Phraust said:
Market lag getting the gil to get Erase, I can drawyou up another example with shorter times that could make the situation more relevant if you wish, or you cna just get the point. It's up to you. And who's to say SE won't up on the next update make erase as easy to get as Raise III, which use to be worth a lot?
Here's where there's danger just like in the real life stock market. It can drop, and occasionally it will. There's only been a handful of times I have seen an item permanently drop in price. Other than that the item goes through lulls just like in a real market. Having Erase when they drop it is just like having Enron stock in this situation.
Phraust said:
You're trying way too hard. The fact is, you will have to have liquid assests at one point or another, it's unavoidable. And the market lag between the time you are liquidating, whatever the items or items may be that you're liquidating, and the time you possess enough gil to buy your item you could end up fucked. Even somethign as drastic as being Joe Sixpack the monk and selling everythign I own to buy a 8 mil Scorpion Harness, only to find by the time I sold everything and made 9 mil to find out that not only could I not buy the scorpion harness for 9, 10, or even 15 mil, that I couldn't even get my gear back that I had sold, unless I came up with another 11 mil. And that took only a night to happen....
...And that happened to a lot of people.
Having liquid cash is unavoidable yes, but you can minimize the damage that it does. Having 9 million gil in cash, or in darksteel ores is a stupid idea. You can help curb the damage done by investing in items.
Phraust said:
The point of the second problem was that the market was getting choked out by the gil sellers, and thier Zerg tactics on marketing.
If the market is getting zerg rushed, then wait for the rush to be over. If you watch the prices when that happens you'll see that all the prices return to a more appropriate value. I'll use the elemental staves. On Leviathan there is a Japanese woodworker named Gaga. Every once in a while Gaga decides he wants to make a bunch of elemental staves. During this time all the NQ staves drop in price. Sometimes as much as 50-60%. Now is when you buy them. They can, and will go back up. The "zerg rush" caused them to drop in price. You can either buy them now, or if you already have them and want to sell them, wait until the rush is over. I waited 3 weeks to get my earth staff because I watched the prices, and waited for Gaga to go on one of his crafting sprees.
Mattaru said:
I'd like to see these graphs, or at least how you compile data, what you look for etc. And yes this economy works like any other though to a greater extreme.
I said you could make them, not that I did. But I'll tell you what I look for when I watch the market. I keep track of the faster selling items, nothing like Baronne gear that only sells once every other week. Stuff like erase, the level 36 stat rings, and when I get enough money, the level 54 ones. These aren't all of them, but it's a good idea. I do this to minimize the selling time variable. I can get a very quick turnaround of my item->gil conversion with these. Also, I don't buy just one. If I can only afford one item of a certain price, I'll get 3-4 different items of a lower price. If I have 6 erase scrolls, I have to wait for 6 white mages to have gil to buy them. If I have one erase scroll, one stonega III scroll etc. then I can diversify my purchases amongst the different jobs and crafts.
If I were then going to record my observations, I would make a graph that on one axis has the price of the item (scale appropriate to cost; i.e. no millions on darksteel ore, and no 10ks on emp pin). The other axis would have date along with the day of the week to make it easier to read. This would show the general price curve and would give you a good idea of when the price peaks. It usually peaks about the same time every week due to people's play habits. If you see an overall upward trend over a few weeks, then the item might be worth investing in. If not, don't do it unless you want to gamble.
Mattaru said:
I was saying your stock market analogy doesnt really hold true because of the difference b/t corporation speculation and item price speculation. The price of a good in the economy can very easily be affected by a single crafter deciding to enter into the market, and there is no press to report on a new firm entering the market etc, it will just happen and can greatly effect price. Since the FFXI market is so fluid it has general upwards and downward trends but I'd be very suprised to see speculation on certain items in particular and their particular trends. Phraust's point it seems is that the market can change and move so fast that stable income makers are undermined by unstable price changes in the good sold and the desired good. Extend that to what im saying, the market moves so quickly in items that would be worth speculating (if it did not change much very little profit is to be made) than how is it trackable.
You don't need press. The difference between the in-game economy and the real life economy is that I can walk to the AH and look at prices. I can't walk into the NYSE and do the same thing. You can do your own research a lot easier here than you can in real life. Just like in playing the stock market, if your darksteel ores drop from 80k to 55k then don't sell them. Wait for them to go back up like they always will and sell them later. Unlike in the real economy, the demand for items in this game will never go down. Crafters will always need materials to make stuff.
My Spider Web example is a perfect example for price speculation. Through watching their prices I see that they tend to reach their lowest on Wednesday or Thursday, and reach their peak early to mid Sunday. Unless the people on your server are radically different than on Leviathan, then yours probably follows a similar pattern.
artytime:
