Dwindling DE BD Cultural Market

[Aeronwy]

I have been loosely keeping track of the BD Cultural market in Bazaar on E'ci since my DE smith hit 250 a couple of months ago...

I have noticed there is less and less of the armor for sale - I am wondering if the smiths on my server have stopped selling regularly in order to let the prices come back up as they were dropping really quickly...

I'm also wondering if this is particular to the DE armor or if all Blue Diamond stuff is feeling the pinch...

I'm reading on these boards that the Dark Prince Regent is being priced at roughly 5k a sheet - is this still accurate?

TIA, Aeronwy

[Zopharr]

Another possibility is that the market is saturated. People who could (and would) pay big money quite likely already got any of the armor that they were going to awhile ago. As perceived demand drops, smiths start making less for "speculation" (i.e., putting on a mule in bazaar) and make it mostly to order.

Also, as price drops, more and more smiths simply drop out of the market. As profit margin drops, the time vs. return becomes more of an issue. If prices are so low that you need to sell 50 of an item to buy your next upgrade (as opposed to, say, 5 of an item) ...and you start tallying up the time it will take to get components for that item ....expiong starts to look a lot more attractive than running around getting components. It gets to the point where one would rather spend the time on other stuff.

Two other possibilities ...

[Aandaie]

I like the BD def armor, I just thought it was sold kind of high. I did see a bp one day and If Ihad the 15 k I would have bought it, but I never have that much.

[Sylphan]

People don't stop camping mobs when prices go down. So prices for magic items can go down indefinitely. People might stop camping certain spots 24/7 but those items still come into the world at a certain rate.

Not so for tradeskill items. If an item doesn't fetch enough profit, it just doesn't get made.

It's possible that demand for the armor went down, but it's also possible that the demand is still there and the profit margin just got too low for some of the smiths. On my server prices got too low last December and several smiths quit making it (or quit EQ altogether). The price went back up and the armor started selling again... so the demand hadn't dried up after all.