Cornering the market
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-11-09 08:35 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
huh? You know you can use Merits (hero/villain) and Tickets to purchase stuff too?
"...now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb" - Dark Helmet
Uh oh here it comes. Know this OP, the market is perfect, there is nothing wrong with anything and because you posted this in the technical questions forum instead of the market forum you might just live. ; )
Just bug it in game or go post in the Devs' section of the forum. Only players bother to look at 98% of the posts in this section.
Also... as hinted at above, you're not likely to get a friendly response from that "1-5%".
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Originally Posted by McNum
Between the Loyalists and Resistance, I'd be tempted to support Praetorian Hamidon.
One side uses mind police and will "disappear" you and the other uses poison gas and bombs on civilians. Hamidon? He'll just have a tree eat you. Much simpler. If we're all going to be oppressed and/or killed by someone, it might as well be the walking trees. At least they don't speak in annoying code or doublespeak. They just devour you. |
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Not sure if the OP is referring to the new salvage to craft the incarnate stuff, if soo.... we won't be able to sell this salvage in the market (readed it somewhere but not sure where ....)
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Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
i19 should bring prime examples of this, due to a new class of rare and desired salvage for level 50 characters. I believe this market will immediately fall subject not to suplly and demand, but to extreme market manipulation and prices for many items will immediately go to the billions.
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You know what? Lately I have noticed these guys around Wentworths...
You're funny, OP. Funny because the truth here is really the same truth as the truth in the other forum in which you posted the same issue. And until you come around to the idea that you are uninformed and not knowledgable about this subject, this will not end well. Either heed the useful (yup!) advice in the other thread, or stop posting.
BTW, this thread breaks at least 2 forum rules, and a large number of rules of logic and etiquette.
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"A good n00b-sauce is based on a good n00b-roux." - The Masque
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Nah, he already stirred the pot in the Market forum too. My take is that he's running on pure emotion and nothing anyone can say can sway him. His original complaint was that his uber-build loaded with 5 purple sets and PVP IOs would cost multiple billions. People then tried to explain reality, but his massive sense of entitlement prohibited him from actually engaging his brain. |
Originally Posted by Mjolnir875
Uh oh here it comes. Know this OP, the market is perfect, there is nothing wrong with anything and because you posted this in the technical questions forum instead of the market forum you might just live. ; )
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His reasoning boils down to "I'm a multi-year vet and as such I should be able to max out my build. This should be achievable by the majority of the playerbase." The devs, of course, have made it abundantly clear that they feel there's a place in the game for rare, elite-level loot that is unobtainable by casual players, even casuals who've been playing the game for years. Fundamentally, his beef is that he doesn't accept that premise. He's shifted his anger to marketeers, who he supposes are arbitrarily holding prices high.
But when you think about it, this has nothing to do with marketeers. The devs have known about the sky-high prices of PVP and purple IOs for a very long time. They could increase the drop rate or make them more affordable to purchase via alignment merits (as they did with the Luck of the Gambler global recharge IO). They've done neither, which indicates to me that they don't mind these items being attainable only by the uppermost niche of hard-core players.
TL;DR: Blue Centurion feels he should have the best goodies; devs disagree. He blames the marketeers.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
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By the way, even though I just posted in opposition to what Blue Centurion said, let me be clear: I'm not in the elite ranks of marketeers. I haven't bothered getting any purples for the Brute I play 90% of the time. But unlike the OP I've accepted that some goodies in game carry a price I'm not willing to pay. So instead I created a kick-*** build that has no purples.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
I give it a few minutes before the howler monkeys from the market forum get here.
Get ready for a good round of "We are supposed to have it and you aren't" |
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
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Um...it's expensive because inf is too easy to earn when people play normally. The unlimited availability of mobs and the set amounts that people earn from playing has led to massive inflation of rare goods in the market.|
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
It has become abundantly clear why some items cost 2 Billion per enhancer. It is a trick outlawed on Wall Street. It is called cornering the market. Take corn for instance. Buy up all the corn, or corn futures, that will arrive on Wall Street for the year. Then set your own price as to the selling price corn we be for that year. This is especially easy to do in the game with items that are limited drops. (like PvP I/Os, purps, etc.)
When 1-5% of your player base (completely guessing here) has manipulated the market prices so that only that 1-5% can afford certain rare items in the game you are effectively allowing that portion of the game content to be removed from use for the other 95% of your customers. Not only are your customers unable to afford/use these items, the entire market becomes driven by these higher prices. This is especially true in a small closed market. That means that the vast majority of your clients are using the in-game system and stores for the bulk of their purchases. The only players who design/build from equipment available on the black market have to 1) farm long periods to hopefully get a lucky drop to cover some black market purchases 2) manipulate a corner of the market themselves to ensure they have this type of funds 3) try to convince a friend to farm for them and give them billions in funds. If you have designed your game so that market manipulation is supposed to be part of it, then I suppose I am wasting my time writing this. However, I cannot see the business sense that this makes. There is a reason that this is outlawed on Wall Street. Beyond the ethical reasons that could be argued that allowing market manipulation kills the fun for a great percentage of your customers, at least when it comes to upgrading their characters. i19 should bring prime examples of this, due to a new class of rare and desired salvage for level 50 characters. I believe this market will immediately fall subject not to suplly and demand, but to extreme market manipulation and prices for many items will immediately go to the billions. Please help to stop the abuse that is ruining one area of your game. Thank you. |
When you talk about cornering a market, you are presuming that there is a third party locking down a market from the buyer and the seller, and keeping prices artificially high for a common good. Your corn analogy works there, if there was a corn market being cornered.
This market is different for these rare IOs because they are absolutely uncommon. Let's say there are a dozen on the market at any given time for this rare IO. Unlike corn, which is readily available, there are hundreds, if not thousands of people wanting the rare good.
In this case, the seller knows that the item has been trading extremely high, even beyond the inf limit. So s/he sets the price high because there will be a buyer for it.
Case in point. I got a Javelin Acc/Dam at some point a while ago. I saw the last transaction prices were 800M, 1B and 1.1B. Guess what I set the price at? 2B inf. Why? Because there were ZERO for sale and 65 bidders looking. A couple got listed and sold for 1B - 1.5B but they moved instantly. 40 days later it sold for my ask. Is that cornering a market? Not really, it's the nature of a free market. Let me put you in the same situation, would you sell a super expensive drop for any less than the market prince if you didn't need the drop?
There is literally trillions of inf in the market and billions more being created each day, and there's no drain for that currency (inf sinks). This is why you can't have nice things.
Since this is the technical section of the forums the thing that needs fixing is that there needs to be a place for inf to go other than people's pockets, otherwise inflation will just keep edging up. The OP is right for the wrong reasons.
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Would be interested in hearing your explanation for how its possible to corner the market on the PvP +3% Def IO. I don't think its possible, but I welcome your insight.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
I give it a few minutes before the howler monkeys from the market forum get here.
Get ready for a good round of "We are supposed to have it and you aren't" |
The way I read the OP, he isn't complaining about a situation such as PumBumbler describes but where someone buys up all of one product which should be fairly common (EG tier 3 salvage) and price fixes it.
I can understand PvP and purples being expensive, they're rare but I do wonder when items which I'd expect to be common are expensive.
Personally I just won't pay if I don't think it's worth it. I'll use what I have or use merits or not bother at all. In fact I recall when working on the memorization badges on one character, I got so annoyed with the prices of some stuff, I went and paid MORE from the University table than give the money to the guys selling on the market. 
Yeah I can be like that.
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In order to corner the market, someone would have to really control the source of the item.|
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
It has become abundantly clear why some items cost 2 Billion per enhancer. It is a trick outlawed on Wall Street. It is called cornering the market.
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Now, sure, the devs do - by keeping these ultra-rare. However, you - yes you - can get a guaranteed PVP IO (the 2 billion INF ones) once every 70 days without spending a penny... well, past game costs.
Run your hero or villain's tip and morality missions. Get an alignment merit. Save them. The PVP IOs run from 30-35 A-merits.
Is it slower? Maybe. I think I've had, at most, two PVP IOs drop (and that early, before they became 2 billion INF items.) So it might be slower - but OTOH, it might be *faster* for you.
And while it's true some people will *set* their price at 2 billion, if I had some of the most in-demand items, I could put them up at 1 inf and still make 2 billion - because a bid would be sitting there for that amount. The sellers can't sell if someone doesn't want to *buy* at that price.
(For the record, I don't think I have 2 billion if I combined ALL my characters INF. 1 billion maybe. And I have 200+ characters. Why? Because I just don't *care.*)
This is neither:
- a technical issue
- a bug
The OP presented his arguments in the market forums and they were soundly refuted.
The OP then re-posted on the same subject in the same forum.
Then he came here and cross posted the same thing here.
Besides the fact that cross posting is against forum rules, this whole thing is in terribly bad form.
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Don�t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. - R.W. Emerson |
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You can't do that with high volume junk that anyone can get basically for 'free' by burning a few tickets. If the price goes past people's comfort zones they'll go 'make their own'. Also it's difficult to 'set' a price for anything on this market, harder still to maintain that price over any appreciable length of time, and the higher the incoming volume the harder it gets. |
Originally Posted by Capa_Devans
The way I read the OP, he isn't complaining about a situation such as PumBumbler describes but where someone buys up all of one product which should be fairly common (EG tier 3 salvage) and price fixes it.
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With regards to salvage, the ROI simply does not justify the effort.
Perceptions of 'manipulation' are created by external circumstances (MA 'exploits' attracting farmers, gutting salvage supplies) or marketeers messing around (as when a few of my bretheren recently bought out the entire supply of Ceramic Armor Plate as a lark).
I'm expecting today's maintenance to seal off some hyper-efficient MA missions- that will go a long way to improving salvage supply.
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Explain how you can't obtain these things from the suggestions that have been made on numerous threads? No one has flat out said you can't have these things, just that they require some effort to obtain. In all this time of your conspiracy-theory-filled belly aching, have you ever bothered to set out to accomplish working for the goals others have set for themselves? |
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Get ready for a good round of
"We are supposed to have it and you aren't" |
Maybe if you bothered learning the system, and tried doing what everyone here has been talking about, you'd be able to get these things for yourself. And enough of this "I want to play the game, not sit in the market" BS. Place your low bids, and go play! It's that simple. If you don't want to be patient for it, that's your problem.
And why not have a reward that comes to the diligent player? So what if you've been here 36 months if you've only played a tenth of the hours as someone who's been here 12 months? There's plenty of options that work for casual players to obtain high-end material. You refuse to use these options, so live with it.
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
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Nah, you need to read his other threads. He has a very similar post to this in the Market Forums plus and older one complaining about the prices from the weekend and a 4th with a build containging the aforementioned purples and PvP IO's. Which he can't afford cos the marketeers are clearly cornering the market on these very expensive, very rare (ultra rare even) items which he feels any casual player should be able to have.
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Originally Posted by Capa_Devans
The way I read the OP, he isn't complaining about a situation such as PumBumbler describes but where someone buys up all of one product which should be fairly common (EG tier 3 salvage) and price fixes it.
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This was the best post I've seen on this subject.
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Originally Posted by Impish Kat
Besides the fact that cross posting is against forum rules, this whole thing is in terribly bad form. |
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Not sure how rare it is, but let me break it down for you. You have 36 characters on a server, each has market slots, 12 servers, so you have an army of 432 buyers. each has 15 (average) market slots, so you can be placing individual bids for 6480 of these things. Of course, you can bid for more than one at once, so this number is a little low. |
Originally Posted by Rad_Avenger
Would be interested in hearing your explanation for how its possible to corner the market on the PvP +3% Def IO. I don't think its possible, but I welcome your insight.
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That covers the how do I buy them all up phase. Need any help on the selling?
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Of course, there's the ridiculousness of any one player having enough inf to bid two billion inf 6480 times to guarantee that they get all the items placed. Then there's the issue that at bid cap, bids are filled semirandomly, so anyone else could get those items. Then there's the issue that once you have the items, having paid max bid for them, you can only lose money reselling them on the market due to sellers fees. Then there's the fact that most of these items are sold off market for more than bid cap because they are so rare. Then there's the fact that anyone can produce more of them, either by drops or by A-merits.|
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
Not sure how rare it is, but let me break it down for you. You have 36 characters on a server, each has market slots, 12 servers, so you have an army of 432 buyers. each has 15 (average) market slots, so you can be placing individual bids for 6480 of these things. Of course, you can bid for more than one at once, so this number is a little low.
That covers the how do I buy them all up phase. Need any help on the selling? |
That covers what's wrong with your idea on the buying side. Need any help on the selling?
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Ooooh...those crazy market cornerers! Buying things at 2B and then selling them at 2B to generate 1.8B per sale.|
Originally Posted by Emberly
Of course, there's the ridiculousness of any one player having enough inf to bid two billion inf 6480 times to guarantee that they get all the items placed. Then there's the issue that at bid cap, bids are filled semirandomly, so anyone else could get those items. Then there's the issue that once you have the items, having paid max bid for them, you can only lose money reselling them on the market due to sellers fees. Then there's the fact that most of these items are sold off market for more than bid cap because they are so rare. Then there's the fact that anyone can produce more of them, either by drops or by A-merits.
That covers what's wrong with your idea on the buying side. Need any help on the selling? |
Hmmm...maybe if I do that 6480 times I will generate a profit...
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If we pair up and do it together, we can lose two hundred million inf a sale, 12960 times! That's a surefire way to profit off "cornering the market!"
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Originally Posted by PumBumbler
Ooooh...those crazy market cornerers! Buying things at 2B and then selling them at 2B to generate 1.8B per sale.
Hmmm...maybe if I do that 6480 times I will generate a profit... |
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okay, for high priced / rare items you only need to bid a few times. a 100 billion war chest would easily accomplish this. a bid for 1 billion, 1.1 billion 1.2 billion,.... even some at half a bill, why not. |
Originally Posted by Emberly
Of course, there's the ridiculousness of any one player having enough inf to bid two billion inf 6480 times to guarantee that they get all the items placed. Then there's the issue that at bid cap, bids are filled semirandomly, so anyone else could get those items. Then there's the issue that once you have the items, having paid max bid for them, you can only lose money reselling them on the market due to sellers fees. Then there's the fact that most of these items are sold off market for more than bid cap because they are so rare. Then there's the fact that anyone can produce more of them, either by drops or by A-merits.
That covers what's wrong with your idea on the buying side. Need any help on the selling? |
the theory is most people will price the one they get at 1.9 bill, or 1.5 bill for fast sells. You buy those (1st bid at any price is 1st filled) and relist it at 2 bill. Anybody trying to bid 1.5 bill, or 1.9 bill, has to wait for all of your 1.5 bill, or 1.9 bill bids to fill first. If they are building for a toon they will probably get impatient and bid the 2 bill. Kaching. (this kaching thing = the sound a cash register makes in old movies) So, you have effectively cornered the market and are making money off every one of these items that move. As far as where do I get a 100 billion, well, some of these crusty old marketeers have that and lots more. And once they have that much they corner market after market after market. Niches, that is what they are called in the marketeer parlance. (I included the selling information above as a bonus. Thanks for playing)
If I levelled up 432 toons to play the market, I would deserve rewards commensurate with these extreme efforts. IMHO. YMMV.
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This is incorrect|
Originally Posted by Blue_Centurion
You buy those (1st bid at any price is 1st filled) and relist it at 2 bill.
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highest bid gets the lowest priced item, not 1st come 1st served
It has become abundantly clear why some items cost 2 Billion per enhancer. It is a trick outlawed on Wall Street. It is called cornering the market. Take corn for instance. Buy up all the corn, or corn futures, that will arrive on Wall Street for the year. Then set your own price as to the selling price corn we be for that year. This is especially easy to do in the game with items that are limited drops. (like PvP I/Os, purps, etc.)
When 1-5% of your player base (completely guessing here) has manipulated the market prices so that only that 1-5% can afford certain rare items in the game you are effectively allowing that portion of the game content to be removed from use for the other 95% of your customers. Not only are your customers unable to afford/use these items, the entire market becomes driven by these higher prices. This is especially true in a small closed market. That means that the vast majority of your clients are using the in-game system and stores for the bulk of their purchases. The only players who design/build from equipment available on the black market have to 1) farm long periods to hopefully get a lucky drop to cover some black market purchases 2) manipulate a corner of the market themselves to ensure they have this type of funds 3) try to convince a friend to farm for them and give them billions in funds.
If you have designed your game so that market manipulation is supposed to be part of it, then I suppose I am wasting my time writing this. However, I cannot see the business sense that this makes. There is a reason that this is outlawed on Wall Street. Beyond the ethical reasons that could be argued that allowing market manipulation kills the fun for a great percentage of your customers, at least when it comes to upgrading their characters.
i19 should bring prime examples of this, due to a new class of rare and desired salvage for level 50 characters. I believe this market will immediately fall subject not to suplly and demand, but to extreme market manipulation and prices for many items will immediately go to the billions.
Please help to stop the abuse that is ruining one area of your game. Thank you.