Plat Sites, Farmers & The Tradeskiller

[Leana]

When I was playing WOW, there was a merchant that started buying up all smithed items and selling for steeper prices. People were complaining bitterly. I considered it a golden opportunity and used it to skill up my smithing and make a considerable profit. I had a guaranteed buyer for everything I made. No market can be so sweet.

Here is the one rule that just about everyone that complains about high prices in the bazaar misses. The seller never controls the price. The buyers are always in control of prices. If someone markes up prices to the point that no one will buy, then the items can sit there on his trader until hell freezes over. If even one buyer wants the items so badly that he's willing to pay the price, then the price was good for someone.

I watched as a trader collected over 60 Metallic Drake Scales. He bought out lower vendors to keep the price high. However, his price was too high for me to consider and apparently too high for most of the people in the market. Eventually, we had a new release and a ton of people started camping the Nest, which poked a hole in his pricing.

I think it is too easy to blame some target group of people for what you perceive to be going wrong in the game, especially when you want something specific from the game. Somebody has to be at fault. I think most of the time, that just isn't the case.

[Drawde]

If even one buyer wants the items so badly that he's willing to pay the price, then the price was good for someone.

Two problems with this. One is the plat sellers. People buy plat from them, and then buy the stuff from the traders. If the person who bought their plat can afford it in RL, they will buy the expensive stuff in the game. This can drive the prices up beyond what someone who doesn't buy their plat can afford.

Two is the differences between endgamers and casual. I've seen many of the ways described to earn plat in-game. They either require spending weeks or months in one spot to buy a 100kpp+ item, or require you to be a level 75 raider to survive there. Yes, the casual player can eventually get to places that used to be raider only, but that can take a year or two. And, since it usually involves selling stuff to other players, the stuff has gone down in price a lot in the mean time. After a few expansions, players don't want the older items as much. Yes, I do believe that stuff should be better at the endgame points, but gap keeps getting bigger.

[Wanyen]

I wouldn't argue that the money supply has not grown. It has. However, I
don't think inflation is what is really going on. At least not from the perspective and degree you are presumably most concerned about. Inflation is related simultaneously to more than just money supply. Real production and velocity of transactions are a couple of other standard factors that should be considered before declaring a state of inflation. That information would have to come from data that SOE doesn't maintain.

Plat and item sellers serve as a black market. Needs of players are not being met in game through legal means, so players resort to "illegal" markets. It's not legislative law, but rather a corporate/product policy law, so the extent that SOE could render action against plat and item sellers is pretty limited (not that I support them, I don't). Before you suggest further that they are ruining your game, you might start by reading the paper SOE put together reporting on on the status of the Station Exchange. You may also want to read a little about the economic function of black markets -- traditional cause and result within a respective society.

[Dutchy]

I've seen many of the ways described to earn plat in-game. They either require spending weeks or months in one spot to buy a 100kpp+ item, or require you to be a level 75 raider to survive there.

Not sure what guides you've been looking at, but theres plenty of easy ways to make pp even on low level chars. Precombined tradeskill items are always wanted and sell fast in huge quantities.
Celestial Essence, Enchanted Clay, Imbued Emeralds, Mounted gems, etc.... they all yield over 20Kpp profit an hour on my server.
with a few tradeskills in the 100ish range: mistletoe tempers, blessed dust of tunare, sacred tunare swatches, heady kiola's, leather padding, etc.... even more profit.

Checking the buyers can also yield nice profits... theres always people selling for less then what the buyers are offering because they never check m. I save about 10K a week running around on my buyer purchasing items I offered more for. Someone else could have just picked m up and sold m to me.

Buyers are always good to check if you're looking to make pp actually... I often see people paying a decent amount of plat for easy farmable items or for simple vendorsold precombines that yield good profit. It always surprises me how few people actually pay attention to those.

But, sadly enough... seems like most people are just too lazy to go work for their plat. My bf tried for hours to find someone to create soda waters at 50pp each in PoK this week.... no one responded untill he gave up and started creating them himself... then someone told him soda water was player made and not that expensive LOL.
At 1 gold 3 silver per combine, vendorsold ingredients... profit of about 90K per hour for a 58 brewing triv.... no one was interested.

I've had the same happen on many occasions as well. I have the plat to spend to save myself some time on endless precombines, but I always end up doing them myself because it's nearly impossible to find someone else to do it, and the quantities for sale in the bazaar are often just too low.

There's definately a good market out there for lower levels to make plat, just look around on your server and see what's in demand. Create lots of it, leave your trader up, and hope to wake up rich in the morning =)

The top end zones usually aren't that good at all for pp farming btw.... /ooc rotting <link>..... all the good gear is no drop =P

[Bobaten]

I have one alt on Bertox because my character slots are full on Prexus. After 2 months of playing once or twice a week (I did spend one afternoon in trader), this character has 15k in the bank, a drogmor, and 4 tradeskill trophies (for the bags). I have not spent any time farming, I just know what items I can expect to sell to a player, and save those. Expensive drops are not the best way to get fast cash, large quantities of inexpensive drops will get you cash much faster.
The most important thing to remember: There is a reason this forum has a 20 page thread about the joys of vendor diving .