Hi-ho, Alchemical Silver, away!

Compared to the last couple of months before the release of GR, the price of Alchemical Silver initially fell upon the release of GR, and is only now rising to the levels it was before the release of GR. So my guess is that the reaction that the price is now too high is from someone who "learned" the going rate in the period immediately after the release of GR.

50,000 is a pretty common price for alchemical silver going back to... well, at least 3 years ago when I started marketing.

When common or uncommon salvage starts selling for 1 million a piece, that's when I take notice and put a few pieces up for sale at stupid prices. ^_^ Usually because there's only 3 for sale at the moment...

It's worth remembering that The_Gamemaster did illustrate how to earn a profit manipulating prices. If you buy up the right stuff the in the right way you can create a price "pulse" or wave. The key to success was create the wave in a way that it builds past where you were buying so you could sell what you had bought (at inflated prices) into the rising wave and make a profit before the wave crashed back down.

That writeup also showed that pulling this off took a lot of trial and error, careful observation, and a decent mix of skill and luck.

Given what he described, though, sustaining a long-term price ceiling well above where various factors tend to otherwise drive them seems like it would take what I consider mind-numbing levels of attention and the continuous pissing away of lots and lots of inf. Certainly I believe there are people with enough other ways to earn inf that they could afford to do this. I'm not certain I believe that anyone is pathological enough to spend not just the inf but the time required to prop up prices the way some people seem to assume is happening basically in perpetuity.

I wish I could find a cached copy of that thread, given that I didn't save it. It was one of the only walkthroughs of we've had of actual manipulation, and it came from someone who could also hold their own very well in hard core (real) economic discussions. GM's were some of the most compelling arguments I read for not merging the hero and villain markets, and I say that as someone who was convinced they should be merged . (His arguments assumed that inf would not be directly tradeable as it is today, as I think most of us assumed would be the case.)

Reposting this in a thread that's actually relevant:

Posted by me, HERE.

When I see weird prices like these, I'm pretty sure someone's trying to jack up the prices. In that case, I'd rather not feed their schemes and I just roll salvage in AE. A. Silver is a suprisingly common roll. For example:
You received Alchemical Silver.
You received Alchemical Silver.
You received Demonic Blood Sample.
You received Rune.
You received Rune.
You received Spell Ink.
You received Rune.
You received Rune.
You received Alchemical Silver.
You received Spell Ink.
You received Alchemical Silver.
You received Rune.
You received Alchemical Silver.
You received Demonic Blood Sample.
You received Alchemical Silver.
You received Alchemical Silver.
You received Spell Ink.
You received Rune.
You received Masterwork Weapon.
You received Ancient Bone.
You received Ancient Bone.
You received Spell Ink.
You received Spell Ink.
You received Rune.
You received Rune.
You received Alchemical Silver.
You received Ancient Bone.
You received Rune.
You received Demonic Blood Sample.
You received Demonic Blood Sample.

8/30 - Alchemical Silver
9/30 - Rune

My guess is that these price fixers are returning players before emailing inf was introduced and they're just doing what they did before with their lowbies

Lol.

My guess is that price fixers, in practice, DO NOT EXIST. It's not practical to try to take over the markets -- especially not now that they're merged.

I've encountered threads in this forum by folks who suggest the strategy of buy for 10 or 100 infamy and sell for 15000. If that's not price fixing, I don't know what is. I can link the thread when I remember where I saw it.