Guide to market fundamentals?
By
Another_Fan,
Posted on: 2009-06-15 09:50 in The Market and Inventions
Yeah, good luck with that.
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Yeah, good luck with that.
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Woah, that's a big thread. Anything ever come of it?
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
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Yeah, good luck with that.
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Woah, that's a big thread. Anything ever come of it?
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It took the OP about three days to discover what most of us already knew- you can lead a moron to water, but you can't make it take a bath.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Woah, that's a big thread. Anything ever come of it?
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Yeah, I learned about the forum ignore function, added two people to my ignore list, and got a warning from a moderator for calling a troll a troll, which is apparently trolling. Also I think I may have gotten a few more gray hairs.
I may end up still doing this project after I sufficiently cool off. The response to the proposal from the marketeers was "Great idea but it won't do any good." Surprisingly (at the time), a bunch of people jumped in to mock my ideas and imply that everything I would present as fact is actually opinion. They further implied that I had some sinister reason to want to educate people other than the fact that I don't want to have to repeat myself a million times. *shrug*
The end result was me throwing up my hands and saying, "[censored] this and [censored] you" and leaving my own thread. So yeah, maybe one day because I still think it's a valid idea, but I don't know if I could take the heat that'd come down from the trolls if I did it.
hehehe .... good times, good times.
Casey? Casey Jones?
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I've been told that sometimes my lucidity is frightening.
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Your logic is no match for concentrated stupid. - Organica
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Current MAs:
Stop the catgirl rampage! #66361
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Woah, that's a big thread. Anything ever come of it?
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Yeah, I learned about the forum ignore function, added two people to my ignore list, and got a warning from a moderator for calling a troll a troll, which is apparently trolling. Also I think I may have gotten a few more gray hairs.
I may end up still doing this project after I sufficiently cool off. The response to the proposal from the marketeers was "Great idea but it won't do any good." Surprisingly (at the time), a bunch of people jumped in to mock my ideas and imply that everything I would present as fact is actually opinion. They further implied that I had some sinister reason to want to educate people other than the fact that I don't want to have to repeat myself a million times. *shrug*
The end result was me throwing up my hands and saying, "[censored] this and [censored] you" and leaving my own thread. So yeah, maybe one day because I still think it's a valid idea, but I don't know if I could take the heat that'd come down from the trolls if I did it.
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That about sums it up.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
How about this?
Understanding the Fundamentals of the CoH Auction Market
This short guide will explain a few basic truths of the market in CoH. The goal is to introduce a few important concepts and avoid drowning the reader in details.
I don't think this guide is very long, but here's a TL;DR version anyway:
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If you want to make a fortune playing the market or just want to avoid paying top prices, the secret is to have a bit of patience. Don't outbid peak weekend prices. Look at average prices on a Tuesday or Wednesday, put in your bids, and [u]force yourself to wait a day or two for your bids to pan out[u]. Buy recipes and salvage and do your own crafting instead of buying pre-crafted IOs.
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Supply and Demand
Unlike a store, prices are set in the CoH markets by "supply and demand". We've all heard this phrase, but what does it mean? Simply put, the more available something is, the lower its price will be and vice versa. Prices are set between willing sellers and buyers. No one can force you to buy at a price you're not willing to pay.
Example: before the Mission Architect (MA) was introduced, only rare (orange) salvage was pricey. Uncommon (yellow) salvage was cheap and generally you'd get a better price by selling it to a store than by selling it on the market. Now uncommon salvage frequently sells for 50K-100K inf. What changed? MA missions don't drop salvage, they drop tickets. Players have shown a reluctance to redeem their tickets for uncommon salvage; instead they save up for desirable recipes. People are crafting IOs just as much as ever so demand has remained constant but supply has tightened up, so salvage sells for more.
Prediction: when the Going Rogue expansion goes live, there will be at least a temporary shift away from the MA. Salvage will once again be abundant and prices will plunge.
Cyclic Demand
Demand that predictably follows a pattern is called "cyclic demand." In the real world, think of peak season hotel prices. Hotel prices are always highest in the peak season because there are more people chasing after a fixed number of hotel rooms. This pattern of higher prices during peak season is so reliable as to be predictable.
Is there cyclic demand in CoH? Sure. There are always more players on during weekends, holidays and special events such as the release of a new issue or a double XP weekend. Why should you care about cyclic demand in CoH? It'll make more sense after the next section....
Gotta Have It NOW
When most players decide they want to buy a set of IOs, they proceed to bid high enough to get the set right away. That's understandable. For them the market isn't fun. It's a necessary chore, like going grocery shopping. They want to get it over with and get back to having fun. By putting in high bids they get their stuff quickly. Experienced marketeers derisively refer to that as "get it now" pricing; they're derisive because it guarantees the buyer is paying top dollar.
There's an even worse form of "get it now": since many of the players that want to get their IOs right now don't want to be bothered with the hassle of crafting them, they'll pay a healthy premium to have someone else do the crafting. And when I say "healthy premium" I really mean "insane premium" like paying 2-3 mil for ingredients that costs 500K to purchase and craft.
The Secret Every CoH Market Billionaire Knows
Combine the concepts of cyclic demand with "get it now" pricing, and you get an interesting phenomenon. During peak demand (usually weekend evenings) there is a reliable flood of players who just want to buy their stuff ASAP and get back to playing. Prices surge. Off-peak those players are absent for the most part and prices sag.
So if you want to make a fortune playing the market or just want to avoid paying top prices, the secret is to have a bit of patience. Don't outbid peak weekend prices. Look at average prices on a Tuesday or Wednesday, put in your bids, and force yourself to wait a day or two for your bids to pan out. Buy recipes and salvage and do your own crafting instead of buying pre-crafted IOs.
The real kicker is that for every player who takes the time to read this and try it out, there will be hundreds who can't be bothered. And those will be the ones making you rich, Dear Reader. 
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
It's a great guide, and deserves to be shunted over tot he guides section and the guide sticky here!
That being said, I don't think it really addresses some of the misconceptions like the one you quoted in the OP.
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That being said, I don't think it really addresses some of the misconceptions like the one you quoted in the OP.
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Yeah. 
I started down that road but it started to get too long. Plus when I compared what I was starting to write and compared it to my recollections of some of persuasive writing I've seen on this forum, I realized it was time to wave the white flag. I figured a short essay on "the truths we hold to be self evident" would be a good start since at least I could emphasize the absurdly simple lesson of patience vs. get it nao.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
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Yeah, I learned about the forum ignore function, added two people to my ignore list, and got a warning from a moderator for calling a troll a troll, which is apparently trolling.
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Funny, you got posts modded, a warning and you had to ignore people.
I'm sure it had nothing to do with you though, you must have been 100% in the right.
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Yeah, I learned about the forum ignore function, added two people to my ignore list, and got a warning from a moderator for calling a troll a troll, which is apparently trolling.
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Funny, you got posts modded, a warning and you had to ignore people.
I'm sure it had nothing to do with you though, you must have been 100% in the right.
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Its the internets everybody is correct. And if you find something challenging to your world view you can always find plenty of things that are affirming.
2 ignored posters in a row in a thread on the same subject that got them ignored in the first place...I hope nobody quotes them if they feel the need to reply.
I <3 forum ignore. :-D
Back on topic, I still think you should post this as an official guide.
Nice write up Sardan!
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2 ignored posters in a row in a thread on the same subject that got them ignored in the first place...
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hey, are you peeking at my monitor?!?
=P
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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How about this?
Understanding the Fundamentals of the CoH Auction Market
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It's a fine start, but I don't think you'll have any more luck than Stillhart did. If the goal is to educate people about basic economics, you might as well link to the wikipedia article about economics. It will be just as ineffective, and it will take a lot less of your time. 
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
haw!
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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It's a fine start, but I don't think you'll have any more luck than Stillhart did. If the goal is to educate people about basic economics, you might as well link to the wikipedia article about economics. It will be just as ineffective, and it will take a lot less of your time.
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Probably true. I kept thinking of topics, then discarding them as I realized that to take the assertions beyond the "just trust me" level would take too many paragraphs, leading to TL;DR syndrome. So as I was writing it I kept scaling back my goals. I wanted to try to get across the most basic concepts in a way that would ideally have maximum impact. Eventually I just declared victory and posted it. 
Assuming I post it as a guide, I'll edit it at the end to link to your excellent multipart series of guides. Maybe mine can serve as an intro that'll pique a few players' interest.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
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2 ignored posters in a row in a thread on the same subject that got them ignored in the first place...
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hey, are you peeking at my monitor?!?
=P
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I never would have thought u use the ignore feature in the forums. I've found myself coming close, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I've managed to get myself to laugh at the people I want to ignore.
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It's a fine start, but I don't think you'll have any more luck than Stillhart did. If the goal is to educate people about basic economics, you might as well link to the wikipedia article about economics. It will be just as ineffective, and it will take a lot less of your time.
[/ QUOTE ]
Probably true. I kept thinking of topics, then discarding them as I realized that to take the assertions beyond the "just trust me" level would take too many paragraphs, leading to TL;DR syndrome. So as I was writing it I kept scaling back my goals. I wanted to try to get across the most basic concepts in a way that would ideally have maximum impact. Eventually I just declared victory and posted it.
Assuming I post it as a guide, I'll edit it at the end to link to your excellent multipart series of guides. Maybe mine can serve as an intro that'll pique a few players' interest.
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Economics is a hard subject to grasp. I wasn't to good at it in college, and I think I've actually learned more in just reading essays and articles on the internet for discussion on this forum than I did in college. Regardless of what people think, economics is as straight forward to grasp as math is, providing you can account for all the variables. Finding the variables is the hard part though, and there's so many of them sometimes, that people just don't acknowledge them. Smurphy has a pretty good grasp on the economics I think though, as do a few other people on these forums.
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Economics is a hard subject to grasp. I wasn't to good at it in college, and I think I've actually learned more in just reading essays and articles on the internet for discussion on this forum than I did in college. Regardless of what people think, economics is as straight forward to grasp as math is, providing you can account for all the variables.
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I beg to differ. There's a reason why economics is called the dismal science. The problem in real life is that people are not always rational actors, and many of the simpler theories in economics rely on the fallacy of perfect information. So to make econ straightforward, all it requires is a simple combination of psychology, game theory, and traditional economic theory. Actually there's an emerging branch of economics called (I think) behavioral economics that sounds like it's attempting this very melding. I haven't read about it though, just heard a Fresh Air podcast on it a long time ago.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
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Finding the variables is the hard part though, and there's so many of them sometimes, that people just don't acknowledge them
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is this a joke? variables in the essence cant be found.
They only can be twisted. by ubber minds, that is, not me
Arcaneville would explain that better.
I have a pretty high ignore threshold.
But some folk are constantly wrong, so dishonest about it engaging them is a waste of time, and generally about as much fun to read as Wittgenstein in the original German.
That's where /ignore proves its worth. =)
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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2 ignored posters in a row in a thread on the same subject that got them ignored in the first place...
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hey, are you peeking at my monitor?!?
=P
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I never would have thought u use the ignore feature in the forums. I've found myself coming close, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I've managed to get myself to laugh at the people I want to ignore.
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I have only two people on the forums on permanent ignore. One I found to be a bithering nitwit who's very existance is so far into left field that I'm not even sure he's playing this game on this planet.
The other such is a belligerant jerk who is either gleefully clapping his hands over any and every nerf ever put into place or is pretty much telling folks who don't play exactly the same way he does that they are idiots that have no idea how to play. He definately and consistantly puts the schaden in schadenfreude.
The rest of the folks that could fall into the ignore category I leave off ignore for the simple fact that their low IQ prattle is amusing rather than toxic.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
I saw this:
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Actually the separate markets make a lot of sense.
On the Black Market I could buy some stuff that would be out of my price range on the CH, just because there are more people and so they can better control the prices.
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And it made me think of the many posts people have made here talking about market fundamentals, explaining basic concepts like supply and demand. Debunking common misconceptions, for example that ebil marketeers can simply set exorbitant prices that the poor common folk will be forced to pay. I looked briefly at the Guides section of this forum and while there was a lot of good stuff there, I didn't see anything along the lines of Econ 101.
Has anyone written up this type of essay and I just missed it? I'd love to be able to just link to it when folks like the one I quoted pop up, which they do with great regularity.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.