Guild Wars 2

Yes, i am not mad.
What i am asking here is for both of these things.

1) A total TP reset. Buy orders and sell listings (with refund).
2) A 3 days time limit on buy orders and sell listings.
3) [Optional] A 5% fee on buy orders (this is not needed but could be useful to limit rampant buy orders).

The reasons:
Right now, the market is impossible because of the undercutters that simply keep putting buy orders within 1c of the sell price “because they can”. The won’t mind if the order goes unfulfilled, because they know that even if it goes unfulfilled, the price won’t turn back because their order is there to stay.
The other buyers will (obviously) pile up on their order, and voilà , instant market demand!

Putting a 3 day limit will severely cripple this tactic, especially if coupled with a fee. Now you won’t put a 100k butter buy order at 1c, because you will lose 50s each time. And will only last for three days, however.

The fee won’t stop rightful buyers, because they will put orders at the “right” price, that of a needed demand. If the sell price is The time limit could be a little detrimental, but will help raise prices: do you take a gamble in putting a low order, or go safe and put a reasonable one, or buy the item at listed sell price?

There is always the risk of the “instant demand”, of a person undercutting with a buy order of few items, but then the market will flush them, fulfilling them or letting them expire. The “instant demand” will last 3 days, and if it is not supported by “real demand”, then will expire and leave the higher prices in their wake.

This change could help stabilize economy and giving crafting a reason to exist. Sure, inflaction will go rampant at first, but then crafters will be back, will buy materials and craft and stabilize crafted items’ prices.

This could even help with the “precursor effect” in a way. No people will list them so high, fearing they will lose money in the process. People which would like to have a precursor will put a buy order at a reasonable price, taking a gamble it won’t be fulfilled, and losing the 5% fee. No more sell 350g buy 130g effect, prices will tend to align after awhile, reducing the impact of the “precursor effect”.

Could it be a reasonable way of dealing with the crafting problem and the TP depression? What do you think about it?

And please don’t troll with “It won’t work period”, i think you can be constructive and tell us WHY, as i explained why it could work for me.

I am sorry but what is broken in the first place? People undercutting others will always happen.

It would fix the buy orders that are under the vendor price at least.

With a full refund, I wouldn’t be terribly objected to a TP reset for the sole purpose of getting rid of all those below-vendor buy orders. They don’t particularly bother me, but there’s something annoying about having a remnant of a fixed bug lingering.

I’m not a fan of suggestion 2 and 3.

Re. point 2, I don’t see the harm in having older orders lying around, and I know from personal experience that just because an order hasn’t been filled for the past 3 days, it doesn’t mean it won’t get filled tomorrow. If orders should auto-decay, I’d request it would take at least a week, to allow any order to be exposed to weekend-trends regardless of when it was posted. And next up would be a valid argument to let them last a month, since some market trends might be related to monthly achievements (salvage). Save technical constraints on ANet’s part, I don’t see the harm in having hordes of older orders in the system. If the orders are no longer priced competitively, they’re rendered irrelevant. It should be up to the individual player to decide that the money he has locked up in never-completing buy orders could see better use, and that the items he has posted for sale ain’t going nowhere.

Regarding point 3, I like that one type of offers can be placed for free. When looking at the precursor problem, there’s still the mostly undecided question of “what exactly is it worth?” Assuming that 100G is more than people are willing to pay, sellers posting the item at 100G are currently taking a 5G loss for nothing. Now, assuming that 100G is less than people are willing to sell for, your suggestion would cause buyers to face the same loss if posting a 100G buy offer. For expensive items which has yet to settle on a fair price, you’re heading for a situation where both buyer and seller are hesitant about posting experimental offers. With the current system, at least the buyers are able to post risk-free buy offers of however much they’re willing and able to pay, and the sellers can make a fairly informed decision.

Right now, the market is impossible

The 15 Gold per day I’m making says otherwise.

Yes, you explained “why it could work for you”, but if there are those of us who do our homework and seek out those markets that have profit potential, why should we change the whole system for those that can’t seem to figure it out?

I’ve got news for ya, bud. This is – hands down – the easiest in-game market to turn a profit on I’ve ever seen in an MMO, The only ones complaining are those not patient enough to do the research/planning necessary to turn a profit, plain and simple. I have a guild full of people making tons of gold everyday, and not one of them are asking for changes to further “make things easier” for those that can’t seem to “get it”.

The only thing Anet needs to do is get a handle on the bots. Once that happens, the market will get even better than it already is – and in its current state of functionality, it’s just fine.

I am not saying it would be “easier for me”.

I am doing research, and doing my homework, and, yes, i am making money even in this market. Not “Tons of Gold” as you tell me, but something nevertheless.

What i propose is doing something about the bots and the “precursor effect” phenomenon.

Savage Deathknell.2036:

I’ve got news for ya, bud. This is – hands down – the easiest in-game market to turn a profit on I’ve ever seen in an MMO, The only ones complaining are those not patient enough to do the research/planning necessary to turn a profit, plain and simple.

I disagree.
The easiest in-game market was the WoW-style auction house. I made money without knowing what i bought and sold, only using Auctioneer.

This market could be MUCH easier but… it is flooded by bots. And the only thing that can stop the bots, in my opinion is killing quantity orders.

The normal user don’t place thousands of orders. She places an order for something he wants, or buys it directly. The auctioneer makes money with lots of orders.. let’s say tenths per day.
Bots are putting thousands of orders per day, flooding the market for even 1c gains.

I think even putting a 1c fee on buy orders will stop most of the bots on the market ATM.

Do you have better solutions?

Fabsm.5897:

Do you have better solutions?

I have the distinct feeling that Savage Deathknell, like me, do not think there’s a problem, and therefore no demand for a solution. I find the TP vastly preferable to any trading mechanism I’ve ever seen in any other MMO. It’s superior to other trading mechanisms both in terms of providing a useful way of getting stuff I need for my character, and in terms of giving me a trading minigame to profit from.

Bots are bad, and old below-vendor orders are useless noise, but the TP itself is excellent.

I find it rather amusing that you actually consider Auctioneer’s ability to earn you a profit – without caring what you were selling – a credit to the WoW AH.

Fabsm.5897:

This market could be MUCH easier but… it is flooded by bots. And the only thing that can stop the bots, in my opinion is killing quantity orders.

The normal user don’t place thousands of orders. She places an order for something he wants, or buys it directly.

Do you have better solutions?

And what constitutes a “normal” user for you? Simply, because you don’t “play” the TP as some players do, does not mean that the only “normal” use of it is small-quantity orders. The TP is no less a part of the game than PVP, PVE, or WVW.

There are players that actually enjoy the economic aspects of these types of games, and play them solely for that reason. Those types of players would not fit into your definition of “normal” due to their large quantity buying/selling activity (I typically buy/sell in excess of 100k units per day in various items).

Are there bots manipulating the market? Possibly (although no one knows definitely except ANet). Do I think the solution for combating those bots is punishing legitimate players and preventing them from playing ANY aspect of the game the way they wish?

Never.

If whatever “solution” a developer uses to combat botting impacts legitimate players in any way (such as the ridiculous “diminished returns” system), then that “fix” is a failure, plain and simple.

As for a better “solution” to your perceived problem with the TP – since I obviously don’t see the problem(s) that you do, I see no need for a “solution”. Aside from being more proactive banning botting activity from causing massive price crashes due to over supply, the best market is a market free from artificial controls.

Once PVE botting is handled, the market will reach a state of equilibrium in a few months, and that will be that….but frankly, this market has been “dumbed down” enough.

MrGorkajuice.8391:

Fabsm.5897:

Do you have better solutions?

I have the distinct feeling that Savage Deathknell, like me, do not think there’s a problem, and therefore no demand for a solution. I find the TP vastly preferable to any trading mechanism I’ve ever seen in any other MMO. It’s superior to other trading mechanisms both in terms of providing a useful way of getting stuff I need for my character, and in terms of giving me a trading minigame to profit from.

Bots are bad, and old below-vendor orders are useless noise, but the TP itself is excellent.

This will be a two-fold answer to you and Savage Deathknell.

I really enjoy the market game. I liked that in every MMO i have played, and i am a crafter by nature. I could be one of those people who likes buying in large quantity and selling them (or the crafted byproducts), but right now i feel the market is so depressed (“dumbed down” as Savage suggested) that i cannot enjoy myself in any way.

I think putting a time limit will solve some of the price stagnation, and even bot flooding. When bot are constantly pressed to put things on the market, and losing money to do that constantly (because they have to sell them), they will start selling at buy order value instead of leaving their selling list there because it is infinite.

Remember that bot time is money, whatever step makes them losing time will slowly chase them away. Players that “play the game” won’t mind re-placing a listing. Bots, however, would have to stop botting to replace their unfulfilled order or listings (or buy order in the case of market bots). That would be catastrophic in their gold-per-hour rate.

That could solve many bot problems when their gold rate will drop to the point that selling items won’t cut anymore.

MrGorkajuice.8391:

I find it rather amusing that you actually consider Auctioneer’s ability to earn you a profit – without caring what you were selling – a credit to the WoW AH.

I was referring to “easier markets”, not to “better markets”. WoW AH was different, cross server was the only brainwork involved, really easier in all cases.

Quote button missing again.

“I think putting a time limit will solve some of the price stagnation, and even bot flooding. "
I think the change you’re proposing will harm legit players more than bots.
By increasing the risk involved in placing items for sale (if it don’t sell in 3 days, posting fee is wasted) you’re encouraging people to minimize orders in order to minimize risk.
As a legit player, I want to post bulk buy orders, and post the items for sale as they arrive. I just want to make my decision of what price to buy and sell at, and then have a minimum of manual management-actions untill I decide that my strategy needs a revision.
A bot however won’t mind placing orders for single items at a time and just repost that order whenever it fills, just to minimize loss in case the order hits the 3 day limit.

“I was referring to “easier markets”, not to “better markets”.”
Fair enough, my bad.

I don’t know why the TP doesn’t work like in every other MMO ever made…

3 day list → Item and listing fee are returned once the 3 days is over.

I think one of the biggest problems right now is that people don’t ever take items off the TP because there is NO way to recover the listing fee. This means items just sit there, and as soon as they are undercut they sit there forever and never sell. It is causing the market to be clogged up with things at values that can’t even be sold (buy orders below vendor price) and items whos prices are no longer valid and will never sell, just filling up database space.

I bet we would see a vast performance boost if they removed items after 3 days as well.

I think it would both be easier and better for them to simply run a script across their database to remove and refund all buy orders below the vender price… no need to go through the complicated steps you think they need to.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I don’t know why the TP doesn’t work like in every other MMO ever made…

Because the TP in a lot of other mmo’s is crap?

I think one of the biggest problems right now is that people don’t ever take items off the TP because there is NO way to recover the listing fee. This means items just sit there, and as soon as they are undercut they sit there forever and never sell.

If players want to waste money this way (by leaving it tied up as unselling items on the TP), I really don’t see why it should be ANet’s responsibility to help them out by automatically refunding them after a time limit (3 days is ridiculously too short, btw, especially for the really rare items).

If I’ve listed 1000 copper ore at 20c and notice that the price has moved below that, there is a way to recover the listing fee: cancel the listing and repost them at a price that will sell. My listing cost me 10s and 1000 copper ore. If they will never sell at this price, I will forever be out of those. If I repost them at 15c each, then I’m still out the original 10s and 1000 copper ore, but when they sell I get 127.5s after fees and taxes.

Being up 1g17s50c looks a lot better from where I’m sitting than being down 10s, but maybe that’s just me.

In other words, I’m another one of these jerks who thinks there isn’t a problem currently, apart from whatever effect bots are having (and not because this effect is necessarily bad for the economy, which has yet to be adequately demonstrated by any of the people complaining about it, but rather because bots are bad for other reasons).

Buying in bulk is bots only? No, it’s what traders do.

Why buy low and sell high with a single item when you can do it with many?

I’d rather they didn’t punish traders for trading, they already take 15% of the sale value as a cash sink!

The market could do with some attention. Right now bots have put artificial ceilings on item value that has nothing to do with supply and demand. You can see this on a lot of high demand uncommon items in the TP.

Unidentified dyes for example. Lets say the floor price is 17s 41c with a fluctuation of 20-30c. since anything drastically lower re-sellers are buying to repost in the 17-18s range to make a small profit.

Now enter the botters…who post TWO THOUSAND unidentified dyes at 17s40c. Now the ceiling for unidentified dyes has dropped significantly because players have to sell for lower than the farmer. Since players are now undercutting the farmer, those 2000 will never sell. This will happen until dye stabilizes, probably somewhere in the 17s20c range, until another farmer comes in and lowers the ceiling again.

It makes it a buyers market. The issue being, it will ALWAYS be a buyers market. In the instance of dyes you can look through the available listings and see this happening. Tight competitive prices -> massive listing that undercuts current average -> price drop -> tight competitive prices -> massive listing that undercuts new current average -> repeat until we have near vendor prices.

This issue can never “naturally” work itself out of the sheer quantity of the listing along with the fact that listings never expire, and I would wager in more than a few instances the account is banned and unable to remove it manually (if they even chose to).

The market may not need a total wipe and reset. But there should definitely be a time limit on listings and any posts from banned accounts should be removed.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I don’t know why the TP doesn’t work like in every other MMO ever made…

3 day list -> Item and listing fee are returned once the 3 days is over.

I think one of the biggest problems right now is that people don’t ever take items off the TP because there is NO way to recover the listing fee. This means items just sit there, and as soon as they are undercut they sit there forever and never sell. It is causing the market to be clogged up with things at values that can’t even be sold (buy orders below vendor price) and items whos prices are no longer valid and will never sell, just filling up database space.

I bet we would see a vast performance boost if they removed items after 3 days as well.

That is the issue I’m seeing. As soon you list, you are charged with a fee and if you remove the listing. You’ll never get it refund. So the item you’re trying to re-list lost value.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I don’t know why the TP doesn’t work like in every other MMO ever made…

3 day list -> Item and listing fee are returned once the 3 days is over.

I think one of the biggest problems right now is that people don’t ever take items off the TP because there is NO way to recover the listing fee. This means items just sit there, and as soon as they are undercut they sit there forever and never sell. It is causing the market to be clogged up with things at values that can’t even be sold (buy orders below vendor price) and items whos prices are no longer valid and will never sell, just filling up database space.

I bet we would see a vast performance boost if they removed items after 3 days as well.

If you want a cookie cutter MMO there are plenty out there. Take your pick. GW2 was created to break out of the norm and CHANGE MMO’s. That’s why many different things are different from the conventional MMO.

I’ve asked before and I’ll ask again: Why don’t all of you people who say you are turning a huge profit from the TP share with us your methods instead of acting like smug elitists?

Methods?

Buy low, sell high. Simple.

All you need to do is take the price which you buy the item for and divide it by 0.85. This will give you the amount that you need to sell it for to break even. Sell it for more than that and you make a profit.

If you think that people are going to tell you the items that they buy so they are in direct competition with you, don’t hold your breath.

I think purging all of the buy orders that can’t be filled because they’re below vendor price would be good.

The sell listings at 1c above vendor price would be nice too, but I don’t expect that one to happen.

1) Reset all buy/sell orders? Not only will that nullify the time thousands have spent placing orders/etc, but more importantly, it’ll reduce the TP to a premature state. As soon as it’s reset, expect thousands of very-low orders (purposeful, or unknowingly) to be placed. It’d ultimately take advantage of those unaware of market values, but I imagine that only the “tip of the iceberg” for such an action.

2) Limit listings to 3-days (or whereabouts), and offer a refund afterwards? The current system (no limit w/ 5% fee) works fine. If items are within a range where they won’t buy/sell, then where does the problem lie? The TP has a massive user-base, and undercutting will occur regardless, but if the risk from undercutting is removed (your suggestion), then it’d only occur more frequently (instead of items simply being “stuck” in the TP).

3.) 5% fee to limit “rampant” buy-orders? What’s wrong with an economy that… buys and sells?

Putting a 3 day limit will severely cripple this tactic

Tactic? People are buying and selling as per any community — if they list too low, it’ll be bought, or if they list too high, it won’t sell.

No people will list them so high, fearing they will lose money in the process.

Hmm? Perhaps I’ve misunderstood, but wouldn’t those people get their money back with your 3-day-limit suggestion (w/ refund)?

Could it be a reasonable way of dealing with the crafting problem and the TP depression? What do you think about it?

If the problem(s) pertain to supply/demand (whether or not its influenced by “bots”), then I don’t see how penalizing buyers/sellers is going to solve anything.

Well, restricting orders to be within 115% of vendor price might be helpful — it’d be easier not to list items that would result in less profit vs. just selling to a vendor.

RShara.3265:

I think purging all of the buy orders that can’t be filled because they’re below vendor price would be good.

The sell listings at 1c above vendor price would be nice too, but I don’t expect that one to happen.

Stuff that sits for awhile before selling at vendor+1c will just sit for a lot longer if it’s required to be higher than that. That stuff is cheap because it has more supply than demand. (Also note that vendor+15% is still a loss, because net revenue on 115% of something is 97.5% after the fee and tax.)

Tom Gore.4035:

It would fix the buy orders that are under the vendor price at least.

no one can fill those buy orders and no one can post buy orders below the +1c vender price.

What’s the issue with them existing if they have no effect on the market?

illgot.1056:

Tom Gore.4035:

It would fix the buy orders that are under the vendor price at least.

no one can fill those buy orders and no one can post buy orders below the +1c vender price.

What’s the issue with them existing if they have no effect on the market?

A lot of overhead on the Trading Post system. I cannot estimate how many bids are there, but i bet we are on the order of the hundreds of thousands..

The best solution to underpriced buy orders would be to just remove those, not reset the entire TP.

I’d like to enlight people little, and I give huge trade secret away while doing so.

“Bots” don’t often set sell orders. They just dumb theit inventory to TP by matching buy orders. They want their gold instantly and lack patience to wait and compete against each other. Why should they care as long as they get more from TP than vendor? And every copper they make is copper to sell some desperate enough to spend their dollar and dime on it. This is naturally stricly about farming bots and I lack ability to comment on “TP bots” since I haven’t met such behaviour myself. (Yet I’ve heard about some listing automagically replaced when old one is sold, with small inventory – while this might be true I lack first person experience.)

TP players buy those orders in HUGE quantities, and relist them for higher price. Low risk, nice profit IF you know your market and don’t put all eggs in same basket. These players kinda wash the money, and make profit themselves while doing so. Not intentionally evil, and I’m not saying they should be punished for it, but they’re being devil’s avocades here. Anyone claiming that all their huge buy orders were completed by players themselves deciding to sell during 30 minutes out of 1440 minutes inside 24 hour cycle are just lying to others, to themselvers or just being delusional. I won’t judge you guys – go ahead and pick one yourselves.

I’ve followed market since headstart, so while I don’t have “hard proof” I still do speak from experience. Up to you swallow or not.

Now about making tons of money, don’t know about that. I don’t do hundreds of gold per day, but I do make tens. Not keeping too tight calculations of my inventory because they’re not liquid and tend often to take few days to sell, and follow market swifts. I do however keep some 50-150 gold in gold and maybe same amount in buy orders of dozens and dozens items that I try to follow and do my homework. And yes, I do also keep buy orders in rare mats that are being sold to TP by juvenile bear infestation and I do flip them but I try to avoid huge profits to somewhat keep clear conscience.

Now, to you cheese.

1) Maybe, maybe no. Some items have stable price now – would be pity to lose their stable prices and drive market to chaos because of this. Then again, wether or no all orders prior vendor+1 price should be refunded – AGREED.
2) Why 3 days? That doesn’t even count weekly cycle nor even monthly cycle. Not to mention, some of items have WAY slower circulation than 3 days. Like precursors, for example.
3) Hmm. Why? If sell price and buy price have 1c difference then market is on balance.

If someone is keeping their sell order from being undercut by artificially keeping buy order below that, he’ll increase his inventory by players who are willing to sell, and lose money due 15% taxation UNLESS he relists that newly acquired inventory by buyorder/0.85 1(n) . Repeated relisting and ((x/0,85) +1+n) price inceasing won’t be followed forever.

If you tried to talk about market manipulation where buy order price is steadily increased by your own buy orders, and then finaly dumbing your inventory when price goes up then imho you’re entitled to do so if you’ve both inventory and capita. Just don’t come to cry when your stock keeps due supply being higher than demand to point where you’ve invested all your capita. And/or that you’re forced to sell newly acquired inventory at loss.

1c undercutting everywhere is cool. If you’re TP player then you are required to have patience for winning. Flipping cannot be only way to generate gold, you know. Not even on stock market. Players also benefit from cheaper prices (while buying). Items beside cooking products have NPC vendor value which is there to ensure they will always have way to generate gold.
(continues)
edited few # away

(part 2)
Purpose of TP is, as far as I’ve understood, to:

1. Redistribute final products, at cheap price when possible.
2. Goldsink (15% fee, or 10% of selling + repeated 5% listing fees)

Purpose of TP is not to take wealth from majority to hands of minority. That doesn’t maximize fun because fun of few is worth less than fun of majority.

Also, were there to be 3 days cycle and not refunding then that wouldn’t lead to price drop of precursors. Only them being removed from market untill there is loads of gold to buy them at insane prices. I don’t want to risk 5% of price of rare quality product that has long cycle time. People wouldn’t try sell them before they know there’d be profit and because making one is so expensive, people would make them less for sale which leads them being less avaviable. Only ones profiting are one selling materials for gambling machine, or constant buy-order wars untill someone completes them (why risk your money to sell, if you can wait them to bid high enough and sell yourself risklessly?)

Other side of coin to your other suggestion, why put buy order for precursor if you lose 5% of that anyway? That’s hellova lot of gold….

Back to case of refunding after auction time is over; Because increasing price of precursor or any given good is so expensive to flipper it in fact discourages (constant) flipping. If you get money back after 3 days, what stops you going even higher if market goes as well? Only reason not to would be losing 5% of price as listing fee.

This being said, I could live with refunding after 7 or 30 days, but were it mere 3 days, that would do more harm than good.

For final words; If you’ve unlimited credit then it’s easy to make unlimited profit. This, however, isn’t case in majority of cases. Not even with majority of TP players.

Savage Deathknell.2036:

Right now, the market is impossible

The 15 Gold per day I’m making says otherwise.

Yes, you explained “why it could work for you”, but if there are those of us who do our homework and seek out those markets that have profit potential, why should we change the whole system for those that can’t seem to figure it out?

I’ve got news for ya, bud. This is – hands down – the easiest in-game market to turn a profit on I’ve ever seen in an MMO, The only ones complaining are those not patient enough to do the research/planning necessary to turn a profit, plain and simple. I have a guild full of people making tons of gold everyday, and not one of them are asking for changes to further “make things easier” for those that can’t seem to “get it”.

The only thing Anet needs to do is get a handle on the bots. Once that happens, the market will get even better than it already is – and in its current state of functionality, it’s just fine.

I really couldn’t agree more. I’m considered quite poor I’m sure compared to some, but with 50g many might see me as relatively rich. I’ve only recently begun to step up my Trading Post activity and made 5 gold alone this morning. When I return home, I would imagine there will be another 5 waiting for me.

The potential to earn money is huge, just with a few simple steps. As for “undercutting”, I’m sorry but that is just the nature of Auction play. If you can’t beat them, join them

More restrictions, of any kind is not what is needed. An overhaul is needed, but not anything that infringes on the free market aspect. If its legal on Wall Street then its legal here should be the mantra.

TurboGuard.4865:

I’ve asked before and I’ll ask again: Why don’t all of you people who say you are turning a huge profit from the TP share with us your methods instead of acting like smug elitists?

What possible interest would anyone have in doing that – to create competition for themselves? Further, if being successful and disagreeing with those that continue to scream “it can’t be done” make me an “elitist”, I can live with that. You can throw all the names and labels around that you want, but as long as you won’t take responsibility for YOUR OWN success, you’ll be doing it while sitting in the cheap seats.

This is the problem – most people don’t have any interest in actually taking the time and LEARNING FOR THEMSELVES through trial and error (as everyone who is successful at trading did) – they want someone to present them a magic formula on a silver platter and tell them “here, do this, this and this, and you’ll be rolling in profits!”.

You and I both started with the EXACT same opportunities in the game. I feel absolutely no obligation to do the work for you (and hurt my own profit potential in the process).

Want to know how to do it? FIGURE IT OUT. You’ll be better off for it in the long run. Anything short of that – to include asking people to take you by the hand and show you exactly what to do – and all you’re asking for is a shortcut that you haven’t paid your dues to earn.

…and sorry, I’m fresh out.

To those that take issue with people flipping items on the TP for profit purposes (for whatever reason), you shouldn’t.

Think of the massive amount of money that leaves the game due to extra transactions on items as they are flipped. When the rich guy goes and spends 500g on the TP on stuff to resell, it’s going to take MORE than 25g out of the economy just for him to list them (25g = 5% of 500g). I say more than 25g because he’s going to be listing items at some sort of higher value than what he bought. Then MORE than 50g leaves the game again as the items sell (50g = 10% of 500g) since again, he’s selling at a profit.

The more often the TP gets to take that 5% + 10% cut on the same item, the more inflation is curbed. Having an item pass through the TP once is nice, having it pass through 2 or more is excellent.

MrGorkajuice.8391:

I find the TP vastly preferable to any trading mechanism I’ve ever seen in any other MMO. It’s superior to other trading mechanisms both in terms of providing a useful way of getting stuff I need for my character, and in terms of giving me a trading minigame to profit from.

That doesn’t mean it can not be perfected.

I find it very, very odd that you can place buy orders without any cost whatsoever. And that you can put up as many buy orders as you want.

Together, these two create imbalances that would easily be fixed by adding a fee for buy orders and/or limit the number of buy orders.

Even though I make most of my gold via the TP, I’m not a power trader. And those are the only people who lose out to the “free buy orders.” Given the mess that the power traders made of GW1, I’m perfectly okay with that.

Tallis.5607:

I find it very, very odd that you can place buy orders without any cost whatsoever. And that you can put up as many buy orders as you want.

Together, these two create imbalances that would easily be fixed by adding a fee for buy orders and/or limit the number of buy orders.

Why on earth would anyone think it’s a good idea to place artificial limits on the DEMAND side of the equation? Limit the number of buy orders? Really?

It’s amazing to me how many “solutions” are being presented for problems that don’t exist.

Economics 101: The less regulation and taxation the better. Let the market find it’s own equilibrium. All ANet needs to focus on as far as the market is concerned is eliminating the bots who are causing over-supply issues in some areas.

People need to stop asking for more controls to help them make a buck. The fact is, if you can’t make a profit in a free market, you’ll certainly never be able to make one that has even more controls and/or fees.

To make flipping items easier I spent 5-10 mins making a simple spreadsheet to do all my calculations for me.

I input a buy price and a sell price and it then works out the break-even sell price, the profit per item, and the profit per copper invested (i.e. buying for 100c and having a 10c profit is the same profit per copper invested as buying for 10c and making 1c profit). I also added a stack size field along with an overall profit calculation based on profit x stack size.

This allows me to not only see how much profit I can make by flipping an item but how efficient that particular item is when you consider the gold required for buy orders.

I can then flick around the TP checking any item I want and I can see exactly how good it would be to flip compared to other items.

Savage Deathknell.2036:

Economics 101: The less regulation and taxation the better. Let the market find it’s own equilibrium.

While I disagree in real life, I agree completely regarding the toy economy in GW2. No one goes hungry or has their power shut off or has to sleep on a park bench if the economy crashes, and anyone who doesn’t like the TP market can play a perfectly enjoyable game while avoiding it entirely.

As such, all the appeals to how hard it is for the “casual” player to make money playing the TP fall on pretty deaf ears with me. If you want to make money without doing research on which items to move at what price on the TP, don’t try to make money by buying and selling on the TP. It’s as simple as that.

The fact is, if you can’t make a profit in a free market, you’ll certainly never be able to make one that has even more controls and/or fees.

Yeah, I think people don’t realize that, regardless of how the market is set up, folks willing to put in extra work researching prices and profits will always be the ones making more money, so long as anyone is making any money at all. (And if no one was, there’d obviously be complaints about that as well, rightly so.)