I dont see the problem, all players can be equally aware of the market trends using the tools available online. Those are 1/5 of the links I have that are easily found with google. Unless you are complaining that Anet isn’t spoon feeding that mass amount of data to the players.
There are tools, and they help, but 1. The vast majority of players have no idea that they exist because they are not in engine, and 2. of those who do know that they exist, many do not know how best to use them. Again, the current market bonanza is entirely dependent on the ignorance of a large portion of the playerbase.
So you want anet to completely destroy their economy because most players are too ignorant to learn how to use the TP to make profit, Got it. your words not mine.
This… I just … wow.
It should come as no shock that I pick my battles where I may. I fundamentally agree that Glorious armor should be more available, but it’s not a point upon which I care so much that I would crusade on it.
But that is what blows my mind. It is the same argument and another example of skilled players having goods that unskilled players don’t have. Which sums up your main issue with TP flipping. Skilled players of the Trading post have more goods than unskilled players. On a personal note I don’t care about any skin other than for the profit it can bring me. I also got a friend who enjoys farming and just dumps his stuff to the highest bidder. This makes me mental because he’s leaving all this gold on the table for Wanze :P But that’s what he wants to do. He doesn’t give a rats behind about maximizing profit or any of that. He also doesn’t envy my in game wealth because he has his multiple gear sets and look, which allows him to just play how he wants.
You have some weird fixation on players who play the TP, and think they only sit at the TP npc’s and do nothing else. That’s the beauty of working the TP. You can post some buy/sell orders and go play other aspects of the game.
My point is that those other aspects of the game should offer a higher return on the time invested than playing the TP, and that when they do not, it represents a toxic element of the economy.
No, it represents a realistic element of the economy. A game cannot balance the rewards from drops with the potential to make profit off a TP without devaluing its currency to the point of nothing. It is all about the difference between rewards and profit from investment and the volume of trades on the market. The only way to control volume is to place limits on the trades people can make which would be very bad for the economy as a whole. One of the things that makes this system so good is the fact that there are so many trades every day. High velocity is good, limiting trades is bad.
I also dont see why an adventure game shouldnt involve trading.
Trading, yes, making money from money via trading, no. Every item sold in the TP should be an item that the seller generated himself into the world via crafting or loot. Every item purchased should be used by the person that purchases it, bought because he wanted it for his own use. Players should not be able to take gold, purchase items, then throw them back onto the market at some point at a higher rate and turn a profit.
The markets should be designed to make it easier for an adventurer to offload stuff he does not need in return for higher than vendor prices, or to find items that he wants but that would not drop for him through his adventuring play. There should not be a role for anyone in the middle of those two roles other than the TP itself.
First paragraph is all your opinion and you are welcome to it, but I and many disagree with you. Thankfully for us Anet seems to agree with us.
The second paragraph goes back to my belief that you have a very anti-capitalistic economy POV. I’m not saying that as an insult, just observation. You want the TP to purchase and offer goods at a TP regulated price. You essentially want the TP to be a higher priced vendor with all the items available. This goes against what Anet wants in their game. They want a thriving marketplace as the cornerstone of their economy.