Just curious Devs...

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Ebil manipulators do NOT cause prices to rise above where Supply and Demand dictate the prices would go.

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LOL...ok.

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It hurts when your wrong doesn't it ...

I wasn't really attacking it, as much as the players behind the curtain. but thanks for understanding my post. Your right though I would be much better off playing the game like a sheep. Saying yes to everything the devs implement. I'll keep that in mind.

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Cavatina your judging me on an online forum, inaccurately at that. Honestly, assuming makes fools of us all. I'm either guessing your the "non comformist. with a 9-5 job"? or are you liberated and living with some type of relative?, see we can all assume. Then again if you live close to NY we can meet and see how vocal you are when we meet?, sure I would love to see how much your willing to "bark" when I'm in front of you. We can forget about all the back and forth on the boards. Then again I have a feeling your going to sidestep from that very notion...

But we digress...

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Thre's the internet tough guy we all knew you had in you. Seriously, making thinly veiled threats about RL meetings? And you think it's the marketeers that have issues taking things too seriously?

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Perhaps your getting so worked up becuae you realize a price cap would ruin the market manipulators because the only way to make money off the market would be to go out and earn drops rather than use your vast amounts on Inf to push up prices for everyone else.


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I ran the ITF the other night and got an Armegeddon. I listed it for 200mil. I didn't flip it. I listed it for 200 mil because 150 people were bidding, and there were NONE selling. Flipping isn't raising prices, high demand and low supply is.

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not to mention, I bet if you had listed it for say..50..it woulda sold for at least a hundred.

What are you a couple?, if so congrats, Like I said we digress, people wish to judge others on a video game, but when it all comes down to it, we sit in front of a screen thinking of witty comebacks. Keep in mind, you addressed me first. See thats the whole point here, as soon as anything RL is mentioned , we finally get to see how cowardly people really are, how they lose their willingness to "speak for the people" or their own sets of in game beliefs.

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Seriously? You want me to write professors about a video game? I'll pass.


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If you don't take your suggestion seriously, nobody else will. I doubt your sugestion (which should be in the suggestion forums) will never happen either.

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Look, I'm sure you know alot more about economics than me, but this isn't as complicated as real world economics. I'm sure you know what you talking about with the whole
Equilibrium Price thing, but I don't think it has jack to do with this situation.


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So your saying equilibrium price doesn't exist on our market?

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I'm talking about purple recipes that are so rare you only have to buy 5 or 6 a month to control them.


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I've checked the purple recipes, and at the moment, there isn't much variation in the prices. If a recipe sells for 100mil, it sells for 100mil. Look at some of the basilisks gaze as an example of things that might be getting flipped. At the moment, purple recipes are at a constant selling price of 100-120 mil. Trying to flip a recipe that you pay 100mil and resell for 120mil would never be done my marketeers because it's dumb.

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We agree that lack of supply is the main culprit, but even when supply of purples goes back up, the supply will remain low enough that it is easy to completely control the price by buying everyone that hits the market IF you are an evil marketeer with billions saved up.


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As smurphy explained, that will only last for so long. The persons stock will eventually exceed it's limits and be forced to sell at lower prices.

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When there is only one or two of something listed per month,


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Bingo! If there's only one or two of something listed per month that is in as high demand as purple drops are, and with all the influence in our little economy, they are going to sell for 200mil+.

This will be solved once we are able to set our own spawn sizes. I will be farming for purples heavily once the new issue goes live to try and cash in on high prices while they last.

Your issue as I've read so far is that you are assuming that people are suppling you with opinion when it is actually factual. Just because you don't know 2 times 2 equals 4 doesn't mean that it's no someone elses opinion. Facts are facts even if you don't know them.

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We agree that lack of supply is the main culprit, but even when supply of purples goes back up, the supply will remain low enough that it is easy to completely control the price by buying everyone that hits the market IF you are an evil marketeer with billions saved up. When there is only one or two of something listed per month, there is always going to be someone out of the thousands that play this game that is willing to pay it...even if it means buying inf from a .com, which is even worse for the game.

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One or two of something a month??

What?

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Some purples and the new PvP IOs.

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PvP IO's on the other hand are prime targets for flipping. I bought 10 recipes a month or so ago at 30mil a piece, and resold them all for 120mil. Anything with PvP tends to sell well. I used to flip Unstable Rad Pistols back in the day. I haven't had much luck with them recently though. I've had a few bids out on the expensive ones for 30mil, and haven't had any luck in a few weeks.

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So after issue 16 hits, supply goes up, purple prices go down. Won't the marketeers just buy low and hold them untill prices go back up, then sell?

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This is actually a very good tactic which I did with several stacks of doctored wounds heal/rech. When prices were 500k to buy the recipes, I bought 50 recipes on various toons, and just sat on them to see if prices would ever go up. I sat on them for almost a year. They are now selling for 10mil a piece so I sold them all.

The thing with that is, when I bought 50 recipes for 500k, whoever bought the 51st recipe still payed 500k. So while I sat on these recipes, it didn't cause an inflation in the market. What caused the inflation occured a year later.

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This will be solved once we are able to set our own spawn sizes. I will be farming for purples heavily once the new issue goes live to try and cash in on high prices while they last.

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Pretty much QFT. And people will still find something to complain about.

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I do not enjoy playing the market, and I am not disputing anthing you "experts" are saying.


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Unfortunatly, playing the market is part of the game, and the Dev's do it as well. I believe it was Ex Libris who said that playing the market adds dynamics into the game. It was the reason she gave as to why not to merge markets, and it fits quite nicely into why not to add a price cap into the market. That and supply on many items would be zero, and I would start selling my purple recipes for 400mil via posts on the market forums

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I do not enjoy playing the market, and I am not disputing anthing you "experts" are saying.


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Unfortunatly, playing the market is part of the game, and the Dev's do it as well. I believe it was Ex Libris who said that playing the market adds dynamics into the game. It was the reason she gave as to why not to merge markets, and it fits quite nicely into why not to add a price cap into the market. That and supply on many items would be zero, and I would start selling my purple recipes for 400mil via posts on the market forums

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I love how people always assume that them not enjoying the market justifies ruining it for people who do.

Wonder how they'd feel if we took their favorite part of the game and said we didnt enjoy it therefore it should be gotten rid of.

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QR: Holy crap, if the price cap went to 150M, I would make so much money on an actual black market.

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QFT

I would stop listing any drops selling at 150mil inf cap and sell on the market forum and in broadcast of the game.

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I'd be the richest player in City of Heroes by hundreds of miles.

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Whoa man, I'm not saying you wouldn't or couldn't but don't you think there is a difference between confidence and drink too much of your own cool aide?

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I think Smurphy is already the richest person in Co*

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QR: Holy crap, if the price cap went to 150M, I would make so much money on an actual black market.

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QFT

I would stop listing any drops selling at 150mil inf cap and sell on the market forum and in broadcast of the game.

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I'd put bids on the market and resell off market. doubly creating a problem.

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Devs...1 billion inf is too much for one IO. Please do something. Thanks.


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If they don't do anything about it, and you quit the game, can I haz ur stufz?

Edit: Whew what a thread .. I finally caught up.

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QR: Holy crap, if the price cap went to 150M, I would make so much money on an actual black market.

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To make a cap work, they'd have to take the amount of influence you could trade back down to 1M to make 800M transactions too much of a pain in the backside to do, no thanks.

What would happen if they did that is that the RMT crowd would move in and you'd buy the PVP IOs with one easy transaction.

Why purples are expensive:
1. More level 50s
2. Who generally have more Inf than old level 50s
3. Chasing less purple recipes

Increased Demand + Increased Demand + Decreased Supply

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I'd be the richest player in City of Heroes by hundreds of miles.

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Whoa man, I'm not saying you wouldn't or couldn't but don't you think there is a difference between confidence and drink too much of your own cool aide?

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I think Smurphy is already the richest person in Co*

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I'm actually pretty far from it now. I haven't thought of ways to spend Infamy/Influence that make me care enough to get more. I've grown too lazy and apathetic to marketeer. Sorry, making you Infamy/Influence won't return my motivation. I jokingly asked Mod 8 how much Inf would it cost to get my name on the Atlas Blimp once. He tried to make it clear that it was "out of my price range." I don't think I'd have trouble getting a 100 billion by the end of the year Though, it wouldn't be very fun. Maybe an hour a day of actual "work marketeering"

The statement about "richest player by miles" might not be an exaggeration. If price caps are created players are going to look to contact a person they knows has items available for sale. They are going to ask they're friends for names. I think it's a safe assumption to say that I have the largest presence of operating like a business on the two largest servers: Freedom and Virtue. If I wanted to put in the time I think I could operate a mega-store and negotiate with each individual customer. "Hire" a few friends, get a SG base or 12, pop out some google spreadsheets and we would essentially operate like any business. Plant ourselves afk next to BM/WW while we did other things. Buy goods just above the market cap prices. Sell way above that.

The most efficient thing to do would be for this forum to all get together and essentially make the consignment houses forum based. Every item that hits the BM/WW cap would be better traded via the forums and person to person trades. Maintain something close to equilibrium price on the boards.

What you'd do is post a trading price for that item. Players in game, trading amongst themselves would trade at that price. If it's clear that the whole inventory sells out then raise the price. If there are lots of people waiting around to sell the item then lower the price. Try to maintain a small buffer of people. Constantly adjust the price so the buffer stays about the same.

The City of Heroes market/economy is a super simple economy. If anything, it's too easy to apply economic theory.

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If I wanted to put in the time I think I could operate a mega-store and negotiate with each individual customer. "Hire" a few friends, get a SG base or 12, pop out some google spreadsheets and we would essentially operate like any business. Plant ourselves afk next to BM/WW while we did other things. Buy goods just above the market cap prices. Sell way above that.

The most efficient thing to do would be for this forum to all get together and essentially make the consignment houses forum based. Every item that hits the BM/WW cap would be better traded via the forums and person to person trades. Maintain something close to equilibrium price on the boards.

What you'd do is post a trading price for that item. Players in game, trading amongst themselves would trade at that price. If it's clear that the whole inventory sells out then raise the price. If there are lots of people waiting around to sell the item then lower the price. Try to maintain a small buffer of people. Constantly adjust the price so the buffer stays about the same.

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Price caps please, this sounds fun!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Sure, the devs are supposed to listen to their customers, mister business 101 out there. And if I decide to start suggesting that the devs change the game from being about superheroes and supervillains to being about clowns that is my right as well, and technically Paragon Studios is supposed to pay attention to me. But I hope strongly that they assume a meth-head somehow managed to hack into my forum account and make paper airplanes out of my posts, because I hope they recognize stupid when they see it. I assume they will recognize futile just as accurately.

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If I wanted to put in the time I think I could operate a mega-store and negotiate with each individual customer. "Hire" a few friends, get a SG base or 12, pop out some google spreadsheets and we would essentially operate like any business. Plant ourselves afk next to BM/WW while we did other things. Buy goods just above the market cap prices. Sell way above that.

The most efficient thing to do would be for this forum to all get together and essentially make the consignment houses forum based. Every item that hits the BM/WW cap would be better traded via the forums and person to person trades. Maintain something close to equilibrium price on the boards.

What you'd do is post a trading price for that item. Players in game, trading amongst themselves would trade at that price. If it's clear that the whole inventory sells out then raise the price. If there are lots of people waiting around to sell the item then lower the price. Try to maintain a small buffer of people. Constantly adjust the price so the buffer stays about the same.

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Price caps please, this sounds fun!

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Smurph-mart.

Well no one likes paying for something out of their own pocket, especially if its fake. I thought this was common knowledge?. The fun part of the game its teaming, killing mobs, looking heroic, using power sets, patrolling, etc. I don't find making 150 mil+ just to get one purple fun. I'm just not that masochistic. Then again I would have to ask, why do you enjoy the market? ultimately your making money off of others in order to IO out your own character correct?. So in the end its greed I'm assuming. You don't have to play the market, yet you defend it as if its your own child. I don't loathe the market, instead I ony find CERTAIN players behind it to be the real problem. The typical "I have more than you" mentallity.

As far as I can tell, JD asked for a lower amount of inf paid for a certain purp. Are you that fake money hungry that you can't see his opinion clearly?. Or do you seriously want to make that much money in order to feed some part of your ego that craves in game money. No where did anyone say the market should be taken out, I atleast didn't. Only that some prices be dropped. Your acting like an extremist over a video game....need a hug?, your acting out simply over someones opinion. Look out your window, its called the real world, I know it looks scary but eventually your going to go out there and play ball.

Honestly you guys I'm surprised no one has mentioned that a year ago it cost him over a billion inf to get a build with 3 purple sets and 7.5s/uniques.

That was my first clue that the OP fails at the market.

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Amazing how everyone in this section of the forums knows everything.....ever. even in the old PvP forums I;ve never seen a bunch of folks so full of themselves. You all go on patting yourself on the backs and feeding each others egos. I realize now why I've never posted here. You all are the most self righteous egotistical group I've ever seen. I suppose it takes a certain type of person to be drawn into the act of getting rich at the expense of other people. The sad thing you can't do it in real life and have to get your kicks in a video game...then act all high and mighty like your something special and talk down to people. Way to go guys. Good job.

Devs...1 billion inf is too much for one IO. Please do something. Thanks.

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Hmmm I find it amusing that you can extrapolate 4 names and 8 points plus a couple paragraphs into everyone in this forum section and into knowing every thing. It's no wonder you are having trouble grasping basic economics and it also explains why you are mistaking someone else's self confidence as ego while simultaneously failing to see egotism in yourself.

The 8 points I made, you can't refute, they are facts and are verifiable but I can give you a few more things and perhaps you'll get more of an idea that you are peeing into the wind, wasting your time, and asking the devs to do something that, so far, they have gone the opposite direction from.

1) With the exception of costume recipes (which are cosmetic only and don't change any game function), every patch that the devs have put into place that have any thing at all to do with "loot" and the market have been to make the best "loot" more rare not less rare.

2) Merits, which many hailed as "saving" the "casual" player from "unscrupulous marketeers," made pool C and D recipies more rare not less. Speedens averaging under 10 minutes, KHTFs averaging 20, and Virgils averaging 20 kept the market well supplied with moderately priced Pool C recipes. The merit standard is 1 recipe roll every 60 minutes. That means that merits cut supply by 66% (perhaps more).

a) Unspent merits means that it's cut farther.

b) The ability to spend all acumulated merits after hitting level 50 means that low level recipes have further decreased in supply since they aren't being created.

c) Direct purchase of recipes with 10 times the merits means that the market takes a further hit. Spending 250 merits for a LotG +7.5% means that the "greedy" "market hating" casual player screwed 9 other players out of the recipies that would have been created had each TF produced 1 recipe rather than multiple TFs resulting in a single recipe.

3) Tickets. The devs calculated what rewards would be dropping from a story driven MA arc based on the rewards that dropped from a story driven, dev created, arc and turned that into a ticket value that should have been equivalent except for several things which they failed to take into account.

a) Travel time. This is actually quite a hit on how much loot you get in playing dev created content especially when you consider that the content that allowed you to avoid much of the travel (radios/newspapers) doesn't reward merits.

b) Pruning the follage. Tickets allow you to skip much of the junk drops that you would have gotten and sold for influence.

i) All those non-origin matching enhancements. Poof, gone.

ii) All those enhancements that don't work in any of the powers you have. Poof, gone.

iii) All those common IO recipes that you would sell for influence. Poof, gone. You can use the influence that drops in the MA to buy them off the crafting table and save the tickets for more lucrative loot.

iv) All the "junk" rare salvage that used to drop (like diamonds) because it was only used for enhancements that few players/ATs could use/slot now converted into Deific Weapons and Enchanted Impervium which were always more in demand. Pre-MA it took about an hour to generate 1 piece of rare salvage and you never knew which piece it was going to be. The only control you had over it was tech or arcane by selecting the type of mobs you were fighting. Now an hours worth of MA allows you to buy anywhere from 3-6 pieces of rare salvage and exactly the piece you want.

v) All the truely junk yellow salvage that dropped. Poof, gone. 5 minutes of ticket generating will get you exactly the uncommon you want.

vi) Fighting easy tech based mobs like Freakshow (or even exploitively created custom mobs) raking in bunches of tickets and turning around and creating arcane salvage with it which is typically dropped only by the more difficult dev created arcane mobs.

In and of themselves each of these is not much but added together the MA was massively over rewarding tickets and by extrapolation "leet loot." Then the "casual" players got their hands on the MA and they took what the devs and the altruistic beta testers had determined as the appropriate awards, and turned it into arces and acres of exploitive massively fertilized farmland and cranked out tickets like the government prints dollars.

c) Meow farms and all the other exploitive over rewarding mobs.

d) Farms instead of stories. Missions that consist of one word story lines on the nature of "Go!" for the purpose of creating bags and bags of architect tickets that were rapidly turned into "leet loot" with ease and in record numbers of production.

4) Unmerged markets. More transactions available to more players make a less dynamic, more stable market, that has lower prices for the same amount of goods. If the devs wanted lower prices, especially red side, they would have merged the markets long ago.

The above was the level of supply you want and the dev response was ticket caps, threats of account bans, reward nerfs, mob nerfs, removal of maps , and removal of several features that were intended on being used for story driven content because players like yourself wanted to farm, what you wanted to farm, cheap and "nao"

The devs reduced supply from where you want it and put it back where they want it.

As far as getting rich at the expense of other people. No matter what that's a reality but it's not the fault of the business man. You can't get rich unless people spend. People that spend foolishly or fail to learn from their mistakes remain poor. You can try to teach them, you can try to help them, you can show them how to be comfortable but if they decide that it isn't for them, or it's too boring or what ever lame excuse they come up with so that they can do what they want, instead of what they should, and then stand around looking for a hand out when all they had to do was work diligently and spend wisely? I have little sympathy for them especially since I tried to help them and they wanted none of it.

As far as unable to do it in the real world? When I was working and in my prime I started 5, new business locations, with budgets that ranged from 1.2 million per year for the smallest location to 5.7 million per year for the largest (revenue was actually about 17% higher than budget)in a 4 year period. The last job I had I got a 2% bonus at the end of the year based on the company's revenue increase. I took a company that had an anual revenue of $997,000 and the end of the following year had a company that had an anual revenue of $2,100,000. My bonus that year was just a bit over $22,000 and my penny pinching ex-boss signed that check with a huge grin.

My wife and I bought a house last year just as the housing bubble was bursting. We got a house that was much lower priced than it's actual value at a time when interest rates had reached almost their lowest point. I took out a 30 year fixed interest loan for 1/4 a percentage point higher interest than the lowest it went and I'll have that loan paid off in less than 20 years all while paying $100 less per month than the rent on the much smaller house we rented when we moved here.

When the stock market did it's jig here recently I moved my investments around and lost only a tiny fraction (less than 3%)of my total investment. My portfolio has since recovered and is roughly 33% larger than it was last year at this time.

I got where I am by working my butt off and making smart decisions, not by expecting someone else to give me something for which I had done no work and which I didn't deserve. It's the reason that I can now spend my time gardening in my back yard, spend time with my grandkids, play CoH, and post on this forum.

So if you think that the self confidence I earned by a life time of hard work, weighing options, and making smart decisions is ego, well then, I'd rather be an egotist than lazy and poor.

Knight, its a video game, you seriously compared your life to an MMO, thats as sad is can possibly get. Real life is obviously different, certain "risk" factors apply. Why even bring it up, when were talking about a fake market. I understand your need or want to make it like RL, but thats just sad. The game should be just that. Whether people exploit, demand, complain, etc is irrelevant, as its just a game. When you log off you keep living your sad/boring/happy/eventful/depressing life. I don't care how much you make , what you've done, or how much you need. It's sad when a person has to defend an in game market with fake money. It's all just code man, its just a game.

"Look at my inf, look at my purple IO's, look at my furrows of worry, this has to be real". QFTT(quoted for twisted truth)

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I suppose it takes a certain type of person to be drawn into the act of getting rich at the expense of other people. The sad thing you can't do it in real life and have to get your kicks in a video game...then act all high and mighty like your something special and talk down to people. Way to go guys. Good job.


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It suppose it takes a certain type of person to be drawn into the act of dressing in spandex and killing gangsters with a katana. The sad thing you can't do it in real life and have to get your kicks in a video game...then act all high and mighty like your something special and talk down to people. Way to go guys. Good job.

Wait a minute...

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Well no one likes paying for something out of their own pocket, especially if its fake. I thought this was common knowledge?. The fun part of the game its teaming, killing mobs, looking heroic, using power sets, patrolling, etc. I don't find making 150 mil+ just to get one purple fun. I'm just not that masochistic. Then again I would have to ask, why do you enjoy the market? ultimately your making money off of others in order to IO out your own character correct?. So in the end its greed I'm assuming. You don't have to play the market, yet you defend it as if its your own child. I don't loathe the market, instead I ony find CERTAIN players behind it to be the real problem. The typical "I have more than you" mentallity.

As far as I can tell, JD asked for a lower amount of inf paid for a certain purp. Are you that fake money hungry that you can't see his opinion clearly?. Or do you seriously want to make that much money in order to feed some part of your ego that craves in game money. No where did anyone say the market should be taken out, I atleast didn't. Only that some prices be dropped. Your acting like an extremist over a video game....need a hug?, your acting out simply over someones opinion. Look out your window, its called the real world, I know it looks scary but eventually your going to go out there and play ball.

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I'm going to make an assumption. Please correct me if I am wrong.

You sound like one of those "if we all worked together and sold our Luck of the Gamblers for 10 Influence we'd all have Luck of the Gamblers" people.

You do realize that cannot work? There has to be some method of dividing stuff between players. There are many options: Lottery, Wait in line the longest, Someone arbitrarily deciding need, or whoever pays the most. The Black Market and Wentworth's work on the "he who pays the most" method. Purples prices simply reflect that. If you think purples are overpriced go out into the game, find them, and sell them or send the devs a PM.

Many posters here in the market forum have no issues with the developers increasing drop rate. A drop rate increase does increase the items available for players. A price cap does not. That is where poster's here have issues.

You are whining to the wrong people. Marketeers aren't making things this expensive. The developers create the drop rate. If you have a beef with 150M inf prices whine to them and not to us. Poster's in this section have a beef with players who are unable to comprehend that despite it being explained several times and in different ways.