Guild Wars 2

So I just bought a mini jack-a-lop on the TP, I am not at all upset with my purchase, but the events that lead up to it, and the events afterwards too. are what disappointed me.

I don’t know exactly how long ago I posted a buy order on the tp (within the last few days), but it was for 170g, the highest at the time was 150g, and the sell order was 225g. The next day there was a new sell order and a new buy order, the buy order was higher than mine, and the sell order was 223g, So, I bumped up my buy offer in order to get on top and not have to wait for as long. Some time passed, and I saw that the person who placed that buy order above mine had also retracted theirs and put it above mine again. This went on several times until that player’s buy order reached 190g. So I put mine above their 190g and checked back a little bit later and saw another player had posted an order for 200g, so I decided that 23g wasn’t a huge difference at this point so I decided to buy it at the sell order price.

This is the interesting part, when I went to show it to my friends and guildies, somebody told me that it was only 150g, I said to look again because there were buy orders for 190 and 200g on there, and they said no, so I went to look, and those buy orders were gone, not even 10 minutes after I bought the mini.

It appears that the player or players that posted the buy orders were only doing so to bump up my buy order and to sell it at the buy instantly price, which creates a false demand in order to get people to pay a higher price for something that otherwise wouldn’t be as costly if the market weren’t controlled by a select few. I felt that 170g was a fair offer to make since it was quite a bit higher than the highest offer, and I know that there was the minipet sale the other day, I really only increased the price I would pay because I thought that there was actual competition to get the mini.

My question is, based on the rules of the game, does this count as scamming, and if so, what can be done about it?

Sadly false buy orders are very common on rarer items – the exotic mini buy prices often drop low and then suddenly shoot up since there’s (i suspect) 1 or 2 players actively manipulating that market.

Now is it against the rules? I sadly suspect not.

The core issue is – as with any bidding situation – not to let your competitive instincts supplant your fiscal sensibilities.

Ultimately, you placed the order, someone filled the order and the deal is done.

Do you not believe in evidence? Just because your friends said it was 150g doesn’t make it true. You saw a standing (i.e. unfulfilled) order for 150g. You placed offers over 190g and still did not get the item. The facts speak for themselves. If you felt that 170g was the “fair” offer, why did you increase your price? You could have left the offer at 170g and waited for supply to meet you. You ended up buying the item at what was essentially the original sell offer. That means that price was the right one to begin with and you were lowballing the whole time.

Even assuming you were manipulated into the price, the fact is that you received the item that you were asking for and you agreed to the price that was paid. In no way can you call this a scam. This is nothing more than buyer’s remorse.

>OP

You weren’t scammed. You just made a choice that you regret. Big difference.

The first two answers are good answers, the other two seem to have not actually read the post. So, I will quote myself and maybe you will be able to read this time.

anthsss.1564:

So I just bought a mini jack-a-lop on the TP, I am not at all upset with my purchase, but the events that lead up to it, and the events afterwards too. are what disappointed me.

I am more concerned about it happening to other players that are less fortunate than myself and it would affect more. If the market is being controlled, then the sell offer isn’t actually a fair price. I had the gold, I bought it because I wanted it, but the fact that it was a false demand is what made me post about it here. In most other games that is a ban-able offense for scamming, but since the TP is anonymous it’s a bit of a different scenario and you can’t actually tell if you are getting scammed or not.

Games like that aren’t actually possible in higher volume markets. There just aren’t many of what you bought on the market, so who can say what is and isn’t a “fair price”?

This could easily be fixed. Just put a daily limit on the number of sell and buy orders you can place for a single item. Or just make it so you can’t put a buy order in for an item you own. Or make it so you can view who placed the buy orders and who placed the item for sale at least.

John Smith.4610:

There is no such thing as false demand, because at any point while those orders exist they can be filled.

So… Mind making Lemons temporarily tradable? Pleeeeeease?

John Smith.4610:

There is no such thing as false demand, because at any point while those orders exist they can be filled.

That would be true IF you had some interns go through and sweep out the countless orders for account bound items and the even greater number of orders hanging around that are (far) below the minimum price the item can be listed for.

I really don’t understand why you guys let all that clutter accumulate… It’s got to be slowing down queries with no benefits whatsoever. It seems like two good scripts would flush all that junk data .

John Smith.4610:

When you place a buy order, you are stating that you are willing to pay X money for Y item(s). The buy order is a contract of demand for that item.

Academically; from your perspective it shouldn’t be relative, you stated you were willing to pay X for Y and were successful. There is no such thing as false demand, because at any point while those orders exist they can be filled.

So it’s a contract that you have the option to pull your money out of at any time before the transfer occurs. That leaves it open to manipulation, does it not? These orders could be used to make it seem as if there are more potential buyers than there really are. It could be used to present the player, like our topic creator, with an unrealistic view of demand for that good. It gives him imperfect information about the demand of the product. This creates inefficiency, does it not?

It’s basically like having a planted buyer in an auction to shore up bids. The demand isn’t really there, because these planted bidders are employed by the auction house. If they do happen to win the bid, they just don’t get a sale. No money changes hands. But they can make it seem as if the item is more valued by the buying population. They give the illusion of demand in that sense.

All that being said, this isn’t really my field, so I’m reluctant to comment at all. I could be totally wrong.

@SteepledHat: Yes it does leave it open to manipulation, but unlike your auction example, there is the potential for other sellers to enter the process, thereby disrupting the plans of the person(s) attempting to push up the price. Admittedly, some of the high-value markets in the game won’t have a large number of potential sellers, but it’s still a possible risk faced by people employing such a strategy.

While I don’t condone this sort of behaviour, I can’t see an obvious way to restrict it from happening that can’t be easily overcome.

Am I missing something important here? Because my impression is that the 5% listing fee, repeated “several” times, would be eating the margin from your initial bid to the sell price…

This happens at auctions often, someone will bump up the price when they see an interested bid. Since both parties have lots of money (up to 200g lying around that you can use to bump up the others bid) it is just a game. That said the profit is good even with the 5% cut to the game since the pet came for the investment of gems which in theory could have cost real cash or about 5 gold (it is 300 gems for pets not sure). Ah the good old lottery system eh?
Anyway a good way to spot this is just what you saw, bids are put in and removed when you up your bid. If you see this remove your bid and put in a lower bid and see what happens.

Brilliant, thank you for the tip.

anthsss, I can see why you’d be annoyed, as it does sound like someone was playing you. However, you got what you wanted for a price you were happy to pay Don’t let the events surrounding the purchase spoil the fact that you now own the most valuable mini in the game!

Astraea.6075:

Yes it does leave it open to manipulation, but unlike your auction example, there is the potential for other sellers to enter the process, thereby disrupting the plans of the person(s) attempting to push up the price. Admittedly, some of the high-value markets in the game won’t have a large number of potential sellers, but it’s still a possible risk faced by people employing such a strategy.

I guess this is important here – somebody may just jump in and actually sell that item to the person trying to push, it really is a risk.

SteepledHat.1345:

So it’s a contract that you have the option to pull your money out of at any time before the transfer occurs. That leaves it open to manipulation, does it not? These orders could be used to make it seem as if there are more potential buyers than there really are. It could be used to present the player, like our topic creator, with an unrealistic view of demand for that good. It gives him imperfect information about the demand of the product. This creates inefficiency, does it not?

It’s basically like having a planted buyer in an auction to shore up bids. The demand isn’t really there, because these planted bidders are employed by the auction house. If they do happen to win the bid, they just don’t get a sale. No money changes hands. But they can make it seem as if the item is more valued by the buying population. They give the illusion of demand in that sense.

All that being said, this isn’t really my field, so I’m reluctant to comment at all. I could be totally wrong.

This. This is exactly the point I was trying to make with what happened.

Astraea.6075:

@SteepledHat: Yes it does leave it open to manipulation, but unlike your auction example, there is the potential for other sellers to enter the process, thereby disrupting the plans of the person(s) attempting to push up the price. Admittedly, some of the high-value markets in the game won’t have a large number of potential sellers, but it’s still a possible risk faced by people employing such a strategy.

While I don’t condone this sort of behaviour, I can’t see an obvious way to restrict it from happening that can’t be easily overcome.

Actually, other sellers would only cause them to throw the price even more. The people constantly adjusted their bids so that they were higher than mine, effectively blocking me from getting the item via buy order until after somebody sold it to them. When they buy it, it only adds to their control of the market, and it would only allow them more freedom in charging what they want.

Also, it costs a potential buyer nothing to play a buy order. You get all of your cash back. All the taxes are on the seller. (Granted, if they had any sense you’d be paying for the taxes indirectly as an increase in the buy price.)

anthsss.1564:

Astraea.6075:

@SteepledHat: Yes it does leave it open to manipulation, but unlike your auction example, there is the potential for other sellers to enter the process, thereby disrupting the plans of the person(s) attempting to push up the price. Admittedly, some of the high-value markets in the game won’t have a large number of potential sellers, but it’s still a possible risk faced by people employing such a strategy.

While I don’t condone this sort of behaviour, I can’t see an obvious way to restrict it from happening that can’t be easily overcome.

Actually, other sellers would only cause them to throw the price even more. The people constantly adjusted their bids so that they were higher than mine, effectively blocking me from getting the item via buy order until after somebody sold it to them. When they buy it, it only adds to their control of the market, and it would only allow them more freedom in charging what they want.

That is a possibility, but it depends on how much they are “babysitting” their buy orders. If they are immediately overcutting your bid, then yes, they are more likely to snap up the product that other sellers try to sell at the higher price, but even then, another seller could come in and list their item at a lower price after these people had done all the work in raising the buy prices to the point where you felt you might as well just buy it at the sell price.

An additional risk with this strategy is that they push the price too far beyond what the prospective buyer is prepared to pay and he loses interest. If they’ve picked up some extra product while doing this, then they’ve just sunk more of their capital into this venture at the same time as they have lost a potentially lucrative sale.

Again, I’m not sure how you could combat something like this. Placing restrictions on bidding on items you are selling, or listing names of buyers and sellers can be easily overcome by using multiple people/accounts.

anthsss.1564:

Astraea.6075:

@SteepledHat: Yes it does leave it open to manipulation, but unlike your auction example, there is the potential for other sellers to enter the process, thereby disrupting the plans of the person(s) attempting to push up the price. Admittedly, some of the high-value markets in the game won’t have a large number of potential sellers, but it’s still a possible risk faced by people employing such a strategy.

While I don’t condone this sort of behaviour, I can’t see an obvious way to restrict it from happening that can’t be easily overcome.

Actually, other sellers would only cause them to throw the price even more. The people constantly adjusted their bids so that they were higher than mine, effectively blocking me from getting the item via buy order until after somebody sold it to them. When they buy it, it only adds to their control of the market, and it would only allow them more freedom in charging what they want.

That is a possibility, but it depends on how much they are “babysitting” their buy orders. If they are immediately overcutting your bid, then yes, they are more likely to snap up the product that other sellers try to sell at the higher price, but even then, another seller could come in and list their item at a lower price after these people had done all the work in raising the buy prices to the point where you felt you might as well just buy it at the sell price.

An additional risk with this strategy is that they push the price too far beyond what the prospective buyer is prepared to pay and he loses interest. If they’ve picked up some extra product while doing this, then they’ve just sunk more of their capital into this venture at the same time as they have lost a potentially lucrative sale.

Again, I’m not sure how you could combat something like this. Placing restrictions on bidding on items you are selling, or listing names of buyers and sellers can be easily overcome by using multiple people/accounts.

Scammed no.

Manipulated possibly yes. This would however have carried risks on the part of the seller/s if it turns out that they successfully encouraged you to raise the price you were willing to pay.

It only adds to their control if they get it at a price that is lower than a price they can get away with charging (that someone will actually buy it at, and that nobody else will undercut them at). If they pay more than that amount, they have to sell at a loss, thus reducing their power.

Yeah, but it was a high value/ low traffic item. Their risk was minimal. This tactic would never work on something that had a lot of movement like, say, mithril.

SteepledHat.1345:

Yeah, but it was a high value/ low traffic item. Their risk was minimal. This tactic would never work on something that had a lot of movement like, say, mithril.

I agree that the risk is very low for this type of item, but it’s not negligble. If they’re able to babysit the bids constantly (in the OPs case, over several days), then they can minimize that risk even more, but it is still present.

I’m not arguing that there isn’t a problem with this sort of behaviour, but I don’t see what changes could be made to the system that would prevent it. Or more specifically, changes that can’t be easily overcome by using multiple people/accounts to place fake bid offers

Yargesh.4965:

That said the profit is good even with the 5% cut to the game

The game take 15% of the total sale, not 5%. The 5% is only the non refundable listing.

If you haven’t noticed the additional 10% being skimmed off your incoming funds… ouch.

This works just like the real stock market.

Armchair traders get the smack down from professional investors every minute of the day. Cries of market manipulation flow like water from the lips of the losing end of a trade.

If one wants to play the game, they must learn the rules to be effective.

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

Yargesh.4965:

That said the profit is good even with the 5% cut to the game

The game take 15% of the total sale, not 5%. The 5% is only the non refundable listing.

If you haven’t noticed the additional 10% being skimmed off your incoming funds… ouch.

The cutting we were talking about is the listing fee, that is the only repetitive loss in this “false” bidding game. The 10% on the sale is only happening once, at the end, not during the process.