There is a certain amount of needed gear and skill sets that require a huge investment financially to compete in any real way. Without it, there is no real point. Not talking "desired" gear here like ML weapons and such. Regardless though, there are an ample amount of items one needs. Being forced to pay high amount of plat or spend weeks farming for some of these like the MLs and Artis. I would like to see this change, and I find what is stated in the OP to not be helping the situation but only further making it worse.

 

-----signature-----

so wouldn't it be a whole lot easier acquiring all that expensive gear if you could sell valuable items in game for what they're actually worth instead of considerably less?

 

-----signature-----

Selling items for a high value to afford high value items keeps all said items highly priced. Thus, nothing is changed.

 

-----signature-----

Its called Greed. I wasn't wrong. People are out for greed when it comes to this crap. What I said was dealing with greed. Did you even read everything? Probably not. Just making an ignorant statement. YOu must be one of those greedy people trying to sell stuff for more than its actually worth. Take a couple people to Caer Sidi, farm the stuff yourself. It isn't that hard to farm it. So it shouldn't be selling that expensive. Plus, with updated ml10 gear, Sidi gear isn't all that awesome any more. So people don't want to pay an arm and leg for something they could just get a couple people together and farm the souls they need.

 

-----signature-----

The OP is not ripping off anyone. The OP may be selling things at a high markup, but that is not ripping off people. Players can check out the market and find the lowest priced item or players can farm the items themselves. If players pay a high markup, that is the player’s choice and there is no rip-off involved. Sorry to all the socialists out there who do not like the free market but it is what it is.


Also, I do not know of anyone who is ignorant of the fact that no one need purchase anything from the ME or CM. Everyone has the choice of leveling a crafter and making the item themselves (if it is a crafted item) or of farming it. If the player does not want to spend the time forming a group and farming items and would rather pay others, that is the players choice.


I agree with any that say the OP is not being completely altruistic. If the OPs word gets out then even while others are making more money the OPs markup increases and the OPs profit could double or triple. But again, it is a “free market” where players may farm it themselves or they can wait for a low price to hit the ME. There is no rip-off in some player listing a price higher than others and there is no rip-off when some lazy player who needs instant gratification pays 3 times what they would have had to pay if the player shopped around a bit.


You may not like what the OP does and because of your annoyance decide to use the inflammatory word, “rip-off” but using that word does not make it so. It is simply free market. It is simply one player charging a much higher price than you feel is proper. The actual and true definition is not “rip-off”.


Remember the OP does not have a monopoly of any items. Others can farm the items if the others choose to do so. If players have a bit of patience and are willing to check the ME from time to time, often times items will hit the ME at prices that would make it seem it is the purchaser that is ripping off the seller. If players do not want to wait a bit and if they do not want to shop around, it is their choice to pay the high price.


The OP is fully correct when they say that most players that list items do not check every CM the item is on to see if the CM is dead. For most players that put items on a CM, they check the prices on the ME and if 6 of the same items are selling for 7 plat each then chances are the player will list their item for around 7 plat, not knowing that the 6 items used for comparison are all on dead CMs and the true market value is really 20 plat.


In this case where the seller is accidentally listing a 20-plat item for 7-plat, isn’t it is the seller that is being kind of ripped off?

 

-----signature-----

I dont consider what the OP is doing as ripping anyone off, I am just saying it is hurting the game in the end, and it is.


Semi, you make it sound like any regulation on the free market is automatically bad. This isn't the case and actually, if you live in America, the deregulation that has been going on has done astronomically more damage than good. Why does it have to be 100% free market? Why does it have to be 100% "state run"? When will people learn that balance is the issue and an extreme on either side is bad. Both sides have valid points and together, with possibly other outside notions, could create a strong new system entirely.


Instead of saying A is right or B is right; why don't you take the good from both and create C? It isn't really this hard to comprehend and yet...here we are. Making the same mistakes over and over. /shrug

 

-----signature-----

I disagree. If more people knew that the lowest priced item on the CM might not actually be able to be purchased, the way he describes making money will cease to exist.

Right now he buys items that are underpriced based on the market's supply/demand curve and sells them for what they should sell for were there not an artificial shortage caused by fake prices. If people ignore the items that aren't purchasable and raise their prices, overall demand isn't going to change, the curve will just move toward equilibrium price instead of staying so low that not everyone who would buy an item at the lowered price would be able to get it.

 

-----signature-----

It sounds like the OP is merely engaging in reselling based on price. The market should ideally fix that in the end and the prices will settle to what is considered to be acceptable by the majority of players. I did much the same thing in Star Wars Galaxies, and if I overpriced something I took a loss or broke even trying to sell it. This game isn't anywhere nearly as suited to doing the same thing given that it has such a primitive market system and economy, but its all perfectly reasonable.

What Mythic should do is delist merchants and their items when a house is condemned. Make it so that the items are no longer visible (ie they don't affect the apparent price) and no longer available. Problem solved, the economy can go back to its normal levels.

There is a few problems with this though:
* Gold farmers. I don't know if we still have them, or how studious Mythic is being about combating them, but if prices go high enough, people will simply take the shortcut and buy their plats in advance.
* New or returning players - We (I just returned) missed years of prices rising and items being farmed to build up the cash balances of those who have been here since the start. New players are faced with an enormous task trying to make enough money to equip their characters - something they must do in order to be on even a vague par with those they will fight in RvR.

I have been back for 2 months or so, in that time by working my butt off spending almost all my time farming and salvaging, I have equipped 2 of my 50s so that I can go try out RvR again. Its a complete guess but I would think I have made and spent at least 70p in that time. A lot of the equipment I have bought for my characters so far has been the stuff underpriced compared to the rest of the market. If it had been at typical prices I wouldn't even have the first character templated, not by a long shot.

This economy - like pretty much every game economy - is thoroughly screwed up, but limping along. Every game I have tried so far has suffered from rampant inflation and overpricing, because the companies dislike putting in credit sinks that would balance things out and because PvE gameplay generates new money faster than it disappears.
Probably the only game that has a truely viable economy is EVE Online - and I am not so into spreadsheets that I would want to play that game (nonetheless they do it right, CCP has a full time economist studying their in game economy and making suggestions for improvements).

In other words I think Mythic should fix the problem of CMs that list wares that can't actually be bought - and thus reflect old prices. That's all she wrote on that.

There are a lot more problems with the market system that could be addressed while they are at it though.

 

-----signature-----

Game's been out forever. Inflation is going to exist no matter what. The OP is actually helping people who can't afford high value items by telling them it's a waste of money to sell their high value items they don't need for less than what they could because of other items on the CM that people can't purchase. If they sell their high value items for what they're actually worth, instead of leaving him with the opportunity to make a boatload of money doing it for them, it'll be easier on them to buy the high value gear that they actually need.

I'll go all cliche on you and tell you to go play an FPS game.

 

-----signature-----

Calling the free market system greed is purely ignorant. In fact, the more people who participate in the free market, the lower the prices will be. Because there are so few suppliers (by choice, not by ability), the prices will naturally be high. If people are willing to pay markup price, then the value of said item must be worth that. He doesn't make ANY money unless people buy his things. So I fail to see how this is greed. It's profit, and since it's not a monopoly, it's perfectly okay since anyone can jump into that very same market and attempt to undersell him.

 

-----signature-----