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Doubt not the power of the Mighty Fifty Cent! And his sidekick. Two Bits!
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Originally Posted by Daemodand
Put me in the "do and complain about it" category. Sorry if I'd rather make my money by being a superhero in a superhero game, but the market is just so much faster it's very difficult to ignore. But yeah, I signed up to be a superhero not a commodities broker.
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So.... it's immoral for me to buy never melting ice for 222 and re-list it for 93,333?
But it never melts!! I'd say it is worth at least 100k 
Currently Playing:
A bunch of toons! (Freedom, Virtue, and a few on Infinity)
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And take your head out of your backside and realise that while flippers stabilise supply, they also negatively impact the market, it's not all good.|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Simply because you choose to ignore the value they bring to the market doesn't mean they don't bring anything.
Please stop propagating bad information. |
In the earlyish days of the market if you were patient and poor, you could eventually pick up good stuff for cheap prices simply by leaving bids up for long enough. A friend got all 3 of the original healing set uniques for a total of less than 6M. I IOd out a scrapper in very decent gear (pre purples) for 2M or so excluding crafting costs (although none of the IOs were 50s, so that wasn't that much, <5M in total).
Doing this was a fun game for me, and flipping ruined my entertainment.
I have a lot of 50s, so I never need to IO a toon out NAO, and starting to buy the IOs for the ultimate build when a toon is level 1, I normally had pretty much all of them at bargain basement prices by the time I reached the level to slot them.
Due to marketeering (buy recipes - craft - profit) I've made enough cash to have several multi billion builds, but I do miss the fun of seeing what you can do on next to nothing, it's just too much work to be fun nowadays, and flipping is a large part of that.
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
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Personally, I'd assume that the largest part of that is the sheer huge sloshing waves of inf that now exist in the game.|
Originally Posted by Minotaur
Due to marketeering (buy recipes - craft - profit) I've made enough cash to have several multi billion builds, but I do miss the fun of seeing what you can do on next to nothing, it's just too much work to be fun nowadays, and flipping is a large part of that.
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Back when the market came in, I considered 14 million to be a pretty damn huge bank balance on a toon. It was enough to fund SO's for several alts, be they mine or friends'.
14M nowadays is peanuts.
Anyway, the most amusing 'flipping' I remember seeing was the few days after the markets came in, when people were buying stacks of the extremely common types of base salvage for 1 inf and then immediately relisting them for 1 inf.
Badge monkeys.... the things they do for their fix never ceases to astound me
Anyway, congrats to the OP, and I have nothing else to add to the argument that's not already been said.
Warning:
The above post may contain Cynicism, sarcasm and/or pessimism. If you object to the quantities contained, then tough.
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You may want to rephrase that. Just a little. I'm fully cognizant of the effect flippers have on the market.|
Originally Posted by Minotaur
And take your head out of your backside and realise that while flippers stabilise supply, they also negatively impact the market, it's not all good.
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| In the earlyish days of the market if you were patient and poor, you could eventually pick up good stuff for cheap prices simply by leaving bids up for long enough. A friend got all 3 of the original healing set uniques for a total of less than 6M. I IOd out a scrapper in very decent gear (pre purples) for 2M or so excluding crafting costs (although none of the IOs were 50s, so that wasn't that much, <5M in total). |
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If I wanted to borrow a halo, I'd say "The people who don't know what their stuff is worth are getting a decent price for it anyway. Terribly sorry."
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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Originally Posted by Giant2005
And you don't consider that dishonorable? If someone wants that product, the no longer have to pay the minimum that they would have without your input, they have to pay the minimum + whatever mark up you decide to put on there.
If the Joker decided to buy all the Utility Belts in the World and re-sell them for prices Batman could not afford, the world's most popular superhero would be reduced to quite a boring character. |
Have you ever gone to McDonalds and bought some of their food? Did you then complain that their food cost more than it took to make? Guess what? That is the market at work...
@ThrillKiller
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You still can. At least, as recently as last month. Maybe the market has gone to hell since then?|
Originally Posted by Minotaur
In the earlyish days of the market if you were patient and poor, you could eventually pick up good stuff for cheap prices simply by leaving bids up for long enough.
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I routinely keep bids up for things I know I will need. I consistently get Luck of the Gambler +recharge for 60-70 million inf.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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I'm glad that I'm not the only one that does something like that. I tend to have a thing for symmetry, so I'll compulsively bid something like 10,500,501 on an item. My sell prices are symmetrical as well, but no one sees those.
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Originally Posted by Fulmens
* people DO buy for my bid plus one inf. I don't usually have enough stock to "own" any niche, but when I'm dealing in low-turnover items, I often see something like "55,100,909"; my market signature is 908...
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Having worked in retail for many years and having seen the prices these things are actually bought for, I can tell you you are very off base here. In your example, the 10 million that it's being resold for IS the retail price that's marked on the package and the 1 million what was originally paid.
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Originally Posted by Giant2005
n real life, producers how found a way to protect their goods from such treatment by a middle man. They write the recommended retail price directly on the packaging - we have no protection from such things in this game and that is the Dev's fault not yours.
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Global @StarGeek
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/e quickly looks to see if the name Adam Smith is available on Virtue server.
It is not.
Dammit!!!
I wanted to be the ultimate mustache-twirling ebil marketeer, and use ebil attacks like "The Invisible Hand of the Market" and stuff, but now I can't.
Le sad. 
You could be:
Ghost of Adam Smith
Adam Smith Redux
Deus ex Marketa
Cash Grab McGee
Adam Ebill Smith
Oppressor
Noob Hater
Rat the Fat Cat
Fat Moneybags
Orphan Maker
Quote:
In Ur Market Takin Ur Inf?
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Originally Posted by DevilYouKnow
You could be:
Ghost of Adam Smith Adam Smith Redux Deus ex Marketa Cash Grab McGee Adam Ebill Smith Oppressor Noob Hater Rat the Fat Cat Fat Moneybags Orphan Maker |
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But it's not illegal everywhere. I live in a state where its been legal to scalp since 1989. Only like 13-20 states have scalping specific laws making it illegal. Many cities have some regulations, but a lot of them are just limitations to where you can scalp and how many tickets you can scalp or that you have to pay a license. But its far from universally illegal to scalp tickets.
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Originally Posted by Giant2005
I have a question.
If there is nothing inherently wrong with flipping, why is it so frowned upon in the real world? Why is it illegal to scalp? |
@Mental Maden @Maden Mental
"....you are now tackle free for life."-ShoNuff
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This question is... interesting.|
Originally Posted by Giant2005
I have a question.
If there is nothing inherently wrong with flipping, why is it so frowned upon in the real world? Why is it illegal to scalp? Why do producers feel the need to add a recommended retail price to their products? Why is flipping treated differently? |
First off, scalping isn't illegal everywhere.
Secondly, scalping is non-comparable. Scalpers are working in a market where a monopoly is possible and no new items can be created. If there are 10,000 tickets for a popular concert, only 10,000 people can go. Period. You can't go punch random thugs and get new tickets to that concert. So scalpers can raise prices on tickets and still sell tickets, and there's nothing people can do to get tickets a different way.
Thirdly, scalping is even more non-comparable. Market slots are a significant limitation on available items. Increasing the density of items per market slot increases general availability of items. This is not the case with tickets.
A comparison with the CoH market might look like this: There are hundreds of small ticket-selling firms. Each of them is prohibited by law from selling tickets to more than three events in any given day, and each of them can sell only however many tickets they happen to have found lying around. If one of them finds four tickets to four different events, he can list three of them, but he can't list the first until one of those three sells.
Scalpers come along and buy individual tickets from these guys, then sell tickets in stacks. A scalper will have three kinds of tickets available, but he'll have 50+ of each, and you can always find a scalper who has a ticket for any given show. Meanwhile, the other ticket sellers might end up with no one selling tickets to a particular show, or a bunch of people trying to sell tickets to the same show.
If it worked like that... Scalping wouldn't be illegal.
Anyway, here's what I do. I buy stacks and stacks of common salvage at 123 inf, then list them all at 1 inf. Go ahead, explain why this is immoral.
Flippers do the game community a service by destroying a little more inf at every transaction. Inflation would be even worse without flippers...
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Different scale of what is cheap, I was picking up some of the not absolutely top stuff but still damn useful (think say lvl 28-29 steadfast 3% defs or lvl 40 Touch of Deaths for positional defence) for tens of thousands not millions. I didn't go after LotG 7.5s, so can't remember what they cost then (I know it was not much in the days of the 8 minute Katie farm that dropped a random pool C). Basically if I couldn't buy the recipe for 100K or less it wasn't bought although I dropped quite a few of the things I needed, and I got a pretty decent IO build which only needed one healing unique to finish off (ToDs/Makos/Red forts/sciroccos/Numi, steadfast and miracle uniques type stuff).|
Originally Posted by Ironblade
You still can. At least, as recently as last month. Maybe the market has gone to hell since then?
I routinely keep bids up for things I know I will need. I consistently get Luck of the Gambler +recharge for 60-70 million inf. |
When I needed LotGs more recently I obviously overpaid at 80M for the 10 or so I bought
so I'm aware of what can be done now, but it seems more like work and less like fun than it did in the old days. The challenge was basically to accumulate IOs to slot when you hit the late 30s off your own money without farming or marketeering and that would be tricky now unless you got lucky with drops or went out of your way to get A-merits (particularly as you level up much more quickly than you used to).
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
I would also say that there is a lot more competition now then was then. More people understand I/O's and how to slot them. Also more people understand how to work the market
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I'm sorry, I don't believe you for a second. Well, except for the part where you say your entire guild was banned for a secret reason which was then covered with a blanket "market" excuse.
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Originally Posted by Giant2005
The game in question was Lotro.
My marketing didn't really have anything to do with my ban, my entire guild controlled the market in this manner but it is no coincidence that those who had lifetime subs were all banned and those who weren't were left alone. I don't blame the marketing for my ban, it was just a weak excuse to prevent those Turbine had no means of profiting from using their resources. |
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
I'd estimate that the total amount of inf in the game has gone up by a factor of 10 or more since the days of quick Katies. (And I remember nobody knew the worth of a steadfast 3%; I got one on my "6 million dollar man" build because I couldn't afford the knockback IO. )
Almost all of that goes to the high end stuff (thus, LoTGs going from 8 million to 160 million, while Ruin A/D/R is nearly unchanged.)
I'm not sure how I'd play by your challenge rules, Minotaur- marketing and vendoring up my first million or two is so second-nature to me, I don't know what I'd do without it.
This is me thinking out loud:
1) Strategically sell your large inspirations. Estimated 1 million inf out of the gate, and maybe 2 million more by level 20.
2) Grit your teeth through level 1-20. Sell any valued salvage or lucky drops. Do either Synapse or Sister Psyche; collect fifty R-merits (also, zone tours at 5 merits each if needed). Preorder your L25 IOs and get them all for around a million or two.
3) From level 25-35, sell salvage and any lucky drops (crafted) to get another 5+ million, estimated.
4) Here's where I get stuck: you need 20 million inf to turn those R-merits into an A-merit, which you can then turn into about 80 million inf with a 1-merit IO [there are at least three options that give more than 50 million at level 35 or less.]
5) Buy all sorts of cheapish frankenslot IO's with your 30-50 million inf profit.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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As you mention, there are an awful lot of structural reasons this is the case now. Most of them have existed all along, but some of them have been reinforced. In particular, things like I16 letting everyone be a farmer if they want to and then doubling level 50 earnings come to mind. But those just magnified pre-existing disparities in reward between level 50s and ... everyone else. When you combine that with what I think is wider understanding of game mechanics among the players - and where specific IOs or sets fit into the picture - and people now focus that earning potential on certain things that they didn't used to.|
Originally Posted by Minotaur
When I needed LotGs more recently I obviously overpaid at 80M for the 10 or so I bought
so I'm aware of what can be done now, but it seems more like work and less like fun than it did in the old days. The challenge was basically to accumulate IOs to slot when you hit the late 30s off your own money without farming or marketeering and that would be tricky now unless you got lucky with drops or went out of your way to get A-merits (particularly as you level up much more quickly than you used to). |
The main counters to this have been the addition of alternate supply methods, like Alignment Merits. Those divert what might otherwise become additional market competition, therefore likely reducing prices.
So certainly flippers drive prices to "converge" on new, higher equilibrium points faster or more reliably than those prices might do in their absence, but they don't really do much to create that price. Based on your post history, I am pretty sure I'm not telling you anything newsworthy there.
Basically disagreements among people who understand all the above come out based on whether individuals think "finding equilibrium" is a laudable thing for someone to do on the market, or whether leaving price instability is the laudable thing. I suspect the best, most "healthy" thing is a mix of the two - some tendency towards a "normal" price with some instability to allow profit making and bargain hunting.
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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I guess. I would have said that flippers do the game community a service by crushing the hopes and dreams of the little people. After all, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? |
Originally Posted by Ghostwind_EU
Flippers do the game community a service by destroying a little more inf at every transaction. Inflation would be even worse without flippers...
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Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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Possibly not as much as you'd think Flippers do cause more inf to be destroyed by causing items to be sold twice and bringing up the low end sale price but conversely they also bring down the high end sales price which means less inf gets destroyed on those transactions.
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Originally Posted by Ghostwind_EU
Flippers do the game community a service by destroying a little more inf at every transaction. Inflation would be even worse without flippers...
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That's a valid point, but the presumption would be that, on average, there would |
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Possibly not as much as you'd think Flippers do cause more inf to be destroyed by causing items to be sold twice and bringing up the low end sale price but conversely they also bring down the high end sales price which means less inf gets destroyed on those transactions.
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be more transactions at equilibrium price than there would be in the high volatility case.
Sure, the few folks who shell out big cash would destroy a lot of inf, but more
folks shelling out equilibrium cash would lead to more inf destruction on the whole,
over time.
That said, I think the far larger service the flipper supplies is an assured supply
at a stabler (relatively speaking) pricepoint.
Regards,
4
I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is definitely better.
Light is faster than sound - that's why some people look smart until they speak.
For every seller who leaves the market dirty stinkin' rich,
there's a buyer who leaves the market dirty stinkin' IOed. - Obitus.
Along with Bowie, T. Rex and Slade, Sweet were the very best of actual Glam rock (not 80's hair rock that stole the name)
my lil RWZ Challenge vid