Killing the Game?

lol

hey Black, what part of this statement didn't you understand? the people that understand how the markets work DO NOT price the things they are selling at the high prices. if that was the case their things would never sell. it is the unknowledgable people that price their goods high and the IWANTITNAO people that pay the high prices. if people stopped treating the market like a store and placed bids instead of tryin to buy everything right away then prices wouldn't be as high as they are.

with that said and i16 coming out soon we should see a drop in prices as it goes on.

I'm pretty sure that Black isn't actually reading the responses...unless someone wants to post about how "We're so sorry! We have seen the destruction and detriment of our ebil ways! Please, let us raid our storage and pull purples and rares off the market to give to you for a paltry sum to make up for us killing the game!!!!"

That being said, in the vain hope he's actually reading...as others have said, we list for what people will pay. If they aren't buying it, obviously it's listed too high, or no one wants it. If you want a completely purpled out character, your best bet is to figure out a way to make crap tons of inf, or figure out a purple farm to get the drops you want. Problem solved, and no need to deal with dirty, ebil marketeers.

And a bit more on this. I just got off a team of 5 people total (lvl 36-39). Before one member logged and was replaced, he went to Founders Falls to buy SOs.

The rest of the squad had no one running any set bonuses ('cept me who has them up the yin yang). Scanning the badges in between fights, no one has signs that they've made themselves generics (though a couple people may have had them)

I end up on teams of this type a lot. There is a large chunk of the populace who don't want to IO their characters. I think they stop by every once in awhile to proclaim they want to play City of Heroes, not City of Stockbrokers.

However, I fully support the solution to your problem: Just have Positron release I16 ASAP. Write him early, write him often.

No. Nor is there any indication that "we" are.

Pretty much every day, I sell something for 5M inf. It would take me ~56 such sales (after market fees) to earn one purple at those prices. Fortunately, I also defeat lots of level 50 mobs, play TFs for merits (and random rolls or outright purchases of some things), craft IOs and sell salvage, so that 4.5M inf probably comes with 2-5M other inf in income, bare minimum. And of course sometimes what I get is worth more than 10M inf, or sometimes I get two. Some days I get none, but I find that's the exception.

And sometimes what I get is actually a purple. Or a respec. Or a LotG proc. And I can sell those kinds of things pretty directly for a purple here and there.

(Who buys respec recipes anyway? I have respecs coming out of my ears on most characters, and we generally get a one-off every issue. I consider dropped respecs an excuse to make a killing on the market.)

In general, I earn something like 50-100M inf a week playing this game, depending on what side I'm on (hero or villain), and how many hours I have available to play. (I have a 9-5 job and a house to take care of.) And here's the kicker... I'm not a "marketeer". I'm not a hardcore farmer. I just play the game.

No. I'm one of a few trying to educate them that the above quoted statement is ignorant. It's false. It assumes that the market is like a grocery store, where you go only to buy, and does not consider that you can use it to sell things. Selling things earns you money. It can earn you lots of money if you spend a little time to understand how people bid when they try to purchase things, and how much things are really selling for. Those numbers on the market interface, number for sale, number bidding, and the last 5 sale prices and dates - they aren't a complete picture by any means, but they tell you a lot. You can learn a great deal from them if you pay attention to them over a few days on a given item or a few weeks just buying and selling different things.

I wouldn't touch those damn sites with a 10 foot pole. Why anyone would give them money for something they can do themselves escapes me.

Then you're doing it wrong. My guess, just because it's the most common way people "do it wrong" is that you're using the market for buying only. If that's true, then don't do that.

Hyperbole. The price of purples has nothing to do with being able to IO toons, because all IOs are not purples. If people stop playing because they can't purple their 50s, then they've missed the point. Purples are alternative progress for level 50 characters. They aren't something that's supposed to land in your lap when you ding 50. The devs expect you to work for them, and to take a while to get them. That's why they're ultra rare.

Sorry if this seems abrasive. We get asked this a lot, and it's really frustrating.

Supply of purples is down because a lot of playtime got moved to the AE where no purples can drop, Demand is up because there are a lot of 50s out there thanks to the hardcore PLing the early AE made possible. (It's still possible, it's just not as widespread.) Finally, a lot of players are immensely wealthy, because it's easy to achieve if you just play a level 50 a lot. Low supply, high demand and lots of disposable income = the price is high.

Expect I16 to do a lot for supply, but not quite as much for demand and available wealth.

This starts well...

No? What would the point in trying to kill the game we're playing be? You seriously can't think that way.

You're barking at the wrong tree here. It's not the marketeers who drive the prices up. Well, maybe it was us a bit, too, but it's mostly because of AE. You know, easy income, but no purples. Where does that lead? Logically (I know, I know, logic isn't allowed here!) it leads to a big number of people that have loads of inf, but no purples/respecs generated to keep or sell. Next step is, they all think "well, I gots teh monis" and they go to the market to buy their purples. Surprisingly no purples/respecs are present so they put outrageous bids to get the first purple/respec to enter the market. Each one of them bids more than the last which leads to rising prices.

I'm expecting the supply (or lack of thereof) purple and respec to curve upwards with the release of i16. Broken AE farms and improved capacity of "normal" farmers.

The normal player can very well afford these prices. I earned 1 billion inf in one month by playing the game approx half an hour a day on average.

Yessir! I very much like farming 20 hours a day, then selling the inf to those Spam Sites for $5 to let them sell it on at a higher price. It's just awesome!!

On a serious note, no. What did you expect?

The zero giveth, and the zero taketh away.

Cool. Me too.

Try harder? Earning inf is REALLY easy in this game. Mostly because it's being poured on you. It's just your decision whether you're keeping your pockets covered or not.

Yes. They couldn't IO their toons for the first 9 issues and yet no one left because of that!

And yet...

...

You found me out!

[insert eye roll here]

Sure they can.

Okay, wait--

Who do you think you're addressing?

We're just players here. We can't force anyone to spam sites.

Are you addressing the developers?

No, that can't be it. They can't force anyone to spam sites either.

Who're these magical beings you think you're addressing?

Your green hue is showing.

Whose market pricing?

Sure, why not?

My question exactly!

If you're riding down the street in your four-door canoe and one of the wings fall off, how many elephants are in an eggroll?

...

Your reaction to this question is likely a fair approximation of my own reaction to your posts.

Whoever these magical, all-powerful people you're addressing are... they're not here.

No one here sets prices on the market.

No one here has mysterious mental powers that can force other players to RMT services.

No one here is preventing you, or anyone else, from gathering the Inf you need to acquire what you want.

I can't tell you how many times I've listed things for X, only to have them sell for X + many more millions.

For example, not too long ago, I listed a PVP IO for 50 mil... which then promptly sold for 200 mil.

I assure you, no mental powers were employed to force someone to pay 4 times what I listed the item for.

So, you're barking up the wrong tree here.

Yesterday, I had a character hit level 22. Said character only had a little more than 300k Inf on hand. I wanted SOs. 300k Inf will not outfit a level 22 character with SOs. I needed more Inf.

So, I went to the AE building for 20-30 minutes and gained some tickets. Then I used those tickets to obtain 2nd and 1st tier common arcane salvage. Then I listed that salvage on the market.

By the time I had listed it all, I had already sold enough to bring me to 1.4 million. And by the time I had bought all my SOs, I had sold enough to bring me back over a million.

All this for approximately 45 minutes of effort on a level 22 character.

People who buy Inf from RMT services are, in my view, full goose bozo stupid. It is very easy to build wealth in this game. You need only apply yourself to do it.

However, I do share your opinion that the prices on certain items are "outrageous" right now.

But that's why I'm waiting 'til sometime after I16 to buy 'em.

There you go, foiling our plans.

Then learn to do without them.

I think it depends on what you mean normal players. I don't think of normal players trying to IO out their characters or needing purples.

Then I don't think you've much to worry about yet. Your new character won't be needing purples anytime soon, unless you are PLing her. You'll have plenty of time to build up some wealth. Or perhaps some of your exisiting 50's can work up some cash to get what you are looking for, or maybe even find some pieces from doing missions, tfs or arcs.

People played this game for years before IO's came along. And most of my in-game friends barely even bother with IO's, except for the occassional shiny.

Nope, I'm only trying to kill critters in the game, for which the citizenry of Paragon City are more than happy to reward me.

Today, I picked up $2 worth of lemonade powder, sugar and ice cubes for my efforts and then I mixed it and sold $10 worth of lemonade on the sidewalk. Now I can buy a big purple Barney at the Goodwill store.

/eyeroll
The subject line in the market forum says everything you need to know about this post without having to read it.

Hi Black_Strike

That's good because the supply of Flame Retardant Anti-Troll Rant spray is really really low. Seems no one is doing missions under the bridge to create any. They are all off playing skee ball in Pixie Hollow.

ok.................

/e Shoots an arrow at the game.
Hmmm it's still alive.
/e Shoots another arrow at the game.
Hmmm it's still alive.
/e Shoots another arrow at the game.
Hmmm it's STILL alive.

Hmmmm.... Hey guys did the devs finally put Healing Arrow into the Trick Arrow set? No?

I guess that must mean that control of whether the game lives or dies is in the hands of those whose daily bread is provided by it and not by the players. It would also seem to be in their best interest to keep the game alive.

Since I have absolutely no control over that why are you asking me?

Adding Villians and siphoning off Heros didn't kill the game.
Adding PvP didn't kill the game.
Nerfing defense and adding ED didn't kill the game.
Adding Inventions didn't kill the game.
Adding the market didn't kill the game.
Changing PvP didn't kill the game (unless you were only here for base raids in which case it's dead for you)
Adding AE didn't kill the game.

Last time I checked this wasn't SWG NGE. Our Devs haven't screwed up. The game seems just as lively and busy (busier actually) than when I first signed up more than 4 YEARS ago.

Imaginary money, for an imaginary doohicky, that goes in an imaginary slot, in an imaginary power, in an imaginary hero. I'm hoping your outrage is imaginary too.

If it's that expensive do you really need that extra .05% performance boost from slotting it or will the 20,000,000 rares work for you instead? If so spend about 8 hours playing level 50 content, get an Ultra rare purple drop and sell it for craziness and then turn around and buy a crap ton of rares to slot ALL your powers and live with them being .05% less enhanced.

Plan better.

Respec Recipes to me are just a crap ton of free money because I plan ahead.

Copy your toon to the test server and try the power out before taking it on live. That's one of the reasons that the test server is there.

There's been a freespec handed out every issue since as far back as I can remember.

You can get 3 free ones from playing the game plus all the ones they give out as vet rewards.

You still need more? You wouldn't be a US Senator or Representative by any chance would you?

Normal players should be slotting Normal enhancements (SOs).
Common players should be slotting Common IOs.
Uncommon players should be able to slot Uncommon IOs.
The Rare player should be able to slot Rare IOs.
Ultra Rare players should be able to slot Ultra Rare IOs.

So you want NORMAL players to jump the que by 4 magnitudes and slot Ultra Rares with Normal effort. Here's a brilliant plan for you..................

WORK FOR IT YOURSELF. Do what ever you do best and make influence at it. The longer and harder you work the higher up the ladder you go all by yourself. Some people have a sense of accomplishment by working toward a goal. The tougher the odds the sweeter the victory. If you want maximum rewards for minimum effort then may I suggest Candyland as a more appropriate pass time?

As far as buying from spam sites..... Cure a problem (that doesn't exist by the way) by throwing money at it? Are you sure you aren't a politician?

/e turns out left front pocket.
No spam.
/e turns out right front pocket.
No spam.
/e pats left rear pocket.
No spam there either.
/e pats right rear pocket.
Ah ha!!! ........ nope thats just my wallet. No spam, influence or (alas) real word cash there. Just some finger prints left by the politicians.

<brilliant idea!> /e runs to check the pantry...... Doh! no spam there either. I guess you are just out of luck. I'm not an INF provider for Spam. Why? Were you wanting to buy influence perhaps?

Um....... here's a list of organizations that give. American Institute of Philanthropy

That's amazing! Me too!

Perhaps that's the point. If you could just get the best of every thing by clicking a button you'd all ready be done and bored by now. I know I would.

Why not? It takes the same amount of damage and effort to drop a mob for everyone. Pick an AT that works well and quickly for you and go get some drops. That's how supply makes it to the market in the first place. If people are buying for those prices that means someone is selling for those prices. If that someone is you, then suddenly you can afford all that stuff too.

Well we went 9 Issues without any IOs at all and people played then. I still have a couple of 50s that are all level 53 SOs except for a handful of HamiO and one toon I haven't played in ages that has a TitanO. All the old stuff is still there and so is all the old content it was designed to work with and, amazingly, it even works with all the new content..... So yeah I think people will still play. SOME PEOPLE even use that little setting on the Flashback system so that enhancements have no effect ZOMG!!!! How can they do that? No IOs? No enhancements at all? Where can I download the Hack called SKILL?

/e facepalm