Guild Wars 2

I’d just like to volunteer one basic yet very important fundamental tip for using the Trading Post properly. And that is:

When you list an item of worth, let’s say a green item – soul-bind on use, the price listed at the lower corner of the item’s tool tip is in fact what a VENDOR will pay you for said item. It is NOT the MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price). If you list it for this bargain basement price you will actually be making two mistakes:

1. You are setting a price guideline that is undercutting any normal price by so much that those in the know will actually profit MORE by vendoring (and thus destroying) the item than by trying to compete with that nonsense price, because…
2. Listing at the vendor’s purchase price you are actually losing profit because a service charge still needs to be payed to the Trading Post. So you get a grand total of stupidly low price MINUS 15%.

I play on the Jade Quarry server. Maybe this is a problem specific to that server. I’ve just seen this happening enough that this needed to be said. I’m coming to the point that I rarely go to the TP to sell items already and I’m afraid others that have figured they’re taking a loss may already be starting to do the same.

So don’t be shy fellow players, go ahead and try and turn a profit off your hard fought and lucky drops. People go there looking for quality goods superior to Vendor Trash and too many people are undercutting the Vendor trash items already by 50 – 75%. I say again, those of you undercutting this much are indeed RUINING the Trading Post for those who consider a healthy economy crucial to their gaming experience. Please take these tips to heed and you know… STOP IT.

Thanks.

TL;DR:
In so many words you are losing money, discouraging player to player trade and, in general, ruining the Trading Post for everyone by posting as buyout the low low price you see in the lower corner of the item’s tool tip.

This is really frustrating. I had been saving a ton of materials and gem upgrades while waiting for the TP to come back up and what do I see? Everything is listed for 1c above vendoring price. But maybe it will balance out in a while when people get their surplus stuff out of the way that’s been piling up during the down period.

I agree. Unfortunately, the people that have put these items up for sale at this rediculously low price are never going to take the time to read a forum post. I suggest we start buying all the 1c above vendor price items up, letting those fools lose money, and resell them at a decent price just to get the market going again. You know Anet is going to let them sit as is.

Very true, it seems this is definitely a problem of the community and only the community can solve it.

I always kind of took it for granted that most people now playing GW2 (or MMO’s in general these days) had already cut their teeth on another MMO (particularly 1 in general) and had experienced the community economy of those games that were often dealing with battling gold farmers who had to be checked from over-inflation. Even with a flooded market it would seem that everyone (or at least enough) would have the basic insight to price their rare and magical items at least some percentage above what a vendor would charge for the most basic of basics.

I suppose that is the only forseeable way for the community to correct this oversight. It’ll take some traders to actually buyout all the cheap stuff and set a price that would actually create profit for the whole community. Maybe focus on a few select areas until that one corrects and possibly that will have an overflow effect with everyone realizing they are selling everything else way to short.

As it stands now this is an artificial, community spawned time / money sink that I’m sure Anet never thought they’d see. If I were sitting on the selling side of micro-transactions and the gems I don’t think I’d lift a finger to stop it either though. That just makes good business sense. We’ll need to work this out on our own or the have – have-not of a real world currency divide could become noticeable despite intentions.

Free...market?

Buy it and resell. I’m lazy, want quick gold, so with 90% of my junk, I fill orders.

Anything that doesn’t have orders for, I just vendor. At the early stages of the game, people don’t really care about all this stuff. Those with experience in the game, those who’ve learned to play the system, whom have reached the higher levels, are but a minority.

Just look at it as more profit for a resale.

I think there’s just some confusion with how it all actually works. I’ve already posted about it here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Trading-Post-For-those-of-you-selling-1-above-vendor-price/

That was my best attempt lay it out it plain english exactly what goes on with that.

I suspect once the more enterprising players gain more liquidity and storage within the game, they will buy up many of these under-priced goods and flip them back on the market for a reasonable price to gain massive profits.

It’s true, you make a 8 slot bag with jute scraps that take you a day to gather and you are only making loss,…
Another example when the trading post was offline a green item was worth 3-5 silver ! Now you can sell it only for a few 50-75 copper.

How are you able to gather money to buy the more expensive materials,…
Jute scraps are hard to find, and really expensive. And this is just the first item required to make something.

In my opinion posting stuff on the trading post should not be allowed everywhere in the world. This is just the biggest problem, people have small bags and put everything they find on the trading post even if they make a few copper less because they can keep fighting and gathering items.
There is no point in having bags with slots if you can sell everything immediatly.
You don’t even need extra bank space (or just for the account bound items).

Why are people allowed to sell blue/green and whatever on the fly while you have to go to a vendor to sell grey items ? Doesn’t make any sence.

Just my thoughts,..

Yea I noticed that… I don’t mind taking 2 copper loss on an item if it means someone gets an upgrade. That and I don’t really care how much gold I have in this game b/c I don’t plan on plaing it much longer. Why am I on the Forums with the game servers up… Hmmmm

Sin.8174:

Free…market?

Buy it and resell. I’m lazy, want quick gold, so with 90% of my junk, I fill orders.

Anything that doesn’t have orders for, I just vendor. At the early stages of the game, people don’t really care about all this stuff. Those with experience in the game, those who’ve learned to play the system, whom have reached the higher levels, are but a minority.

Just look at it as more profit for a resale.

I came here to make this very thread but someone beat me to it. And you, appear to have totally missed the point.

The point is, I’ve just vendored a loud of stuff I could of put on the TP. Why? Because all the items I had were on the vendor for 1c above the vendor price. What did this mean? It meant it was a total waste of my time and money putting the items up. Because they wouldn’t sell at my higher price because of the under cutters. “It’s a free market, uncutting is good”. Yes it is. The point is all these people are actually losing money because of the 5% listing fee and then the 10% on sale. So it works out more profitable for me, to sell all my stuff to the vendor. Because all those people selling for 1c over the vendor seem to not realise there is a listing fee, sales tax and then they end up with less money than if they’d just sold the stuff to a vendor.

That is the point of this thread and the very point you seem to have totally missed.

Somebody’s got to get the ball rolling.

Start listing your items for a higher price than what the TP is already having items listed at.

Granted it may well take a long time to sell the items but I think eventually people will get the idea and start pricing their items appropriately.

How many of an item are available at 1C over the vendor price? more than 100? Well then that’s what the item is worth. Freeing storage space to make room for better stuff and not having to take time to vendor it is worth more than the extra 15%.

Instead of complaining about it, just vendor your stuff and take advantage of the cheap goods. If everyone starts vendoring their stuff, supply will disappear, the demand will still be there, and the price will go up. Then more people will sell on the TP instead of at the vendors, supply will go up, prices will go down, and the cycle starts again. That’s how free markets work.

You will never argue people into inflating their prices because you’ve calculated out that they’re losing money by not vendoring it. Everyone sells their goods for what they perceive them to be worth, all things (time, storage, etc.) considered. The fact that you perceive them to be worth more doesn’t change anything.

Yeah it’s sad to see that this is true. I had hoped it was just a result of the trading post being down for so long, that inventories had built up hugely and there was a sudden race to the bottom as everyone tried to undercut everyone else.

Hopefully it will improve over time as things level out…

Once people have a lot of gold those 1 copper above vendor items will be bought up and relisted at a higher price.

Actually, I think it’s really cool that the front page of the TP has the highest valued items, the most demanded, and the most supplied. If you’re interested in making money on the market, that’s exactly the information you need to get rolling.

Looks to me like the meat of the market will be magic find gear/food (so folks can find the high priced items) and dyes.

And I think it’s unlikely that anyone is going to be able to manipulate the market because it’s across all servers and there are tons of folks playing. Unless some huge guild gets a hedge fund going… not sure the tools are in place to make that viable yet though.

I’m even vendoring yellow drops, the economy in GW2 is so unbalanced, and is only made worse by having a hidden 10% sales tax (making a total 15% trading tax). I really need to buy an EvE account.

Foxodi.4809:

I’m even vendoring yellow drops, the economy in GW2 is so unbalanced, and is only made worse by having a hidden 10% sales tax (making a total 15% trading tax). I really need to buy an EvE account.

It’s not hidden — it says it right in the Trading Post where you’re listing your items.

I think its funny. In every other MMORPG people complain that the prices on the AH are to high. In this game people are complaining that they are to low. Lol.

It’s a bit disheartening if your a crafter and you purchase some components (such as the fine ingrediants) only to see that you paid way more for them than the item you made could fetch.

Pandemoniac.4739:

How many of an item are available at 1C over the vendor price? more than 100? Well then that’s what the item is worth. Freeing storage space to make room for better stuff and not having to take time to vendor it is worth more than the extra 15%.

Instead of complaining about it, just vendor your stuff and take advantage of the cheap goods. If everyone starts vendoring their stuff, supply will disappear, the demand will still be there, and the price will go up. Then more people will sell on the TP instead of at the vendors, supply will go up, prices will go down, and the cycle starts again. That’s how free markets work.

You will never argue people into inflating their prices because you’ve calculated out that they’re losing money by not vendoring it. Everyone sells their goods for what they perceive them to be worth, all things (time, storage, etc.) considered. The fact that you perceive them to be worth more doesn’t change anything.

I had a whole long thing I was going to write but, did you just say, “You will never argue people into inflating their prices because you’ve calculated out that they’re losing money by not vendoring it.” Just think about that. Really think about it…

I don’t think ‘laisez faire’ is the approach we want to take in such a “free market” as this either. As many have here noted it’s only a matter of time before a guild, individual, or even the dreaded gold farmers put 2 and 2 together and amass the capital to buyout and set the sole price for certain key commodities. Yes, they will effectively have a monopoly and the TP will then be worthless to the masses in a whole new way.

Mayam.8976:

I don’t think ‘laisez faire’ is the approach we want to take in such a “free market” as this either. As many have here noted it’s only a matter of time before a guild, individual, or even the dreaded gold farmers put 2 and 2 together and amass the capital to buyout and set the sole price for certain key commodities. Yes, they will effectively have a monopoly and the TP will then be worthless to the masses in a whole new way.

How about you really think about what you said?

If the price for items is higher, said individuals/guilds/goldfarmers will earn MORE. Now you add 1 + 1 and what do you get? They get more money and therefore can still buy the stuff at higher prices.

People keep complaining about to low prices, because they can’t make money, but never seem to realise that if items were more expensive they also got to pay more for stuff and would come back here and complain that prices are to high and how it’s unrealistic to expect that one farms X amount of gold just for some “insert random item here”.

At the moment selling your crappy items to a vendor is a good way of making money. Now imagine everything is 2-3x as expensive. What will happen is that people will be more reliant on good drops that actually sell, because even if good stuff is 2-3x more expensive nobody will buy random blues or bad greens for 2-3x vendor worth. Same goes for event rewards.

Some stuff simply isn’t supposed to be worth more than vendor price. What the hell do you want, the ability to sell trophy items for 5x their vendor value? Useless junk will be useless junk.

Really folks, this is basic economics. A free price system is an efficient way to ensure that folks are producing stuff other folks want. What’s confusing a lot of folks is that they see a vendor price and think it completely captures that value of the item. It doesn’t. Item values are subjective and that’s why you need a huge number of people participating in a market to make it work.

If there are enough people in the market, the gold farmers aren’t going to be able to monopolize, say, jute scraps. There will be too many people that will go get some jute scraps and take advantage of the attempt to push the price higher. Supply goes up and prices come back down. You could manipulate the market with enough money if you only have a few hundred people participating in it. GW2 has what a million+ sales so far? They all participate in the same market. Good luck trying to buy up all of their jute scraps if you make it worth their while to collect and sell them.

There are costs associated with vendoring an item that aren’t as clearly defined as the 15% cost of using the trading post. I sold a yellow war horn on the TP and got 30c less than what I could have vendored it for. My time and bag space are worth more than 30c. Also, I liked the idea that another player might find it useful. So I didn’t lose any money, I got exactly what I was willing to sell it for, all things considered.

All this complaining about not being able to make money by dumping the junk on the TP is like tchotchke makers complaining they can’t make money because the guy three booths down is selling exactly the same stuff cheaper. If you can’t make money doing what you’re doing, you need to pick a different line of “work”.

In general, to make money, you have to produce something that people want and offer it at a price that is more attractive than taking the time to make the item for themselves would be. If you really want to understand this, read Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics. No graphs or statistics, just historical examples and plain language explanations.

I would have NO problem with this EXCEPT they are warned about selling below vendor pricing… so they sell it @ vendor pricing, which means NO ONE can make a profit… how do you compete against 345345234 of something losing money?

They need to price fix it, (vendor price + 1cp + %fee) minimal price
OR they need to remove the bottom warning so others can buy it up and vendor it for a profit.

Why is the TP there in the first place? The ability to build something beyond a single player game? Shared resources and profit to build ‘community’?
Right now I just vendor it all, because I will make more money. It’s that simple. How is that any different than a single player game?

Why do you insist that you should be able to turn a profit on things that are easy to get? That’s like expecting to get paid the same salary as a brain surgeon for digging ditches. If all these folks are losing all this money, why don’t you just vendor everything and make your fortune?

Things are worth what people believe they are worth and not 1c more. Food has no vendor price, and it is so common that you can’t sell some it at an actual loss on the TP. An actual lost meaning that you don’t get back your listing price, not this fictitious if you had sold it to a vendor you would have gotten more type loss.

I should be able to turn a profit on it because that is THE reason the Trading Post is there… it is that simple….

IF not for profit we would all just vendor it all or give it to friends. There would be NO REASON to have the TP in the first place.

But since the TP IS there, we sell it to make money. Not a hard concept.

People are making money on the trading post, or nothing would be listed on it. The fact that you can’t make as much money as you would like on common junk is irrelevant. I profit on everything I post, even when get 15% less than what I could vendor it for.

Profit = revenue – cost
Cost = trading costs + cost of materials + cost of time + cost of storage – manufacturing benefit (level progression, achievements, et. al.)

Cost of time, cost of storage, and manufacturing benefit are subjective. Manufacturing benefit could be crafting xp, it could be running a dungeon, or anything else you do that nets you salable items. Material costs are crafting ingredients, salvage kits, harvesting tools, repair costs, etc.

The folks that think people are taking a loss by selling less than vendor price are not taking into account the hidden and subjective costs of vendoring an item. TP costs are easy to calculate – listing price plus commission. Vendor cost aren’t so easy. It depends on how far away the closest vendor is, how hard it is to get to them, how full your bags are, and how much time and money it would take to get back to where you want to be in the world.

I think they should nerf the Trading Post and only let people put items up for sale when they talk to a TP NPC.

As it stands you have to talk to the NPC to pick up your purchases while you can post things up for sale wirelessly. That’s backwards from other games I’ve played and now I see why. This makes the TP a more convenient way to offload junk than regular vendors. That’s just wrong on so many levels. :o

People are simply filling orders because it is easy to do so. It “costs” them, as compared to selling at the vendor, but the vendor isn’t out in the field where they are, and most people aren’t very interested in scanning and studying the market to determine a reasonable profit margin for everything they want to sell on the market — filling orders is convenient and fast, and that is why it is happening.

The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced people are using the TP on the fly as an extended inventory. If something sells, great, if not, you can hold hundreds of items in the field and recover them when you’re done.

Pandemoniac please. Stop playing the devil’s advocate. People who are selling items at the infamous vendor price + 1c are not only hurting the economy and everyone who’s crafting, but also themselves. They are losing out on money and this whole “free bag space” deal you made up just works for non-collectible materials. I could debunk further your theories, the whole “nearest vendor” thing is laughable, but I’ll stop here..

The only true reason we have these prices going on is because the game is new and players don’t really know how to price items and as soon as a bunch of fools puts the item at +1c, the others just go with the “meet the lowest buyer” option because thinking is hard and make me brainz hurts. Or if you are really so convinced that these prices have working minds behind, then try and explain me why copper ore sells for 19c and mushrooms for 2.

its simply a matter of supply and demand. i think there’s nothing broken with it.

sure often you’re better off salvaging/vendoring items, but that’s just what it is if nobody wants to buy it or if there are already 150k of those on the TP.

there ARE items which are selling well. its not that hard to find out which ones.

One thing I’ve noticed is lower than level 5 items seem to be selling for much more over vendor price than anything decent. Like say a level 2 item is worth 5c to the vendor. I’ve seen them going for 20-30c which seems reasonable to me. Then I get a level 25 item going for like 30c to the vendor and 500 people are selling them for 31c. Totally agree with the OP on how it kinda ruins the TP. We can only hope it evens out a bit in the future, but then again supply and demand means that as long as there are hundreds on the market and no one really buying, it will stay that way.

The Dude.6942:

its simply a matter of supply and demand. i think there’s nothing broken with it.

sure often you’re better off salvaging/vendoring items, but that’s just what it is if nobody wants to buy it or if there are already 150k of those on the TP.

there ARE items which are selling well. its not that hard to find out which ones.

qft.

the trading post is global, it’s no wonder so many items are basically worthless right now. nothing wrong with that imho. if the supply outweighs the demand by multiple orders of magnitude, this is what happens.

who wants to run around with “white” or “blue” armor or weapons? the green (to a degree) , gold, orange items are selling quite appropriately

white and blue items are mostly salvage wash.

and they are going to sell for less. period.

and being as items are “free” drops … then selling them for less than vender while im in the middle of a dungeon because my 4 x15 bags and my initial 20 bag is full….. well its worth it to me

100% of free is PROFIT
85% of free is PROFIT

Bag space for that ORANGE or GREEN drop —-—- PRICELESS!

also the items your trying to sell (im 400 leatherworker) the RAREs sell well because people dont put the effort into crafting them… (they drop gobs of XP tho)

but there are 87 of every variant of blue crafted items all the way up to level 400 leatherworker.

this is because I would rather see someone wear what i have just created…. and I am actually going for the exp so i can create whatever i want.

once im a level 400 i wont be flooding the market with items that are not in demand…

therefore.

your problem isnt with the drop rate as much as it is people who have limited bag space but alot of stuff to craft to get leveled up in there respective “work”

get over it….

the economy works because its fluid..

rare items are rare and make money

GW was the same way…

items that are sold in TP instead of vender may never sell

and if there are 400 sellers at 1c+ vendor… then the item is high supply and likely not worth buying except to salvage it … who wants to buy stuff for salvage if the salvage doesnt equal out?

the trash items or salvage items dont need to be fixed… thats what they are….
salvage items.

the market is fine..

stop whining….

get some rare items or learn to make them and be selective about it…

quality not quantity is making gold in TP

QUANTITY is for bag space.

What many are failing to realize is the the game is designed with an intentionally low rate of currency acquisition. Because the value of items is inherently low when selling them to vendors and coin does not drop very often, players have a exceptionally minimal amount of money to spend. This is counter to the standard MMO, which allows players to accumulate wealth at an faster/higher rate.

This general lack of currency is a major factor in determining the prices of all items on the Trading Post. It makes no sense to sell anything such as a green for a high amount, given most players do not have to funds to purchase it. The value you speak of is a misguided perception based upon the standard MMO environment which does not apply to GW2. The economics of GW2 have to be considered for what they are, not what the genre has dictated for so long.

While I agree that many people are pricing things just above the vendor price, it is to be expected, because trying to sell anything at an elevated cost is futile. In this game 10G is like having 100G in other MMOs and players have to adjust to his new economic environment.

I salvage everything I get for the materials to put in my bank for bag space. I sell my junk to vendors. Things I sell on the Trade Post would be food or crafting materials I no longer use. I’m not sure who has read the guide associated with the game, but it clearly states that if you’re doing crafting to make a profit, then you probably won’t make any money. Until you max a crafting profession, you will probably lose out on the items you make. I currently skip around through three professions and I either salvage the items I make, or just sell them to a vendor. Once I max these, then I will start with the post. Since the post is global, it will be really hard to sell anything right now. Another thing with the guide, it states that the longer you decide to sit crafting is less money you’re making when you could be out killing mobs or doing events. That is where money comes from. It’s being in the environment, not trying to play the market.

Well I’ll answer the easy question first. Mushrooms are cheaper than copper because there are fewer items that they’re used in than copper, so there is less demand and pretty much the same supply. Only cooking uses mushrooms, and then only for a few recipes. Copper is used in large quantities by weaponsmiths, armorsmiths, artificers, and jewelers. It’s actually a bit easier to find copper than mushrooms, but the demand is greater, so the price is higher.

My collection storage for many items is full, so yeah my bag space is valuable. Wood and iron can’t be deposited to my bank anymore. I vendor it if I’m close to a vendor, and I fill orders on the TP if I’m not. I keep a bunch of salvage kits, harvesting tools, food, my HOM porter, spare weapons and such in my bags so I don’t have to stop my adventuring do boring stuff like run back to my bank, find a vendor that has the right level of tools and kits, or manage my bleeping inventory. I love this game for freeing me from that nonsense.

How are the low prices hurting the economy exactly? I can afford pretty much anything I need off the TP without having to grind out cash. The only stuff I have to save up for are things like cultural armor, which should be expensive. Not having to stop having fun and work to earn virtual money to buy the upgrade for my weapon or armor that I want is not a bad thing.

The reason certain items are so cheap is because there is excess supply. Not every item has excess supply, just the ones that are easy to get or have low demand. Here’s some examples of stuff that is selling for more – unidentified dyes at around 5s each. Even the less popular identified dyes are over 50c each. Sesame seeds are 1s each, and yams are 1s 50c each. Guess what they have in common? There’s hundreds of units available instead of tens of thousands.

As far as not allowing people to post on the market in the wilderness, why add drudgery to the game simply because certain folks can’t let go of the WoW auction house? If what you want to sell doesn’t make you a large enough profit, find something else to sell. Why are y’all so attached to the idea that such common things should be worth more? If there is enough volume of trade (which there is on the TP) the prices set by the market are a very accurate indicator of what an item is truly worth.

Elle.8064:

Since the post is global, it will be really hard to sell anything right now. Another thing with the guide, it states that the longer you decide to sit crafting is less money you’re making when you could be out killing mobs or doing events. That is where money comes from. It’s being in the environment, not trying to play the market.

I agree with this.

Crafting appears to have been made as one means of acquiring gear upgrades, especially at endgame, rather than as a “money making job in the game”. The trading post is there to help crafters source materials as well as help players sell excess yet good gear and so on, but in a global marketplace with the huge amount of supply that implies, pricing is going to be very thin on all but the rarest items, simply due to the large supply, coupled with the fact that the money supply in the game in general is the lowest of any MMO I have seen. I expect that it will quite some time before the trading post is really lucrative for all but the very few players who have found a few niches where they can engage in arbitrage, despite the large size of the market.

Runar.1342:

Somebody’s got to get the ball rolling.

Start listing your items for a higher price than what the TP is already having items listed at.

Granted it may well take a long time to sell the items but I think eventually people will get the idea and start pricing their items appropriately.

I’ve been doing that. I double whatever the vendor price is. Sold one so far.

I can sell anything i want for whatever price i want to sell it for. Crafting costs me nothing except time. So what ever i sell it for is pure profit. Yes I am one of those that severly undercut people. Something is averaging 100 silver i will sell it for 50. That ensures people buy my stuff. It’s called a free market. If i am willing to sell something far far cheaper than my competitor then so be it.

Who are any of you to tell others what price they need to set for an item? Cause the undercutter can say the same thing back to you…..I hear alot of people in other threads talk about how undercutting shouldn’t be allowed. Well how about overpricing? I say that should not be allowed.

Ok now about the economy… it hasen’t gotten off the ground yet. All prices will continue to be cheap till the game is not old enough for player to gather wealth. SO selling things for a few gold is unreasonable. Most people do not have that kind of money yet. And the ones that do don’t need said item. Give the game some time.

Kailthir.6384:

I can sell anything i want for whatever price i want to sell it for. Crafting costs me nothing except time. So what ever i sell it for is pure profit. Yes I am one of those that severly undercut people. Something is averaging 100 silver i will sell it for 50. That ensures people buy my stuff. It’s called a free market. If i am willing to sell something far far cheaper than my competitor then so be it.

I agree that there shouldn’t be arbitrary controls put in place (beyond what we already have). The main problem is that not everyone views opportunity cost the same way. Many players, like you, look at items they are selling as having been acquired “for free”, with everything being pure profit. I’d wager a sizeable chunk of the playerbase views it this way. Other players view everything as implying cost, including the time you took to get the items to drop — the problem is that there is no consensus view on the value of that time. For some players it is “zero”, and therefore any price is profit, while for other players it is “vendor plus a markup”, and therefore anything less than this markup is undercutting and selling things “at less than cost” when you take into account the transaction fees on the TP.

There is nothing wrong with the TP. I will speak from personal experience. I was out with a friend, I was level 12, he was level 40. And I told him at some point that I couldn’t wait to get to level 20, so i could start using the 10 trait abilities. For me, the most valuable thing was getting as fast as possible to level 20, So here I have a level 40 Thief, and he has taken me under his wing. what do i do when he is investing time in my6 progress, when My bags fill up? There are only so many collectibles in my bag.

After I send all my collectibles to the bank, I start picking up more loot, and since not all loot is collectibles… x amount of collectibles becomes x-y collectibles where y is the amount of non-collectibles that cannot be sent to the bank.

My friend’s time has value, Running back to the vendor takes time he could be using to help me level, and takes time he could be teaching me How to play my thief. THESE are what matter most to me. So I get to where ALL my bags are filled with Non-collectible Items, and I am surrounded by dead centaurs dropping stuff that sells for 1 silver each, at level 12, this is amazing. Now.. to walk away, and run to a vendor..LOSES me ALL the items on the floor, and to run back to vendor loses me time. Time spend running to a vendor and back, is time I am not killing, levelling, learning, and looting. So what do i do? I place it on the TP.

Now if I have a frosty hammer of demon slaying + 24. And some 200 people have posted it for 1 silver, when the merchant pays 99 copper. What do I gain… by posting it at 1 silver and 1 copper? I actually LOSE the listing fee. because My item will never sell. Posting it HIGHER than the rest of the market loses me the listing fee.

On the other hand posting it AT the price everyone is offering even if it is 1 copper above the vendor – 10 %, GAINS me the vendor fee – listing fee- 10 %. That is PURE profit. How so? because when i am out to Level… anything that drops is a GIFT for me.

So selling an item that dropped , and is a gift to me, even if it ONLY puts vendor – 15 % in my pocket, is a GAIN of vendor – 15 %. Posting items ieven 1 copper more than the rest of the mob is selling for LOSES me the listing fee, and running to the merchant … wastes the time I COULD be refilling my bags.

If in the time It takes to run back to the merchant and back, i can refill ALL my bag space even ONCE, running to the merchant actually LOSES me money.

1. Running back to the merchant Loses me the drops i MIGHT have gotten in the time it takes me to get to him and back.

2. posting on the TP at even 1 copper higher than the mob has decided to post at… loses me the listing fee.

Only…

3. Posting it for the price the highest buyer is offering me WINS me the Buyer price – listing fee – TP cut.

3. is the Only option that actually leads to a guaranteed profit. These " idiots".. are making money.. less money per sale… but they are making MORE sales.

Once you get 1 or 2 gold it is pretty easy to find an item that is selling at tp cost and just buy all the items within 5-10c of tp cost and relist them. Easy way to make a few silver.

For the items where there are like 500 of that item listed at vendor cost I have no idea what to do to fix the prices on those items though.

Maybe I need to sit down and look more closely at what I am doing. I am not much of a TP kinda guy. I rarely used the AH in WoW either and always got ripped by guildies for posting items for like half the current going rate. They would always scream saying " STOP IT!!!!! If you are going to go lower, go one copper lower and people will STILL buy it because it cheaper!!!!"

I would reply with “Bah I want money now.. if I go that low it will sell instantly”

Well in GW2 I haven’t done that but what I have done is right click an item out in the field and listed it on the market and taking the defaults which is “Highest bidder” Click “ok” “ok” and continue on.

Is this frowned upon? or is the is a different issue?

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Once you get 1 or 2 gold it is pretty easy to find an item that is selling at tp cost and just buy all the items within 5-10c of tp cost and relist them. Easy way to make a few silver.

For the items where there are like 500 of that item listed at vendor cost I have no idea what to do to fix the prices on those items though.

Right. As you say, this is harder to do in a game which has a global market, because they are going to be that many more items posted, making “buying up the mispriced items and reselling them at a profit” a much more expensive thing to do for many items.

Its not a free market by any stretch. There is a virtually infinite supply with limited demand, no depreciation, and NPCs who have unlimited funds with no work. There is an artificial bottom price to goods. The rare and exotic market is the only place where prices more match free market principles because demand outstrips supply.

The solution would be to stop dropping so many items, put resources in more difficult locations and focus on quality not quantity. And remove vendors. Such that everything requires work, and thus adds value to get.

urzen.7096:

Its not a free market by any stretch. There is a virtually infinite supply with limited demand, no depreciation, and NPCs who have unlimited funds with no work. There is an artificial bottom price to goods. The rare and exotic market is the only place where prices more match free market principles because demand outstrips supply.

The solution would be to stop dropping so many items, put resources in more difficult locations and focus on quality not quantity. And remove vendors. Such that everything requires work, and thus adds value to get.

Doing that makes the market economy the focus of gameplay, which is not enjoyable for many players. The design here appears to be for the crafting system to serve as an alternative way to acquire gear (especially endgame gear) and the market to serve as an exchange rather than a place to get rich with in game currency terms. If you make it all market-centric by reducing drops and nodes, you pump up the “economy” by making everyone a slave to it in their gameplay, which I think would be very unpopular with most players who don’t particularly want to play the market in a video game, or care if a game has a feasible economy or not.

Here’s the problem:

I am seeing several greens per hour drop. I can’t use the vast majority of them. You are everyone else is seeing the exact same thing. Now, think about that for a minute. For the vast majority of gear that you pick up in your adventures, it would be an upgrade for NOBODY AT ALL.

Yet, a very large number of people seem to be under the impression that the market is starved for mediocre gear. Result? The market is absolutely flooded with mediocre gear.

Everyone needs to realize that nobody wants to buy your trash drops but the vendor. You could also salvage them, and try to sell the crafting mats, though some of those are over-saturated, as well.

Freakiie.8940:

Mayam.8976:

I don’t think ‘laisez faire’ is the approach we want to take in such a “free market” as this either. As many have here noted it’s only a matter of time before a guild, individual, or even the dreaded gold farmers put 2 and 2 together and amass the capital to buyout and set the sole price for certain key commodities. Yes, they will effectively have a monopoly and the TP will then be worthless to the masses in a whole new way.

How about you really think about what you said?

If the price for items is higher, said individuals/guilds/goldfarmers will earn MORE. Now you add 1 + 1 and what do you get? They get more money and therefore can still buy the stuff at higher prices.

People keep complaining about to low prices, because they can’t make money, but never seem to realise that if items were more expensive they also got to pay more for stuff and would come back here and complain that prices are to high and how it’s unrealistic to expect that one farms X amount of gold just for some “insert random item here”.

At the moment selling your crappy items to a vendor is a good way of making money. Now imagine everything is 2-3x as expensive. What will happen is that people will be more reliant on good drops that actually sell, because even if good stuff is 2-3x more expensive nobody will buy random blues or bad greens for 2-3x vendor worth. Same goes for event rewards.

Some stuff simply isn’t supposed to be worth more than vendor price. What the hell do you want, the ability to sell trophy items for 5x their vendor value? Useless junk will be useless junk.

Wow, I um…. okay lets condense this further. Forget the monopoly, that was worst case. Let me try this; Should it be difficult convincing people that: charging more (in line with the market price) = drumroll more profit! That kind of argument kind of resolves it self.

Maybe I did miss some important points having not played that long nor seen the TP price guidelines fluctuate over more than a couple weeks or so. Maybe the game has just been designed this way. Although if the value of in game currency were to increase it would stand to reason that the real world micro-transactions would also as those inclined chase down that cutting edge gear, mats, etc. (although those items provides no edge in PvP).

If only high end crafting and items turn a profit though they will have to keep up with content releasing new PvE content or at least newer, more difficult crafted items as the the population grows top heavy with haves over have-nots.

And relax friend, we’re discussing the content of a video game. No one needs to get “kitten” hurt over a trivial discussion of a virtual machination. I’m as much trying to discover the ins and outs of this little virtual economy and why people are willing to post items at a loss as I am trying to “advise” anyone against it. Hence the discussion portion of this uh… discussion.

If indeed the game has been designed to produce this kind of market then I still dont see the point of posting “trash” greens and blues, and low end mats at all if there is more money to be made simply vendoring them. It still all comes down to, “do I want more money or less money?” This was the original intent of what I posted in what you quoted and it’s still just as true. Why voluntarily take a loss regardless of why the market operates at a loss?

Mayam.8976:

Wow, I um…. okay lets condense this further. Forget the monopoly, that was worst case. Let me try this; Should it be difficult convincing people that: charging more (in line with the market price) = drumroll more profit! That kind of argument kind of resolves it self.

Higher prices means you will have to make more to afford stuff you want to buy. So all this extra profit you think you’re going to make is not going to amount to much at all if you actually play the game and buy items off the TP. And I think you’re confused about what “market price” means.

There is a mountain of historical evidence that arbitrarily fiddling with prices in a real economy rarely turns out well. You’re only considering the selling end of the trade, you aren’t considering the buying end. Inflation is bad, especially because when the prices go up, our enemies don’t drop more money or loot to compensate for it.