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Originally Posted by TopDoc
We are PvPers, but the Market is our battleground. We beat our opponents just as badly as veteran PvPers beat newbs in the Arena or zones. Veteran PvPers put a lot of time and effort into their characters, and most are perfectly willing to discuss tactics and such with anyone willing to listen. We put a lot of time and effort into researching the market, and we are perfectly willing to share our tactics with anyone willing to listen. Unfortunately, too few are willing to listen. They have learned through experience that whining and complaining will sometimes get them what they want. We need to learn what the rich people in real life probably already know. Poor people will hate us for being rich, just because it's human nature. It doesn't matter how we got rich, or how easy it is to get rich, in fact logic doesn't really have much to do with it. It is simply human nature to want more. It's probably a survival instinct. And with it comes resentment of those people who have more.
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Well aside from the fact that wealth creation in real life actually involves creating wealth whereas here on the market its entirely wealth concentration and zero wealth creation that would be correct. When you say thing like "perfectly willing to share tactics" its like the devil in faust giving advice. He is the only completely honest character in the story and counts on people not actually acting on it. The market is a lossy means of redistribution if everyone started to try and make money crafting and flipping nobody would actually profit.
As to being resented for being wealthy, its more resented for being parasitical, the way lawyers, lobbyists, etc are resented
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This isn't as Faustian as you seem to suggest. Just because people toss around the statements that the knowledge is there for everyone to use doesn't mean we actually believe everyone will use it. We know from experience that not everyone does, including people who are plenty knowledgeable about how it works. I know people who have zero issue with the market and who knowingly empower marketeering by having more in-game money than patience. So long as there are are people willing to use it for profit and people who don't care enough to do so, things will proceed as they are.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
The market is a lossy means of redistribution if everyone started to try and make money crafting and flipping nobody would actually profit.
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The advice on how to use the market is given for those who are willing to use it, on the expectation that anyone actually asking has the intention to do so. Occasionally we do get posts by folks who are usually forum "lurkers" (no negative connotation intended - just folks who read but don't post much) who confirm that they've learned something and applied the forum advice to their benefit.
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| As to being resented for being wealthy, its more resented for being parasitical, the way lawyers, lobbyists, etc are resented |
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
1. Players are the cause of market prices.
2. Marketeers tend to stabilize prices.
3. If you ever sold or bought something on the market, you're a marketeer, thus ebil.
Any and all spelling, grammar and logic errors are intentional so this post will blend seamlessly into the Internet
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Unbelievable. You, [subject name here], must be the pride of [subject hometown here]!
I´m entitled to purples for 10k inf ;(
I don't think the dislike of marketeering has much to do with prices, economics, Communism, #9 threads or the inability to afford anything. Unlike the rest of the marketeering community, I think real-world economic theory isn't fully applicable to the CoH market. And a lot of people who complain are actually extremely wealthy: for example, MeanNVicious recently sold a Gladiator's Armor unique for 4bn and je saist has thrown away "billions" on a softcapped Fire Armor tank before. These people are nowhere near the "have-not" crowd. They're certainly not your hypothetical casual player, staring despondently at 55k for an Ancient Bone. And remember that with the Merit system, people can avoid 99% of the market if they want to.
The real reason people dislike marketeering is that humans consider a system "fair" when there is a general correlation between effort (i.e. in an MMO, time) spent and reward. Our current market, where marketeers profit by a combination of shouldering risk, paying opportunity cost for the use of market slots, some time and taking advantage of the inefficiencies in the system, will invariably be considered unfair. It doesn't matter how much you post about supply and demand or impatience or economics or being forced to use the market because as I've shown above, none of this has anything to do with the real reason: people dislike the idea of others earning billions without farming their way there.
Does the market need changes? Not the sort of changes that people who complain abut marketeering are proposing. I think part of what makes CoH a casual-friendly game is that it, intentionally or not, rewards something other than the amount of time spent grinding, and therefore marketeering should continue to exist. Additionally, desirable IO sets shouldn't be made too easily available; this game has few enough long-term goals (we'll see how the endgame changes this) and such a change would damage the viability of the game in the long run. I also think that people who genuinely think that prices ought to be ridiculously low are, like most of the AE babies who left once the easy XP dried up, not the sort of player Paragon Studios ought to pander to.
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There's no question that flippers cause inflation. That's the entire point. Their profit has to come from somewhere. But they're not the sole cause. Impatience and excess wealth are the primary drivers of high prices in this market.|
Originally Posted by Fury Flechette
According to this thread, the people who play the market minigame "abuse it and drive prices out of control".
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The only "value added" flippers provide are the market slots for items, allowing more items to be on sale than would otherwise be possible due to slot limitations of players who are actually obtaining items (i.e., doing honest work in the minds of the marketeers' critics). If there were no limit on the number of for-sale market slots marketeers would have less impact on prices, because then everyone would be able to sell their own items (but there would be other impacts, and probably not all benign).
Legitimate marketeers take advantage of people who don't have enough market slots to sell their production, or either don't care or are unaware of the true value of an item. They place lots of low bids on high-value items hoping to snag them cheap, then turn around and sell them at a high price that's set by normal supply and demand. This type of behavior is allowed in most modern financial markets in the real world.
"Illegitimate" marketeers are trying to corner the market on certain items, hoping to drive prices up through sheer scarcity, then sell their stock in the new high-price regime they artificially created. This type of monopolistic behavior is banned in most modern markets. It's what led to the silver crash in the 1980s, when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market.
The recent economic collapse was in large part fueled by real estate flippers who got overextended and couldn't make good on multiple dwellings they had bought with no money down. Flippers drove the price of housing way up early on and the overheated market eventually caught everyone else up as they couldn't make good on their mortgages.
Since there are no loans in the game the consequences of flipping and monopolistic behavior are less important. And there are many players who apparently never use the market. I've started looking at the bonuses on other characters, and I'm surprised to see how many characters have no bonuses at all. Which means they're not IOing their characters, which means they're probably not using the market at all.
So the only consequence of an overheated market would be if enough players quit the game because they couldn't get the things they wanted due to excessive flipping and monopolistic behavior. And it's not at all clear that would happen. Sure, some individuals will quit out of frustration that they can't purple out their character for less than 10 million. But anyone who wants to reasonably IO their characters can do so with a combination of AE tickets, reward merits, drops and minimal market activity. And wind up quite rich by the time they're level 50. All without flipping and without being a mark for the flippers.
There's a long history of hatred and distrust for certain kinds of financial activity. Speculators have long been reviled. To this day it is illegal under Sharia law in many jurisdictions to charge interest. Hebrew law was often interpreted the same way.
The Council of Nicaea forbade the clergy to engage in usury (charging more than 1% interest/month), and this was later applied to the laity. In the middle ages Canon law in some parts of Europe forbade Christians to charge interest to other Christians (which is why Jews were the moneylenders). Interestingly, in some areas it was illegal to charge more for something than you paid for it unless you transported it long distances. The Church explicitly forbade flipping.
So with these attitudes firmly ingrained in cultures all across the world, is it any wonder that players who just want to have fun playing the game don't like it that you're getting rich at their expense?
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This part is, quite simply, true.|
Originally Posted by Fury Flechette
We're the ones who are responsible for the spikes in common salvage prices,
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| and why the "casual player" is FORCED to pay 1 million for that circuit board. |
If you are playing the markets as a minigame to obtain influence, rather than simply using it to trade what you don't need for what you do, you are speculating. Speculation will always be morally problematic.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
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No, this isn't correct. At best, it's a misuse of the word "inflation". Flippers cause you lose the opportunity to get a bargain price. Somewhere above low-ball listings that flippers use to make profits is a price that basically no worthwhile number of people will pay for that item. Inflation is an increase in that upper price. Flippers operate below that price, or they don't make money. All they do is make sure no one can get that bargain listing.|
Originally Posted by Rodion
There's no question that flippers cause inflation. That's the entire point. Their profit has to come from somewhere.
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One of the biggest problems in this debate is that people are using the word "inflation" to mean "I couldn't get a bargain". That's not right, and it massively confuses the issue.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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In game terms long distances can be considered in amount of patience. For example : I waited 1 week for a low bid to fill on an IO. I relist it at 20% mark up ( so ill make 10% profit after fees). You come along and bid on the market high rate for that IO and you get the IO RIGHTNAO!!!| it was illegal to charge more for something than you paid for it unless you transported it long distances. |
I waited the long distance to get the item at lower price, you did not wait a long distance and therefor you paid more.
Also flippers don't drive prices up, manipulators and impatient buyers do.
I am an ebil markeeter and will steal your moneiz ...correction stole your moneiz. I support keeping the poor down because it is impossible to make moneiz in this game.
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I find this laughable.|
Originally Posted by Fury Flechette
Of course what's never mentioned is the fact that almost all of us have given away our methods on how to become rich; that many of us have given away millions (billions) to other players just because we can; |
I've bought my share of overpriced salvage due to the "Marketeer's minigame" and people like you have never given me a cent.
I'm not here to say don't do it. But certainly don't pretend to be altruistic. It's hypocritical. Don't try and act like some kind of Robin Hood. You're a businessman exploiting people's desires plain and simple.
But the good guy you're not.
You're certainly entitled to your market game and I'm not here to say it's wrong. But don't expect the rest of us to support your self serving assertion that you put it back into other people's hands.
And yes... your game affects the casual player alot.
Don't hate the player, hate the game.
The market is not for casual players. The market is a pvp environment.
Causal players can do the not lazy thing and bid on some salvage and then check back later that day or the next day and they will likely get the salvage at the price they want.
And yes people do give away their billions earned on the market - i know supergroups that do that regularly. I've given away hundreds of millions to completely newbie players just to make things easier for them.
I am an ebil markeeter and will steal your moneiz ...correction stole your moneiz. I support keeping the poor down because it is impossible to make moneiz in this game.
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Yeah, and it's the usual BS. Right off, the OP's main suggestion would pretty much drive all prices through the roof - "Eliminate the level 53 recipe listings and invalidate all bids on them."|
Originally Posted by Fury Flechette
According to this thread, the people who play the market minigame "abuse it and drive prices out of control".
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Let's see, if I can't store that money, what do I do? Obviously I buy stuff NOW and store the STUFF. So prices on everything skyrocket. Unless this was a stealth nerf and people actually lost all those billions - which would be absolutely outrageous and have a lot of people quit the game and badmouth it eternally.
And, of course, it would have ZERO effect on people who store their influence spread across characters.
After that I only read the first page of posts, but it seems that those posting in support were equally clueless.
(To be fair, though, the vast majority were shooting the idea down.)
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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Maybe I'm misreading the quote, they never said "we put it back into other peoples hands", all they've said is "We don't hide the methods we use to make our ebil fortunes, in fact we often publish tips and advice here"|
Originally Posted by rainmaker
I find this laughable.
I've bought my share of overpriced salvage due to the "Marketeer's minigame" and people like you have never given me a cent. I'm not here to say don't do it. But certainly don't pretend to be altruistic. It's hypocritical. Don't try and act like some kind of Robin Hood. You're a businessman exploiting people's desires plain and simple. But the good guy you're not. You're certainly entitled to your market game and I'm not here to say it's wrong. But don't expect the rest of us to support your self serving assertion that you put it back into other people's hands. And yes... your game affects the casual player alot. |
Which is true. I've gotten information about how to use tricks like buying recipies and then selling the crafted IOs at 4 times the price of the raw materials. Or just from checking what the Crafted version of an IO goes for before deciding whether to sell the Recipe or Craft it and sell the IO instead.
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The "casual" player probably isn't using the market. More importantly, "casual player" means different things to nearly everyone you ask to define it.|
Originally Posted by rainmaker
And yes... your game affects the casual player alot.
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Your "casual player" should be able to take their (probably low-level) salvage to the market and sell it for those same outrageous prices that "marketeering" people are listing it for. They may not be helping the casual players, but they're not doing much to harm them.
"Casual" players are often considered to lack high-level characters. This does mean in the current market that there aren't many IOs out there for them to buy, and because a lot of people have given up on looking for low-level stuff, those "casual" players also often can't sell their recipes well. This is not a problem at the feet of marketeers. This is at the feet of the devs, as they have made the game easier to get to 50, meaning less people who drive supply (often power gamers) are at low-levels as long, and they can play the game in reverse, getting to 50 and going back for key content they may have missed.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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Tinfoil hat time? Are you seriously suggesting that the devs are keeping an eye on people who the whiners claim are 'abusing' the market? And what? There will be a day of reckoning and they'll get what they deserve? |
Originally Posted by je_saist
but I highly doubt that the the number crunchers on the developers staff are not keeping track of the market, and those who deliberately abuse the market, and more importantly... those who admit to abusing the market in game, and on the forums.
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Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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Get over yourself.|
Originally Posted by rainmaker
I find this laughable.
I've bought my share of overpriced salvage due to the "Marketeer's minigame" and people like you have never given me a cent. I'm not here to say don't do it. But certainly don't pretend to be altruistic. It's hypocritical. Don't try and act like some kind of Robin Hood. You're a businessman exploiting people's desires plain and simple. But the good guy you're not. |
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| You're certainly entitled to your market game and I'm not here to say it's wrong. But don't expect the rest of us to support your self serving assertion that you put it back into other people's hands. |
Learn or not - your choice.
Once you know how the market works, use the information or not - your choice.
Complaining is a choice too. Guess how much influence it will earn you.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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This is an outstanding analogy about what the skilled Market players do. While I dont consider myself a Market PVP I can see that how one would make that connection. |
Originally Posted by TopDoc
We are PvPers, but the Market is our battleground. We beat our opponents just as badly as veteran PvPers beat newbs in the Arena or zones. Veteran PvPers put a lot of time and effort into their characters, and most are perfectly willing to discuss tactics and such with anyone willing to listen. We put a lot of time and effort into researching the market, and we are perfectly willing to share our tactics with anyone willing to listen. Unfortunately, too few are willing to listen. They have learned through experience that whining and complaining will sometimes get them what they want. We need to learn what the rich people in real life probably already know. Poor people will hate us for being rich, just because it's human nature. It doesn't matter how we got rich, or how easy it is to get rich, in fact logic doesn't really have much to do with it. It is simply human nature to want more. It's probably a survival instinct. And with it comes resentment of those people who have more.
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Personally for me I stated away from the Market when it first came out, swearing I would never go there because I would not need It for anything. My toons were SOd out and they were just fine for the PVE game that I played. I dont PVP and have no desire to PVP so why mess with any of that stuff.
Fast forward to now and I enjoy playing the Market as a game within a game and how did I learn easy someone told me to go the Market forum and I did. What did I find all the tricks of the trade that the Master Marketers were doing to make money, it was very easy to follow the step by step instructions on how to start with no cash and end up with plenty of cash. The only thing that would have been easier was letting someone do if for you and give you the money.
The techniques that I used way back when I STILL use today for any newbie toons that I start. The fact that we read, learned and honed our skills and the fact that we share all the we know should not be ridiculed or be made the focus of someones dislike for what is happening to the market no wonder most that share what we know take offend when it does happen.
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Originally Posted by Fury Flechette
According to this thread, the people who play the market minigame "abuse it and drive prices out of control".
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The opinions of uniformed people who spout ridiculous nonsense don't carry a lot of weight with me.
Some folk would rather whine and make up conspiracy theories that learn how to use the system- of course they're going to scapegoat others to excuse their own incompetence.
It's especially moronic in this instance because as Top Doc notes most members of the Eeebil Cartel will happily share their "secrets" with anyone who asks.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
OP...one comment. Teach me?
If you have the ability to make money, do it. The real reason the market is screwed is dude to AE, and a lower population.
Hmm, i think im gonna go flip right now as a matter of fact.
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This sounds right as to the perception, though I generally take the view that flippers are storing salvage for me, so that I don't have to hassle myself storing it, since you can usually store less salvage than necessary for a full load of uncommon+ recipes. (Like, say, the grocery store--which produces nothing--stores lots of milk for me so I can come get some when I need some, and I pay for the price of that storage, but I don't have to keep a year's supply of milk on hand.) I also appreciate flippers' tells (hello, 800,123 salvage), as it clues me in to the minimum price I have to pay for orange salvage. That's service!
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
its more resented for being parasitical, the way lawyers, lobbyists, etc are resented
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I think of myself as a new-to-the-game "casual player," and I have NO problem at all with the way the market operates. I've got a lot of alts, my highest level character is 37, and I don't ever stress about the fact that I've only made around 100 million inf on her. If I never see a purple, well, that's my own fault/decision/laziness. The inf I do have is a result of using tips from this forum (thanks, Ebil Ones), and for me it's enough for now. I firmly beleive that if I wanted to take the time I could accumulate a lot more, but right now I'm having more fun doing other things. It's a game, it has rules that govern what can happen in the market, and if players don't like what those rules permit, they're free to complain about those rules, I suppose. But don't complain about the people who are operating within those rules as they now stand.
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This is me, except I have over 5 years of playing.|
Originally Posted by Cheese_Martini
I think of myself as a new-to-the-game "casual player," and I have NO problem at all with the way the market operates. I've got a lot of alts, my highest level character is 37, and I don't ever stress about the fact that I've only made around 100 million inf on her. If I never see a purple, well, that's my own fault/decision/laziness. The inf I do have is a result of using tips from this forum (thanks, Ebil Ones), and for me it's enough for now. I firmly beleive that if I wanted to take the time I could accumulate a lot more, but right now I'm having more fun doing other things. It's a game, it has rules that govern what can happen in the market, and if players don't like what those rules permit, they're free to complain about those rules, I suppose. But don't complain about the people who are operating within those rules as they now stand.
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It always irks me when I see people claiming to "champion" the casual player on the boards as some sort of downtrodden sad sack who is being persecuted by "the Man"/ebil marketeers. Those people invariably come off as presenting this mythical casual player as someone not being given the choiceor the chance to play market PvP due to time constraints.
The chance is there, the choice is there. I have freely chosen not to worry about so much. I don't enjoy marketeering, but I don't begrudge those who do.
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."
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That reasoning strikes me as more on point than the line of thought that the have-nots will always resent the haves.
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Originally Posted by Laevateinn
The real reason people dislike marketeering is that humans consider a system "fair" when there is a general correlation between effort (i.e. in an MMO, time) spent and reward. Our current market, where marketeers profit by a combination of shouldering risk, paying opportunity cost for the use of market slots, some time and taking advantage of the inefficiencies in the system, will invariably be considered unfair. It doesn't matter how much you post about supply and demand or impatience or economics or being forced to use the market because as I've shown above, none of this has anything to do with the real reason: people dislike the idea of others earning billions without farming their way there.
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Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
It's not a marketeer's job to give you patience.
Anything on the market you can earn in game. It's not your right to earn everything in an MMO in a 10-day period. Enjoy the marathon.
Players set the market by buying what is sold. If no one bought it, they wouldn't sell it.
And I'll say sorry for typing anything past the first sentence. 'Nuff said.
Thank you, City of Heroes, for giving me a superhero social network combined with amazingly smooth game play. Petitions signed with realistic expectations.