Sorry for the extreme topic title, but it’s becoming more and more evident.
At first, I was too lazy to write this post but after reading comments by a karma food seller in a karma thread I realized just how far insider trading is beginning to go.
This individual had commented on how he knew exactly what the demand for karma food was (as he made it frequently for profit) and how much sold, then suddenly, for no apparent reason, he sold multiples of what he usually does and saw a huge demand spike on the TP. Low and behold, two days later the ‘accidental’ removal of karma boosting happens (mid-August).
My personal story is much more severe…
I was one of the few people who still made The Crossing. I made them very regularly and had become quite familiar with how they fluctuated in price and how frequently they sold. Then, a couple days before this last major patch where they suddenly could not be made anymore (and we had no public warning of) one of my older listings at a much higher price sold… I found this strange as literally THREE MINUTES before there had been seven others listed lower than mine. The Crossing DOES NOT SELL THIS FAST… ever. It is expensive and a true specialty item.
After the patch it became immediately clear to me why this happened. Someone had gotten inside information that it would a) no longer be craftable b) would be blessed with the ability to pick which stats you want on it and, the big one, c) it would not become account bound in the same way other MF stat items would. In other words, you could sell The Crossing on the TP with the ability for people to pick whatever stats they want and with ZERO new supply because it can not be made anymore!!
I guess there’s no question why someone bought up nearly a dozen of them to have an exclusive supply monopoly on them where they could charge practically any price.
Did I mention that I had stumbled into a /say convo in a hidden jumping puzzle where someone mentioned the crossing not being able to be made anymore in the next patch shortly after the TP incident? How did these people get this information!?
I feel this is coming from testing and some people who have been given privileged access to content prior to public patch notes or comments. Many of them play regularly, are in guilds, and have many friends on servers. They can talk to their friends on Mumble where Anet has no clue they may have tipped them off. They may not be in the same guild or anything so tracking the source is even more difficult.
This is a major problem. The affects can be seen in legendary issues, specialty item issues and all other aspects of the market as certain players with access to this information are becoming more and more bold with how they use it to benefit (or give to their friends to benefit).
Please Anet, get your house in order and stop the proliferation of this information. Since you can’t control it, you need to make it public immediately before it hits test servers or preview servers. You must communicate these changes before these people have an opportunity to poison the well. Unfortunately, it is the only solution.
