Guild Wars 2

I agree, this is trashy and underhanded. Yet another waste of my friggin time and hard-earned coin on BS.

And just a heads up, it isn’t just the apprentice/acolyte gear they’ve done it to. Several of the lower end weapons are jacked as well.

Icey.6045:

Undercutting drives the sell prices down until sellers have no choice but to satisfy the buy orders, thus removing those orders and causing the item’s worth to decrease.

The posting fee for Sell orders actually helps prevent prices from falling as quickly, since as you said yourself, players are less hesitant to remove & repost their sell orders.

Since buy orders do not have a fee, the upward pressure is stronger since players are less hesitant to repost their orders.

Working as intended.

I fail to see how a fee for selling, which locks sale orders in place, prevents prices from falling. If anything, it holds the current offers where they are, forcing new listings to be undercut listings. To me, that is a relatively obvious downward pressure.

Also keep in mind, that on bulk items traded (especially those needed for crafting), a HUGE portion of volume is controlled, in bulk, by flippers. When the gap closes, these individuals are going to move to other profitable areas, pulling out their bids on the item that is no longer profitable flipping. When those bids are removed, this also, drives the price downward.

Furthermore, when this happens on ores, wood, cloth, leather (and other high demand/high traded crafting items), it will eventually affect the entire market.

So, we can just keep ignoring the rising number of frustrated players coming in here by the day, that are finding it increasingly difficult to do ANYTHING on the tradepost. As long as it’s working as intended, that’s all that matters, right? Frankly, I’d rather pay a monthly fee, than get screwed by a stacked deck that forces me to spend real $ for gems. But maybe I’m just insane like that.

At any rate, I’m not trying to be a jerk about any of this. I’ve just been online gaming since the days of Baldur’s Gate. I’ve seen what happens to MMOs when a gaming company ignores what its players are trying to tell them. I want to see ArenaNet fix this before it’s too late. When the player-base gives up and starts bleeding into other games by the thousands, all the forum discussion in the world isn’t going to stop it.

That’s all really.

Tallis.5607:

Necrollis.4372:

Over-cutting does -not- drive the price up. The only thing consistent ‘over-cutting’ does in this game, is close the gap.

Explain that to me again, will you?
Preferably without chopping off any of my fingers

LoL, deal. We’ll keep your fingers attached.

Alrighty, so first off, when we look at prices moving one way or the other, we can talk of it in terms of momentum and what effects that momentum.

When a player places a sale listing, they pay a non refundable listing fee. That means unless they want to just throw away money by removing and re-listing, they’re more apt to leave the item up and hope it sells. “This” is the first of two VERY strong rooting forces on the sell wall, that do not exist on the bid wall. The second, is the fact that those who wish to sell and sell faster, are going to do a lot of one thing, undercutting. Those previous listings are rooted in place by a listing fee, and the competition and time in a FIFO system shared by millions of players, does it exactly what it was designed to do. The undercutting takes its toll, and those who lose the lottery of TP placement, will then watch as they are undercut 30 ways from sundown, deciding to either pull out losing their listing fee, or just let it sit and pray lol.

Ok so that’s the sell wall of the spread, lets look at the bid wall.

The bid wall or (or buy wall) of the spread, ‘seems’ like its just the same functioning but opposite side of the margin, right? Wrong. I’ll tell you why. Bids can be cancelled at any time, for any reason with no penalty whatsoever. If you’re being over-cut on an item you really want/need, what do you do? You ‘cancel’ the bid and/or re-bid at a higher price. Round and round we go as you’re in an over cutting war that costs nothing to cancel and re-bid, over and over again, driving the bid wall closer to the sell wall, closing the gap.

Here is where I think most folks stop seeing this momentum for what it is. When players go to sell their item, they don’t typically look at what people have bids up for, as this is usually lower than the current sale listing. Let’s say in the span of 2 hours, the bid wall on item X moved from 12copper, to 14 copper, as a result of over-cutting. The ONLY way, this over cutting would be driving the price UP, is if those players who came in listing their items for sale, listed them at 2copper HIGHER than the current sell wall. But I assure you, the majority of players are not going to do that. Why would you place an item for sale at higher than the current sell offer, when that would put you WAY behind in a FIFO system, severely reducing your chances of selling quicker? Players know that that the longer an item stays listed, the odds of being undercut by 2million + players increases exponentially. So, obviously, most are going to either place their items for sale, stacking it on the current lowest sell price, OR, they’re going to undercut. This is a powerful force on the sell wall, and it has a downward momentum, that vastly overpowers the no-cost, low risk ability to bid/cancel bids on the bid wall.

It comes down to which walls of the spread contain which force. Undercutting is downward momentum. Over-cutting is upward momentum. So, the determining factor of which direction the trend moves, is going to rest in which of those forces have more power. And, before we even talk about supply and demand factors, we’ve got to first discuss how the laws of supply function in this case, differ quite clearly from demand function. Because there is a non-refundable listing fee on placing sale orders and a strong desire on the part of the players to get their items sold as quickly as they can without being undercut, there is -clearly- a vastly superior power in the downward momentum of the sell wall.

If any of you have gotten in a bid war over an item/s you really needed/wanted, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ll watch, cancel, bid, watch, cancel, bid, watch, cancel, and bid again, until you win that item, and it won’t cost you anything but time and determination. However, if you go to sell that same item, you are more times than NOT going to list your item for higher then the current lowest seller. No, you’re probably going to either stack your item on the lowest sell offer, or you’re going to undercut. Meanwhile, all the over-cutting that was done on bidding, (and is possibly still being done), keeps the prices consistently moving to the break-even line.

Behold, le gap, closeth.

Don’t know if my last post didn’t go through, but yeah, I agree 100%. I’ve lost some serious coin in the last few days because of exactly what you just said, and it was not the case a week or so ago. Even things that cost 5-10 gold are undercut so fast, it’s suicide to even attempt listing.

Hippocampus.8470:

And overcutting drives them up.

Over-cutting does -not- drive the price up. The only thing consistent ‘over-cutting’ does in this game, is close the gap.

We’ve been through this. Because there is no penalty for removing a bid, (but there is on removing a sale), buying and selling are -not- equal powers in GW2, and cannot logically be treated as such.

Pie A: Eaters are told they can come up and grab a piece any time they want with no consequences.

Pie: B: Eaters are told that they will get a portion of their finger chopped off when they grab a piece.

At the end of the day, which pie will people have eaten more of?

Thank you, that is all.

Hippocampus.8470:

If you’re going to get upset because people who disagree with your reasoning are questioning it, you shouldn’t have made claims based on that reasoning in the first place.

..Ok

Hippocampus.8470:

(And again, if the reason you shouldn’t have to explain yourself to me is because I can’t do anything about it, then why are you posting about it in the first place? You can’t do anything about it either, and contacting ANet works better through bug reports than through forum posts.)

No. The reason I’m not going to explain myself to you (again), is because you’re just trying to p*ss people off.

lackofcheese.5617:

I think everyone here acknowledges that there are, in fact, bots playing this game, but I don’t see why it is that some people are calling the economy “broken” – what exactly is so seriously wrong?

Alright, let me ask it this way. How much time do you spend on the Black Lion Trading Post?

Yeah, and good job continuing to prove my point.

There’s really no “rational reason” for you to be challenging everything people are saying regarding bots (unless you work for ArenaNet or are a botter yourself).

…..And yet, here you are.

Let me ask you a question. Let’s say someone comes in and posts a link to a video, of an anonymous individual demonstrating how he/she uses a bot to milk the game. Obviously, this would be ‘empirical’ proof. Ok then what? What are you going to do about it? Nothing, absolutely nothing, because -you- can’t.

Hence, people here do -not- have to explain anything to you, or give ‘better’ proof. Frankly some people have given very stable comments and you’re just determined you’re going to give them a hard time no matter what they say.

whiran.1473:

If someone asks for clarification or for the logic that backs up claims and assertions then you should be able to present it. Otherwise, how are you coming to your claims? Just making them up?

See, your post is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. “Just making them up”? Do you seriously think people are just “making stuff up” then coming here and posting about it?

No man, people are trying to enjoy the game. Besides, I’ve noticed plenty of posters going into great detail to explain what they’re seeing, and then the same two or three critics keep picking at them and insulting them. It’s rude and it’s not helping.

lackofcheese.5617:

1 gold for $1 isn’t such a big deal. If it was 10 gold for $1, that would be a huge problem.

You just couldn’t help yourself could you.

If there’s one thing more annoying then people playing dumb in a forum, it’s people who come in, pick one or two posts/posters they agree with, and then start screaming the same stupid crap.

If some people would actually read the entire thread before inserting their comical attempts to discredit what others are saying, we might actually get somewhere.

Couple of days ago, there were just a few people complaining about this stuff. Today, there’s dozens. In game, almost every person in my guilds, and contacts list, are furious about it. In another week or two, when hundreds of people are in here raising hell, we’ll see how seriously you get taken (you folks that seem to want to do nothing but irritate the s**t out of others who’ve come here with legitimate concerns, you know who you are).

So go ahead, keep picking at people, like you’ve been doing for days, to every person that’s come in here regarding bots and TP instability/bugs/ripoffs. If you’re not a moderator, you’ve got no business “testing” assertions/claims.. You don’t work for ArenaNet, nor do we have to explain ourselves/concerns/theories to you.

Deuces.

Obi.9365:

So lets recap.

Bots don’t effect the economy.

If your smart you can outwit a bot playing the AH.

The majority of the 2 million people here will have no problem keeping up with the inflation, that apparently is not being caused by bots what so ever.

There are people who believe they have more control of the market, and are making just as much or more then botters who generally run 10+ accounts at once 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week.

A level 80 whos been 80 for months can make more then an 80 thats been 80 for weeks by simply farming the same level 80 content.

The more the market gets flooded with items the more expensive they will be.

There is no real issue here, because NO ONE has the actual numbers to prove it.

Got it, you win.

Exactly. Nothing to see here, everything we’re saying can be easily and logically explained away. Just move along now. Unless we record this by video and post it to youtube where someone can hack another email account on us, there is no proof in what we’re saying.

Geesh.

Hippocampus.8470:

So you’re saying the bot responds to your order but hasn’t for the previous several hours where the spread was holding?

There were no other consistent transactions taking place on those items/spreads. A trader that knows what they’re doing, looks for opportunities like these (takes notes, watches the buy/sell walls, the amount of units per sellers, ya know, to kinda get a feel for it before they start dumping money into – secret stuff like that).

One detail in particular, was that the bot always placed bids on threes (7.03, 13.23, 11.43,) even if it meant leaving needless gaps between itself and the previous bid order. It was almost humorous to watch, as every now and again, someone else would come in and place a bid somewhere in that gap the bot had left, because literally as fast as you could refresh the tab, up would pop the 2 units by one individual at the break-even mark.

lackofcheese.5617:

You have no way of knowing that this is the same individual.

Uhm, yes I do. It says “2x of Items, listed by 1 player”

What I’m also saying is that bsing and economics is one thing, but now you’re making fun of folks that are doing their best to describe what they’re seeing and experiencing to try and help ArenaNet nail these kittens. Making light of it, really doesn’t make you look legit, and you should probably stop. Just my opinion though.

lackofcheese.5617:

Assuming that what you’re talking about is actually a bot (though I can’t see why anyone would want to write a bot that does this, except perhaps to troll Necrollis), then the bots are actually helping a lot of players by doing so.

LuLz, ok that was actually funny.

But no, seriously, you don’t see why it would be beneficial for a bot to do this? Just curious.

whiran.1473:

Necrollis, it isn’t a matter of arguing that there is no impact but it is a question of proofs and what the impact actually is. There’s a lot of speculation but I haven’t seen anything to suggest that bots are significantly impacting the economy. My exposure is limited so I am curious if people have seen something else to suggest otherwise.

I gave an example (may have been in another thread though). If you spend as much time on the TP as I do, you’ll see them everywhere.

Example: Player-X finds 6 items that are holding and have held a decent sell/buy spread for hours. That player goes in and makes a bid. IMMEDIATELY, 2 units of that item, by one individual, go up at the break even cost. When player-X let’s say, just tries to fish it out, and buys one of the units placed at the break even, immediately the bought item is replaced by the same one individual who placed the original first 2 units. Player-X moves randomly around the other items in the same category, and the same calculated items, only to find, that the exact same thing happens on these items as well, instantly. There is no WAY, a human brain could perform those types of counter-maneuvers.

As a result, the spread closes in within minutes, and no one is able to buy/sell on that spread without taking a loss. Because of one pre-planned bot response to player-x, everyone else that comes along will likewise find the spread closed, and ultimately locked off by the bot.

I’d say that’s a pretty good example.

I hear ya Bunks. I’ve been arguing with some of these guys on this s**t for days now. I’m starting to think most of them are botters myself. To hell with it, I’m going enjoy what I can of the game while it lasts. These forums aren’t going to solve anything.

meloncash.6798:

I’m the one undercutting you on the TP by 1 copper, its just business, don’t take it personally.

That would be really funny, except its not.

The other night I found 10 dyes that had a great spread on them. I placed 5unit-buy orders on each of them. When those orders were filled, I went to re-list at the sell price I had just looked at. However, immediately after I placed my buy orders, 2 sell orders were placed by one user, -exactly- at break even price compared to the buy/bid wall, effectively shutting down profitable trading in the gap. I purchased one of said units at the break-even, and immediately, another unit was placed by that same one ‘user’. Bold behavior honestly, and it stood out because those sells at break even were placed -way- lower than the current sell prices.

I moved from dye to dye doing this for several hours, and each time, this same pattern repeated itself. It ended when I went from ordering 5 units at one price to 1 unit at that price.

This is serious botting behavior, and you can see massive signs of this not only on the TP, but in the rest of the game environment as well. If they don’t find a way to deal with it, it’s going to destroy the game.

I would also like to point out that at present:

To sell 2x Gems, will net you 36c

To buy 2x Gems will cost you 1.09s

LoL – uhm, can someone tell me the point of the Gem exchange again?

lackofcheese.5617:

Incidentally, I’m fairly sure real-world stock market systems typically use a FIFO system for bid/ask queues.
.

Mmmmm yes and no. The biggest non FIFO-like demonstration on real-world markets, is actually -on- bid cues. In the real-world markets when options become available to purchase, you’re looking at hundreds of millions of orders, that are all filled relatively quick. In GW2, it could take days for a few thousand people to do the same thing.

At some point, the amount of time it takes to fill an order, overrules the ability to turn a profit. The more players you have, the more time it takes to process orders, and the more people get screwed over.

Ultimately, how long people have to wait on a transaction, will mean greater risk. When that time is increased (predominantly because more people buy the game and use the TP), it is -not- a fair system. In real world markets, brokers know almost exactly how much time it will take to buy, are relatively clear on how long it will take to sell (especially on quick moving stock), calculate that time into market trends, and THEN decide whether or not they’re going to trade on that item. The current operations on GW2 TP, operate -nothing- like that. Firstly, the main trends we see on graphs (ie gw2Spidy) do not accurately record spreads. Secondly, how long transactions will take, is a -complete- unknown.

Real-world traders would laugh at this scenario (and you can take my word on that).

lackofcheese.5617:

Also, simply driving prices down does not force people to buy gems, because the prices of the higher-end stuff they want to buy also go down as well.

That applies only until we start talking about the static prices on high-end items that ArenaNet sets. While prices go down on other items, these items stay the same.

Furthermore, if/when they are introduced, the gold prices on houses, guild buildings etc, will likewise not be merciful to we the players, simply because the amount we can earn is reduced.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, encouraging players to buy gems. But, since the game is F2P, ArenaNet has a common sense interest in making money from players who’ve already bought the game. Gems are one of the best ways to do that, wouldn’t you agree?

lackofcheese.5617:

Most players have no idea about the FIFO fix and wouldn’t care about it even if they knew about it.

Oh I think most have noticed a change, they simply don’t know what brought it about.

Well, the problem is, with a system that’s been hard-core switched to FIFO, you’ve got millions of players now trying to buy/sell their items and get out of the market with as much profit as they can. In a FIFO system, selling lower, means selling faster. Who wants to leave their stuff up for days or even weeks while watching every Ben & Jerry undercut any chance they have of selling? Of course people are going to drive the price down. It’s the only logical thing they can do if they want to turn a profit in a reasonable amount of time.

I’ve been whining about it for 3 days in another thread. With nearly 2 millions players all trading on the same TP, a FIFO system was an utterly ridiculous decision. Sure, it works out for ArenaNet – driving the prices down, means more people will have to buy gems and exchange them for coin, is they wish to experience high-end game stuffs. But in the long run, it pisses the players off, and makes them extremely hesitant to trust/utilize the TP.

..then you aren’t reading the same complaints I’m reading from players since the “fix” a couple days ago, both in game, and in these forums.

“From a technical standpoint”, it most certainly -would- be a processing issue. The TP does a whole lot of one thing; moving one value to another value based upon other values. That has Central Processing Unit wrote all over it. This is why institutions like NASA have some of the most powerful processors in the world. High volume numeric functions/equations demand it.

If processor performance is stressed, -everything- else, (with the exception of bandwidth) will be affected. If you concentrate the same processing power to fewer/larger transactions, you are going to increase the amount of time transactions take – plain and simple.

BTW, a little joke an instructor told us when I was getting my MBA: Take all the economists that want to work as an adviser to you. Put them all in a room together. At the end of the day, find the ones that disagree with the larger group/s, let those few argue until only one hasn’t passed out. Then, hire him/her.

Hippocampus.8470:

Edit: When you say “rapidly increasing”, would you care to provide specific numbers over time for buy and sell orders, to verify your claim that these are new bids you’re talking about are actually predominantly recent? That would certainly suggest that my account in the preceding paragraphs is incomplete at best, but at the same time I’m skeptical that it is indeed recent, since at least with iron ore (the one I’ve bought and sold more of than copper), there have been hundreds of thousands of orders piled up on either side of the current spread since I started trading.

Yah know, honestly I was about to say “rapidly increasing, proven by the fact that the current buy wall is 3 points from where it was two days ago”. However, you raise a good point. If a price is falling (as is the case with copper ore), there are static orders already placed at the lower prices (partially due to people placing orders and forgetting about them, and smart investors who watch the graph and are planning for the future).

I can’t reasonably conclude as a result of what you just pointed out, that buy orders at those locations are rapidly increasing. It may well be that they’re not increasing at all. You’ve got this one lol.

Hippocampus.8470:

Also, it’s worth noting that when real economists talk about things like supply and demand curves, they’re talking about them as functions of price. They aren’t just static numbers representing the number of people who would be abstractly interested in having a particular item.

Ugh right, totally dude, you nailed it. When “real” economists use data, they have a secret formula that separates “abstract data” from “concrete data”, which makes their analysis full-proof. This clearly explains why they are never wrong.

“Fake” economists however, see rapidly increasing stock orders on the buy wall, as a serious intent to purchase, and see rapidly closing gaps and decreasing stock orders on the buy/bid wall, as a sign the price is going to fall (they’re total amateurs).

Only the “pros” are smart enough to look through the illusions and see that contrary to what would seem mathematically sound, buy/sell walls on the spread (10,11-14,15) are “abstract” or “static”, as much as is the buy/sell orders placed at (1-9) and (16-?).

They’re probably just numbers that represent people who simply get a thrill out of placing orders and then cancelling them right when they receive a telepathic message warning them, that the order is about to be filled. They do this over and over in GW2 TP, that’s why the demand stays the same, and people aren’t actually able to sell anything on the TP based on those numbers. It’s because they’re “abstract” or “static” numbers.

By far the most brilliant thing I’ve read all day. Keep it coming, I’d like to learn from you. Maybe one day I can be a “real” economist, instead of a “fake” financial operator/planner. Gotta tell ya though, the money I’ve made for my own business and others, certainly does -seem- real. Meh, what do I know. It’s probably not real either.

Nice talking with ya again. Good luck in GemWars2

Bear on the job.6273:

Is this FIFO change the cause of the bugged prices when searching for items? The item prices shown in the initial 10-item list from a search result are all stuck at the minimum sell price from 3 days ago. If you click on the items, the actual sell price can be very different.

As lackofcheese said, these bugs have been around a while. However this is another negative side effect of going from LIFO-like to FIFO (nothing to do with money) and I said in a post a couple days ago that players would notice those effects very quickly.,

Because the TP is no longer dealing with smaller orders -first- to reduce the amount of pending orders quicker, it is now dealing with filling massive orders in the sequence they were placed.

This allocates a highly concentrated amount of processing to less transactions, while bottlenecking everything else up, magnifying the delays/bugs already present, and introducing new ones.

Lunesta.3742:

I skimmed most of this thread (entertaining!) but I had to chime in because this is categorically wrong:

“This means that there is a 58% greater demand then there is a supply”

Point #2, if you’re interested in true demand I would look at trade volume, not “top demanded item.” This is highly skewed towards items people are trying to flip.

All of the information people are throwing out matter very little because there are so many external variables causing flux at this stage in the game’s life. It’s impossible to say that LIFO to FIFO has any impact.

Firstly, I agree that trade volume would be a better long-term assessment tool. That being said, one thing that seems to remain constant across the entire board is the spread. Look at those top items. The spread pretty much stays the same. How is that possible if the supply/demand changes so much?

You can’t say “it’s working as it should be, but in order to overlook the serious inconsistency between increased demand on a particular item with a continued loss, let’s include a whole bunch of other items/products in there too”. Likewise, the 222.5k – 351.4k units, is -volume- (that’s why I used it). If those numbers didn’t consistently represent a stronger demand than supply, copper ore wouldn’t be at the top of the demand list. It is an important factor in the context of this conversation, whether you agree with it or not.

Lunesta.3742:

All of the information people are throwing out matter very little because there are so many external variables causing flux at this stage in the game’s life.It’s impossible to say that LIFO to FIFO has any impact.

What you basically just said was… “because there are so many other vehicles on the new highway, it doesn’t really matter what anyone has to say about suddenly putting diesel, in a gasoline engine.”

Hippocampus.8470:

Being a condescending kittenhole doesn’t make you look smarter, fyi.

Please see:

Hippocampus.8470:

What you (and other sky-is-falling complainers)..

I suppose your own reasoning wasn’t good enough for you at the time

Hippocampus.8470:

And once again, I don’t understand the logic behind your claim that sales at 12c will force buys down to 10c, but somehow buys at 12c wouldn’t push sells up to 14c.

Because genius, bulk flippers aren’t going to look at a spread wall and say "hmmm, I could “maybe” make a profit now, or, I could work extra extra hard over the next week and raise the sell price". They’re going to flip when they can, and when the time to wait for a transaction allows the spread to close and stay closed, they will pull out their large buy orders at one price and go to the next lowest buy increment (because it’s free to do, whereas listing a sell order is not). I know this is challenging for you, but it’s really not that hard, I promise lol.

You keep accusing me of not making an argument, giving proof, or showing logic, when I’ve given you darn near a book on it. Just because you -choose- to disagree with it, doesn’t make it a “sky-is-falling” conspiracy.

Also as a result of this ‘fix’ you can no longer buy chocolate bars and cinnamon sticks on the TP for 1c. As a result, way less people are buying it on the TP, and both of these items have left the top demanded items list in the last 48 hours. People are already talking about just bypassing the TP altogether and trading amongst themselves.

So sure, keep playing dumb about what’s happening. When it becomes so obvious even you won’t deny, you’ll just find a million other reasons to justify why it happened other than a sudden switch from LIFO to FIFO.

I’m also not one of those 1%. The extended wait time for me is not the problem. It’s the fact that this switch has effectively closed the spread on top demand items I’ve been flipping in small quantities every day for about two weeks now. It was a legitimate way to make coin for myself and my guild, and now it’s gone.

Plain and simple. Less people flipping, means more price fluctuation and less opportunity to invest responsibly. The TP now is acting like a warehouse exchange, with the bulk of high demand items readily available for those who wish to craft, not a market place. Where players once could semi-hold the price in one area, that ability is gone. Now you just have to throw your stuff on there and hope for the best while you wait days for other people to undercut you.

One last point, and then I’m done trying to explain -my- logic to individuals who use flawed logic to disagree with me. You (“and people like you”) say that supply and demand is governing the prices now, as it should be. Looking at copper, which has gradually gone down since its listing (with a big downward spike in the last couple of days (lackofcheese said that other occurrences were “comparable”, but this however is subjective. “Comparible” and “took 2-3 times as long” don’t mean the same thing to me).

At any rate, as has been the case for nearly a week now, the units ordered on the spread wall of copper ore (currently 10c+11c), outnumber the units being sold on the spread wall (currently 14c+15c). Approximately 351.4 – 222.5k units. Now I want you to read the following, verrry slowly, and verrry carefully, so I don’t have to explain myself again. Mmm-k?

This means that there is a 58% greater demand then there is a supply (and this particular percentage has been the case for about three days now, when prices have fallen drastically).

YES I’m continuously using copper ore as an example, BECAUSE it has been the #1 TOP DEMANDED ITEM, while RARELY the #1 TOP SUPPLIED on the TP, for weeks, while the price has continued to fall. Seriously, would you like me to use colored blocks to prove my point?

If —anything-- you said were true, the sell price of copper would be climbing, not falling. I honestly wish I was wrong about this, but I’m not. Prices are being driven down to reduce the amount of money we can make on the TP, and the players are not the ones doing it.

And also, IF by some slim chance the prices were to stay stable on a high demand item as a result of FIFO, that result would be just as ridiculous at this point. The orders at those spread walls, would go from hundreds of thousands of units, to millions of units. Can you imagine how long it would take to make transactions?

Bottom line, you can’t change a system from LIFO-like operations, to FIFO at the snap of a finger, without there being drastic consequences.

lackofcheese.5617:

This claim of yours I find hard to make sense of. Instability would mean prices wildly fluctuating up and down, which is something that I would welcome as a trader as it would mean more opportunities to buy low and sell high. Moreover, price fluctuations tend to widen the buy/sell spread, not narrow it.

Either way, I don’t think that a FIFO system would lead to lower stability – in fact, I would expect the opposite. Since a FIFO system encourages placing lots of 250-unit orders, you would expect more large orders in the current system, and as lots of bulk orders build up that makes prices more stable, not less.

What I mean by instability, is not primarily a drop in price (which yes, has gradually occurred, but copper ore has been a lot of people’s bread and butter, and it seems to have sped up it’s decline as of yesterday), but also the spreads closing in. With a FIFO based system, two things are going to happen (let’s stick to the top demanded items for reference, as obviously what I’m about to say won’t apply to everything in the same amount of time). Let’s just say, product “x”, with a spread of 17-14c:

1.) The day traders, botters, & gold sellers are going to stack up bulk buy/sells on the profit margins (17-14c). This will as you say, give the appearance of a stabilized wall on the spread.

2.) The average players who simply wish to sell or buy and don’t feel like waiting days for their cue in a pile of 500,000 units, are going to place them in the next shortest price cues (buying at 15c, selling at 16c). This kills the spread very quickly.

3.) Day traders, botters & gold sellers, realize their ability to make even a marginal profit is being eaten away at, since the amount of time required to fill a buy order in a FIFO system means they will have to wait. If they see the price of product “x” is falling, the opportunity to flip in a reasonable amount of time is removed, and the spread (14-17) is closing, they will pull their bulk orders out of 14c-buy, and place them in 13c-buy preparing for the next spread.

4.) Average non-day trader/botter/gold seller-player who wishes to buy quickly will place their orders in the 14c-buy slot.

5.) When bulk orders for day traders/botter/gold sellers begin to fill for 13c, they will flip the product for profits at 16c-sell.

6.) Average non-day trader/botter gold seller-player who wish to sell quickly, will place their product in the 15c-sell slot.

Rinse & Repeat. The price falls by one copper, and the spread closes in hours, perhaps even minutes. While stationary large bulk orders -can- hold the market steady if profitable trading is taking place on those margins, closing spreads will cause bulk traders to move to a lower buy-price in order to turn a profit, as it would be foolish to wait such a lengthy period of time for a buy order to be filled, with the spread closing in.

Two days ago, you could flip 7 of the 8 top demanded items on the TP and make a couple silver every 30-45 minutes. Today, those same profits will take you hours, and if you try to speed up the process by moving in one increment on the spread, you will take a loss. There will be more people cancelling buy orders at say 14c, and placing them in 13c slots, since buy orders don’t cost anything to cancel. There is, in my opinion, only one logical string of events to follow.

lackofcheese.5617:

You haven’t shown any data demonstrating crazy consequences from switching to FIFO, and until you do so you’re mostly just making baseless claims.

LoL! Please tell me this is not your career. Using the very graph you are linking, Sept 28 – Oct 2 shows a stable price on copper, which ends swiftly with a 2-copper drop of sale price in a single day (a rate decrease that up until yesterday, required 3-4 days to occur).

If you’re going to use a graph to accuse someone of baseless claims, I strongly advise learning how to read it first. Also, since you don’t seem to be able to see what’s right in front of you, in the days to come, keep an eye on what has been a 2-copper spread between buy and sell prices for over a month.

That’s all the proof anyone with a modicum of economic sense would need to see. Latuh!

Silvard.3469:

I’m not disagreeing with you. It’s just that I’ve seen some people, mostly those who clamored for it in the first place, reacting to this change as if it were some egalitarian measure against “rich TP fat cats” and pro “the people”, so to speak. But it isn’t. It’s fair alright, but fair is not the same thing as egalitarian. This actually skews things towards the rich and will help them get richer, and they’ll have an even easier time accomplishing this now. Daily trading and/or being a TP savvy regular player had no barrier of entry, now they’ve been effectively neutralized as that income has shifted to much richer players.

No doubt about it. It -highly- favors the rich and screws over the average player. Believe me, I’ve already figured out how one could invest 10-15 gold flipping, and make 4-5 gold off of it in an hour or so. But, how many players have that?

lackofcheese.5617:

Granted, the regular players who are smart enough to put up orders now have to be willing to wait a long time or undercut/outbid, but regular players aren’t really hurt that much by doing this anyway.

Right, but who is going to invest that kind of money with the stability of prices going all over the place? I get what you’re saying, but my claim is that the previous ability of players to trade bulk very quickly, contributed a LOT to the stability of prices.

All my banter aside, I simply feel that with that stability gone, the spread between buy sell prices on high demand items, is going to disappear (as it already has begun) making it almost impossible to make a profit on them, and it’s leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.

The next top demand item will likely be iron ore, and right now the spread is roughly 13-11. The longer people trade on that, the closer we get to a sell wall of 12, gradually forcing the buy orders to 10. It is systematically driving the price down.

Silvard.3469:

Oh, I have no qualms about the change. It’s understandable and ostensibly fair. I’m just saying that this shifts the advantage to those with a good bankroll, and there’s probably a decent overlap with those who benefited from the previous system. So as long as they adapt they’ll continue making quite a bit of gold, a bit slower than before but now also less labor and reaction intensive.

People who dealt in lower quantities will be the most affected, as they will have to undercut/outbid, or sell/buy to/from the market makers (those with the patience and gold to become so). The vast majority of said people weren’t day traders, however, they were regular players.

That’s exactly what I’m saying. And unfortunately, the people with the largest bankrolls are botters and gold sellers. They will exchange massive amounts of bulk, even at the smallest increments of profit, thereby closing the spreads and driving the prices down.

lackofcheese.5617:

Hardly. The prices are controlled by supply and demand, both of which are quite clearly controlled by players, because it’s the players who are doing the supplying and demanding.

Wrong. Supply & Demand control ‘most’ real world markets. In GW2, the price of most top-demand items are governed by spread-walls. A single individual with enough purchasing power can alter the price of any given item in just a few hours. Said individual is not operating on a supply/demand basis, but on a profit margin. This type of individual makes up for more market commerce than does the average player looking to buy or sell something they have a few hundred units of (ie buy orders totaling “576385 units of product X”, being placed by “247 individuals”).

lackofcheese.5617:

The current system is much more amenable to bulk orders than it was before. Previously, you could have orders of 250 sit stagnant because other players could keep spamming orders of 50 up and those would get priority over yours.

I actually said, that would be the case now, and it would favor those traders with massive amounts of capital who could afford huge amounts of bulk orders. This is what I meant by less control of the price being in the hands of a larger number of players, and more now, in the hands of a wealthy few.

lackofcheese.5617:

That’s simply ridiculous. I’d love to see how you’re justifying these conclusions. How does FIFO vs not FIFO have any effect on whether this is a free market? In what way does ArenaNet control the prices when every single order on the TP is made by players?

I justify these conclusions by pointing to my above statement. When you buy/sell at real time current prices in the market as a trader, you don’t have to wait on everyone else first. When a company issues stock, it’s out there to be bought. If a secondary entity were to say “You can buy/sell in the order ‘we’ tell you we can”, the stockmarket would crash in 24 hours. It’s a huge risk. The control part comes in as a result of this severe, sneaky modification to the way the TP function. Most people who control bulk on the TP have spotted what’s coming and pulled out. This is why copper ore prices have fallen 5 points in the last week. If the players were actually in control, they’d be buying massive amounts of ore at the new cheep rates, and flipping, causing the price to stabilize. But they aren’t doing that, because they know the prices are being driven down.

lackofcheese.5617:

No, this has very little effect on people buying gems. People making significant money via trading on the TP have always been, and will always be, a small minority. It’s simply impossible for this not to be the case, because all the money on the TP is coming from other players – your profit is necessarily someone else’s loss.

Oh really? What do -you- consider significant? While they may not make as much money as say day traders, those people who level/farm resources to sell and save up are also going to take a serious hit, as prices fall. When what they’ve harvested to sell is worth more at a vender than the TP, I think that will have tremendous effect on the amount of players being swayed to buy gems. Additionally, all the money on the TP is effectively -not- coming from the players, but rather from a constantly regenerating “return of goods” on the game, of which there is an infinite supply. The -only- control the players have in that kind of economy, is removed when the amount of goods we can buy/sell in a certain amount of time is prioritized by a third party, the same party who charges 15% on the sale, AND supplies all those nodes people are harvesting

You say I’m wrong. Well, back it up with facts instead of opinions.

Also, they said the LIFO-like behavior was a bug. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t.

Personally, I think the TP was functioning the way it was intended. It would fill smaller orders first (which there are more of, than 250 stacks). By filling these orders first, it would eliminate the amount of players with pending transactions rapidly, and alleviate the stress on the TP quicker.

This ‘fix’ to the ‘bug’, will create more stress on the TP system, and explains the recent ‘lag’ spike when trading, as its workload has increased exponentially.

Hippocampus.8470:

Yeah, guys, it’s so terrible that we can’t make a quick profit and cut in line any more by selling 5 lots of 50 faster than someone who posted a single stack of 250 long before us.

Also, I always love all the doom-and-gloom slippery-slope predictions of price movements, which a quick check of gw2spidy will show are completely false. For the past 3.5 days, iron ore has consistently had buy orders between 10c and 12c and sell orders between 12c and 14c, with very occasional drops to 11 when someone undercut to unload quickly.

Well you obviously aren’t taking into consideration the fact that as we speak there is a huge shift from copper to iron usage. THAT is the main reason the price isn’t falling on iron ore (compare the demand of iron ore a week ago to now). If however you look at the top demanded item still on the TP (copper ore), you will notice the price has dropped 4-5 copper per unit since this time last week. That’s not a prediction, that’s the current state of affairs, hardly “completely false”.

It’s not about making a quick turnover/profit. It’s about the fact that this has taken away the rewards of those who diligently watch/trade on the TP, and put it in the hands of those who choose to gamble larger amounts of coin over lengthy periods of time. Those few who win, will actually make more coin. Gold farmers who run bots and have the capital to invest in these huge trades, now are going to make a killing with half the effort, while everyone else is going to have to wait and/or lose lots.

It has killed an entire, legitimate branch of trading. Where prices aren’t dropping, the spread is disappearing (since you brought it up, look iron ore as we speak), and with the wait times now to make a trade, you won’t stand a chance in small items against undercutting.

This was a move to significantly cut the potential profits made by players on the TP, and sway them into spending more $ on gems. Unless ArenaNet injects massive amounts of resources to the market to stabilize the prices, they will change drastically.

If you’d like a lesson in economics, let me know, it’s what I do

Just an update as of 3 hours ago:

The sell price of copper has fallen from 16-18, to 13-15. Any of you who’ve been on the market during this time of week, know that the price and demand of copper ore, typically stays stable, or increases. At first I thought it is because players are graduating to needing iron more than copper however…

The price of iron ore likewise, is showing signs of falling. With a current spread of 14-11, you would make a profit of about 25 copper on 500 iron ore units. This could take hours, or even days. Unfortunately, the shrinking orders you’d have to wait on to buy at 11 copper, means that the supply rates will continue to fall to 10. As a result, it would be foolish to buy at 11, since the next sell price will be at 13-12 very soon.

I think the price of top demanded/traded items by the weekend, is going to be shocking. Even those who manually harvest resources to sell, are going to be in for a big surprise, when they find out how much their efforts are worth. I’ve often wondered how they were going to compensate for F2P.

Welcome to GemWars2 people

Yeah, they’ve definitely changed the way it functions for sure. If this is what was intended, it’s going to have several consequences, in very short order.

1.) It will kill day trading/flipping. The waiting period to fill buy orders, will be a foolish risk to take with insane fluctuating prices (and they will go insane very soon, the instability of prices is already becoming apparent). Flipping has been the primary player-controlled factor in prices. Now we have effectively no say in them whatsoever.

2.) Those people foolish enough to leave their coin in large bulk orders waiting for them to be filled, will see their gold savings disappear, and quickly. By the time they have their orders filled, the sell price will have changed drastically (and not in a good way, as people with bulk, are going to be trying to get out of this while they can).

3.) The primary in-game mechanism for making legitimate coin, is now not only pinched by a 15% cut off of profits, but also effectively “controlled” by ArenaNet. It was operating as a free market, it is no longer. A lot of players are going to lose a lot of coin in the coming days.

4.) This maneuver will force more people to buy gems for coin if they wish to experience high-end game material.

Tell your friends/guilds to get out of the market now, or they’re going to lose a lot of coin.