely by the willing decisions of the entire playerbase. Artificial limits would hurt the ability of people to buy items, and the ability of people to sell their items. Every successful trade has two people willingly making an agreement behind it.
Traders cannot force people to buy or sell at prices they are not willing to agree to.
As an exercise: Decide what actual limits you would like put in to place. Then imagine the consequences to normal players if your policy was actually implemented. Inevitably you’d be hurting normal players far more than the evil traders you want to limit.
I’d imagine that’s not your goal however, really you just want the limitations on your particular wealth creation preference lifted, and think creating a boogeyman out of traders is your best way to argue your self-interest.
The problem with “fair” prices on limited quantity items is that they are only “fair” to certain players……ie those with highest profit potentials (tp traders + atm champ grinders). For the rest of the player base that does not participate in one of those avenues the prices maintained by those are not possible.
(…)
Traders do get special treatment as they have the only unregulated method of obtaining wealth in the game, thus it’s why the profit potential from it is leaps and bounds above everything else.
It’s a legitimate concern..not a whine there is a difference even though it might be hard for some to discern.
You do know that a very small portion of the game population are active traders, and even a very smaller portion actually make a ton of gold? If everyone were a sensibile trader there would be no profit.
You may think being a trader is all gold and roses but you can lose as much as you gain.
Again, it is not a concern because it’s an isolated, limited case and it’s not harmful to the game.
As long as there are enough of them to sustain demand above supply (extremely probable with low supply items) they will dictate pricing. Everyone else will not figure into the equation and have no bearing on pricing. Thus it creates a disparity….it’s not that hard to understand really.
Yes, they will dictate pricing until a new item appears. Most items (except the ones from temporary Living Story things) are unlimited in the sense that every now and then a new item of the same kind appears.
But what will “dictate pricing” be worth? Let us take an example with a lot of assumptions. Remember the Super Adventure Box greatsword skins which you can sell on the trading post? Now, that is a really limited item because as of now there is no possibility to create new skins of that kind. Let us assume, that, clever shark that I am, I buy them all up and then sell them for double the price.
There are three possible outcomes:
1: Nobody buys them. I lose the listing fee (which can be substantial for the rarer items) and am generally unhappy. I have now useless greatsword skins and less money.
2: Everyone buys them. As these skins are not necessary for whatever, that means I have discovered that the general appreciation for this skin is higher than all the sellers before me thought. Obviously the negative feeling of losing money is outweighed by the positive feeling to own one of my super greatsword skins. Yay to me! I am a skillful trader.
3: Anything in between.
The second outcome, I think, is the one you don’t like. But the ugly truth I as potential shark have to face is: the potential buyers have always an alternative. They can not buy the greatsword skin. Because GW2 is designed so that all items you really need (armor, weapon, trinkets) can always be purchased from different sources (karma vendors, wvw vendors, guild commendation vendors, laurel vendors…) or harvested and then crafted. Skins are only vanity items (like some kind of shoes for women). Nobody ever NEEDS to use the TP. Sneakers are much better for walking anyway.
That is of course true even for high-level items like precursors. Price is too high? Make them themselves. Yes, it is risky and costly. That is the reason the TP price is so high even in normal times. But if my monopoly price is (much) higher than the expected cost of making a precursor plus the premium for me taking the risk making the precursor (and not 1,000 darned worthless exotics), no sane player will buy it. They will try to make it themselves (or refrain from buying it altogether and hoping for better times).
So I don’t see the disparity you complain about. There are moments of imbalance in the market, that is true. But in the long run (long run being often mere minutes, rarely more than one or two days) the TP balances itself out.
“TP Gold Farmers” are make their money because a large portion of the player base lets them by not trying to sell any unwanted items themselves but simply sell them to the current high bidder. They also choose to buy from low seller than bidding for an item themselves.
Sure, and that’s a part of it, but both the price set by the high bidder and the price set by the low seller are influenced by the manipulations of the TP Gold Farmers. Nothing so grand as they make a few moves and suddenly the market shifts to their whims, but just the way that they work to buy up items that are priced too low inflates the prices on the TP.
I mean, if a TP Gold Farmer saw that an item were selling for 20% less than the traditional market value, what would he do? Buy it up and sell it all back at the traditional market value or above. What would a standard player do under those circumstances? Buy as much as he needed and leave plenty for the next guy, until all the low priced stock went into the hands of people that had a need for it.
And with the volume of trades that are made daily, there is a lot of coin passing through so skimming a little bit off the top is all you need to make a lot of coin.
Exactly, and that’s the problem. There should be no “skimming.” People who are impatient should get less return on their investment than those who are not, but there is absolutely no value in middlemen. If player A wants to make a quick buck, and decides to sell his item for the “order” price, he won’t make as much as if he listed it. If he needs mats right away and buys them for the “seller” price, he will spend more than if he put in a buy order. That’s all perfectly reasonable. What the game has absolutely no use for is player B deciding that he doesn’t have any need for the item in question, but he feels that it’s possible to buy them up at the low price and sell them back at the high. He is not bringing anything of value into the equation, he is just making money for himself.
Comparing TP selling to PvP is like having another player come up to you and jump on your sword while you just stand there. Then your “opponent” says, not fair! You killed me!
The other player made a choice to sell to the highest bidder rather than list it for sale at a price he wanted or at the price the market will bear. He wasn’t forced to sell, he chose not to make more money when the smart player will do a little research on the prices and/or set a price he wants and wait for it to sell.
You’re not understanding. I’m not saying that people who “buy/sell it now” are being victimized by the TP Gold Farmers. Not them specifically at least. I’m saying that EVERYONE, including people who only place buy/sell orders and wait for them to come in, are being victimized by TP Gold Farmers, because the Gold Farmers distort the market buy buying up stock that they have no personal use for and reselling it at a higher rate, rather than just allowing the market value to be set by players who have too much or need too much for their own use.
Ok, you don’t like it. Farm mats, craft whatever you need, and never go near the TP. What you describe is one of the more interesting aspects of MMOs compared to single player games – having a real, player driven economy. I believe the game would be a lot less interesting without it.
I want a player economy, just not a predatory one. I want one where the ONLY participants are those who bring things into the world, either those who loot/craft items that wouldn’t exist without them, or players that need those items and so pay gold for them. We have absolutely no need for people who take gold and convert it into more gold for themselves, at the expense of anyone who buys things.
As I said, I don’t want to burn the whole Trading Post down, I’d just like to see them make items Bind of Purchase, so you can sell items you find or craft, but not items that have already passed through the BLTC.
I make A LOT more money playing the TP. But it’s difficult and risky and takes time/patience, things which are not part of the champ trains.
And like I said in my first post here, I respect that TP Gold Farming takes skill, I just don’t think that it’s a skill that the game should reward, just as PvP might take skill, but PKing players that have no interest in PvP would not be good for the 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.”
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”
The alternative is equality of outcome, where no matter what anyone does, they all get the same thing. Few things could be less fair.
I think there’s a fair middleground. Equality of opportunity+. It wouldn’t be equality of outcome, there would be a difference between those that do well and those that do poorly, but not quite as vast a disparity as the current system encourages. People who make wise deals on the TP would still save money, and still make more money than others, but they would not be robber barons.
For example, Player A is always in a hurry. He loots a bunch of items, and needs other items for various things, so he always uses “buy/sell it now.” Player B is patient and in not rush, and always lists his items. Player B will, after months of this, likely have significantly more money left over (and/or higher quality assets) than Player A, definitely not equality of outcomes, but the rules that defined this were very simple and anyone would be capable of it (not just people that are good at markets).
What we don’t need is Player C, a player who buys A’s goods and sells them back to a different Player A at a profit. He accomplishes nothing of value.
Artificial limits would hurt the ability of people to buy items, and the ability of people to sell their items.
If the limits were handled reasonably then they would not limit any reasonable trading of goods. The Bind on Purchase rule would not harm normal play, for example. People might occasionally buy an item and then decide that they didn’t actually need it, but that happens, and they can always craft with it or salvage it or Forge it, or vendor it or whatever to make back what they can on the deal. No great loss there, it’s no difference than if they accidentally bind an item they didn’t mean to, or salvage something they meant to keep, it happens.
I think a limit on the number of items you could list sell orders on or place buy orders on per day would also be a good idea. It would have to be a weighted system so that you could sell several stacks of commodities while being able to sell less of whole items, but basically there are bulk values that are well outside the range of normal gameplay.
It could even perhaps be a sliding scale, so that a standard player might make a huge bulk purchase run one day, say to finally get the ingredients for a Legendary, but since he bought very little over the previous month that’s fine, while someone that makes bulk purchases constantly would see reductions. Like just as a simple example, the rule could be “you can only buy 25 stacks of materials per day,” then -10 stacks the next day, then -5 the next, then -1 for each additional day until it’s down to only 5 stacks per day, and stays that way as long as you keep hitting that quota, but then each day you don’t sell more than a couple stacks it rises back up. And if you absolutely couldn’t wait and needed something now, using “buy/sell it now” can remain unrestricted, since TP Gold Farmers don’t use that much anyways.
Those are just vague values, no point telling me “5 stacks is ridiculous,” but I’m sure the economists could figure out a fair value that would not harm normal players, and that would still allow TP Gold Farmers to get their beaks wet without drinking the whole lake.
“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.”
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”
Sounds a lot like Capitalism vs. Communism. The short answer is that restrictions like this will drastically reduce trading, making goods more scarce and reducing the effectiveness of the TP as a gold sink. Those who actually like the TP as it is and enjoy watching their bank account get bigger will focus on small volume, high value sales exclusively, which will quickly become saturated and they will end up selling only to each other while the average player has a hard time buying a stack of copper ore.
The result is material shortages, rampant inflation and a small circle of wealthy players trading items among themselves. While you may not believe the current situation is a good thing, those with some experience in such matters know the consequences of your proposal.
I’ve deciphered the code, and finally understand what the complainers are advocating. They don’t want a dynamic, game wide Open Market. They want a glorified Merchant who will buy their goods for high prices, and resell it for low.
In effect, they don’t want to take one pizza, and share it with 12 people. They want to take one pizza, and magically copy it so that each of the 12 people have 100 pizzas.
In GW2, Trading Post plays you!
Sounds a lot like Capitalism vs. Communism.
True. It’s exactly that. I’d like to point out, however, that in real life, pure capitalism (and that’s what we have on GW2 market today) turned out to be completely unviable – as unviable as communism was. There’s a reason why socialist movements in western countries are either very weak or completely nonexistent – it’s because a lot of what they wanted has already been implemented, leaving only extremely radical avenues for them to pursuit (and most people do not like radical ideas, for very good reasons).
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Remember, remember, 15th of November
LOL, yeah, in the real world extremes towards either end are usually not viable. It becomes easier in a simplified, virtual world because the rules can be tweaked to allow things that can’t happen in the real world, like making money appear out of nothing.
It was even easier to make money in Rift than in this game. I once did an experiment, I started a new toon on a new server who had nothing more than the starting equipment every toon gets. I took her from the starting area to the main city and along the way I gathered a couple of artifacts (collectible items that spawn randomly around the world) and gained a couple levels doing the beginning quests. I sold the artifacts on the TP and used the money to buy and sell crafting mats and bags, reinvesting the money each time to buy more stuff.
Within two weeks I had gone from nothing to over 100 platinum (equivalent to gold here). The TP in Rift is server-based, so it became even easier to make money – research a little and find items that are expensive on one server but cheap on another. Buy as much as you can on Server A then use the free 1/week transfer to move to Server B and sell for 2x, 3x or more. Have another toon on server B to buy different items and go to Server C and do it again. In two weeks I could turn 100 platinum into 1000 or more, with just a few hours of effort.
You are having a problem understanding the difference between personal gain and the game’s economy, as exemplified by this question:
_________________________________________________________________________
Why are game written limitations put on all other methods of earning gold and not on trading?
_________________________________________________________________________
The game has limits on the amount of gains your character can make in a given day. True.
It does this to prevent you from having to much in personal gains/time period. False.
These limits are in place to protect the games economy. True
The game does not place limits on TP transactions, therefore this is unfair to all players because some do not make as much as others.
Wrong conclusion.
The TP does not place limits on the amount of personal gain because the TP has NO effect on the in-game money supply. (The money supply being the most protected thing in ANY well run MMO.)
_____________________________________________________________________________
In other words, by farming champs each player is continually increasing the supplies of things in the game (magically!).
If I buy and sell between myself and another person the transaction has a flat tax applied, and 2 happy people leave, one with in game coin the other with a good or service provided. A removal of coin from the game by the tax, and a trade that neither creates or destroys gold. The fact that one person (on either side of the trade) might have gotten the better of the other is part of trading.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
And what of the effects excessive amounts of gold in a very funneled proportiuon of the population have on various item prices?
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Now we are into a position of morality and wealth. You can spend your life tilting at this windmill. Many do, and are. Is it moral for those that can manipulate a market to do so? Should we have market regulations in place to prevent this? Does this matter in a game?
I will tell you this much. There is manipulation occurring. It lasts as long as supplies are listed at a rate that a person can purchase the item and maintain profits. It is unsustainable in this game, with possibly the exception of legendaries and precursors. However, if you think either of these prices are artificially high BECAUSE of this, I disagree. This is a simple supply and demand issue. If there were more of these items the price would be lower, or if fewer people wanted them, or people played altruistically, it would be lower.
Can someone hold the market for these items hostage? In a simple answer, no. It is just as easy to make these items as it is to come up with the hundreds, or thousands, in gold needed to purchase them. We can disagree on this point, but realistically, it is true.
So there’s two responses to your two questions, no sidestepping…
True. It’s exactly that. I’d like to point out, however, that in real life, pure capitalism (and that’s what we have on GW2 market today) turned out to be completely unviable – as unviable as communism was.
sigh
I am reminded again yet again of the amazing power of our dis-education in America.
I recall a long, 2 hour conversation with a 32 year old college student I had, trying to sort out why the wrong answer kept coming up in a simple statistics problem. You see, in the intermediate steps the student had to dis-prove an assertion. ‘A can include B’
After 2 hours, I handed them a dictionary, told them to look up disprove and left. You see, dis-prove does not mean prove-dis.
Once you destroy the education system and pervert the vocabulary, the only difference between socialism and capitalism is that only the social elites can be capitalists. That sir, is socialism, not capitalism.
Once you start needing specific individuals, by name, to solve problems, you are getting into social-elite territory.
The qoute I have for you Astra, is this:
“The problem with capitalism is capitalists. The problem with socialism is socialism.”
Put less misleadingly:
The problem with capitalism is individuals. The problem with socialsim is the system. Individuals can be dealt with — thats why the better business bureau exists. Systems however can only dealt with by changing them into something else.
There are countless claims these days in the media that the free market doesn’t work. I don’t really know. Where I have seen them, they seemed to work pretty good, but we don’t have anything of the sort in America. You can’t buy large sodas here, you have oppressive taxes there, specific additives are banned in places, actual food dishes are banned elsewhere. Tariffs on imports and exports, and forbid that you should ever try to compete with a union.
//Portable Corpse
You are having a problem understanding the difference between personal gain and the game’s economy, as exemplified by this question:
_________________________________________________________________________
Why are game written limitations put on all other methods of earning gold and not on trading?
_________________________________________________________________________
The game has limits on the amount of gains your character can make in a given day. True.It does this to prevent you from having to much in personal gains/time period. False.
These limits are in place to protect the games economy. True
The game does not place limits on TP transactions, therefore this is unfair to all players because some do not make as much as others.
Wrong conclusion.
The TP does not place limits on the amount of personal gain because the TP has NO effect on the in-game money supply. (The money supply being the most protected thing in ANY well run MMO.)
_____________________________________________________________________________
In other words, by farming champs each player is continually increasing the supplies of things in the game (magically!).If I buy and sell between myself and another person the transaction has a flat tax applied, and 2 happy people leave, one with in game coin the other with a good or service provided. A removal of coin from the game by the tax, and a trade that neither creates or destroys gold. The fact that one person (on either side of the trade) might have gotten the better of the other is part of trading.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
And what of the effects excessive amounts of gold in a very funneled proportiuon of the population have on various item prices?
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Now we are into a position of morality and wealth. You can spend your life tilting at this windmill. Many do, and are. Is it moral for those that can manipulate a market to do so? Should we have market regulations in place to prevent this? Does this matter in a game?I will tell you this much. There is manipulation occurring. It lasts as long as supplies are listed at a rate that a person can purchase the item and maintain profits. It is unsustainable in this game, with possibly the exception of legendaries and precursors. However, if you think either of these prices are artificially high BECAUSE of this, I disagree. This is a simple supply and demand issue. If there were more of these items the price would be lower, or if fewer people wanted them, or people played altruistically, it would be lower.
Can someone hold the market for these items hostage? In a simple answer, no. It is just as easy to make these items as it is to come up with the hundreds, or thousands, in gold needed to purchase them. We can disagree on this point, but realistically, it is true.
So there’s two responses to your two questions, no sidestepping…
Thank you for this……
If you read down a few posts from where I initially asked this question I ended up having to answer it myself. I had been testing to see if anyone would put up a reply like this and the one I posted, but they simply wouldn’t. It was extremely amusing and the similarities to politics were remarkable.
Serenity now~Insanity later
That’s fine and dandy and all, but it still does not address the point. Why are game written limitations put on all other methods of earning gold and not on trading?
Think of each activity you can do in the game as having two production functions, a personal production function (the amount of money and goods that you personally acquire), and a global production function (the amount of money and goods that are added to the game universe).
If you are engaging in some form of power farming, these functions are the same – the amount of wealth you acquire is identical to the amount of wealth added to the game world. Also, this scales aggressively with increased player population due to shared rewards in GW2: as players find and flock to efficient farming spots, the raw resource production of the game goes up.
If you are instead power trading, your personal production can be very high, relative to the production of a farmer – but the production of the game’s world goes down. Furthermore, the profits from trading do not scale up as more players get involved in power trading – they are, at best, split, and in reality aggregate profits go down as more players get involved.
So from the perspective of the entire game world, ‘exploitative’ farming is dangerous because it can dump enormous amounts of resources into the economy that can throw the whole reward structure out of whack if not caught quickly. Trading, on the other hand, sinks a ton of gold and just moves gold and non-gold resources around. There’s basically no danger of exploitative damage to the economy from power trading.
And what of the effects excessive amounts of gold in a very funneled proportiuon of the population have on various item prices?
Giant piles of in game wealth allow extremely rare items to actually hit their fair market values, which is the main effect on prices.
Giant piles of money also tend to have very low liquidity premiums, and represent a ton of risk bearing capacity through law of large numbers effects. Very wealthy traders consequently tend to drive down both liquidity and risk premiums, which everyone benefits from.
The only real risks are volatility risks from big players moving around in large amounts – like if someone decides they suddenly want to own 10,000 more ectos for whatever reason and price is no object – but the market is huge and other people profit off those movements, so for the most part the issue is self correcting.
Inequality in a game world really isn’t a big deal.
Taking a step back, inequality in the real world is a big deal, but it is a big deal for very specific reasons:
1) Inequality is a huge source of power differences. This has a huge impact on negotiating positions; the wealthy have more power, so they get better deals than everyone else – a pattern that reinforces itself. From the perspective of the economy, this has serious consequences as it leads directly to monopoly / monopsony power and stagnant markets; from a more human perspective, this causes serious problems when applied to critical finite resources, most importantly land.
2) Following from 1, inequality is dangerous because it is corrosive to political and social institutions. Highly unequal societies inevitably become corrupt societies, as one of the things money buys is political influence. As the decisions that effect everyone become increasingly favorable to the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, the threads that hold society together and enable functional markets in the first place fray and ultimately break.
So you should not think that inequality is not a big deal in the real world just because it is not a big deal in GW2. It is in fact a huge deal in the real world. But in GW2, where there are no critical, finite resources to control (there’s no land to buy up, you can’t own the good farming spots, everything goes into overflow), where you can’t prevent others from playing the game by buying up their livelihood (there’s essentially zero barrier to entry to ‘working’ in GW2 to make money), and where there are no political institutions to corrupt (Zomorros may like wine, but you’re not going to bribe John Smith with gold), there just aren’t any big levers through which big stockpiles of wealth can inflict any real damage on the economy.
There are countless claims these days in the media that the free market doesn’t work. I don’t really know. Where I have seen them, they seemed to work pretty good, but we don’t have anything of the sort in America. You can’t buy large sodas here, you have oppressive taxes there, specific additives are banned in places, actual food dishes are banned elsewhere. Tariffs on imports and exports, and forbid that you should ever try to compete with a union.
//Portable Corpse
And don’t forget that we subsidize the production of goods that would could get much more cheaply from other countries (sugar). We’re growing rice in Texas for pete’s sake. It’s not like we are having problems with droughts that prevent me from watering my lawn whenever I think it needs it :/ That kind of fiscal interference keeps a small percentage of people employed at the expense of all of us and our trading partners.
I could come up with a thousand more examples of how the economic system in the US is not really pure capitalism – it’s a mixed system, and it’s less free market than not at this point. From what I’ve seen the more our government tries to fix things, the worse it gets.
Don’t ever think you know what’s right for the other person.
He might start thinking he knows what’s right for you.
—Paul Williams
He might start thinking he knows what’s right for you.
—Paul Williams
There are countless claims these days in the media that the free market doesn’t work. I don’t really know. Where I have seen them, they seemed to work pretty good, but we don’t have anything of the sort in America. You can’t buy large sodas here, you have oppressive taxes there, specific additives are banned in places, actual food dishes are banned elsewhere. Tariffs on imports and exports, and forbid that you should ever try to compete with a union.
//Portable Corpse
No, we do not have a ‘free market’ In the US these days. Arguably, good in a vast number of ways. Regulations limit damages to society at the cost of lower profits to the company.
We need this since the economic cost of things is not apparent to the final consumer. Unfortunately, we are offshoring these costs and hurting the planet more in a global economic situation with the damages being done further away. Case in point: Love Canal. The environmental damages done by one company caused a large amount of regulation to come about over the disposal of chemicals within the US.
Companies are now dumping these wastes in other parts of the world, and these countries have the corresponding industry and economic growth that goes with it. We have more habitable land, with fewer people affording to live on it here. Choice made, consequence accepted.
Tarriffs are related to ‘dumping’ and regulations. Dumping is basically a companies utilization of excess manufacturing capacity, then selling the created product at a loss in other countries with the goal of increasing their market share ultimately raising the prices to higher levels of profit as competition decreases.
In-country regulations make some goods and services more expensive than imported products from unregulated countries.
It’s all about political choices in the home country to help the local industry and the local economy. Until we all start applying the local lessons learned to the global system, we will continue to exploit all our assets, human and natural, to the detriment of our species. The planet doesn’t need to be saved. It will keep on spinning.
So you should not think that inequality is not a big deal in the real world just because it is not a big deal in GW2. It is in fact a huge deal in the real world. But in GW2, where there are no critical, finite resources to control (there’s no land to buy up, you can’t own the good farming spots, everything goes into overflow), where you can’t prevent others from playing the game by buying up their livelihood (there’s essentially zero barrier to entry to ‘working’ in GW2 to make money), and where there are no political institutions to corrupt (Zomorros may like wine, but you’re not going to bribe John Smith with gold), there just aren’t any big levers through which big stockpiles of wealth can inflict any real damage on the economy.
This articulates very well why I don’t care if 1% of the population of GW2 holds the majority of the wealth. They can’t do anything with all that gold that prevents me from enjoying the game. They can’t buy up all the precursors in the game, because there isn’t a precursor mine somewhere that I don’t have access to. The market is too large for anyone to manipulate for more than a short period of time. If I don’t like the price of something today, I’ll log in tomorrow or the next day after it’s sorted itself out.
Don’t ever think you know what’s right for the other person.
He might start thinking he knows what’s right for you.
—Paul Williams
He might start thinking he knows what’s right for you.
—Paul Williams
… whistles …
Let’s get back to free market economics in the game and stay out of the real world for now.
A lot of the counter arguments seem to assume that TP traders group think. That they all will react exactly the same way to the same set of conditions. While this is somewhat true it ignores that they are also competing against one another for the same buyers and sellers. They will overcut the buy orders and undercut the sell orders simply because you can’t sell what you don’t have because someone is offering more and you can’t buy if your capital is tied up in items that aren’t selling because someone else is selling them for less.
It’s this competition, PvP as some call it, that keeps them in check and prices fairly reasonable.
We are heroes. This is what we do!
RIP City of Heroes
RIP City of Heroes
Trading takes skill, and lots of it, it cannot be argued otherwise and here is why. Because the profit is so limited, the profit has to be split between all the people effectively trading. The lower the skill cap, the more people trading effectively, the less profit individuals make until there’s no longer a real market. If one argues that there is money to be made, then you are arguing that skill is involved.
While I agree with you, John, that trading takes skill, I don’t think your logic provides the proof you think it does.
There are other reasons why people avoid something that is profitable besides lacking the skill to do so successfully.
One is that the task is unpalatable. People are rewarded for doing things that most people find either tedious or distasteful. Watching markets, keeping spreadsheets, and the like is not something that many people find enjoyable.
Another is time investment. Hardcore traders spend time watching markets closely to pounce when narrow windows open with the greatest opportunity for reward.
So, yes, playing markets takes skill. But “if it didn’t take skill, everyone would be doing it and there wouldn’t be a profit” is a little simplistic. You could say the same thing about champ farming and be completely wrong. It takes no skill, but the reason everyone didn’t do it before you nerfed the rewards was because it is tedious and time consuming.
It’s more accurate to say “if it was easy, everyone would be doing it”. Difficulty comes in more flavors than just a skill requirement.
Sounds a lot like Capitalism vs. Communism. The short answer is that restrictions like this will drastically reduce trading, making goods more scarce and reducing the effectiveness of the TP as a gold sink.
It’s not capitalism vs. communism, although people that do very well under capitalism like to frame it that way. A balance between the two is necessary, as either taken to extremes is destructive for the majority.
I think it likely would decrease the volume of trading, but would not reduce the amount of legitimate trades taking place (ie people selling things they have but don’t need to people who need but don’t have). If the result is that ANet recovers less gold from the players than they feel they should than alternate gold sinks could be used, but the TP as a gold sink is no excuse for the current state of it.
Those who actually like the TP as it is and enjoy watching their bank account get bigger will focus on small volume, high value sales exclusively, which will quickly become saturated and they will end up selling only to each other while the average player has a hard time buying a stack of copper ore.
Perhaps, but in which case ANet would have an easier time correcting such market bubbles, since if the TP Gold Farmers are focused only on a few commodities, and the market for those commodities get out of line, ANet can always just make those commodities more available, or reduce the necessity for them to balance them out for the casual players.
Like I said, ideally they could offer “sBLTC” for the traders, so they can PvP each other all day long without messing up the player economy with their shenanigans.
I’ve deciphered the code, and finally understand what the complainers are advocating. They don’t want a dynamic, game wide Open Market. They want a glorified Merchant who will buy their goods for high prices, and resell it for low.
Somewhere more in the middle, a marketplace that will buy goods for middle prices, and sell them for middle prices. The value of the market place, the ENTIRE reason for it existing, is as an RNG sink. It’s a system by which people who are lucky, by receiving an excess of rare drops, can convert that luck into gold, while people who are unlucky, and don’t get the rare drops they like, are able to buy them using gold. That’s the ENTIRE point of the market.
Without the market, if you wanted an item that was only a .001% drop off a certain enemy, you’d just have to keep punching that enemy over and over until it dropped. With the market, maybe someone else doesn’t want that item, and just happened to get it, so he can put it up and you can buy it. Without the market, the latter person would have no better options but to vendor the item and then nobody would get it.
This is the entire point of the market.
It’s not meant to be a place where day-traders can make their fortunes off of their fellow players.
However, if you think either of these prices are artificially high BECAUSE of this, I disagree. This is a simple supply and demand issue. If there were more of these items the price would be lower, or if fewer people wanted them, or people played altruistically, it would be lower.
I don’t believe this is correct. I believe that the prices that things sell for are based on the prices that people are willing to spend, and the prices people are willing to spend are based on the amount of money they have. Traders do not create wealth, but they do concentrate it. Their actions result in some players having a lot more gold in their own stockpile than they would without trading, while a lot of other players have less gold than they would without TP Gold Farming siphoning their resources.
This means that items in the 50+ gold range are much more “affordable” to the TP Gold Farmers than they are to the general player base, and because people can afford them, they are offered at that price. If nobody could afford those prices then nobody would list them at those prices. If the TP Gold Farmers didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be any more gold in the economy as a system, but it would be spread more thinly, less individuals would have large amounts of it to spend, while more would have slightly more to spend, the end result being that the prices of items would better reflect the resources of the average player.
The problem with capitalism is individuals. The problem with socialsim is the system. Individuals can be dealt with thats why the better business bureau exists. Systems however can only dealt with by changing them into something else.
So what you’re saying is that ANet should leave the system in place as it stands, but they should take high volume traders and ban them, like they do botters? Yeah, I could live with that, but it’s more hassle for their CS staff.
“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.”
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”
Thank you for this……
If you read down a few posts from where I initially asked this question I ended up having to answer it myself.
No problem. I’m more than happy to educate the masses on things like the game’s economy. Not everyone went to college for business, so don’t beat yourself up too hard, since I already explaned that you answered your own questions yesterday. Even though you thought you didn’t understand what was going on, take heart in knowing that your efforts to question things lead to it’s own answer. That’s true enlightenment.
In GW2, Trading Post plays you!
You’re offering ways to better compete with them, I’m saying I don’t want to compete with them. I don’t want competition to be a thing on the trading post.
So you are saying you want a market where there are fixed prices such that everyone buys and sells at the same value as one another? That defeats half the point of it being a player market.
~snip~
No, that’s not a difference. “The player” may be willing to wait too, he’s just not trying to make money by taking advantage off his fellow player. The difference between the player and the TP Gold Farmer is not patience, it’s the willingness to buy items at a price that people are willing to offer them for, and sell them for prices people are willing to pay, rather than the other way around. If the TP Gold Farmer wasn’t involved, then the prices would be much more stable somewhere in the middle, because people wouldn’t be “speculating” on whether the price will rise or fall later in the day, week, or year, they would just be putting the items up for what they intended to get for it and that would be that.
If “The player” is willing to wait too, then he’ll put up a buy order. If a trader can get his buy orders filled, then people are willing to pay that. If his goods sell, people are willing to pay that. If they don’t, then he overestimated and will be undercut and might lose money. Speculating is something that (imo) is very different from trading. Trading is buying low, selling high. Speculation is placing a bet on what will happen to the markets in the future.
Patience is a significant difference between traders and just the normal PvE player. If the player wants to make a smaller, quick buck without waiting, he can fill the trader’s orders. If the player wants to get an item fast, and without waiting, he can buy the trader’s items. Either way, the trader provides a convenience to the normal player by waiting for them, and letting the normal player get what they want, when they want it.
If they really need to keep the TP Gold Farmers happy by allowing them to compete with each other, then just set up an “sBLTC” option, a marketplace that is entirely separate from the normal GW2 economy (accessed from the Heart of the Mists), one in which they can trade sBLTC items for sBLTC currency without distorting the prices that normal people have to pay or receive on the trading post.
As far as I am concerned, TP competition was never the point of being a trader. Except for the occasional troll with a lot of money, there isn’t much point to trying to be a competitive trader. The point is not to drive prices up, but to make money from giving others that convenience.
Thank you for this……
If you read down a few posts from where I initially asked this question I ended up having to answer it myself.
No problem. I’m more than happy to educate the masses on things like the game’s economy. Not everyone went to college for business, so don’t beat yourself up too hard, since I already explaned that you answered your own questions yesterday. Even though you thought you didn’t understand what was going on, take heart in knowing that your efforts to question things lead to it’s own answer. That’s true enlightenment.
So Ryobe was you? You went and used a secondary account to answer a question that you refused to answer on your primary?
Serenity now~Insanity later
To sum up what my experiences are: first person that tries to manipulate the market needs to be incredibly lucky to succeed. Second person that is the first notice the trend and undercuts the first guy loses nothing and gains much more than the first person.
tl;dr Notice and follow smart trends, don’t start them.
So you are saying you want a market where there are fixed prices such that everyone buys and sells at the same value as one another? That defeats half the point of it being a player market.
No, that’s fairly clearly not what I’m saying.
If “The player” is willing to wait too, then he’ll put up a buy order.
Yes, but that’s not a solution to the problem. The problem is the TP Gold Farmers getting wealthier off of the players who aren’t interested in waiting, and then their wealth causing a distortion in the market that all other players get caught up in, whether they “buy it now” OR place buy orders. Basically if the value of items is determined by those players that gain wealth by playing the trading post, then that value will be significantly different than what it would be if the value were determined by people who actually had a practical use for the items as something more than a bargaining chip.
Patience is a significant difference between traders and just the normal PvE player.
Then what would be the difference between a trader and a normal PvE player that has patience? I mean, I myself rarely use the “buy it now/sell it now” option, but I’m far from a TP tycoon.
Just putting the items you loot up as sell orders, and being able to wait a few days for a buy order to fill to get the items you need are good ideas, but the players who just do that won’t end up that far ahead of the players who “buy/sell now.” The real gap in income is from the people who buy items JUST to resell them.
As far as I am concerned, TP competition was never the point of being a trader. Except for the occasional troll with a lot of money, there isn’t much point to trying to be a competitive trader. The point is not to drive prices up, but to make money from giving others that convenience.
You make it sound as if you almost believe you’re providing a community service. I assure you, you are not.
“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.”
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”
So Ryobe was you? You went and used a secondary account to answer a question that you refused to answer on your primary?
I answered the question, and then after you didn’t want to believe it, you accidentally answered it yourself by using flawed arguments. It was quite amazing actually. I’ve never won a debate by losing it, so it this was a first.
In GW2, Trading Post plays you!
So Ryobe was you? You went and used a secondary account to answer a question that you refused to answer on your primary?
I answered the question, and then after you didn’t want to believe it, you accidentally answered it yourself by using flawed arguments. It was quite amazing actually. I’ve never won a debate by losing it, so it this was a first.
It’s all there if you need to go back and read it again, but whatever you need to tell yourself to feel better.
Trying to debate via not addressing the issue…………worthless
Being shown to do as such………priceless
Serenity now~Insanity later
Traders do not create wealth, but they do concentrate it.
Traders create wealth by selling products that people want, the same as any other merchant. The main product a trader sells is liquidity – a trader will sell you the item you want now or buy the item you want to sell now at a much better price than you would be able to get without a trader.
while a lot of other players have less gold than they would without TP Gold Farming siphoning their resources.
It’s the other way around – your common, impatient player will get more money when they sell and pay lower prices for goods they want due to the actions of traders. This is because market making activity through trading in a market generates information about the value of the item being traded, and increased trading volume reduces the time lags associated with buying and selling – which further reduces the premium paid for buying now or selling immediately.
This means that items in the 50+ gold range are much more “affordable” to the TP Gold Farmers than they are to the general player base, and because people can afford them, they are offered at that price.
It also means the player who was lucky enough to acquire an item worth 50+ gold is able to sell it for a price approaching its actual value. In a world without wealthy players on the trading post, incredibly valuable items cannot be sold for anywhere near their true value due to a lack of liquidity – people cannot pay with money they do not have.
On the flip side of every transaction where a rich TP player buys an expensive item, there is a player who actually acquired that item in the first place who was rewarded fairly for the rarity and demand of the item they sold.
Traders create wealth by selling products that people want, the same as any other merchant. The main product a trader sells is liquidity – a trader will sell you the item you want now or buy the item you want to sell now at a much better price than you would be able to get without a trader.
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.
It’s the other way around – your common, impatient player will get more money when they sell and pay lower prices for goods they want due to the actions of traders. This is because market making activity through trading in a market generates information about the value of the item being traded, and increased trading volume reduces the time lags associated with buying and selling – which further reduces the premium paid for buying now or selling immediately.
That could possibly be true in some sort of a closed system in which [the amount people are willing and able to spend] doesn’t factor into it, but when it does, then people who have more cash on hand will be more willing to spend it than those that don’t, so the prices being asked for the truly desirable goods shoots up to levels that only those who have a lot of cash on hand can casually afford. You wouldn’t see items going for hundreds of gold on the TP if there weren’t players with hundreds of gold to buy them.
It also means the player who was lucky enough to acquire an item worth 50+ gold is able to sell it for a price approaching its actual value. In a world without wealthy players on the trading post, incredibly valuable items cannot be sold for anywhere near their true value due to a lack of liquidity – people cannot pay with money they do not have.
On the flip side of every transaction where a rich TP player buys an expensive item, there is a player who actually acquired that item in the first place who was rewarded fairly for the rarity and demand of the item they sold.
And for every hedge fund manager there is a lotto winner, but just because the occasional player gets very lucky with his drops does not mean that it’s healthy for the vast majority of players if a smaller group of players gets wealthy at their expense.
“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.”
you spend complaining about it on the forums, you’d be
done by now.”
Regularly players are perfectly capable of listing items at the same prices TP Gold Farmers do, or better.
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. 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.
just because the occasional player gets very lucky with his drops does not mean that it’s healthy for the vast majority of players if a smaller group of players gets wealthy at their expense.
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.