Price Fixing in Bazaar

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Picaresque, Jul 27, 2015.

  1. Bashiok Crownguard Augur

    If you can easily sell that many skinspikes, keep selling them until he runs out of plat. If you lack the resources to do so then you know its whatever. in wow there was a dude who hit gold cap twice when it was more difficult to make gold and he had a blog and had many tactics for making gold, some requiring no effort other than keeping a database on prices through an addon. if he keeps buying your skinspikes, he doesn't recoup the plat until he sells them. if you can consistently sell more of them then you win.
    EQgamer23 likes this.
  2. Motherlee Augur

    How about server mergers? 4:1!
  3. Motherlee Augur

    I've noticed that anytime anyone claims that baz prices are too high, he's just a cheap-o whose wallet releases moths anytime he opens it.

    Closed economies are by nature, inflationary. Go farm me some metallic liquid instead of standing around complaining.
  4. EQgamer23 Elder

    Could you elaborate on what you mean here?
  5. Matari Augur

    If I am so wrong what's the harm of updating and modernizing the bazaar? I think it's clearly obviously who the people are that use this tatic.
  6. svann Augur

    Not only is this type of thread not going away, but it has been repeated in every mmo that ever had an economy and an easy means to sell from player to player.

    "All of this has happened before, and will happen again".
    Motherlee likes this.
  7. Kravitz Augur

    I always do the latter. Force people to buy at my price, while buying everyone else out. Its rather simple, not everyone has time to do everything to flood the high demand market on certain items in EQ i.e. TDS/CotF rares, Kronos, spell runes etc.. So few people use the buyer/trader system vs how many people actually buy items from bazaar. So the demand to buy is higher than the actual archaic system with so few traders/buyers in the game. Most traders are not up 24/7 (i.e. holding your account hostage), and if they do they do not have the resource to more than 100 slots (i.e. 1 trader).

    The only way you can solve these issues if you give everyone a fair advantage with an auction house type system where you post the items to the server rather than tie it to an account. That floods the market with everyone having an equal chance to buy/sell whenever they want while playing other aspects of the game as well as being able to sell unlimited items regardless of how many accounts you have as trader/buyer.


    So its always better to overprice and make your customers pay more, and clean everyone else out of the market for periods at a time.
  8. Goth Augur


    its repeated in the real world...

    look at those antique sellers.. they buy peoples stuff for cheap and mark the hell out of it.

    basically that is what big sellers are doing on the bazaar. they buy out the woodby sellers and use it to there advantage.
    Motherlee and Garshok like this.
  9. Goth Augur


    yea bazaar would be a lot different if..

    • allow silver players to partake
    • not hold accounts hostage to trader/buyer mode
    • up the max items you can sell per char to say 300 items
    • remove the 2Mpp max price crap.
    Should be able to sell on FTP accounts and have a trader guy that can have 30slot trader bags and on all the time weather your playing your main or the computer is off.
  10. Kravitz Augur


    This above point doesn't really help unless ftp accounts are allowed like you said but even then it doesn't help that much. A person able to load up 24 accounts on his computer would have 24 x 300 slots more than a person able to load 6 accounts on his computer (6 x 300 slots).

    That is why I stated it has to be not account tied but serverside tied as an auction system to be completely fair. So any individual player would have the exact same access to the amount of slots they can buy/trade etc. Then there is a question of implementation, the population currently doesn't already use the buyer/trader system only a small % of the EQ server population does, because the system is so archaic and time consuming. If you look at Guild Wars 2 auction house (serverside AH system), its rather amazing cause it gives every individual player on the server a chance to participate whether they are offline or online doing other things in game or outside the game, with unlimited item sell/trade access.

    Sure more slots will help, but I'm pretty sick of these "bandaid" type solutions like the offline trader/buyer modes. They really don't help in the end. But the developer team I have been told numerous times in private conversation does not want to go down any other route than the current system, and the bandaid offline trader/buyer solution is where they want to leave it.

    They actual want the design of holding your account hostage by the way, that was a fundamental design they wanted to keep. I believe Phathom or Piestro told me that over PM's, reason being it forces people to subscribe to more accounts. I wish I could pull up that PM but it was on the old forums.
  11. Garshok Augur

    Lessee - devs spending time developing content, or devs developing new bazaar mechanics . . . . . Easy choice for me.

    BTW, it is not the latter of those two options, in case you had any doubt. This game doesn't have WoW's development budget - choices have to be made.

    Everybody has the same rules for accessibility. Sorry if this is a surprise to you, but I would imagine that anyone who has watched the bazaar for any significant period of time is 'informed' about its shortcomings.


    There is a lot of stuff wrong with the game - not to mention the world in general - besides the market. But if this is your personal windmill that you choose to tilt at, so be at,
    Mayfaire likes this.
  12. Bigstomp Augur


    I don't claim they're too high in public much, but I do think they're often too high.

    "Too high" to me has the specific definition of I'll go hunt it up myself instead of buying it. I don't begrudge those in the bazaar for their prices. The go hunt it up yourself option always exists.
  13. Garshok Augur

    "I'll go hunt it up myself instead of buying it" - probably the best working definition for prices being 'too high' in EQ.

    People in bazaar seem to come in two flavors: those who exhibit 'profit maximizing' behavior determined to squeeze out every last possible plat or krono - whose prices often make me think "I'll just go hunt it up myself" - or those who practice satisficing behavior, just looking for a price that for them is 'good enough.' I usually tend to be a satisficer.

    Players whinging about the bazaar may feel a bit less dissatisfaction of they decide whether they are satisficers or profit maximizers. If satsificers, they may do better to just accept that the bazaar is what it is and work around it (and occasionally play mind games with the profit maximizers manipulating prices, which can be fun.)

    If they are profit maximizers, then they better mentally prepare themselves to deal with the imperfect bazaar mechanisms and be prepared to compete with others willing to manipulate it the way some on this thread have described. Else they will be in for a very frustrating time in EQ.
  14. Kravitz Augur


    I haven't hunted anything for the most part, infact I didn't buy TDS till about March of this year, but I made a enormous profit of TDS items, just price fixing and making it incredibly difficult to compete with my buyer and traders. I will force players to pay at my price or they can farm it themselves if they really want it. Cause thats how the current system is favored towards.
  15. Time Burner 2 Augur

    Items sold from someone via barter or bazaar could get tagged with a NO TRADE stamp. This would really cut down on the "buy low sell high" crowd. Awaiting the protests from resellers!
  16. Hiladdar Augur

    We already have NO TRADE tag, and LORE tag, and ATTUNABLE tag on stuff. The lore limits one items, to minimize ability to monopolize / farm an item. The attunable tag limits that items ability to be used then sold. No trade tag means you have to run to loot it.

    Beyond that, in addition to my main, I got 4 other toon, with about 40k AA on each. I am all done with all TDS group content on all toons, and all raid content on my main. Only thing left for me is to either go make more AA, or go play in bazaar, <<Sarcasm on>> squeezing the last copper out of every skinspike transaction I make<</Sarcasm off>>.

    One of the real issues, is there is not enough raid content. 1 tier of raid content with 5 regular events, and 2 (one attempt per week) events is not enough.

    Everyone in the game has the same opportunity to set up a buyer / seller in bazaar. Some choose to do so, some choose to not do so. Some choose to impose constraints to buying and selling in bazaar similar to what is going on outside the game.

    Personally, I am glad I do not have to keep records, file a 1040 or state forms, pay taxes on plat sales, have insurance, avatar health care, avatar disability insurance, avatar retirement plan, lawyer and accountant on retainer, state and federal licenses, equal opportunity programs for women, veterans, minorities etc.. etc. just to buy or sell a skinspike potion.
    Mayfaire likes this.
  17. Time Burner 2 Augur

    Hiladdar, I don't think you address the notion I wrote "No Trade" about when I said:

    Items sold from someone via barter or bazaar could get tagged with a NO TRADE stamp. This would really cut down on the "buy low sell high" crowd. Awaiting the protests from resellers

    Don't hijack threads, start new ones if need be.
  18. YellowBelly Augur


    They should add some kind of stamp. Maybe something like one item per account per week can be sold on all sellable items per account. A stamp that will degrade a higher and higher % on each item sold per week per account. Or just the baz down until they can come up with something. These types of shenanigans drive players away from the game.

    DBG should chime in on this problem since they obviously have completely lost control of their economies to resellers. They are to blame also for introducing rmt items like krono to the game. Maybe since they are not under the arm of SMedly or SOE anymore they could think about removing them.
  19. Kravitz Augur

    They already have chimed in and have stated they like the system as it is, infact there is considerable pushback to change the system beyond what it is now, which is why I have elected to abuse it, since they refuse to fix it. I've tried numerous times over PMs to get it changed since Sklug was around but they like it the way it is.


    The best thing you can do for yourself if you like the bazaar is to abuse it like I do with the price fixing and holding monopolies on items for a set period of time.
  20. Arwyn-RoV Augur


    (I think) The game currently doesn't support the ad-hoc adding of a tag to an existing item. This is an idea that would require them to essentially duplicate the entire item database to provide the NO TRADE version of everything sellable. Also, as a counter argument, how is this idea even close to a realistic simulation of commerce in a fantasy setting? I've played alot of RPGs.. dice & paper and computer, none of them have anything like this to my memory.

    The idea also complicates tradeskills and places an undue burden on the player base. It would restrict the reuse of items: you wouldn't give that thing you just bought to friends, buy for others, give to your guild, etc.

    In short, This ain't hijacking a thread, its shooting down a bad idea.
    Elricvonclief and Garshok like this.