How to solve WW/BM Inflation


Ad Astra

 

Posted

I got two purples about half a month ago.
I was on a level 8 Tanker, sk'd on a friends mission in the RWZ. I had, before then, never got a Purple Drop. Or, for that matter, any half-decent rare drops.

I guess that makes me a damn dirty inf farmer, eh?
It's all so much luck. This is why I stick to vanilla IO'ing my characters at 47, and building up slowly when and/or if I ever get the chance.

The market, t'me, is a game for people who have far more time and inclination to grind than I do. More power to them.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon View Post
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike View Post
In short, BITE ME. If you want to avoid the market over something neither you, nor I, nor any other non-dev player can control KNOCK YOURSELF OUT. Stop casting aspersions at me and others who use the market because some impatient jack-hole MIGHT decide to use RMT and the money would flow back to us.



Oh yeah. You "talked with them" before coming to your moral decision? Okay...



Hate to say it kiddo, but yeah. Yeah you did.



Yet you began the post I'm responding to now by DOING THE SAME DAMN THING!



What you're practicing your "ethics" in the same way the Westboro Baptist Church practices theirs.

So pardon my blatant disgust.


I'm picketing your home/place of work and declaring that a higher power hates you?

I thought I was chatting on a forum and verbally debating/arguing/dickering about my opinion.

Man, I need to get me a bunch of signs and some chilluns to carry them, 'cause chilluns generate sympathetic response!

Pardon my inability to take you seriously.



Quote:
That works out to about 480 people. The last numbers we got for player population were in the neighborhood of 125,000 players.

That's about .384%. So for every one person you have producing PVP IOs, you have AT LEAST 260 people who aren't, and a good chunk of those want PVP IOs too.

Adjust for the fact that not all PVPers are looking to produce IOs at the fastest possible rate.
Adjust for the stupid-low drop rate of the IOs themselves.
Adjust for the fact that at least some of the product is being consumed internally (people who generate PVP IOs are using them themselves)
Adjust for the fact that not all of the PVP IOs are considered "valuable".
Plus whatever factors I don't have time to think about right now.

Is it REALLY any wonder that they're as rare and expensive as they are?
Adjust for a bulk majority dispensation source retaining sufficient surplus to maintain the largely-monopolized market.

Adjust for the fact that said market is self contained in that the only -easy- way to afford those IO's is to buy inf.

Adjust for the fact that an FFA of 8 friends of mine that got drug out and rehashed for about 5 hours generated 3 PVP IO drops between the lot of them.

You're really oblivious to how relatively easy it is to farm those things if you've got the fortitude, friends and/or spare accounts to gank as quickly as possible, aintcha.

Wanna know how to control that badass PVP IO market? Buy everything that's valuable and goes on sale. Keep 1 up there at all times until it sells, maybe 2. Let non-involved flippers play a bit with the others, but keep the top-inf selling pieces locked down and be prepared at all times to buy out everything in excess of 3.

Oh how do I know!? I researched that market a lil' bit when I found myself sitting on a couple of PVP IO's, one of which was listed in the history as selling for 1b each iteration.

I flipped a profit of 700m in -ten minutes- by listing that thing for 1.7b above and beyond the previous 5's going rate. SOMEONE GAVE ME 700m yo!

...now, who does that? Why would they do that? Could it just have been someone that went "WANT!" and started typing in 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 on up to my listing price before they yoinked it and damn the cost?

Sure!

But I've been informed that this isn't uncommon behavior. That if I had 20 of those IO's and listed them for 2b, they'd sell, probably within 10 minutes, and that it wouldn't be 'typical players' buying them.

It'd be inf sellers, and the high-ball flippers, making sure their control of supply doesn't get f'd up...with the occasional player thrown in there that just had poor impulse control.

Have I been lied to, perhaps?

Maybe the ~3 billion dollar gold marketing industry is actually just dumb people that don't know as much as -you- about how things /really/ work, and surely don't seed, wipe and manipulate markets in games like these to acquiesce to their desired patterns of supply and demand.

Why, if they could do that...such things could...could happen in real life!

PEOPLE MIGHT ACTUALLY ROB BANKS!

But hey, at least in RL, we can take out loans via legitimate channels for making biiiiig purchases. All kinds of loans!

But what did people do before they could...realistically do that or things like it? Before such things were, y'know, existant and available?

Well, they robbed stuff a lot. A brief -glance- at history might inform you of some startling things. Heck, don't even look tooooooo far back. Just the, well, Great Depression'll do just fine.

Hmm. HMM!

Incidentally, and tangentially, I recently met folks in an SG that have their own little banking system set up in it. It was pretty darn neat, and they ran it like an actual bank in which members could apply for loans and pay them back in incremental fashions on a modest percentage of profit for the SG as a whole.

I'd have my doubts about the enforceability of recouping loan amounts from welchers, but the ones I spoke with said it worked out really well for them, people's max loans were based on how long they'd been in the SG (tied it in to tenure and investiture; smart!) and they didn't have a problem with people paying it back with the modest interest.

And that they, in fact, wound up helping their own folks pay back their loans anyway just for all the TF's and missions and whatnot they all ran together with frequency!

O'LAWD, and also that they didn't have any problem with keeping their noses clean in terms of having nadda to do with the inf sellers; didn't need them, the SG had over 100b it could tap into for loans anyway.


So uh...yeah. People have a tendency not to steal (or break the EULA?) when they don't perceive a need to.

/Tend/ not to. Tendency, which means something that will occur in most cases most of the time.

Adjust for the truly lazy/entitlement-motivated, adjust for the exceptionally greedy and/or impatient, and you've got the bulk of your exceptions to that trend hallmarked.

So really, what were you trying to say again? I couldn't hear you over the sound of your inexplicable insistence on denying the validity of human psychology is.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike View Post
In short, BITE ME. If you want to avoid the market over something neither you, nor I, nor any other non-dev player can control KNOCK YOURSELF OUT. Stop casting aspersions at me and others who use the market because some impatient jack-hole MIGHT decide to use RMT and the money would flow back to us.



Oh yeah. You "talked with them" before coming to your moral decision? Okay...



Hate to say it kiddo, but yeah. Yeah you did.



Yet you began the post I'm responding to now by DOING THE SAME DAMN THING!



What you're practicing your "ethics" in the same way the Westboro Baptist Church practices theirs.

So pardon my blatant disgust.


I'm picketing your home/place of work and declaring that a higher power hates you?

I thought I was chatting on a forum and verbally debating/arguing/dickering about my opinion.

Man, I need to get me a bunch of signs and some chilluns to carry them, 'cause chilluns generate sympathetic response!

Pardon my inability to take you seriously.



Quote:
That works out to about 480 people. The last numbers we got for player population were in the neighborhood of 125,000 players.

That's about .384%. So for every one person you have producing PVP IOs, you have AT LEAST 260 people who aren't, and a good chunk of those want PVP IOs too.

Adjust for the fact that not all PVPers are looking to produce IOs at the fastest possible rate.
Adjust for the stupid-low drop rate of the IOs themselves.
Adjust for the fact that at least some of the product is being consumed internally (people who generate PVP IOs are using them themselves)
Adjust for the fact that not all of the PVP IOs are considered "valuable".
Plus whatever factors I don't have time to think about right now.

Is it REALLY any wonder that they're as rare and expensive as they are?
Adjust for a bulk majority dispensation source retaining sufficient surplus to maintain the largely-monopolized market.

Adjust for the fact that said market is self contained in that the only -easy- way to afford those IO's is to buy inf.

Adjust for the fact that an FFA of 8 friends of mine that got drug out and rehashed for about 5 hours generated 3 PVP IO drops between the lot of them.

You're really oblivious to how relatively easy it is to farm those things if you've got the fortitude, friends and/or spare accounts to gank as quickly as possible, aintcha.

Wanna know how to control that badass PVP IO market? Buy everything that's valuable and goes on sale. Keep 1 up there at all times until it sells, maybe 2. Let non-involved flippers play a bit with the others, but keep the top-inf selling pieces locked down and be prepared at all times to buy out everything in excess of 3.

Oh how do I know!? I researched that market a lil' bit when I found myself sitting on a couple of PVP IO's, one of which was listed in the history as selling for 1b each iteration.

I flipped a profit of 700m in -ten minutes- by listing that thing for 1.7b above and beyond the previous 5's going rate. SOMEONE GAVE ME 700m yo!

...now, who does that? Why would they do that? Could it just have been someone that went "WANT!" and started typing in 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 on up to my listing price before they yoinked it and damn the cost?

Sure!

But I've been informed that this isn't uncommon behavior. That if I had 20 of those IO's and listed them for 2b, they'd sell, probably within 10 minutes, and that it wouldn't be 'typical players' buying them.

It'd be inf sellers, and the high-ball flippers, making sure their control of supply doesn't get f'd up...with the occasional player thrown in there that just had poor impulse control.

Have I been lied to, perhaps?

Maybe the ~3 billion dollar gold marketing industry is actually just dumb people that don't know as much as -you- about how things /really/ work, and surely don't seed, wipe and manipulate markets in games like these to acquiesce to their desired patterns of supply and demand.

Why, if they could do that...such things could...could happen in real life!

PEOPLE MIGHT ACTUALLY ROB BANKS!

But hey, at least in RL, we can take out loans via legitimate channels for making biiiiig purchases. All kinds of loans!

But what did people do before they could...realistically do that or things like it? Before such things were, y'know, existant and available?

Well, they robbed stuff a lot. A brief -glance- at history might inform you of some startling things. Heck, don't even look tooooooo far back. Just the, well, Great Depression'll do just fine.

Hmm. HMM!

Incidentally, and tangentially, I recently met folks in an SG that have their own little banking system set up in it. It was pretty darn neat, and they ran it like an actual bank in which members could apply for loans and pay them back in incremental fashions on a modest percentage of profit for the SG as a whole.

I'd have my doubts about the enforceability of recouping loan amounts from welchers, but the ones I spoke with said it worked out really well for them, people's max loans were based on how long they'd been in the SG (tied it in to tenure and investiture; smart!) and they didn't have a problem with people paying it back with the modest interest.

And that they, in fact, wound up helping their own folks pay back their loans anyway just for all the TF's and missions and whatnot they all ran together with frequency!

O'LAWD, and also that they didn't have any problem with keeping their noses clean in terms of having nadda to do with the inf sellers; didn't need them, the SG had over 100b it could tap into for loans anyway.


So uh...yeah. People have a tendency not to steal (or break the EULA?) when they don't perceive a need to.

/Tend/ not to. Tendency, which means something that will occur in most cases most of the time.

Adjust for the truly lazy/entitlement-motivated, adjust for the exceptionally greedy and/or impatient, and you've got the bulk of your exceptions to that trend hallmarked.

So really, what were you trying to say again? I couldn't hear you over the sound of your inexplicable insistence on denying the validity of human psychology.


 

Posted

Wall of text is hurting my brain...

You seen anyone about this, by the way? The obsession with RMT and bank robbing, drugs and...stuff...sounds like a real case of paranoia.
I only wish I was kidding, too.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon View Post
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Redoubtable View Post
I believe that the technical term for this is "an economy".

In all seriousness, if both buyers and sellers are responsible for pricing levels then we have exactly the market we deserve and there is no problem.
Yeah, an economy that had 4-5 Double XP/Inf weekends, RMT sellers/buyers, rampant farming of Inf and Merits, and drop rate bugs (which is why the drop rates haven't kept up) distort it. Just because RMTs aren't really a part of the ongoing problem now, it doesn't mean they were not a part of the problem in the past.

The market is flawed, deeply and seriously flawed. Something needs to be done because it is broken.




Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

 

Posted

Okay, once again, TIME OUT!

Is Uruare's point here that if we want purples and PVP IOs to come down to a reasonable price we need to not buy them and not buy inf from sellers?

I've never spent more than 100M on a purple (My purpled out character's an MM, so he doesn't use any of the really expensive ones), I've never bought a PVP IO and I've never bought infamy from infamy farmers.

The market's not fixed yet.

What am I doing wrong?

On that matter, you're clearly following your own guidelines. What are you doing wrong? You've long since decided that this is something the players can fix, so if you and I can fix it, why isn't it fixed?

Is it because I'm not really committed? Or is it because your idea hinges on a hundred thousand players all being committed to this idea, and even if it's viable, it only works if everybody agrees, works together, and understands your thought process?


NPCs: A Single Method to Greatly Expand Bases

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike View Post
In short, BITE ME. If you want to avoid the market over something neither you, nor I, nor any other non-dev player can control KNOCK YOURSELF OUT. Stop casting aspersions at me and others who use the market because some impatient jack-hole MIGHT decide to use RMT and the money would flow back to us.
I refuse to start a company, and I refuse to pay cash for anything. If I did, I might be getting money that MURDERERS used!


http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike View Post
That works out to about 480 people. The last numbers we got for player population were in the neighborhood of 125,000 players.

That's about .384%. So for every one person you have producing PVP IOs, you have AT LEAST 260 people who aren't, and a good chunk of those want PVP IOs too.

Adjust for the fact that not all PVPers are looking to produce IOs at the fastest possible rate.
Adjust for the stupid-low drop rate of the IOs themselves.
Adjust for the fact that at least some of the product is being consumed internally (people who generate PVP IOs are using them themselves)
Adjust for the fact that not all of the PVP IOs are considered "valuable".
Plus whatever factors I don't have time to think about right now.

Is it REALLY any wonder that they're as rare and expensive as they are?
Irrelevant when the market isn't supplied by organic means. Really, do you -truly believe- that the pvp IO cartels inf-sellers maintain don't have a pretty good lockdown on this?


Quote:
Squirtgun in a firestorm.
Clearly, you do.




Quote:
The "typical" player (whatever that supposedly is) isn't being marginalized. That doesn't mean they should be allowed to simply pick up extremely rare recipies/IOs for little more than the price of a piece of common salvage.
Who's suggesting that they should? Black and white perspective on the matter much?




Quote:
No. Nothing "pushes people to RMT" other than greed. The prices on the market are a function of how the market works. What you're trying to claim is something along the lines of "The prices of super-high-end sports cars pushes people to rob banks".
And greed just 'happens', of course. In whatever world it is you live in, things clearly just 'happen' and just 'are', nobody has any control over or impact upon any of them and it's all just kinda...'there'. Isn't it.

What motivates greed? What amplifies desire into a sense of need? What is it exactly that can turn a reputable, generally honest player into an inf-buyer?

I assure you, the answer is quite similar to what can turn a normally honest and non-violent person into a murderous thief quite easily.

And that answer is? A perception of need.

You really think that doesn't apply though, huh?

Quote:
Obviously not true.
You work towards your goal or you do without. One of the few truly plain and simple things out there.
Some work very hard for what they've got. Others get without very much work at all. It's quite easy do so that in the context of CoX. All you need is some spare cash and you can literally buy your way out of having to spend many a week, month or even year working hard for anything at all.

So uh...that which I'm really villifying here? The gold market and that which sustains and supports it? It's laughing at you while proving you wrong. Whatcha gon' do about that, Chuckles?



Quote:
Yep. And those are the ones who'll get their account locked and have to completely do without their toon.
Just the number of people that have admitted to me -personally- of having bought inf makes it rather clear that this is a futile, near-baseless threat.

How many more were just too smart to admit it or talk about it? It's like trying to count the number of people that had sex before they were adults; just those that admit it indicate some staggering numbers, and how many more simply never admit it?

HMM!

Amazingly, I've talked to all these people in game. My queries about how they avoided getting caught tended to revolve around the synoptic answer of "I didn't brag about it." or "I didn't buy a lot at one time. Billion here, billion there."

See, while I'm sure that the devs can and very well -might- track every transaction that occurs...well, gosh, there's so many legit players with craptons of money that they can't look at a transfer of 2b and go "GOT ONE!"

'Cause very likely, they don't. They -might-, but they probably actually don't.

So, short of these inf buyers identifying themselves by some means, how exactly do you propose that your catch-all there even works?

'Cause from where I'm seeing things, it's a deterrant threat that the Devs have been rather kind enough to not take a size HUGE hammer after. They'd squash a lot of legit players if they did; players that weren't actually doing anything wrong.

PR nightmare! Not that such things really stop certain other companies like Microsoft or Sony or EA, but maybe you'll start to see just what I'm pointing at if you consider it -outside your very small box for just one second-.

Y'know, that box in which you think everything you want to believe is true and everything else, like human psychology and socio-economic factors, is irrelevant.



Quote:
No, it'll decrease because people start publicly, messily losing accounts.
Would be true if that happened more often, sure. WILL happen if it starts happening more often, but man, it's gonna be a rough day when catch-all mechanical solutions have to come into force to prohibit even the possibility of gold marketing.

'Cause they will squash you. And me. And everyone, somewhere, somehow.

Ya really just don't -get- basic relativity and the relationships of causal factors, I think.

The -only thing- that is going to bring people to getting squashed by the Devs for inf buying -will be- mechanical solutions.

There's no freaking way to identify a gold buyer from someone transfering inf to a buddy. None.

All they can actually do without creating a PR nightmare (and they're not gonna do thaaaaaat) is squash the ones they can identify within reasonable doubt.

They've made it harder for the gold marketers to operate. Trial accounts have suffered in experiential quality for this, amongst a considerable number of other mitigations.

How to curb the gold market without squashing the legit players? Heck of a conundrum, that is; -heck- of a conundrum, especially when the gold marketers are operating within the -technical parameters- of what any ol' player can do.

No player is technically prevented from farming quite a number of repeatable missions. Some of the most abused ones had timers thrown on them, but frankly, there are still so many farm-convenient missions available down a short arc chain (if even that) that it doesn't really matter anyway.

Now, could they monitor simultaneous connections from a single IP and limit the number of active connections, to further curb farmers' abilities to mega-farm? Sure. Heck, maybe they already do and I just don't know about it. What 'normal player' needs to have 20 accounts going at once? Or even 10? Or 5?

What about 1? They could do 1. Easy-peasy you bet they could.

But, there it is. The gold marketers can run 10, 20, 30+ instances of the game at one time from the same place and, I presume, rake it in by FFAing with themselves for max-kills-per-hour.

HMM!

So yeah. I know it doesn't fit well in your little box of a world in which things 'just happen' and 'just are', but there are causes and causes for the causes and factors that impact upon -seemingly irrelevant and unconnected aspects of the matter- that...you really, in all your posts, seem willfully and deliberately dismissive of.

Some pretty dang obvious ones, if you think that it's /easy/ to sift the inf buyers/sellers from the legit farmers and multi-account owners.

Which is -all- to say that, if it worked, it'd be happening. As it is, it doesn't really work, a lot of people get away with it and the only ones that seem to get caught are the ones that were inept and somehow brought themselves to being identified as such.



Quote:
I understand what you're attempting to say. It's just wrong.
You're perfectly welcome to not agree with me, of course, though your demonstrated qualifications and familiarities with actually knowing what you're talking about make me wonder if you ever actually leave this forum to acquire your opinions and basis for believing them.

You've got yourself a nice little box built there of your opinions and beliefs, and clearly a small band of others that find you either charismatic or compelling enough, for whatever reasons they favor, to agree with you.

S'fine. You have, in the course of your own expansive assertions, framed quite a few very relevant and impactful aspects demanding consideration as irrelevant or baseless.

Human psychology, presumably because you know little to nothing meaningful of it, does not seem to factor into your comprehension of market conditions, socio-economic trends or just what it is that motivates -people- in a marketing environment in the first place.

Instead, you attribute everything to said-nothing-at-all buzzwords like 'Greed' and 'Lazy' and consider, so it seems, all your thinking done.

Oh how I wish I could live in a world as simple as that. That world where things just 'are' and stuff just 'happens' and we have no impact on or control over any of it.

Why, we wouldn't be responsible for anything, not even things we did or supported or profited on or anything at all. We could just do whatever, all day long, and it would just be stuff 'happening'.

Sounds like you've got yourself well fortified in that ivory tower of your'n, fella. Have fun with that.



Quote:
And more, because obtaining massive quantities of "ultra-rare" items is now trivialized, it removes the impetus for some people to continue playing.
I suppose it would remove the impetus for those that have some sort of misplaced emotional dependancy on feeling superior or 'elite' in contrast to everyone else, as the argumentations to maintain a wide margin of disparity in terms of availability all seem to centralize in one synoptic theme.

The words 'trivialized' and 'devalued' are heavy indicators of precisely what the real currency is that is so coveted in the metacontext of the matter.

See, there are some people that play games like these with the casual interest of socializing, beating around with friends and generally not making a profession out of the game.

While they're quite able to do that to most extents, the sum of all your protestations is this : Those people shouldn't have access to the best stuff. They don't need it and they don't deserve it unless they make a profession out of the game.

My return to that is: Really? That's justification for maintaining a market that CASUAL PLAYERS (yep, I said it. Again) that don't farm a lot and don't care to play wallstreet can't participate in without buying inf?

'Cause, y'know, it's a lot easier for people like that to buy inf. I know you think such people don't exist (or maybe they just don't exist in your box, like human psychology and socio-economic factors don't), but the fact of the matter is simple.

There's this big, huge gulf in availability between the best stuff and the second best stuff.

EEEEENORMOUS! It's amazingly gigantic! Insert descriptive expletive here!

Is that ok? Yeah, it would be, if the inf sellers weren't most of why that is so and weren't the ones doing the bulk of the profiting on that disparity.

But hey. You're making yours, man. S'all that matters, right brah?


 

Posted

Casual players dont need purples.
They want them. And if they want them bad enough... They will save up their toppens to get them.

Stop whining over the casual player, when you YOURSELF said you have already purpled your characters.

If you have already farmed and already purpled your alts, Why are you in here whining?

:edit:

I have never bought money from INF sellers. Why is it that you seem so stuck on RMTers? Is it because your guilty?
You know you can turn your email off in your options and never get another email from an INF seller.

You seem like someone who is worried your account is gonna get BANNED because you bought money, and that is why you are here making such a big deal over a big fat nothing.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by CapnGeist View Post
Okay, once again, TIME OUT!

Is Uruare's point here that if we want purples and PVP IOs to come down to a reasonable price we need to not buy them and not buy inf from sellers?

I've never spent more than 100M on a purple (My purpled out character's an MM, so he doesn't use any of the really expensive ones), I've never bought a PVP IO and I've never bought infamy from infamy farmers.

The market's not fixed yet.

What am I doing wrong?

On that matter, you're clearly following your own guidelines. What are you doing wrong? You've long since decided that this is something the players can fix, so if you and I can fix it, why isn't it fixed?

Is it because I'm not really committed? Or is it because your idea hinges on a hundred thousand players all being committed to this idea, and even if it's viable, it only works if everybody agrees, works together, and understands your thought process?

Yeah, pretty much. I did say it was unrealistic in an above post, and you've pointed out why.

But, I got it off my chest. The heck else is any of this good for, if not that?

I'm not going to inform anybody of anything amazing that they're actually giong to care about. Har har, I'm not -that- dumb.

Frankly, I'm venting. I've been digging into this and conducting casual, observational studies of things just to amuse myself for a while, 'cause hey, some people have fun flipping markets, I have fun generating little bits and bytes of observational data on ground-level things like drop rates.

We've all got our oddities, and that's mine. However...digging into the gold market's underscoring methods and mannerisms hurt my brain.

The goggles, they do nothing, and the brainbleach doesn't help.

So, yeah. I'm carrying on like a panicked squirrel; I know it, I'm admitting it, 'cause it's true.

I'm sure some people are -VERY OFFENDED- by my opinions, but I'm not going to apologize for them, 'cause I'd just be lying. I'm not sorry.

I am, however, pretty well given to thinking that we're going to have to do something about this.

The Dev's can't really do anything that won't flatten us all under a very discomfiting boot, and with GR coming down the pipe, I am very much convinced that they're not going to be too eager to sally forth in an attempt to revitalize this ol' game without cleaning up house.

Maybe I'm wrong. I could be wrong, I might well -be- wrong about that, certainly.

I dunno. I know what I'd be doing if I were them, and that'd be quietly preparing a nuclear strike from orbit on some of the oldest, most damaging problems going.

At least, if I could bank on the influx of new players generated by a shiny new expansion possibly being forecast as sufficient to make up for those that'd make rude gestures at me of the old-crowd and stomp off.

So yeah, kinda worried. Kinda legitimately worried, I think.

I really do wish I could think of something more realistic to do than join hands and sing kumbayah about it, but eh.

I really can't. Can we fix it? I'd love to try, but it's prolly just F'd.

So...I'll come off the "ARGH!" kick now.


 

Posted

actually P_P, it sounds like he is one of these RMT peeps. he is just trying to hide his sales pitch in long, drawn out posts. this would not surprise me as infl/inf can be made hand over fist over feet over leg over bunghole and the RMT sites probably aren't doing so well. the last time i think i got an in-game email, i think it was 1 bil for $17. so obviously they are suffering from people not buying anymore.

i, as well as many others have said, the only way for prices to start coming down is to create more infl/inf sinks that are just interesting enough for people to use but not so attrative as to keep people from doing other things.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain View Post
Casual players dont need purples.
They want them. And if they want them bad enough... They will save up their toppens to get them.

Stop whining over the casual player, when you YOURSELF said you have already purpled your characters.

If you have already farmed and already purpled your alts, Why are you in here whining?

:edit:

I have never bought money from INF sellers. Why is it that you seem so stuck on RMTers? Is it because your guilty?
You know you can turn your email off in your options and never get another email from an INF seller.

You seem like someone who is worried your account is gonna get BANNED because you bought money, and that is why you are here making such a big deal over a big fat nothing.
I *think* it's that Uruare is a "true believer" that his/her ethics are the only correct way to believe and/or play this game (which I believe is sometimes about robbing folks of their stuff and selling homeless to mad scientists for testing, occasionally about taking over the world, so ironic).

And is about "championing" the downtrodden new player and that mythical "casual player".

Note that a "casual player" apparently can't have *any* 50s at all if you look at Uruare's last diatribe in response to my posts calling him/her long-winded, condescending and "holier than thou" - but if that's the case, that would be just another reason this "casual player" doesn't need purples, right?

Oh, well, I guess I'm just not that ethical or moral. I just don't see that much need to change player behavior because I don't see the big ethical issue. If that makes me a bad person, I guess I will live with it.

Edit: Oh, and I have to agree that Uruare's obsession with RMT sites seems unhealthy.


Altoholic - but a Blaster at Heart!

Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon

"You gave us a world where we could fly. I can't thank you enough for that."

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Uruare View Post
Adjust for the fact that said market is self contained in that the only -easy- way to afford those IO's is to buy inf.
Okay *BLEEP!* easy! You were never EVER promised that the game would make it EASY for you to get stuff like what we're talking about. If you want easy, go buy a single player console game and get a list of cheat codes!

Obtaining ultra-rares is difficult. Legitimately obtaining the Inf to buy them is slightly less difficult but still not something that can be done overnight. THIS IS AS IT SHOULD BE!

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Adjust for the fact that an FFA of 8 friends of mine that got drug out and rehashed for about 5 hours generated 3 PVP IO drops between the lot of them.
Random drops MEANS RANDOM.

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You're really oblivious to how relatively easy it is to farm those things if you've got the fortitude, friends and/or spare accounts to gank as quickly as possible, aintcha.
You're still missing the fact that what's generated is a drop in the bucket compared to the demand.

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Wanna know how to control that badass PVP IO market? Buy everything that's valuable and goes on sale. Keep 1 up there at all times until it sells, maybe 2. Let non-involved flippers play a bit with the others, but keep the top-inf selling pieces locked down and be prepared at all times to buy out everything in excess of 3.
Again you betray your lack of knowledge about how the market works. It the commodity was finite, you'd be right. As the commodity isn't finite...


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Have I been lied to, perhaps?
Maybe not lied to. Misinformed.

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Maybe the ~3 billion dollar gold marketing industry is actually just dumb people that don't know as much as -you- about how things /really/ work, and surely don't seed, wipe and manipulate markets in games like these to acquiesce to their desired patterns of supply and demand.
Ah. Now it's conspiracy theories.

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But hey, at least in RL, we can take out loans via legitimate channels for making biiiiig purchases. All kinds of loans!
But IRL you don't generate capital from essentially nothing. Think of it as a grant.

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But what did people do before they could...realistically do that or things like it? Before such things were, y'know, existant and available?
They scrimped and saved.

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Well, they robbed stuff a lot. A brief -glance- at history might inform you of some startling things. Heck, don't even look tooooooo far back. Just the, well, Great Depression'll do just fine.
Christ, give me strength...

If you want to associate with the lowest common denominator here, that's your prerogative. You seem to look at what was, in reality, the LEAST common behavior as the MOST prevalent.

Sorry, but your view is INCREDIBLY skewed.

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Incidentally, and tangentially, I recently met folks in an SG that have their own little banking system set up in it. It was pretty darn neat, and they ran it like an actual bank in which members could apply for loans and pay them back in incremental fashions on a modest percentage of profit for the SG as a whole.
And it's prone to someone simply up and "going away". See "EVE Online".

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So uh...yeah. People have a tendency not to steal (or break the EULA?) when they don't perceive a need to.
And again, here's your problem of perceiving ultra-rares as a "need".



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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha View Post
Wall of text is hurting my brain...

You seen anyone about this, by the way? The obsession with RMT and bank robbing, drugs and...stuff...sounds like a real case of paranoia.
I only wish I was kidding, too.
I'm wondering if it's Freudian Projection. Seriously.



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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fleeting Whisper View Post
I refuse to start a company, and I refuse to pay cash for anything. If I did, I might be getting money that MURDERERS used!
Well, he shouldn't use any US currency either due to the cocaine content.



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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sharker_Quint View Post
actually P_P, it sounds like he is one of these RMT peeps. he is just trying to hide his sales pitch in long, drawn out posts. this would not surprise me as infl/inf can be made hand over fist over feet over leg over bunghole and the RMT sites probably aren't doing so well. the last time i think i got an in-game email, i think it was 1 bil for $17. so obviously they are suffering from people not buying anymore.

i, as well as many others have said, the only way for prices to start coming down is to create more infl/inf sinks that are just interesting enough for people to use but not so attrative as to keep people from doing other things.
You may be on to something. Pity that the diatribes are so long that most people (OK, other than Hyperstrike) can't make it thru them. (not really a pity, BTW, just in case someone thinks that was serious).


Altoholic - but a Blaster at Heart!

Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon

"You gave us a world where we could fly. I can't thank you enough for that."

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain View Post
Casual players dont need purples.
They want them. And if they want them bad enough... They will save up their toppens to get them.

Stop whining over the casual player, when you YOURSELF said you have already purpled your characters.

If you have already farmed and already purpled your alts, Why are you in here whining?

:edit:

I have never bought money from INF sellers. Why is it that you seem so stuck on RMTers? Is it because your guilty?
You know you can turn your email off in your options and never get another email from an INF seller.

You seem like someone who is worried your account is gonna get BANNED because you bought money, and that is why you are here making such a big deal over a big fat nothing.


Nerp. I've simply identified it as being a problem and, in peering into the matter of how big and damaging a problem it is, found plenty of cause to want to set it on fire.

Yeah, I've got mine. Said before I wasn't complaining for my own benefit, which exactly nobody believed (predictably). So, y'know...I got it off my chest.

I've never bought inf either. Never felt the need to, as I've got plenty of friends in-game that I can do whatever I want with at dang near any hour of the day or night (Except hami/RMS raid).

I've also got a bunch of other friends and acquaintences who've told me some rather god-awful stories of trying real hard to get where they want to get and not being able to.

Typically, this is because they don't know how to farm or sometimes even to lead TF's effectively, and so they wind up feeling pretty snuffed-out on the whole game.

Me? I got no problem with any of it. There are some TF's/SF's I'm not personally familiar enough with to feel comfortable leading, but that's never stopped me from trying and failing and learning, then doing it right the next time.

But that kind've thing does stop a lot of people, largely 'cause nobody wants to feel like a noob. Especially the ones that -are- noobs. Can ya blame 'em? Who wants to be jeered and laughed at or cussed out 'cause they tried to lead an STF and didn't know precisely how to do it?

Yeah, a lot of those kinds of people could look such things up with google-fu, and I usually wind up telling people to do just that; when in doubt, use the intarnets. Someone, somewhere, has written about whatever it is you're trying to do, and all that.

It might not seem to be so for we here on this specific thread, but CoX has got a modest learning curve to it. I remember being new. I remember quite well coming into CoX for the first time, not knowing jack about slotting a character, having no fricken clue about what I could even do beyond chase the little dot on the map and get a mission.

-I- had the relatively good fortune of falling in with some old heads that familiarized me real quick with what's what and how this goes and how you do that, and they taught me the good ol' fashioned way; doing it.

And then I set out doing it myself and dragging others along with me, and here I am today, with all my shinies on most of the toons I want them on, knowing quite well how to get the rest whenever I care to go and drag people around for a few weeks on TF/farm extravaganzas.

No biggie -for me-. Or for you folks here, I'm presuming.

But hey, then there's the folks I meet that've been playing for quite a while that still don't really know how to do a lot of this effectively. Nobody's showed them or taught them, or they're just not especially brave and/or thick-skinned people.

There's a lot more of them than I ever thought, which I learned when I started looking.

And they're my concern, really. They're the ones I'd like to see helped out so they can make it too.

And maybe I've been thinking about all this from the wrong angle.

Maybe -a- good answer's got nadda to do with capping the markets or anything to do with them at all.

Hmm! Methinks I has an idea.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Uruare View Post
Irrelevant when the market isn't supplied by organic means. Really, do you -truly believe- that the pvp IO cartels inf-sellers maintain don't have a pretty good lockdown on this?
No more than simple market forces give them.

If more people were generating them, you wouldn't see the same level of control.

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Who's suggesting that they should?
You and every other person suggesting that price caps would "fix" the "problem".

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And greed just 'happens', of course. In whatever world it is you live in, things clearly just 'happen' and just 'are', nobody has any control over or impact upon any of them and it's all just kinda...'there'. Isn't it.

What motivates greed? What amplifies desire into a sense of need? What is it exactly that can turn a reputable, generally honest player into an inf-buyer?
I honestly don't give a damn WHAT motivates someone else's greed.
You're the one that seems fixated on the assumption that everyone is turning to RMT. Maybe it's guilt or something.

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I assure you, the answer is quite similar to what can turn a normally honest and non-violent person into a murderous thief quite easily.
Essentially you're going to simply hint that because someone CAN buy inf, they will.

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Some work very hard for what they've got. Others get without very much work at all. It's quite easy do so that in the context of CoX. All you need is some spare cash and you can literally buy your way out of having to spend many a week, month or even year working hard for anything at all.
And, again, you can get your account locked and all your neat stuff deleted. So, if RMT is such an obvious "answer" please, don't let me stop you.

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Just the number of people that have admitted to me -personally- of having bought inf makes it rather clear that this is a futile, near-baseless threat.
Because a miniscule sample of dishonest douchebags = The Whole Market.

Right. Remind me never to sit a statistics class with you.

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How many more were just too smart to admit it or talk about it?
Ah. Assumption of guilt.

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So, short of these inf buyers identifying themselves by some means, how exactly do you propose that your catch-all there even works?
Ask the devs. Not me.

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'Cause from where I'm seeing things, it's a deterrant threat that the Devs have been rather kind enough to not take a size HUGE hammer after.
The devs can't do a whole lot about RMT as they have no legal jurisdiction over them. All they can do is ban accounts when RMT is made evident and kill address blocks of known RMT'ers.

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There's no freaking way to identify a gold buyer from someone transfering inf to a buddy. None.
From a single transfer? No. From a pattern of transfers? Yeah. Cross-reference it with the account's payment information and geographic location of the originating IP and yeah. You can get a pretty good idea when an account is doing something illicit.

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How to curb the gold market without squashing the legit players? Heck of a conundrum, that is; -heck- of a conundrum, especially when the gold marketers are operating within the -technical parameters- of what any ol' player can do.
Again they've done about everything they can to hinder RMT. They've made it so that you an turn off your in-game e-mail. You can Ignore people. They quash accounts they can show are engaging in RMT.

I'm not going to flagellate myself simply because there are still a few dishonest people left uncaught. There always are and always will be. Is it an IDEAL situation? Nope. But being a zealot about it doesn't make the problem go away either.

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No player is technically prevented from farming quite a number of repeatable missions. Some of the most abused ones had timers thrown on them, but frankly, there are still so many farm-convenient missions available down a short arc chain (if even that) that it doesn't really matter anyway.
And there's nothing wrong with farming. It's simply another playstyle.


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Some pretty dang obvious ones, if you think that it's /easy/ to sift the inf buyers/sellers from the legit farmers and multi-account owners.
The sellers? Yeah, by transaction patterns. You can then derive customers from the list of transactions.

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Instead, you attribute everything to said-nothing-at-all buzzwords like 'Greed' and 'Lazy' and consider, so it seems, all your thinking done.
Why should I go into an extensive dissertation on your and others faults when simple descriptors like "greedy" and "lazy" cover the necessary territory effectively?

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Oh how I wish I could live in a world as simple as that. That world where things just 'are' and stuff just 'happens' and we have no impact on or control over any of it.
Go ahead and pretend some modicum of control then. Sure, not participating IS a modicum of control. For you and you alone. Of course, why EXACTLY are you whining about the prices then if you're not participating?




Quote:
While they're quite able to do that to most extents, the sum of all your protestations is this : Those people shouldn't have access to the best stuff. They don't need it and they don't deserve it unless they make a profession out of the game.
No. Way to fail English 101.

My point is not that "these people shouldn't have access to the best stuff". My point is that these people should not simply have this stuff given to them or the way to obtaining them eased simply because they want it and want it now. The entirety of the game is about time sinks and subscription retention. If someone can play for 100 hours and wind up with every accolade, temp power, ultimate enhancer, and all the other assorted "bling" in the game, where is the impetus to keep playing?

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My return to that is: Really? That's justification for maintaining a market that CASUAL PLAYERS (yep, I said it. Again) that don't farm a lot and don't care to play wallstreet can't participate in without buying inf?
They CAN participate in it. It doesn't necessarily GUARANTEE that they'll be able to get stuff. That's what you're really looking for. Capping the price at a suitably low level so this stuff IS guaranteed.

Never mind that the price cap won't work. Stuff that exceeds the price cap in value move off into the grey market of trades. If you take away trades, and the stuff is still generated, it simply means the supply will get consumed that much faster. It still won't guarantee that people will be able to get it when they want it.

[]quote]'Cause, y'know, it's a lot easier for people like that to buy inf.[/quote]

You've obsessed with Inf buyers. Again, is it guilt talking?

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I know you think such people don't exist (or maybe they just don't exist in your box, like human psychology and socio-economic factors don't), but the fact of the matter is simple.
Please stop with the armchair psychobabble. It's not advancing what you're trying to purport as a point at all. It's merely you dancing around the hard reality of the situation.

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There's this big, huge gulf in availability between the best stuff and the second best stuff.
Only if you don't know any better.

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Is that ok? Yeah, it would be, if the inf sellers weren't most of why that is so and weren't the ones doing the bulk of the profiting on that disparity.
Sorry, I thought you were talking about something you could actually prove. Not an unsupportable theory.



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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ad Astra View Post
You may be on to something. Pity that the diatribes are so long that most people (OK, other than Hyperstrike) can't make it thru them. (not really a pity, BTW, just in case someone thinks that was serious).
Mmmhm. Yep. You're onto me alright.

You're kinda like that person in the club that doesn't ever have anything intelligent to say, but will lean on the wall and try to insert something into any proximal dialogue that makes you feel as though you've impressed others with your wit, aintcha.

OHO, I'M ONTO YOU TOO!

The devs are more'n welcome to investigate me though

When/if they ever do, they'll find some rather boringly common stuff and you'll still be that person in the room that has nothing intelligent to say but tries to be witty and postured.

Psychological projection in/deed/!

Anyway, ad hominem-slinging aside (fun though it briefly is on occasion, despite its lack of utility), I feel the need at this juncture to laugh hysterically and wander away.

You may commence with the cheering or clapping, or just whatever it is you do when disturbances in your force leave you to the regularly scheduled shoulder-clappery of your groupthink.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ad Astra View Post
You may be on to something. Pity that the diatribes are so long that most people (OK, other than Hyperstrike) can't make it thru them.
*Florid bow*



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Posted

If this isn't your problem, then just STOP.

I argue til I am blue over things I have an actual problem with, that they effect me.

YOU are arguing because you think its noble. Well, why dont you leave this arguement to people it actually effects?

This isnt your problem. No one is getting behind you. You are on a runaway train, and you can't seem to understand MOST people dont have a problem. Only you do.

If you suggest your friends are having problems, Then esplain to them how to log on to the forums, and let THEM come here and voice their opinions. Because You sir, have no opinion on the matter. You are just a long winded hussy, who doesnt know when to stop.

Pot meet Kettle? Who cares.


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Perfect_Pain View Post
If this isn't your problem, then just STOP.

I argue til I am blue over things I have an actual problem with, that they effect me.

YOU are arguing because you think its noble. Well, why dont you leave this arguement to people it actually effects?

This isnt your problem. No one is getting behind you. You are on a runaway train, and you can't seem to understand MOST people dont have a problem. Only you do.

If you suggest your friends are having problems, Then esplain to them how to log on to the forums, and let THEM come here and voice their opinions. Because You sir, have no opinion on the matter. You are just a long winded hussy, who doesnt know when to stop.

Pot meet Kettle? Who cares.
oh no, P_P what did you do? now he will write a 2 page thesis that no one will read because we all know it will be full of... stinky stuffs. hyper will have a heart attack replying to that one. make sure you do your finger exercises and cardio first hyper...i cant saves ya over the interwebs...


 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sharker_Quint View Post
oh no, P_P what did you do? now he will write a 2 page thesis that no one will read because we all know it will be full of... stinky stuffs. hyper will have a heart attack replying to that one. make sure you do your finger exercises and cardio first hyper...i cant saves ya over the interwebs...
I skim what he types, and he just said "This isn't about me" "This isn't my problem" "I just don't like it"...

So I sat here and thought? Hmmm... Then why the hell are you typing so much about something that isn't about you? That isn't a problem for you? That you just dont like?

Doesnt have something better to do with his time?


 

Posted

A picture tells a thousand words.
So;


Quote:
Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain_Photon View Post
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

 

Posted

You need to aim that picture @ someone.

Like this:

Techbot,