Entire Market Front End Rewritten

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...&postcount=309

Quote:

Originally Posted by Poysyb The entire AH front-end was re-written

Great news

Yeah. I wonder what they've done.

I think it's going to be pretty interesting, because even if it doesn't include any changes to the information displayed, just how they display it could have impacts on people's buying and selling habits.

For example, today prices are often highly siloed, where prices of the same item at even adjacent (and non-maximum) levels will have distinct and often very different price trends. I presume this is because you have to somewhat laboriously expand items in each level to compare their prices, so people just look at the item they're selling or buying and list or bid based on the history for that specific item and level without comparing it to nearby levels. Changing how that's laid out could change the cross-level pricing structure.

This is one of those rare cases where ANYTHING would be an improvement.

Whatever they do will change buying and selling habits, should be interesting to see how it shakes out.

Here's hoping the new interface doesn't load Every...Single...Item...In...Existence just because you opened the interface. Show me my stuff, yes, but wait until I make a query before downloading a quad of market data, please!

WARNING: I bold names.

It could also mean things like a longer sales history, which would change market habits a lot.

The level range of stuff may make a difference, but people seem sooo locked into the idea that you must buy IOs at 5o.

I hope we can rescale the interface with these changes.

No. Supply and Demand do not work that way.

What you are saying is that "When Supply goes up Demand goes up."
From economics: "When Demand goes up prices goes up."
From economics: "When prices goes up Supply goes up."

One of those three statements cannot be true. These three statements, together, don't work. Price, Supply and Demand don't all rise together indefinitely.

If you believe that when Supply goes up Demand goes up you need to throw away every law, every facet, and every concept of economics.

Technically, what they're saying isn't "demand is going up", but "demand is moving from one item to another, because the one people want isn't there".

Think of it this way:

Twenty people go to the store, all wanting the same pair of Nikes. The store only has 3 pairs of Nikes. It has dozens of pairs of generic brand shoes, however. Rather than first-come, first-served, the store hands a ticket to each person, and randomly selects who gets the shoes. As new people arrive, looking for the same shoes, they are also given tickets, and could, in fact, get the shoes before people who have been waiting longer. Eventually, people will give up, and go buy the generic shoes that they don't have to wait for. The end result: Demand has gone down for the item with low supply, and up for the item with high supply.

If there were equal supply across the board, then it wouldn't work this way, but a shortage of one item, and an excess of another WILL move the demand from the unavailable item to the available one.

I apologize. I'll retract my statements. I made this paragraph bigger because it's more important. I made the following paragraph in small, fine print because it is me just trying to save face. Mostly, I just use a bunch of big words and try to explain what I was thinking to make myself sound like I know what I'm talking about. I suggest you don't read it.

My first draft of this post started off by defining "Demand" is exacting terms. Explaining how it is a curve, has different values at different points, and is a rate. I had graphs and examples and everything. Then I was going to explain about substitute goods. First, when comparing perfect substitutes price is the only consideration. Examples of how this applies to some CoH items like procs. Then I was going to go into non-perfect substitutes. Explain how Demand can shift based on price and quality. I had examples ready. There are many items on the market with sub-level 50s for sale and at prices below the level 50. My explanation would have been that the lower quality caused lower Demand. People simply demand these sub-50 items less. The demand has never moved, it's always been there, always been the same, and always been low. Then I ran into Luck of the Gamblers, and Numinas etc. Essentially, lower level is better in almost every way (minor difference for LotG). Except there are those items for sale on the market at sub-level 50s, and they are cheaper (not the superlow ones though). The substitute good, which is better in every way, quality/price etc. is better. Yet it's cheaper... and it's for sale. The Demand that should be there isn't there. Apparently yes, the Demand has shifted. As I thought about it more I remembered all the times I've heard "I didn't even know there was a 'For Sale" checkbox. Then I thought about all the times I've gone to the market and never cared to educate myself on the market situation and just bought whatever. Apparently yes, the Supply in this case is a quality factor to the item that drives up demand for substitute goods. Though, Roderick's examples does have many flaws that someone else will have to sort out.

Re: 1st paragraph... Heh.

Re: 2nd paragraph... It's interesting, isn't it? One way I've thought about fitting that into the supply/demand model is that fiddling with the market interface to find those low-cost items might be considered a kind of "cost". But maybe that's trying too hard - maybe it's just one of those "irrational market actor" things.

I think one of the biggest factors pushing demand towards the level 50 IOs is limited auction slots. I've been trying to outfit a character with mid-level IOs (nothing too fancy --Thunderstrikes, Positron's Blasts, Siroccos' Dervishes, and one set of Gaussian's). It's taken me weeks, partly because I'm cheap and put in lowish bids, but partly because the very poor supply for some pieces has forced me to place spread bids over a wide range of levels. And while those slots are tied up with bids, I can't use them for selling drops or buying salvage. At times it's been very tempting to say, sod it, I'll just buy the sets at 50.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if a lot of people have tried to buy lower-level sets, and just given up and changed to automatically waiting for 50 and slotting then. Time is money, after all :-)