A counter-proposal to merging the markets
By
AgentMountaineer,
Posted on: 2009-06-18 07:35 in The Market and Inventions
Only an idiot Rp'er or someone with much to lose would oppose a market merger.
Heroside prices are lower than Villianside prices.
Theres more on the hero market than villian market.
This belief that Villians will pay more and that we have to save them is laughable.
Really wish the anti merger and anti farmers would just quit this game now. Its the only sane solution, and they wont continue to inflict thier stupid on other people.
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(On a personal note, I find this whole thing kind of funny, didn't I suggest this like 1 1/2 years ago? 
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I could be unclear on which thing you mean, but I attribute my 1st recollection of a conversion rate to Arcanaville in one of the 1st big discussions/arguments in here on whether/why/how to merge the markets.
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The specific thing I suggested way back when was that rather than merge the markets directly, continue to require blue-side items to be bid on with only influence, and red-side items to be bid on with only infamy, and allow players to buy and sell blocks of influence and infamy across the markets. Thus, if you wanted a hero to buy something from the red-side market, they would first need to buy infamy from a red-side character. The currency market would be the method for allowing cross market activity with some control. The main advantage of this is that it would tend to dampen the potential initial trade imbalance issues associated with a direct merge.
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This could be the form of a third, neutral market, some form of in-game mail that works by account,
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How is this any different from combining the markets? (which I'm against).
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Don't dwell too much on these, I just threw them out as examples of possible ways to get goods from one market to the other. The method used is immaterial to my argument.
I'm assuming that a hypothetical neutral market would (a) be in an inconvenient location, (b) charge a higher percentage cut of the profits, or (c) both. Otherwise yes, there would be no reason to not abandon the existing markets.
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It gives an incentive to exploit the side-switching mechanic. It helps exploiters and cheaters to prosper. I'm vehemently against this.
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Explain how this would be an exploit, please.
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Over time, the market that is over-supplied will begin to dry up, resulting in rising prices. The formerly supply-starved market will have more seller competition and undercutting, leading to falling prices.
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Using your thinking, Purple items will be moved to the villains and posted for blue side pricing. Obviously the villains have fewer of these.
The Purples (and to lesser extent all invention sets) are the primary reason that many want markets merged.
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No, you are misunderstanding my reasoning. Purples are probably the worst case for this, being so rare, and would take a long time to stabilize (if ever). I was thinking more of common salvage that tends to average higher on one side than the other. Maybe certain yellow or orange recipes. Here's the step by step.
1. I notice that Science Widgets tend to be much higher priced at the Black Market than at Wentworths. There are a ton for sale at WW and nobody bidding. There are very few for sale on the BM.
2. Being the enterprising person I am, I sense an opportunity. I buy up all the Science Widgets from Wentworths that I can get for cheap.
3. I use some magical method to get these Science Widgets to one of my villains. How exactly I do it really isn't important.
4. I dump the Widgets on the villain market. Do I use blue side pricing? No, of course not, that would be stupid. I want a quick return on my investment, though, so I list them just a little bit lower than the average villain side price. I'll still be making a ton of cash, and they'll sell quicker.
5. The first few I get lucky and people actually pay the higher villain side average since it's in the last 5. Eventually someone guesses my slightly lower listing price and gets them for cheaper. Since I have a ton listed this quickly catches on and becomes the new de-facto "buy it" price.
6. Villains who get Science Widgets as drops and take them to the BM will see the slightly lower price. They will either have to match the price, or list it higher and wait for all of mine to sell out.
7. Repeat. Especially effective if multiple marketeers are doing this, as they'll be competing with each other.
8. In the meantime, all the cheap Science Widgets are gone blue side. People start bidding ridiculous "BUY IT NAO!" prices and the average normal price in between them slowly rises.
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The transfer of Purples across the lines is the worst possible reason for market merger.
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Purples would probably be the least affected, because they're in short supply anyway and often have 0 for sale on either side. Their price is much more arbitrary and more a function of "what is someone willing to pay?" The likely result is that blue side prices for purples would rise to meet the red side prices, or possibly a value slightly lower the current red side prices. After all, people would be wanting to sell them on the market that will fetch them the most for it.
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Prices won't fall.
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The point isn't to make prices fall, but to make them reach equilibrium, wherever that happens to be. Some prices would undoubtably rise.
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It will prompt cheating players to buy more infa from RMT spammers. Leading to more RMT spams and gain for players that cheat.
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I don't really see a connection. The amount of recipes and salvage, and the number of people who want them would be the same, they would just be more evenly distributed.
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The RMT's would have a hayday moving stuff back and forth across the sides in order to manipulate the markets - and they do it as a full time job. Could players compete with that? Who do you think drives up the prices of Purples so high?
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No, they'll still farm for inf. It's efficient for them, a consistent source of income not subject to market spikes. Also, the same reason they don't play the market much if at all now -- it's not something minimum wage workers can repeatedly do without putting some thought into it. Do it too much and the price differential reverses.
As for setting the price of purples, the people bidding on them do that. Some likely have more inf than they should due to RMTers -- what they do is cause inflation by generating more inf.
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I certainly hope that your goal is not to promote cheating or to help cheaters, but that is in fact what will occur if an open third market or cross alignment trades are allowed.
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No, and I resent the implication. I don't know why people subsidize RMTers anyway. It's so stupidly easy to make absurd amounts of inf in this game with only a basic understanding of economics. Even getting decent amounts from playing normally is child's play. I guess some are just really lazy.
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Well, you are either talking about two markets or three markets. I thought your point was about a third market, but you are back to how it would influence the two.
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My point is about two markets. The third is a red herring -- a possible way to get things from one side to the other. Obviously if the third market is viable on its own then there's no reason to arbitrate between the 2 existing ones.
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The reason I bring this up is because I have quite a bit of experience in this area. I marketeered in WoW, which has a much more cutthroat market. I'd estimate that any given server economy is about half the volume of the total shared CoH/V economy.
One way I made tons of gold there was by doing exactly this -- moving things from the Horde to Alliance auction house and vice versa, by means of the neutral AH (which is both inconveniently located AND charges ridiculous commissions). The effects of doing this on a large scale were imminently visible; I could track the average prices and see them gradually converging as I moved more and more, until the difference was small enough that it wasn't profitable to do it anymore, and I could move on to the next niche.
Don't mistake this as me being greedy and wanting to cash in. It just struck me that it acted as a release valve for the two markets and kept them from getting too far out of whack. While it's not a very common thing, I know I wasn't the only person doing it.
There are a lot of differences between the wow market and the coh market systems. List prices are visible there (though actual sale prices are NOT). The CoH double blind system is much more prone to random and extreme fluctuations. CoH also allows long-term speculative bidding and indefinite auctions without penalty (other than use of your slot). They have in-game addons that track average prices and search for bargains. Even with all the differences, I think that allowing cross-market arbitrage can help stabilize the prices a little, in the event the devs are unwilling to consider a full merge.