people ruining the market for certain items

[Malodium]

Ok, Solstice robes on my server, up until about 3 weeks ago, were in the 800pp-1200pp range. So people could still make a decent profit on them.

A few weeks ago some dorkwad (im not sure thats in the dictionary) made a huge batch of them (around 60) and put them on sale for 400pp.
Now its obvious this guy just wants to get rid of them as fast as possible and that he is only using them to skill up and obviously doesnt need the plat.

The thing is, lowering the price of solstice robes isnt going to promt someone to buy one, where they wouldnt before.
When you buy a solstice robe, you do it to make the earring and or get the spell, so you already assume you are going to spend 4-5k or so. Why would lowering the price that much on just that one item make someone decide they are going to buy a full set of stuff, when they werent going to before. Well its not, but this guy, because of his boneheadedness, has ruined the market.
HE WILL STILL SELL THE SAME AMOUNT IF HE PRICED THEM JUST A TINY BIT LOWER THAN THE REST OF US, AND MAKE A MUCH BIGGER PROFIT.

Thats what I want to shout in his ear heh.


You cant make these anymore for profit, he has so dang many of them that it will be a long while before prices return to normal, if ever.
Yesterday I looked and people had finally given in and lowered all thier prices down to 400pp as well.

What to do? I guess i could try to buy him out, but thats a ton of robes, dont think I have that kind of cash. And he would probably use that money to go make another giant set.

Sometimes makes me wish EQ had some easy way of forming trade unions.

[Cubwynn]

"Sometimes makes me wish EQ had some easy way of forming trade unions."

If it's really bugging you that much, talk to him about it.
It's not likely he'll listen, but at least you tried...


Personally, I always find it amusing that people get all up in arms when they see capitalism at work, and start contemplating communist-style price fixing. ;-)

[Renjah]

Re: people ruining the market for certain items

Originally posted by Malodium
The thing is, lowering the price of solstice robes isnt going to promt someone to buy one, where they wouldnt before.

I can only speak for what happens on Veeshan but I assume this happens on other servers. In the bazaar and on eqsn people sell the "MQ" set of the earring. Basiclaly they sell the 9 items needed in a one stop shop so you dant have to run around and hope the bazaar has all 9 for sale. When one person goes REALLY cheap on robes one of these people tends to buy many of them. So in theory settign a price at the market value of say 1k wouldnt attract such a sale, while pricing at 400pp might clear out 5 to one guy who wishes to resale the 9 pieces.

[Malodium]

I considered talking to him about it but I doubt it will do any good.

Personally, I always find it amusing that people get all up in arms when they see capitalism at work

This isnt capitalism, and price fixing isnt communism. Here in the good ole USA there are laws and regulations about prices as well. If you have a huge market share like this guy does (60 robes compared to most peoples 3-6 robes) the government wont allow you to basically give away your product, because that would completely destroy the markey and send tons of people out of business. Look at the situation with the phone companies back in the 70s and the situation with Microsoft today. Its about impossible to do in the real world, but EQ is different.

There is no totally free system that works well. Thats anarchy. And if thats your idea of capitalism, im glad your not the president hehe

Fortunately it IS just EQ, so its no big deal, but it ticks of myself and im sure every one of the other people who are trying to make a few plat.

[Saleani]

My bazaar mule has some rather expensive tinkered items I am selling for a friend. She wanted me to drop the price and sell them. I just nodded and pretended to get involved in a bazaar limbo contest. I left the price alone because I knew that if I did what she wanted, it would permanently destroy the market for rebreathers. In one month, I have sold half of them. If she really had to have the cash right now, I would sell them to the HQ ore vendor and reset the guy. Very few people bother to make them for sale, and every warrior epic needs 2. Ruining the market to make some plat is a disservice to the other tradeskillers in the game. I know a few tradeskillers who quit making items because of it. In short, the game is reduced because of the short term behavior of some. There is a buddhist saying that goes something like thou shalt not break thy brother's rice bowl. In short, it is a bad thing to damage or destroy someone else's livelihood. Is so-called capitalism an excuse for bad manners? In America, using the words communism or socialism is a way to get people to stop thinking. If you do not want people thinking about affordable healthcare, just call it socialist medicine and all intelligent thought on the subject stops. If you want to have fun using The Voice on Americans (in the manner of Dune), just load up your sentences with content free manipulation words like: freedom, democracy, socialism, terrorist, communist, or "think of the children." Grab a hold of Moral Politics to get an idea of other manipulative words.

On another note: I have seen folks selling solstice robes below cost. Sure, I bought some for all my alts (how many level 10 twinkies do you know are running around with the earring?).

On yet another note: someone just bargained me down for a lore cloak, and put it up for sale for what I had it for sale at. Did I lose 2kpp by letting them talk me down? For a moment I was like pissed, and then thought.... whiskey tango foxtrot! I have cash to spend. And it was sitting in the trader satchel, unsold, for a week anyway, so it must have been overpriced at the original price. I wasn't suckered after all.

[kiztent]

Originally posted by Malodium
This isnt capitalism, and price fixing isnt communism. Here in the good ole USA there are laws and regulations about prices as well. If you have a huge market share like this guy does (60 robes compared to most peoples 3-6 robes) the government wont allow you to basically give away your product, because that would completely destroy the markey and send tons of people out of business.

Properly speaking what you describe is a form of socialism, not capitalism. And I have to agree with Cubwynn. EQ is a great example of capitalism at work, and it amuses me when people get up in arms about it.

[Malodium]

Properly speaking what you describe is a form of socialism, not capitalism. And I have to agree with Cubwynn. EQ is a great example of capitalism at work, and it amuses me when people get up in arms about it.

Um, im not exactly 'up in arms'. im just a bit ticked off, as anyone would be, including yourself, that someone has rendered my efforts to make some plat useless. Especially considering the fact that there was absolutely no need for that person to do so. he could have simply put the price a bit lower than us and still sold them.


I think its odd that someone elses misfortunes actually makes you happy.

And again I say, this isnt capitalism. Capitalism attepmts to allow everyone to make a buck, it doesnt allow a few people to destroy an economy.

[Renjah]

part of the problem is someone puts it a bit lower than someone who in turn goes lower then BAM a 1k item is 400pp. When people log on and go into trader mode right away they dont check prices thus a night where there is one person at 2k the new guy pops in at 400pp right away.

Maybe they did just go a bit lower when they set the price initially. Stuff snowballs and people dont check everytime they start trader to see how bad they undercut the current price.

[Dunthor Warsmith]

And again I say, this isnt capitalism. Capitalism attepmts to allow everyone to make a buck, it doesnt allow a few people to destroy an economy.

You can make product Thingy for $2, and you sell it to people for $2.50. If I can make it for $1, and I sell it for $1.50, I'm going to be making a profit *and* steal the market from you. That seems to be the basis of capitolism - whoever can reduce costs the most, and survive on the slimmest profit margin, wins. When you're talking truly identical products, and virtually identical means of delivery (ie SoL bazaar), there (usually) really aren't other factors.

-----

For a solstice robe, what's the raw cost for 1 attempt?
Needle (reusable=> 0pp)
Gem studded chain (~260pp)
3xSacred Silk (~20pp x3=60pp)

So its possible (not necessarily probable) that you could make a robe for about 320pp (while still buying all "storebought" components from a vendor). 400pp > 320pp, so that's still a profit. If that guy had an incredible run of luck, never failing a gem studded chain or solstice robe, that 400pp price would still be a profit.

One guy lowering costs sufficiently so that they can undercut the competition and still turn an acceptable profit seems to be the basic working principle of capitolism.

In this case it might be an 'acceptable loss', but most tradeskill items are sold at a loss - if the robes are being sold at 1kpp, using above numbers that leaves (1k - 260)/60 = 740/60 ~= 12 attempts. If one of those people selling robes for 1k has, on average, more than 11 failures per successful robe, they're also selling at a loss. So in basic principle, they're no different from the guy selling at a loss for 400pp.

-----

I agree that people purposely crashing the market are a pain. Some degree of unspoken price fixing or other maintance of a high price is nice and benifical. But that's not the way pure capitolism works. Capitolism is a nice, unregulated setup, and forms of price fixing and artifical market inflation are delecate balances. Systems move from more order to less order (law of entropy), and this unregulated economic system of EQ's Bazaar is no different - markets continually progress from inflated pricing to cutthroat pricing, which is capitolism at work.

[Sanna]

The thing is... you gotta love cycles. In late May, HMPs on Sullon were.... oh, just guess.


Really.


Ok, halve that number.


They were selling for 4.5p apiece.


Last night, someone bought out my roommates ENTIRE FREAKING STOCK of just over 7 stacks of HMP... hers were 10p apiece. That's been going market rate for almost a month now.

The indescribably cute thing is...

the guy who bought them from her (that's 1.5kp right there)... Is reselling them... for 14p apeice.

It is soooo a Seller's Market right now.


The point of this post is to demonstrate that things go in cycles. It sucked when the market sucked; there were days I wanted to take a certain seller and wring his little neut neck. But instead, I went to Germany, and came back... and look at where things are now.

So I offer you a /comfort for the time being, because that's all I have. They don't have a /havepatience emote ^_^ but I offer that too. Have patience, and when you run out, borrow your neighbor's ^_^. Things will get better. And in the meantime, visit Germany.

-- Sanna
and in all reality, what could an EQ union do anyway?

[Cubwynn]

Originally posted by Malodium
And again I say, this isnt capitalism. Capitalism attepmts to allow everyone to make a buck, it doesnt allow a few people to destroy an economy.

Not true... Capitalism is every man for himself. You make the money IF you stay competitive. There is no noble "let's all cooperate" principle...

[Malodium]

Not true... Capitalism is every man for himself. You make the money IF you stay competitive. There is no noble "let's all cooperate" principle...

There wouldnt be if certain people had there way, fortunately there are government regulations which force people to play a bit more fair.


Anyway, its an interesting discussion, especially trying to relate a real market situation with the EQ market.

The EQ market is so vastly simplified compared to real life that its easy to learn some basic lessons, but you cant take them too far.

[Draggar]

Just reading this thread makes me realize (re-realize?) how erratic the economy on Kane Bayle is...

[Lothay]

Captiolism is the the system of using money (capitol) to make more money. Banks, the Rule of Law, and the concept of partial ownership all stem from making this concept work.

"It takes money to make money," is a statement that could only be developed in a system where those with money use it as their commodity to make more money.

This concept drives the entire US Economy. You want to buy a house, you get a loan. Someone who has money loans it to you for a price. You pay them for the use of their money. Capitollism at work.

Market Economies are those in the buyers and sellers are the ones who determine what something is worth based on what people are willing to spend for it.

EQ is a Market Economny. A thing will sell based only on what someone is willing to give you for it. If you can't make a product for a price people are willing to pay, then you won't make a product. If people are willing only to pay 400pp for a Soltice Robe, but it costs you 500pp just to make it (this is an exaggerated example) then you won't be making and selling those robes.

This causes cycles. If you make an item and sell it for 8K, and people begin to charge more for the raw materials, while wanting to pay less for the finished product, you eventually find that you can't produce the product at all. So, it disappears.

After it's been gone a while, demad for it will increase, and you find you can sell the product for a price that makes you happy. Or Raw Materials prices will drop again becuase no one was buying them eiter. Eventually though, the raw materials become too expensive again, and the cycle repeats.

It's a condition of having the game include a player-to-player market. It's not changing. Play with it. Have fun.

[KyrosKrane]

Just to clarify, "capital" is what you use in a market economy -- cash, assets, resources, etc. that you use to start a business.

[ Edit ] Hence, a market economy is based on capitalism. [ /Edit ]

The "Capitol" (note the capital C) is a big building smack-dab in the middle of Washington, DC.

This confuses people because "capital" is also the term for the city that houses the national government of a country -- the Capitol is in the capital, if you will.

HTH.