TLP Auctions will be on Yelinak

The owner of the site says he hates doing self-promotion, so here's me doing it instead.

https://www.tlp-auctions.com/ will be available on Yelinak. For those not familiar, it parses chat logs of /auc from the tunnel into a searchable format on the website. There is also a discord for arranging trades here: https://discord.gg/qzVt3NkZzP

If true this is good news for Yelinak.

I loved the tlp auction website for Mischief and Thornblade. It really gave me the upper hand when I was negotiating prices. I came across a few sellers that got really upset when I mentioned the item's average sale price on the site.

Likely because average selling price =/= average auction price =/= average buying price.

The price of items is somewhere between whatever the highest price someone is willing to pay and whatever the lowest price someone is willing to sell.

Nice added to my speed dial. Was hoping he would do this.

This is so true. TLP Auctions can only be used as a guideline at most. I tend to have EC Merchant as my tradeskill and have sold many, many items at above the TLP average prices because I was patience enough to wait for the right opportunity. Same with buying. Honestly it all comes down to patience. If your an impatient buyer or seller, you can generally expect less for your items and to pay more for what you buy.

Great site, very useful until the bazaar comes out.

I had several disadvantages when I traded in the EC tunnel

I was new to TLP's (former P99'er), so I was clueless about item prices on Mischief.

Mischief had A LOT of items that were previously no drop, and they would only appear in the tunnel like once a day. The website helped me gauge a buy and sell price for said item. If a player said that Greenmist was sold for 9kr, I was able to visit the site and be like, "this item was being auctioned for 4kr earlier. Let's get the price a little closer to 4kr than 9kr."

I hate the EC tunnel. I like to level, quest, socialize, and buff noobs. I am not interested in figuring out which item sold for what from whom from what time from where from camping EC tunnel for hours upon hours. Get me in and out asap.

TLDR: The website was great for me.

When did you start playing EQ? Did you play P99 before EQ? I wasn't sure if i read your post right. I had not considered that some people play p99 first.

But, what got me to hit the reply button was the part I bolded in your quote.... I don't know if you were around in the early days, but before the Bazaar was put in the game, EC Tunnel was half of the 4 things you listed that you like. People would spend hours Socializing and Buffing noobs there.

I was barely a teen when I first started playing EQ back in the day. I had started in Velious (two month'ish before Luclin launched. I stood at the first spire to activate in the Karanas), but I could only afford original EQ with my teen allowance. I leveled a cleric up to 50 in the old world only until I had enough cash to buy Kunark (I spent a long time with Classic/Kunark only - no epics) and eventually Velious. I did see Luclin, PoP graveyard zone, and frogs after my friend gave me his EQ discs and I think CD-Keys. I quit several times for months on end because my parents refused to fund my addiction. "It's 4:00 am in the morning, and you have school soon!!!" lol. I attended a total of one open world invite Naggy raid and one tag-along velks sorcerer raid (my computer crashed). I never joined a guild either.

When P99 came out, I started playing it for like a year until I quit to focus on life and returned to P99 green for 1.5 years. Green was fun for awhile, but the players act like it's a job. In short, I never saw much of the game until P99 came out. Mischief really made me fall in love with EQ again because I saw sooo much more than I did on live and P99. E.X. I handed in my first ever PoS key on Mischief.

I played EQ back in the day for the wrong reasons (to combat depression), and today I am playing it for the right reasons (to enhance my already happy life). I am excited!

Hello Everyone! The plan is for the site / bot to be fully updated tonight or tomorrow. It was supposed to be done over the weekend, but I got sick yesterday so things got pushed back. I have a few requests to go through for people that want the price check bot on their own discord server so will be working through those most likely tomorrow night. If anyone else wants this, please DM on discord.

Happy Looting

I will never understand why this type of thing is allowed here.

This really takes away from the spirit of the game when people treat EC tunnel like a stock exchange with this 3rd party trade website.

The same argument can be made for Zam, EQR, EQP, Rasper's, Gamparse, EQ Log Parser, GINA, and any other website/program that provides highly detailed information about in-game things. Kinda weird hill to die on complaining about price parsing.

I honestly don't see the issue because with anyone can just shout out a PC (price check) and usually get a very good indication of a price on most items. That is how we did in back in early 2000 TLP Auction just offers the same information without having to rely on someone maybe scamming you about the price when answering a price check.

You've got it twisted. Sites like this let people who just play the game do quick price checks or see stuff for sale without having to devote their play time to roleplaying the worst parts of capitalism.

Further, I had a friend who half the game of Everquest for him was buying and selling in EC tunnel. Again this was during the 99-2001 time frame, but he was very good at it. He had (at the time) never had a character reach past level 35, (when max level was 60) and yet, he had gear and wealth, that I, as a 15-hours a day, end-game, top-guild type player could only dream of.

His Dad was a car salesman, not a joke, was just true, 30 years working as a car salesman for Ford. -- If this website would have been there during that day, he may have seen it as a bit of a threat, and maybe hated how it made him a little hard to manipulate his in-game checkbook, but at the same time, he was a very smart merchant. -- So something like TLP Auction would not be a black & white hindrance to him.

He was a smart salesman, and would already be prepared to answer your tell about price variances and "well what the site doesn't show you" or "yes, perhaps in this situation, for that person" but he would already be ready to spin it around and let you know why you should buy from him, and why perhaps you should pay a little more than you were expecting to pay, regardless of what cold-hard-data says.

A true EC Merchant on Quellious, lol.

Honestly, EC Merchant is my tradeskill as well. I didn't go at it as hard as your friend but I tended to spend at least 2 hours a day just trading. I actually had a couple guys I "contracted" with to supply me with items. They didn't want to waste time selling in the EC tunnel so they would just dump whatever loot the had acquired to me at a discount and I would resell it for a profit. I started with just a little seed money from selling bone chips and HQ bear pelts and eventually was trading in Krono. I think I made about 8 Krono in profit in about 2 months and all my characters had well above average gear.

Just like your friend though there was the TLP Auction Price, then there was the true price and they didn't always match up. Buying and Selling all comes down to patience. Many, if not most people aren't so they will sell for less than an item is worth and buy for a premium often as not which allows the EC Merchant to progress his tradeskill and maximize profit.

Of course my trade skill gets totally nerfed when the Bazaar comes out. Worst expansion ever for me.

So your friend's dad was a scumbag?

Scumbag is harsh/rough term, but he was definitely.... a ..... "Salesman".

I don't know, I've always followed the philosophy to never trust a salesman/realtor who has their hair combed straight back and hair sprayed/gelled.

Edit: Urban Dictionary Link