boycott the AH and AH prices?

S

Sculli

Guest
First things first, don't turn this into a flame, if you want to flame then use one of the many existing threads on the Flameboard.

What would it take to establish a functional player economy outside the game?

What do I mean by this question?
Well, can you think of a way to create a functional and price controlled AH on QCDN? Not like the current AH, but an actual AH application integrated in the site. A player run association sets the maximum prices for wares.

The problems I see are:
- more players would need to be made aware of such a system
- there is no way to effectivly prevent someone from purchasing a price controlled item on QCDN, and resell it on the open market

There are probably all kinds of other issues I just can't think of right now.

I guess the real questions are: Is there any set of circumstances under which a price controlled economy that is administered outside the game would work? Is there any possibility to achieve and maintain the needed circumstances?
 
You would need near 100% participation or at least enough participation that everything anyone could every need ingame is available under this sub-system of undercutting. Otherwise participants would be willingly making less money and then still having to go outside of this "lower market" and pay inflated prices.
 
Another issue would be the non-real-time nature of a QCDN AH. If you need a stack of crystals, then you most likely need it NOW, and not when the guy you want to buy it from logs in and manages to send it to you.
 
Only thing is... greed...

People can get more gil from SELLING ingame at the inflated prices...

Whereas buying and selling on the forums may be reliable and good for setting up a constant trade routine between players, greed will provail, and people will go for what pays more, which is the inflated AH prices, the main option would be if folks made large scale contracts on the forums, Ie. 8 stacks of crystals for X ammount of gil, but most folks get LS to help out, i dunno, as I have said I am pretty drunk, but this is barely understandable... right?
 
It can't work.

The prices on the AH are the agreed value of an item between the buyer and the seller. You need both to agree to make the sale happen. The players ARE controlling the prices, nothing to do with SE.

The AH fees are removing gil from the server which is reducing inflation a little, but when people don't want to pay the fees they set up a bazaar in Battalia. What prices do they set? AH+/-20% or so. Why? Because if you don't sell your gear at the going rate, you're falling behind.

I guarantee that not one of the people complaining about inflation has sold a stack of fire crystals for 1200gil (the price soon after PS2 release) in the last 6 months...
 
Blowy said:
The prices on the AH are the agreed value of an item between the buyer and the seller. You need both to agree to make the sale happen. The players ARE controlling the prices, nothing to do with SE.
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That's partially true.
Effectivly the sellers are controlling the current prices. If you as a buyer want something you have two choices. You can either not buy it (which contradicts you wanting it (or needing it)), or you can farm till you have enough cash to buy it at whatever prices is asked because you can not find anyone selling for less than in-game AH prices. For any kind of item that is worth something to someone above a certain level (18?), it's a sellers market.
 
It sounds nice, but i'd have to say i don't think it could work.
We couldn't keep enough items up on the market to "fix" the cost difference of items. joe shmoe is lvling cloth, were selling silk threads for 15k a stack on this ah, the person farming those threads is trying to get X item that isn't easily obtainable. its never up on our ah so joe has to work twice as hard to buy the "over priced" item than the person lvling there craft that he spent time farming.
it seems like a good effort but i just doubt we could pull it off :(
 
It's only a sellers market so long as there are more buyers than sellers. As the price goes up, more and more people see production as worthwhile (and profitable) and take it up. That combined with more people farming for their own use causes more producers (sellers), and less buyers which causes the price to balance again.

Take the Wild Onions in the flame board atm. 35k a stack and low levels all decide it's worthwhile to farm the low level gobbies (which drop them all the time), and all of a sudden there's 40 stacks on the AH. The Mithkabob makers decided that it was more profitable for them to spend a little time and farm them as well, so all of a sudden demand drops as well. Now the sellers can't sell anymore so they have to undercut each other to sell and the price drops.

Yes it is a sellers market aat the moment on a lot of items. But a sellers market basically means things are underpriced. The general population believes that it is in their interest to buy rather than to make(/craft/farm/quest). So there are more buyers than sellers. If the prices rise too high, then the population decides that it's in their interest to make rather than buy, and the prices stop rising.

While it is a sellers market atm, the sellers equally can't seel if noone's buying...
 
I think it would honestly take a fairly large core of crafters and HNM shells willing to part with things for less than they can get elsewhere, and buyers who agreed not to turn around and sell things on the open market. You'd also probably need a core of suppliers willing to sell crafting materials at lower prices, since that's most of the reason the finished products are going up. '-'; And yeah, the real-time thing is an issue. I don't think it's really possible without it being an abused system. =/ But maybe it is.
 
In reality all that would happen is someone would buy low, send it to a mule, and have the mule sell it on the AH. I would love it if this was doable but honestly I have doubt in my fellow man. :p
 
Thats what I did ingame.
Look at bazaars and comapre prices to ah.
Buy low sell high.

I almost always puts items on ah much cheaper than current selling price, but most buyers bid the hihgest amount.
 
I could see this working somewhat. You could sorta set it up like E-bay. People might abuse it but if they have a bad rating people will know not to sell to or buy from them. The realy issue would be getting enough people from the server to support it.
 
I'd say it wouldnt work. It would be too easy to defect. A simple game (game theory) would show that individual rationale would be to defect...so yeah.
 
well in all truth... would it be that bad to try?
 
Honestly, I think it's a stupid idea. I think the prices are fine, the prices have always been fine, and people who complain about prices just like to complain. Even if people went along with it, all it would do is create severe item shortages. The problem becomes less of "I need to make another 500k." And more of a "I have three times as much gil as they sell for and I can't find one." Hence the phrase supply and demand. As prices go up the potential buyers drop out. The only way to actually drop prices in an effective manner is increase production, and most of the high priced items are based off some sort of NM that limits the production, hence my constant complaints about FF having a flawed NM system.
 
03_G_003.jpg


Here's a nice picture of some guys who thought this idea would work.
 
This is possible.

It would require much patience and support.

First, you would need to find someone that EVERYONE can trust. There aren't many people out there that could even be considered for such a position. Someone who everyone knows doesn't need to steal or is above stealing.

First, we would make almost a point system. You would donate equipment to the "Bank" mule, and recieve a set amount of points for each item. Then you could spend those points on things in the bank. If more than 3 items of 1 kind are accumulated, they would be sold off, and no more than 5 items of 1 kind shall be accepted at a time.

There would need to be many many mules. 1 mule for each craft and each equipment slot.

As far as the items that are sold for gil, you would also be able to trade your Points for this gil if you chose to. If you wish, you could donate gil for points.

There would need to be a list of all the people that were trusted to hold the equip, and they should get a discount of some sort for paying for that space. Maybe 10% off.

All items in the game would have to have a point value set on it. We would also need to set a point value to gil. This could avoid an ah, but people would still have no incentive to put HQ items on the QCDN AH.

The system would take a LONG tie to set up. The people that hold items would get sick of doing it. There would have to be a log set up to record EVERY single donation and transaction. I would also suggest that everyone that is a mule for crafting goods have 90+ in that craft so they would know what they are dealing with.

Too many ifs, thens and buts. Seems insanely complicated. I think it would be ok if we could get it off the ground.

As far as trustworthy people go...
I can think of about 10 people in game that I would hand equipment to and not worry about it. About 5 of em are qcdn users.

Intriguing concept, maybe would should try it out with Just Crystals or just lvl 50 equipment and below. See how well it works.
 
Firestreak said:
Honestly, I think it's a stupid idea. I think the prices are fine, the prices have always been fine, and people who complain about prices just like to complain. Even if people went along with it, all it would do is create severe item shortages. The problem becomes less of "I need to make another 500k." And more of a "I have three times as much gil as they sell for and I can't find one." Hence the phrase supply and demand. As prices go up the potential buyers drop out.
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im with firestreak.

besides, we already SORT of have that with the Auctionhouse forums, that is about as good as you are gonna get really.

theres just not enough qcdn's selling enough items for it to really become a reality.
 
What Blowy has posted pretty much hits the nail on the head. I'll use an example from over a month ago. Victory Rings were 700-800k. Sellers would add 50k at a time and over a very short time, the rings were up to 1.2mil. This was possible because only a few were ever up at the same time. Whenever there is 1 of something, you can almost guarantee a price hike. Seeing the rings price increase 50% over a short period, suddenly numerous people wanted to sell their Victory Rings. Since the market was flooded, all the sellers kept undercutting each other. 1.1mil, 1mil, 950k, etc all the way back to 800k. If the sellers were patient and didn't undercut each other, they would have sold the rings for 1.2mil. Fortunately for the buyers, that will never happen with an item that is widely held.

Crystals are continuing to rise. Synthesis materials are rising. With the inflation of these specific things, it's only natural for the product created from using them will rise as well. Myself being a cook, I've noticed several meal foods that have not risen at the same level as the cost to make them. Too many chef's making the same thing leads to undercutting. It is only a matter of time before these chefs realize that they are not profiting as well as they would like which leads them into 3 choices.

1] Continue to undercut item to have lower but steady gil flow. This seems to be the majority.

2] Stop undercutting item and patiently work it up. This involves not selling nearly as much, and having to relist items that constantly fall off the AH. May pay off in the long run but not short term. Very few people do this.

3] Sell "hot" items only. By hot I mean items that will sell quickly due to none or few being listed. You would have to check the AH more often and have a variety of meals synthed so you would be able to list what is needed when it is needed. Imo these are the smartest sellers. They are the ones with market research.

I would assume this is the same regardless of what guild you belong to. My short post of agreeing with Blowy turned into a ramble. Sorry
 
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