Why Flippers Ruin the Economy!

You mean like you just did throughout this entire thread ? A thread which is nothing but a bunch of people saying we like a bad experiment because it makes us feel right.

I would love to see your list of the effects that flipping doesn't have. I can put it in the gallery of twisted arguments that I have seen people use here because they just can't accept that their actions have consequences.

Lets see there was the before mentioned raising the prices wasn't possible. Then there was you couldn't do it and make a profit. Then there was you couldn't maintain above the equilibrium and make a profit. There were even challenges for that one, of course the equilibrium price was defined as the highest price you could charge and make a profit

Get over it you are pulling crap because you can, it has an effect on other people in the game and its just part of the game.

did you get lost trying to find 4chan?

cause that would explain much.

Thank you for attributing all of the above to me AF, but I can't and won't take credit for them. Even though they have all *gasp* proven to be true.


I will ask one thing from you and those like you - and I know this is 100% rhetorical as I expect no real answer:

Give me something, anything, one single shred of evidence that meets the very criteria you hold others to on these forums that shows that flippers do anything other than stabilize the niche they are in. Give me just one piece of hard data where you can show for a fact that a person flipping a niche had the impact you claim they have - which is to specifically and maliciously drive prices up for their own personal gain over a period of time.

I am damned near begging you folks for this. Just one, tiny, small piece of evidence that meets your own standards.

I was blasted by not 1, but 2 people saying my data wasn't good due to time frame and collection. Also my data was not good due to not enough samples.

Those same 2 people then turn and cite 30 minutes of observations that their arguments are valid? Come on... who are we kidding here?

So again I say, show me one single piece of evidence that flippers have the impact you claim they have on a niche.

Tip: If you want to really show some good data, try doing an experiment yourself for all of a week. Spend time flipping something, anything, and do volume. I suggest you start will common salvage as its the lowest risk.

To date, the only evidence I have ever seen is people indicating microcosms they have observed over very short periods of time - or trends in items over long periods of time. Either way, the first is far to "short" to be of any value, as you kind folks tell me, and the second is pure speculation. Beyond those 2 examples, I have yet to see any arguments from anyone in your camp that holds any credibility at all.

And yet we're supposed to just swallow what you say wholesale... because you say it? Offer some evidence! People come here and demand that those they oppose show "better" experiments and do "better" data collection while doing nothing beyond berating people for not listening to them? You claim to be scientific in nature (or least some of you do) well get out there and prove someone... anyone wrong.

You have no credibility on these topics because you folks have proven time and time again that you don't know what's going on. That you do want to witch hunt and blame flippers for every little thing you don't like about the market and that you will not listen to anyone's opinion or even look at facts presented by anyone who doesn't firmly believe exactly like you.

If someone comes to this forum and says "The markets never merged!" am I to take them on their word or should I say "Ummm yeah. They did. I18. Here's the link". When that person then persists and says "You're not listening to me" how would you like me to respond? Maybe after they persist long enough and I say "Yeah - good luck with that" then somehow they have "hurt my feelings"? Clearly this is how it is...

Alkirin specifically says that the conclusions and assumptions I make in the first post are wrong because he doesn't like how... I collected my data? Or maybe it was because... I didn't show anything? Damn.. I actually don't know what his problem is. However, this is the line he has an issue with:

Which wasn't even in the first post! It was in a later reply! And even then, its not a conclusion, its an observation! *gasp* But hey, I guess we should treat everything as we want to treat it and then force someone else to answer for our misconceptions?

If you want me to draw a conclusion form my experiment then here:

Buying Spirit thorns for 1k and re-listing them for 100 will in most cases net you a profit and will apparently have little to no effect on the price or availability of spirit thorns.

Boiled down version: Doing this does nothing. You may make money at it.

Hell of a conclusion. Definitely something to get your knickers twisted over.

But once again, AF, Alkirin, anyone else who thinks that flippers are ruining the experience of the casual gamer... please provide me with one single piece of evidence that meets your own criteria for others to prove that you are correct. Just 1. That's all I'm asking for. We'll put your 1 against the mountain that shows its not true and we'll call it even and start over. Deal?



As for this little gem...

"Pulling crap". Interesting term. Do you mean holding a contest to give away inf? Do you mean burning inf on prestige? Do you mean teaching people how to save money on the market? Do you mean showing people how to marketeer? Do you mean explaining how the market works to people who don't understand it so they can be more effective in their purchasing and selling? Do you mean writing a guide for flipping salvage that is so easy a 9 year old followed it and did it? Perhaps you mean giving out zero interest loans to people who want to sell an item on the market or who want to start marketeering? I know! Its how I showed that you can actually 'start marketeering' (ie crafting) with as little as 1 million inf. That one has to be it!

Which one of those things that I have done is "pulling crap"?

Hmmmm? Way to know what you're talking about... once again. And you wonder why people think you have no idea what you're talking about...

well let's be fair, gathering evidence and conducting experiments is lots harder than just pulling unsupported statements out of your pants and pretending they're graven in stone.

=p

the fact that all the people who've 'done the work' so to speak see things one way and the ones that haven't done anything (and refuse to do anything, other than keep insisting on their unsupported 'facts') see it another way....well, that kinda speaks for itself.

If you are going to ask me to defend positions you might as well get what my positions are right. Oh hell, who am I kidding, its pretty damn obvious you don't give fecal matter about getting any thing correct. That was made perfectly plain when you started flying off the handle because people told you, you wouldn't know what experimental technique was if it walked up and hit you on the head with a frying pan.

But just to make this plain let look at your argument that "flippers do nothing but stabilize prices"

What are the premises involved here ?

1. People wouldn't list things if there were no bids and they couldn't get an instant sale the flipper provides the instant sale ?

Rebuttal: Just how many salvages had thousands for sale and no bids before people started deleting them ?

2. The flipper raises the bottom by little and lowers the top by more.

Rebuttal: Assumes a uniform distribution of listing prices, something which is definitely not the case in this game. Assumes no modes in the prices which people list for definitely not the case

3. The flipper stabilizes the price by maintaining constant price points.

Rebuttal: Yes this is because the flipper is a mindless robot incapable of adjusting to take advantage of circumstances and their only goal is to stabilize prices not make profit.

What's a '4chan' and why is that even related to this?




I think I'll actually pick through some of this wall of text, though.

Kent Hovind poses similar rhetoric with his 'prize for anyone that proves evolution'.

Between flipping and cornering, the effects of both have been discussed through the course of this topic. Before demanding anything, try addressing the points against your position first.

You can't possibly have read half of what you're responding to (more likely, you're ignoring it or hoping other people won't read) in order to honestly believe this.

At this point, I'm unsure that you even know what you are arguing against, or what people are raising against you. You have this sense of throwing everyone under the rug of 'them' and thinking that any kind of whining or ham-fisted appeal will hold it's weight.

As if it weren't enough that you prove my point. I've done a thorough breakdown more than once, but since you don't respond to that kind of criticism well, I'll scrunch down to one simple sentence for you.

- Poor procedure and a weak data collection show nothing of merit or significance in this experiment.


Hah. You don't even know what you're arguing against. You even seem to bother with why people disagree with you. It seems that you just identify people as 'them', generally against you for whatever reason, then rail against them.

May as well start asking me 'what are your crimes?'

Yes, it does! It proves you're all in on the conspiracy!

Don't be a complete dork, its been done, done and done again. Where do you think the whole equilibrium price as the maximum price you can sell profitably at comes from ?

Just because you had an idea fell in love with it, and didn't bother to look for anything that might hurt your wonderful idea, doesn't mean that others are going to bust their rears because you are intellectually lazy.

I can't believe, with all your talk of strawmen, that this is your summative statement. "Experiment" does not even begin to describe this effort. There can be no control over an environment such as the CoH markets sufficient to engage in a true experimental design. The fact that somebody else stuffed it full of straw does not stop it from being a strawman that you're attacking. It seems at best disingenuous for you to continue along these lines.

What I saw in the OP - and I read it, then moved on - was more akin to a naturalistic observation with limited intervention. More a case of, "Here's what I did, here's what I observed, here's what it might mean." It seemed rather tongue-in-cheek, to be honest.

To have someone go after it on its scientific merits really makes me wonder.

Why? What's the point?

Does anyone expect true experimental research to be able to be accomplished in a chaotic system with a multitude of uncontrolled and uncontrollable variables, which include but are not limited to people who get their jollies out of mucking around with the market?

Who could possibly have an axe to grind when it comes to gaming-related research? I mean... waitaminute...

Twixt? Is that you?

Because the evanescent 'casual' player assumes that all flippers are cornering niches ?

Wait...definitions blatantly prove that illogical.

Wait...casual players dont use logic...

As Amanda Tapping once said ' We are trapped on glacier with Macguyver and he doesn't know how to escape - we are totally screwed! '

Just want to point out that I still think the people who believe this have an excellent point. Devs, please implement inf caps on listing prices. I, for one, think this is an outstanding idea that would be of immense value to me.

RagManX

Certainly seems like it. 4chan is the place where 'Cool story bro' was created.

Also this
And Price caps are awesome.

If you can keep this experiment going that would be really cool, because I wonder what would happen over a longer period of time.

Originally Posted by Nights_Dawn Hazy is right

I am sorry that you just aren't getting this. I really am. You see, I will explain it to you once again so you can understand.

I said that people can't walk up to the market, put in any price they want and instantly receive the item they want for the price they want instantly. This is extremely unfair to the casual gamer who doesn't play very much and therefore has to stand at the market waiting for his order to fill. This could take minutes or it could take hours. You just don't know. So this person who wanted to log in for their one hour a night places a bid on a piece of salvage he needs for the enhancement he needs and then has to stand there until he gets extremely lucky and his bid fills.

Waiting for items to make enhancements is just ridiculous. Frankly, I genuinely wish NCSoft would do something about it. In no other MMO anywhere, ever, do you ever have to wait for item upgrades - ever! You log in, you pick what you want and *boom* its transferred to your inventory immediately. There's none of this "wait 5 minutes" BS that we have in this game. Plus... I think its one of the "Marketeering Crew" that has a sig that reads something like "if you didn't leave your bid up for 24 hours you didn't try to buy something"

WTF?! I don't have time to stand here and wait 24 hours to "maybe" get something. I mean my time is extremely valuable to me and I shouldn't be forced to wait at all... much less 24 hours?!! If I want to buy a common salvage for what it should cost which really should be at most 4 times what the vendors will pay for it - I mean its 400% mark up from the vendors, right!?! - and I throw up my bid of 1,000 on Alchem Silv it should fill immediately!

But nooooooo! The flippers are in there buying all of the low priced salvage that I want - getting it for 1 or 2 inf and then relisting it all for 100k or more! This just screws the casual gamer like me right where it hurts, cause now I HAVE to spend 100k just to get this piece of salvage I need just for this one enhancement I need! I mean I bought the recipe for 10 million just like the last 5 people - why bother sticking it to me for the salvage too?! Its petty and it makes people quit the game!

Even then, you see it every day - you saw this item yesterday that was selling for like 10k and *boom* today its over 50k! That's definitely a flipper doing some hard core price manipulation! How can the casual player even hope to get a fair deal when the flipper is buying all of the salvage and then forcing me to pay the price he wants to charge me?

Oh, and when I want to sell something, I list it for just a bit over what the rest are selling for - like if something is selling for 100k, I list mine for 125k so the flippers don't get it. But then flippers control all the rest of the salvage and mine never sells! It just sits there month after month doing nothing!

And then when it finally does sell, I know that the flipper has left that market and moved on to something else. So now prices should drop - but they don't cause as soon as they do, some other flipper comes along and sees this and so they jump in and buy up all of the supply and destroy it. Then prices go through the roof and that flipper who came in makes a bundle!

Its just not fair!!!!

As entertaining as that read is Misaligned, i do get it. I'm just not sure the 'flippers are evil yo' players get the opposite effect.

If i sell my commons for 300, (merely 50 above vendor prices), and a casual player isn't on at the exact time i am to purchase my common salvage, then they really should learn patience.

What you did was reverse flipping. You purchases out all the high hanging fruit, and relisted it as low hanging fruit, thus allowed the casual gamer to purchase your items at a much lower price then you paid.

Thing is, you made money off the deal, granted a few million in a weeks time is really not much of a profit, but you still made it. Now, this could be because the last five atlest read 1,000 or higher and not 100 or lower, but regardless, anyone who reads these forums know the last five is a VERY misleading way to purchase items, and if your not bid creeping, or leaving bids in for atlest 24 hours, your really doing it wrong.

And I'm of the opinion, that if you want to do it wrong, you don't have the right to complain about it. Because your doing it wrong.

Heres something you can do to prove, or disprove that flippers ruin the market.

Step 1:
Pick 5 common salvage in any given level range and try flipping yourself. Buy low, sell high. Stop after 7 days. Record the before price, record the price you bought at, record the price you sold at, record how many transactions you completed and record the price after a weeks time of you not messing with it. See exactly how much of an impact your efforts had.

Step 2:
Pick those same 5 common salvage at before. This time, do reverse flipping. Buy high, sell low. Stop after 7 days. Record the before price (should make the same price you had after your week of stopping) record the price you purchased the salvage at, record the price you sold at, record how many transactions you completed and record the price after a week of you not messing with it. See exactly how much of an impact your efforts had.

I'm pretty sure that will show you that you had next to 0 impact on actual prices, and things will return to the 'before' price much quicker then the 'after' price.

Hey Misaligned, its not flippers are EBIL, its not about patience, its about you making arguments that even young earth creationists would think are weak.

Coming from the guy who can't even seem to attribute the correct "evils" to the right person, I'll say this:

omglol

Still waiting for your evidence. You claimed there was tons of it. Let's see some?

Or is this like your claims that you have opinions that aren't just toting the party line?

Oh great, now I have a party ?

Sorry Senator I am not now nor have I ever been a communist.