On-screen retail price for markets

I was going through selling items at Wentworth's when I began to wonder what the retail price was of some of the items being bought and sold.

For instance, I rarely auction recipes. I'll take it to a store and sell it there because often I'll get a much better price for them. I've found this to be true especially true for the non-invention recipes (i.e. flight, damage, accuracy, etc.).

But there are some items where you have to wonder whether you're getting a good price for them.

So my suggestion is this: how about having a suggested retail price in the item description?

For Wentworths, have it called the Wentworth Retail Listing.
For the Black Market, have it called the Arbiter Retail Value.

This would be listed at the bottom of the item description screen when you put an item up for bidding, and it would be the price that you would get if you were to take the item to a regular store to sell it.

For instance, let's say you're a blue-sider and you have a luck charm in your salvage bin. You take it to Wentworth's and you drop it into the bidding slot. In the item description window (after you click the "MORE" button) it gives a quick listing of what the item is, and then at the bottom of the window it gives the "Wentworth Retail Listing" at 425i.

In other words, if you put it back into your salvage bin and took it to a store or a quartermaster or sold it to one of your contacts, you'd get 425 influence.

Of course luck charms have a great market value, so when you look at the bidding history and you see that recently these things have sold for 10,000i or even as high as 125,000i, then you know you would be better off putting it up for bidding than to sell it at retail value.

But let's suppose the market tanks on luck charms. It COULD happen. You check the history and it says the most the luck charm has been sold for recently is 100i. That's not to say that the auction price wouldn't go back up to 10,000i, or that someone wouldn't just mad-drop 50,000i just to guarantee the purchase. It just says that right now you would probably get more if you took it to the store instead of auctioning it and hoping it would bring the price up.

Obviously there would be some items that you can't sell to a store. 2nd and 3rd-tiered inspirations quickly come to mind. In those situaions, the retail price would be seen as "N/A".

I know that giving an on-screen retail price would create an artificial bottom for prices, especially for the low-valued items. Bear in mind, though, that even though the LISTED price would be seen, it wouldn't be a requirement. Caveat Emptor still rules the markets. The real price would STILL be what the market will bear. This would just be a helpful guide for those who don't have more than one computer at their gaming disposal.

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Now, prior to sending this post, I searched the forums on this subject and found quite a few threads about trying to make sense of the markets.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=123821
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=142176

and even a Salvage Price Guide

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=121013

and a few posts about wanting to merge Wentworths and the Black Market, which apparently is not popular.

But I have not seen any mention for this kind of idea. So for those who take perverse pride in thread-killing ideas by saying "Search is your friend", FRAG YOU!

For the rest of the people... Agree? Disagree? (No /signed or /unsigned or /jrangers please.)

Hmmm...

Somewhat tempted to /sign, if only so that people will maybe stop trying to sell Generic IO recipes for more than the crafting table does....

I like both ideas here.

Retail price at WW, last 5 WW at vendors. The retail price isn't a big deal for me, I know roughly what I'll get for most stuff. The last 5 WW sales would be VERY useful for me.

If I don't play for a few days I'll vendor things that have had a price jump since I was on last. It's logical...last I checked a Brass was going for 100 inf, so I vendor it. Then I go to buy one to craft something and find that they're 10k now. It happens quite often if I'm in a zone where there is no WW and my next mission doesn't take me near one.