The Ethics of Bazaar Selling and other System Interactions

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Draggoone, Feb 27, 2023.

  1. Draggoone Journeyman

    TL;DR at the end.

    Had an odd interaction the last few times I've listed things on /trader. My general strategy when I list items is to check /baz for items I care about selling, and figure out a price lower than the current lowest that I feel comfortable with. This isn't with a bot, but by hand, so usually the difference is a number ending with zeros (100 less, 1000 less, etc). Never by 1, never (intentionally) by a specific percentage. My thought is always to price to sell, at least getting more than I put in (if I put in at all).

    While listing ToL food/drink for a few days, I noticed one seller matching my price fairly quickly (~30 minutes max) and then dropping and restarting trader in order to be the first person listed in /baz. Normal bot behavior usually just undercuts by 5%, so this was different. One night when I should have been logging off to go to bed, I decided to stay on for about an hour or so late to see how it went. Over several price drops by me in that timespan, the other trader kept matching and restarting. First it was with a longer delay, then a shorter, telling me it was probably an actual person.

    Anyway, I ended up sending him a tell like a weirdo to inquire about it. I won't go into all of the long conversations over several days, but basically it boils down to him accusing me of just stepping on people by doing any undercutting, and that I should match prices. It struck me as odd, and I told him so, which he responded to with something like "most people think like me and hate any undercutting". That sounded wrong and I asked general chat what they thought, and the 5 or so responses I got agreed with me. Some even gave helpful advice ("buy the lower price out and relist higher", "check the price vs what a vendor buys for and let the seller know").

    The other seller said this was biased because people sell on general, or something along those lines. But he also gave an argument that made me think. He said I was "stepping on other people" and ruining their game. He said I should think about other people's enjoyment and price accordingly.

    He also accused me of being money grubbing and other stuff, so I didn't really take the argument too seriously, but it did make me think about the systems we use in Everquest, and how it affects interactivity between players.

    Is the act of listing at a lower price making the game less fun for others? Maybe. What about someone who drives DKP prices up for a rare raid drop? I don't think so, but someone might. How about raid guilds that min-max to the point of not taking certain classes at all? Probably doesn't happen as much with the populations being what they are, but it at least used to. And the one that will surely ruffle feathers, what about the people who box a group to do content by themselves?

    Maybe even more basic: do we even have an obligation to care about any of that? Or should we only care about our own enjoyment in Everquest?

    Sorry for the rant. I included most of the background so if that other seller reads this, he wouldn't accuse me of lying or omitting something. But he really isn't the point of the rant. It's more about the systems, both baked into the game and those we created to support it, that affect how much we enjoy the game, and how much we're all responsible for everyone else's enjoyment.

    TLDR; I'm thinking back to my college Ethics class and pondering about whether my actions are hurting everyone else. Do our actions in game affect others' enjoyment, and does that matter?
    Shanarias likes this.
  2. Loup Garou De loop de loop

    EQ is a lot like grade school and a lot like real life. This pricing war happens a lot apparently. I have no personal experience of this since I set my 5 traders up, use pricing I feel is fair and the go offline.

    I could care less who buys it, who resells it or whatever. I am not going to waste my time checking and rechecking and engaging in price wars with the used car salesman down the road.

    I don't think your hurting anyone other than yourself. Too much angst, speculation, importance etc on one aspect of the game.
    Shanarias and Rijacki like this.
  3. Svann2 The Magnificent

    Just do as you like. Sometimes I undercut, sometimes I dont. If you get into an undercutting war with someone back and forth etc. its not helping either one of you so it makes sense to match prices. OTOH if someone undercuts me by 1 copper ill undercut him by 30%.
    Thash, xcitng and Rijacki like this.
  4. Draggoone Journeyman

    I wouldn't say angst. I'm not losing sleep over any of this, nor do I feel particularly bad. It's more a thought thing. Speculation and importance maybe. Thanks for the contribution.
  5. Loup Garou De loop de loop

    Well, it was a lengthy post :) and you did say you stayed on when you should have gone to bed ......

    There are a lot of views on this and if you use the search in upper right you can find them which might help you further
  6. Draggoone Journeyman

    I can see that perspective. I guess when I lowered prices to see what would happen, it didn't help in terms of how much the person made. Thanks.

    The responses so far have been solely about the /baz situation, but really the rant was more about how much we value each other's enjoyment, if anyone has an opinion about that.
  7. Draggoone Journeyman

    Very true about that staying up, but it wasn't from angst. I'm sure we've all done it.

    About undercutting, or about what the rant was building up to? I didn't find anything about the latter, sorry. But thank you for the suggestion!
  8. Svann2 The Magnificent

    In response to that - the bazaar is a competitive game. IMO it makes no sense to lose a game on purpose.
    Kaenneth and Draggoone like this.
  9. Alnitak Augur

    Broad question with various right answers.
    Regarding the price level on your trader - you do what you feel at the time. Sometimes it's more beneficial to undercut the lowest price, sometimes it's better to just match. Sometimes it's time-based choice.
    When I sell rare (as a rare drop rate) and in-demand items I keep in mind the balance of price-point and availability. When i see Elaborate BP listed for 75K I think that it's not right. Lvl 55-65 players do not have spare 75K pp, this is not reasonable. And rich twinks gotta be very lazy to buy it for 75K, because there is several cheaper alternatives out there. So, I price it for the target audience - 3-5K pp tops, depending on competition. If someone is selling the BP for, say, 300pp, I do not price-compete, because those BP's are rare enough, that 300pp will sell shorty and I'll become the cheapest at 3K (or something like that).
    On the other hand - if someone sells it for 3500pp, I may undercut them with my 3250pp price, because I do want to sell my BP as soon as a customer is around. Balance of greed and reasons.

    Also, availability is a factor. Elegant Defiant is sold by a merchant with unlimited inventory. It's hard to sell those Elegants for a price higher than what the merchant sells it for. It leads to a confusing situation - Elaborate (farmed only) sells for higher than Elegant (unlimited suppy from a merchant).

    Commodity (farmed in bulk) items are definitely price-point sensitive. For example Remants of Tranquility are very price sensitive and a few merchants agressively compete on price. Every time I set those up for sale I carefully evaluate quantity available from competing traders, their prices and overall history of sales. Sometimes I undercut, sometimes I match, sometimes I set the profit point (if competing traders have very few to sell). It's a very fluid market at this point.

    And I have no issues with selling rare ornamentation suits for several millions to some rich collectors and sleep like a baby when I do.

    Overall - I do not consider other sellers' "fun" when I set my prices. If they are not happy with my traders - they can easily stop selling and feel unattached to price points I set. No need to be emotionally involved in it.
    But I do consider my potential buyers' resources, fun and desires. Happy customers make my traders happy.
    Draggoone likes this.
  10. MyShadower All-natural Intelligence

    If this other seller has not taken the time to publish a definitive guide for others to learn the correct way to bazaar, how could we possibly know when we are doing it incorrectly? o_O

    Publish the way or suffer in silence.
  11. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Baz is a competitive part of the game. And we each have our own views on what is too far. I don't like seeing folks buying out items then jacking the price way up but its not against the rules just my sense of fairness. I tend to try and sell stuff to mitigate that tactic and still make a reasonable profit.

    And the argument could be taken to extremes on ruining others fun. Selling things for any price and not giving them away could ruins someones fun I guess. As long as folks arent using bots or cornering markets to jack prices way up all is fair in love and the bazaar. Well all accept bots is technically fair again comes to personal feelings on the subject.
    Draggoone likes this.
  12. Zarkdon Augur

    Who cares what someone else thinks. Sell your items where you want to. If you aren't funding your EQ accounts by farming/tradeskills then you have 0 costs to worry about. If that upsets someone then it upsets them.
    Xangeon66, Rijacki and yepmetoo like this.
  13. yepmetoo Abazzagorath

    ^^ This.

    I couldn't care less about what other people do. I run 3 traders on 2 servers, because I have a lot of junk I don't want to delete but don't want. I do a search, undercut the lowest (usually by a lot) and then ignore it until it sells. Occasionally, I go through and cut prices on every single item on the trader by 1/2 of 3/4 to try and get stuff moving that wasn't selling (usually when the trader's parcel is full and so is its trader satchels). I also price stuff I think someone might want and I don't want at 1 plat so someone can get it instead of hitting destroy.

    If that bothers someone, they need to learn to relax.
    Xangeon66 and Draggoone like this.
  14. Andarriel Everquest player since 2000

    What they can do is what they do with buyers. In order to change a price then need to get out of buyer and then change it. You cant change price while in buyer mode which makes it nice. Be nice if they had that on traders too as i get undercut all the time and when you get a zone/server reset everything there selling goes super high. I do my pricing legit by hand sad when ppl use scripts or whatever u wanna call them to change there's.
  15. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    Thanks OP. This one made me LOL.

    Bazaar ethics. LOL
  16. Draggoone Journeyman

    Kinda judgy for a guy who posts on a video game forum so frequently.
    Andarriel likes this.
  17. Windance Augur

    At the start of an expansion there is a limited supply and the prices are so high only the whales can afford to buy them.

    As the expansion ages and materials/items flood the market the prices of items race towards zero.

    The best example of this is TS made items: Feed, Drink, Armor and Augment boxes.

    If a couple players ( or bots ) get into a price drop war the overall value of the items can quickly become devalued to the point where it is no longer worth making. At least until all the available stock gets sold.

    Sometimes it can take several days or even weeks for the market for that particular item to recover.

    The optimal approach may be to price match. In theory you then have an equal chance to sell at a higher price, or risk a price war that could see the asking price drop below half of what you could sell it for.

    Of course you could try to drive down the price and then buy up all the items at a lower price and pop your asking price back up, but, if they are be sold by a bot then its possible they have an infinite supply of the items.

    I generally price match. If things aren't moving after a week or so I'll drop my asking price by about 10% every couple days till they do.

    With that said I haven't actually taken the time to do a trader in about two expansions because it was just too much of a headache to manage.
    Tegila likes this.
  18. Andarriel Everquest player since 2000

    Having same price works if the sellers all do the samething but you always get one that will always undercut people so i gave up on that approach. Although i do have some stuff at the same price as were the only ones selling the items. I was selling aug containers for alot of pp like 100k then a guy came and underpriced me every single day now i got mine at 2k while he's at 1k gets like that i give up on the item and move on. I dont reprice stuff everyday on my main trader only when they dont sell for a long while. Doing everyday gets old because nobody wins.
  19. I_Love_My_Bandwidth Mercslayer

    I don't judge. That's for other people. The post has nothing to do with ethics, and that's the humor. Be the change you want to see. ;)
  20. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    When I go to buy something in the bazaar, and I see the ridiculously small undercutters, I always make a point to buy from the one who got undercut :)