Guild Wars 2

So is there widespread market manipulation going on? I just searched for large claws and saw they were 20cp. As I placed my order the price jumped to 50cp. As if someone instantly bought up all the lower priced items faster than I could possibly place an order. I saw the same thing happening with other fine materials.

Its called playing the market… its legal as far as I am concerned. I wont spend my day sitting in the TP but some will.

one word…..Bots

Some guy made a youtube video explaining the exploit even and I’m sure there’s many others, there’s people driving up prices artificially or stockpiling certain items so they controll the market, don’t think anet is doing anything about them though sadly.

Masaki.2153:

one word…..Bots

not really … quantity purchases can be made in one click …so simple even a caveman can do it.

How many were there at 20c? Maybe someone listed 3 claws at 20c each and they were sold before you could place an order.

I’ve seen it both ways. I see something listed for N price and by the time I go to the order page it shows as .5N or 2N because there were only a handful of items at N that sold right away, or someone just listed more items at below N.

It also seems like the prices don’t update right away, the price in the search list may not be the currect price if there’s a lot of trading going on.

If they want to leave a free market then market manipulation is going ot happen. You can play the market as well if you want to spend your game time doing that.

First check how many buy orders exist at all different prices. Then check what the sell orders are at for each price range. you can figure the rest out.

Also note that the first price you see is some kind of cached value, or the average price over some time period.

Giant eyes prices skyrocketed in the last few days. When you search for them the price says 1s25. The cheapest you can buy them is 10 silver.
(This is of course at the time of writing, bound to change )

No, what you’re seeing is that you bought out all the 20cp stuff, and the 50cp stuff was revealed “underneath” it. This happens all the time, and it’s just because some people listed it at 20cp, and others listed it higher.

No grand conspiracy….

If you see a good price on an item that is traded often, you’ve got about 3 seconds or less to click “Buy” before the deal is gone.

That’s only manipulation in the sense that there are from dozens to thousands of people watching the TP globally every minute of the day looking for ways to profit.

if the BLTP was server based, i’d say yes.
but with a worldwide market and possibly a million people placing orders, it’s just fast paced market fluctuation.

There was like 280 at 20cp and when I bought 15 it failed and I refreshed they were at 50cp minimum. It wasn’t like they were at 20cp and the next down was 50cp. It was a lot at 20cp more at 21cp some at 22CP. Then in less than 15 seconds 50cp was the cheapest.

As Kelgrim said, the price shown on the initial search page is no longer correct, with a recent patch (?) it started showing some other historical value. Until you click on that item to place a buy or sell order, it doesn’t update, though if you go BACK to the search page after clicking on it, that one item’s value is now correct.

CtrlAltDel.5309:

There was like 280 at 20cp and when I bought 15 it failed and I refreshed they were at 50cp minimum. It wasn’t like they were at 20cp and the next down was 50cp. It was a lot at 20cp more at 21cp some at 22CP. Then in less than 15 seconds 50cp was the cheapest.

That’s how it works. It’s midafternoon here but there are people playing all over the world and the TP is not tied to a single geographic area. So right now it’s prime time somewhere and there are 10,000 people across the world looking at the same item on the TP, going “hey, I’d better stock up on these because the price is so good!” Click.

Better luck next time.

Oh, and I know some people buy cheap stuff with the intention of relisting it at a higher price. I did the same thing on a different game – the marketplace there was server-specific, so I would buy crafted bags, for example, for 50-75 each and when I had as many as I could carry I transferred to a different server and sold them for 125-200 each. There was supply on server A, demand on server B, it’s the essence of commerce.

If you’re smart about how you buy and sell in a matter of days you could turn 1g into 100g. This does not break any rules, both real and virtual markets work this way.

A few critical hacks (the consequence, not the how-to)

1. WvW server orbs are being stolen through hacks (this is insane)

2. In sPvP teams have been reported to find ways to start a match outside the designated starting area, thus getting an early advantage
3. Speed hacks in PvE give unfair advantage in both instances and open world
4. bots-o-rama
5. Yes, even the Trading Post is subject to botting.

Combine this with some critical bugs
1. Many personal story chapters still lock due to bugs (you’ll get to the point where the next phase should open up and you find you can’t open a door or whatever)
2. Many dungeon instances are also still locking due to bugs
3. Dynamic events aren’t starting due to bugs or stay in a locked state on many of the maps (especially zones for levels > 50)

I love this game. I’m tolerating all of this because I waited a long time and behind all the launch issue I see the vision and all the hard work that went into it, but I completely understand those who get angry and leave. The game is a mess right now and it doesn’t do anyone any good to sugar coat this critical problems. They are problems that have destroyed other games.

I know bots in WoW and Aion would buy up specific items and automatically repost them at a higher price driving up the price.

Basically what players do but automated 24/7

I take you have never played EvE online then, The auction house does nothing but breed an industry of farmers and botters for real life trade.

there are slaves in china because of MMO modals like this and Anet are milking it. They know exactly what hey are doing, get rid of the auction house, problem solved

I figure, when all the level 30-ish leather armor except the pants is 1 or 2 silver and all the pants (including cloth and chain as well as leather) cost 8+ silver, that either something is really screwed up with the droprates, or someone is playing cutesy with the market.

And then I refuse to buy the kitten things until the price goes down.

@ Masaki Really??? Did any of my VERY short reply even come close to sounding like I didn’t know that bots were present in the TP??? There are actual non-bot players milling around in the TP doing exactly what I said.

I have 2 years of WoW experience and I know how the trading post game is played. I made a fortune off a Toon that NEVER left the AH. I bought mats low….. made bags and sold em for at least 2 times the value. REAL players are doing exactly what the poster asked about.

@OP – Yes, this happens. Why would ArenaNet do anything about it? This is economics and the free market at work, exactly what they intended.

Looking at the market data via http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/24350 it does seem like there was some rapid movement in large claw trading at that time, whether it was manipulation is harder to tell.

However, with a market the size of this one, it is hard to control the market for any length of time, and the linked page seems to indicate that prices and volumes for large claws are trending back to where they were before.

Astraea.6075:

Looking at the market data via http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/24350 it does seem like there was some rapid movement in large claw trading at that time, whether it was manipulation is harder to tell.

However, with a market the size of this one, it is hard to control the market for any length of time, and the linked page seems to indicate that prices and volumes for large claws are trending back to where they were before.

^ THIS …… A+ response People will attempt to “corner the market” and prices will spike. They will make their profit, move on and prices will stabilize.

There is a known bug where the prices shown when you search for something often don’t match up at all to the actual current prices of that thing.

Even if the price really did change very quickly, there are reasons runs happen apart from “manipulation”.

Even if it is manipulation, that doesn’t mean it’s an exploit or a bot. A medium-sized guild could fairly rapidly change the price of some items just by buying up existing offers or, if they’ve stockpiled it, by selling quickly to the existing orders.

Corvindi.5734:

I figure, when all the level 30-ish leather armor except the pants is 1 or 2 silver and all the pants (including cloth and chain as well as leather) cost 8+ silver, that either something is really screwed up with the droprates, or someone is playing cutesy with the market.

And then I refuse to buy the kitten things until the price goes down.

What this means is that everyone is skilling up on gloves and pants are actually profitable.

Pants and Vests cost a lot more to make than gloves and masks, so people skill up on gloves and masks.

Gloves and Masks flood the TP, pants and vests are in short supply.

I buy armour & weapons for copper and sell for silver.

When it comes to armour, chest / gloves / boots are both what I get sold quickest and what I sell quickest.

Although shoulders are not catching up.

Helms of the level which I’m flipping are not worthwhile with only a few copper gained per flip. I get 1-2s per flip on the other armour / weapons which I’m flipping.

Large claws, really?
Their price used to be above 70c few days ago iirc?
Then some bots entered level range, farmed a bit and dumbed their inventorys to TP as instant sell. They don’t seem to have patience to wait sales actually happening.

Common buying low and selling higher happens.

Several dozen, or hundeds, players noticed they’re cheap and buy stockpiles of them. Huge stockpiles in fact. Why?
Because you can use t5 materials to craft level 80 rares.

1. Globs of ectoplasm. With current price I’d estimate some 40c per rare mat is still profitable for ecto farming at current prices. Give or take 10c..
2. Precursor hunt (there are dozens of people who crafted thousand(s) items for forge. Thousand lv 80 rare greatswords mean 15 000 t5 crafting materials, such as large claw in case. With just 7 such players you’ve just bought 105 000 rare materials from TP, or 15 000 per each rare t5 rare material.
3. There should still be chance to buy low and sell high even at such prices. (below 50).
4. Someone random noticed it’s nice time to craft lv80 rares for use.

Guess this covers most of it. I cannot claim there wouldn’t be “bots” playing market, as I could see potential in that, but there’s plenty of players playing market themselves. And because there’s still plenty of opportunities left, I don’t see bots being viable answer (or they’re bad bots, or they’re intentionally bad bots to stay under radar).

Also, you can spam buy order after price tag to send it at least three times as opposed to writing each order separately.

edit
corrected few typos/missing words