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United States24740 Posts
On January 07 2014 04:35 Pandemona wrote:
The values for the new items you say about the 553 crafted gear, from the begining of the patch way back in Setepmber after the 18days for Belt and 28days for Legs the items were going for 20-28k depending if legs or belt (belt lower legs highter) within a month after i got materials for it i was selling mine between 10k-12k which is basically a 50% cut within about 40days after patch maybe 50. This is a good point. In order to compare apples to apples we need to compare how the gear was being sold right when it was first available for sale with how the mount was being sold right when it first came available, and similarly for after a few weeks/months of time. However, the point I was making was addressing the elasticity of demand quickly increasing, so I was comparing the "post decay" gear to the "post decay" mount, even if they didn't become available at the exact same time and were at slightly different points in their time evolution.
Now they are going for 3-6k on Draenor for example and probably lower on Twisting Nether my old server, this is due to severe undercutting. I definitely don't see them going for that low on my server although it might depend on which type of gear you are talking about: cloth vs leather etc... I only have any significant idea regarding leather as that's the one I've been crafting.
For example the price will drop no matter what you cannot control this however what you can control is how fast it drops. I want to repeat and emphasize part of that sentence.
what you can control is how fast <the price> drops
This is exactly it. Prices start very high since it's a seller's market + Show Spoiler [more on that] +Only a few people have them available at first... this creates a prime opportunity for price gouging (although not the illegal kind since someone can sell a new item for any price they want... as long as buyers aren't in any way compelled to purchase the item from you).
. Many sellers (such as the position you have been explaining) wish to collude in a sense and keep prices near their price-gouged highs for as long as possible through planned pricing. This is illegal where I live when dealing with real life companies and goods. I have absolutely no moral or ethical dilemma with people doing it on wow since it's a game purchasing fictitious items with fictitious money, but it doesn't always work, clearly, and probably for more reasons than just the one you outline below.
You undercut something that is 100g by 1g it will take 100days to reach 0. If you undercut something that is 100g by 10g it takes 10 days before it reaches 0 that is what my point is regarding the big undercuts for no reason. You are describing a system you recommend for choosing prices for selling valuable items in wow which completely violates the most basic principles of economics, and then take out your frustration when the scheme doesn't work on people who don't play along. The point I made earlier still stands in my mind that the reason why sellers are sometimes able to pull off what you describe, and the reason why it's so easy for people who aren't on the same page as you to 'screw it all up' is because of the way the system was designed by blizzard.
Your point is that there is no true valuation for anything anyway and its a random price for said item to be put on AH. Er that's not exactly it. I said the equilibrium price for a given product in wow at a given time is not public knowledge and cannot be precisely estimated with ease. Items are often listed at a price that is too high. Items are often listed at a price that is too low. You can't necessarily base all of your selling decisions solely on the price of the items currently listed for sale. People who 'screw up' your price gouging scheme and people who implement your scheme both seem to be making this mistake. Of course I recognize that more avid auction house users like you most likely use other information besides the current items for sale, such as how much you and people you know have bought/sold the item for recently, but I doubt everyone does the same due diligence before 'playing the game.'
The point of that argument is that you are kind of right but missing the point a bit. If you craft something and your the first to put it on AH you should be allowed to put it on AH for whatever extortionate price you want it to go on for, lets say 100k, but the person who makes it after you and sees it on AH and it has not sold puts it on for 99,999 instead just to undercut you, then until one person sells it you have a undercutting war but it wont be massive because the people who make the items first understand the game and its valuation of products.
The way you are describing this is a bit funny. The first person to list it is probably trying to list it for the highest price he will be able to find a buyer with... or a little bit less to compensate for the fact that other people will also enter the market. The second person does not need to list it for slightly less than the first person (even if the first person did an appropriate job choosing a price) since the first auction will expire first anyway. If they choose a shorter format somehow so that theirs will end first, we can just treat them like the first person when evaluating if we agree with the price they chose, noting that we actually have no jurisdiction over the price people choose to sell items at.
Your indication that the best thing to do is to list your auction for a tiny amount less than the guy before you is probably perpetuating some of the very problems you wish to avoid, ironically.
Then in 3 weeks they are going for say 80k because more players are making said item, but then it has become easier to get it and casual players get and then they are the ones who think ahh 80k thats loads i only have like 60k, to me if i sold this for 60k that will be profit and will double my gold woooowwwww. Then they put it on for a 20k undercut for no reason other than thinking it will sell in 20seconds and they become super rich (in their casual world). That is what is wrong with AH >.> and there is no way to fix it unless you stop items from being undercut by more than 1gold as a feature blizz put in. Or if you reworked the auction house to work more similarly to how the stock market works so that the price the last item sold at is visible, sellers enter their minimum selling price, buyers put in their maximum buying price, etc. To suggest that blizzard might consider putting in a feature to force players to list an item for no less than x gold below other items currently listed is ludicrous. I'm sure with a complicated algorithm it could somehow become viable but that's definitely not the direction blizzard should go to remedy this problem, if it exists at the level you describe.
I wish there was a way for us to actually measure this phenomenon accurately. After all, "facts are shaped by those who collect them and again by the intention of those who use them" (Booth/Colomb/Williams). If we could list the auctions for a new expensive item in the day it becomes available, what would the sell prices actually look like? Are markets for expensive items like 100k mounts really getting 'destroyed' the way you claim? Sellers who try to follow the market such as you get limited information (there is no record of all listings and sales), and by the time it gets to me it is probably even more distorted. I'm sure what you are saying is true to an extent, but I definitely still blame blizzard's auction house system more than 'naive' sellers. Even though I don't have enough information to be sure of how 'bad' the auction house is (neither does anyone else except for blizzard if they decide to care), I think being so insulting of other users for selling items cheaply, especially as such a blanket policy instead of limiting it to the bargain sellers of golem mounts and similar items, is not called for. I'll "give you that" with regard to the initial decay of golem mount type items under the assumption that what you described really does happen where the consecutive sell price of golems is let's say 80k, 79.9k, 78k 60k 59.9k. I really can understand the frustration there even if I don't agree with the seller's philosophy you've explained or the auction house system to begin with.
@ Gorsameth you seem to be misscharacterizing what I've said so if you want a serious response you will have to quote what I said and make your point in reference to that, if you still feel it necessary.
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Feel like crap at the moment but I'll try to make an educational post about how the economy works. My last account was sitting on 14m gold when I got banned and there are only about a dozen players (excluding gold sellers) that have made more than that so I feel like I'm qualified enough to write up a summary of how things have worked over the years. Micronesia especially will be shocked to find out how the economies are behind the scenes
Generally one player per server can.quite literally control the entire economic fate of all other players.
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts
This is a good point. In order to compare apples to apples we need to compare how the gear was being sold right when it was first available for sale with how the mount was being sold right when it first came available, and similarly for after a few weeks/months of time. However, the point I was making was addressing the elasticity of demand quickly increasing, so I was comparing the "post decay" gear to the "post decay" mount, even if they didn't become available at the exact same time and were at slightly different points in their time evolution.
Items get given high end scaled prices at the start of their life, that is just natural in this game. There is no right or wrong when an item is listed for 100k first off just because their is limited market for it. This is the right you get when you make said item first, lets say the Sky Golem mount. Then when there are none being sold for such high amounts they all start to be undercut when there is about 8-10 on the AH. These then start a massiving undercut war, but instsead of undercutting eachother by 1gold or small amount, they go stupid and start undercutting eachother by like 1k or 2k or even 5k. Then before you know it the market has crashed down to stupid gold. When these idiots have theirs sold the market is then distorted to fuck and buyers wont buy the mounts until they see them on for the cheap gold they went down to before. The said mount the Sky Golem cost about 40k to make in mats when it first hit, it was being sold for 20k profit as of day 2?! That is silly, as then the price decay speeds up even quicker and before you know it the mounts are being sold for 20k and the mats for the item are costing you 18k. Which just becomes useless profit.
You can't really rework the Auction House because the main users of the Auction house all have addons like Auctioneer or Auctionator which run scans of every item of the Auction house giving you prices of the item. You have a rare mount you found, you click the sell tab you get with the addon, put it in the box and it tells you what the last mounts have sold for and at what price, then if there is 0 on of the mount it will sell it for the same, if not it undercuts it by 1%-2-3-4-5 whatever you set it up to do, i always set mine to undercut by 1%.
Maybe WoW should build that into everyone Auction UI that it lists what the items have sold as before and gives you a price based on the last few that sold or something i don't know, but this is all down to players not doing research before they list an item, they just blindly list it for stupid random undercut value thinking, well if i sell mine for 20k less insta sale wooooooooo.
Many sellers (such as the position you have been explaining) wish to collude in a sense and keep prices near their price-gouged highs for as long as possible through planned pricing. This is illegal where I live when dealing with real life companies and goods. I have absolutely no moral or ethical dilemma with people doing it on wow since it's a game purchasing fictitious items with fictitious money, but it doesn't always work, clearly, and probably for more reasons than just the one you outline below.
Well you say it's illegal to keep prices high but every company does the opposite, when an item is in huge demand a company sells the price for marginal profit when their stocks are high, when their stocks get lower and the stocks of the whole product are low. They boost the prices way up, take Airplane tickets, these do the exact same. A plane is 3/4 full, the next 1/4 of tickets are going for £50 more than what the others have bought theirs for, 24-48hours before the flight you can get that plane ticket for pennies. It is just the way it works. But its the opposite in WoW, when there is MASSIVE stock of an item you can pay between 10k-30k difference on any day just randomly whilst stocks are high. When stocks become low, the prices don't alter! They stay low as hell so when people stop making Sky Golems, and that one person is making it he will still only be able to sell it for 20k >.<
There is no pattern, no rules and no brains around WoW auction house, its just /roll dice and pray. The best way to make money on WoW is to sell services ie boosting players or get trading card loot which has a fixed price as only hardcore players/gold sellers can get their hands on said items. Other than that you have to manipulate the AH which as i said before comes which huge risks and leaves your gold in a massive loop of being on the AH and not in your bags ^_^
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United States24740 Posts
Why do you still use insults like "these idiots" and "no brains" lol. That is one of the main reasons why I've had so much trouble accepting what you have said... I don't like seeing you constantly use such disparaging remarks regarding players who don't use addons or do 'research' before using the auction house in a game. Only in the most egregious cases like the one you mentioned of undercutting the golem market by 20k+ do I see any justification in getting at all upset by this.
I don't see how the addons people choose to use for the auction house tie blizzard's hands with regards to changing how the auction house works. Blizzard has no obligation to indefinitely support these addons. To be nice they could at least give a heads up rather than implement changes overnight.
Regarding your description of what companies do, you are talking about their own pricing policies, and companies can sell items for whatever price they want, generally. They can even charge different prices for different people, with some limitations. They can change the price of airline tickets depending on how full the plane is or other factors. What they cannot do is collude with competing airlines in an attempt to keep their prices higher, bypassing the natural process of prices dropping as companies compete for business.
A question for you as an avid user of the auction house (or at least one in the past): assuming you are successful in your sales and make a great deal of money, what do you do with it?
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts
On January 07 2014 23:54 micronesia wrote:
Why do you still use insults like "these idiots" and "no brains" lol. That is one of the main reasons why I've had so much trouble accepting what you have said... I don't like seeing you constantly use such disparaging remarks regarding players who don't use addons or do 'research' before using the auction house in a game. Only in the most egregious cases like the one you mentioned of undercutting the golem market by 20k+ do I see any justification in getting at all upset by this.
The same people who turn up in a LFR boss or a Flex run and say "Someone explain to me how this boss works please? Someone show me where i need to stand please"
So, why do some people have to learn the boss tactics to tell other people them? Why don't YOU learn the boss tactics so you know what the fuck is going on?
Same should happen with Auctions, why sell stuff if you have no idea how it works or what a valuation of something is. I honestly would rather see /2 spammed with " How much is X item worth " than them randomly guessing.
The issue with the crafted gear became apparant too, the reason why there was 1000 553 ilvl gear put on auction house 18/28 days after the patch is because all the casuals couldn't make it / plan to do it in that amount of time. They all came on day 40-60. Then the price goes from 30k for legs to like 9k over night, it was silly. My cloth 553ilvl belt i sold in December when i made TL guild went for 2.8k which was about 200g below average at the time. This was due to me just putting it on AH as a bidding auction from 0. As i had enough gold and wanted to test the water for these items. To make that item it cost me ALOT. Cloth goes for a lot of gold right now strangely. Also doing some googling this is a funny look to back up my case;
http://www.wowhead.com/forums&topic=221407/ilvl-553-crafted-gear
I don't see how the addons people choose to use for the auction house tie blizzard's hands with regards to changing how the auction house works. Blizzard has no obligation to indefinitely support these addons. To be nice they could at least give a heads up rather than implement changes overnight.
They have supported most of the "really" good addons. Their answer to Deadly Boss mods was to make the Dungeon Journal listing all boss mechanics for people (also combating the silly people who don't look at tactics before jumping into LFR)
They have recently added a tracking system for Rare mobs as when they are around you get a big skull on your minimap.
And more but i forget, what they could do with Auction addon, is as soon as you put your auction on it automatically gives you an average value of what it should be then you can post or change it. At least then people would stop automatically changing it. For items that are brand new to the Auction of course we go back to my point of before that it should be up to those people to decide what they want it to be like for the first few weeks until it "automatically" finds itself a mean value. I.e when it starts selling.
Regarding your description of what companies do, you are talking about their own pricing policies, and companies can sell items for whatever price they want, generally. They can even charge different prices for different people, with some limitations. They can change the price of airline tickets depending on how full the plane is or other factors. What they cannot do is collude with competing airlines in an attempt to keep their prices higher, bypassing the natural process of prices dropping as companies compete for business.
Yes i understand that, but they do it without knowing? If Airlane company A brings out a new flight to X country. They charge $500 for this. Airline company B starts to fly to this place too, they are either going to sell it for $500 too or undercut. They will not undercut it by several $100s of dollars they are not even going to undercut it for 30-40, they will probably undercut by $10. Which is fine, then thus you start your bidding war between said companies. Unlike WoW AH where its just random that someone decides to undercut you by 20k ;_;
That was the point i was trying to make i guess but i accept i explain it badly xD
A question for you as an avid user of the auction house (or at least one in the past): assuming you are successful in your sales and make a great deal of money, what do you do with it?
I watch and look at my money i have now, im sat on 180,000 and im waiting to use it for Draenor.
Raiding is not cheap anymore, you really have to come in hard with gold to raid well.
Potions - Flasks - Food Buff - Repair Bills - Enchants - Gems are a lot of gold.
When i was raiding 3 nights a week i was going through about 2 stacks of Potions, 10 Flasks and god knows on the rest. Luckily for me i was a Flask master and can make my own flasks thanks to farming (literally through tillers) my own Golden Lotus to make myself just enough flasks to use a week and using rest for meh guild.
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Lol flasks are cheap as hell, and there are tons in both flex and lfr wing 2
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts
Flasks are not cheap as hell, the intellect flask i use also shoots up to close 100g a flask ^_^.
60g-70g was average flask price around Sept-November time when i was using them, on a VERY VERY crowded and populated Horde server. And whenever i came to use them they would spick to 90-100g. That is not cheap when you need like 3 for a raid if you raid for 3 hours, x by 3 nights a week and your looking at maybe 900g a week on flasks ;_;
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Lol sucks to be on a bad server I guess. It must also suck to need that many pots and flasks in making progression runs. I've never spent more than 50g for an intellect flask.
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts
40 Potions in 3 nights is "bad" xD
Progress runs take shit out of everyone man, you can't tell me you start any raid without using at least 25 Pots + a week. Which is an average of 8+ a night? :S
Flasks are just 3 a raid. Unless you raid less than 3hours.
Food is also the same as Pots
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All I'm saying is that I've never needed potions in order to consistently hit 100k hps healing during progressions, and on fights like Thok maybe I'll use a few for the bellow phases. There is definitely wiggle room for those who cant afford extra stuff. Furthermore, most good guilds will divide up collection tasks and doing so really mitigates cost.
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On January 07 2014 11:13 Serejai wrote:
Feel like crap at the moment but I'll try to make an educational post about how the economy works. My last account was sitting on 14m gold when I got banned and there are only about a dozen players (excluding gold sellers) that have made more than that so I feel like I'm qualified enough to write up a summary of how things have worked over the years. Micronesia especially will be shocked to find out how the economies are behind the scenes
Generally one player per server can.quite literally control the entire economic fate of all other players.
We have a guy who had more than 10 millions on our guild (i am speaking on WoTLK), the dude could just put the price on whatever he wanted.
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts
On January 08 2014 01:01 farvacola wrote:
All I'm saying is that I've never needed potions in order to consistently hit 100k hps healing during progressions, and on fights like Thok maybe I'll use a few for the bellow phases. There is definitely wiggle room for those who cant afford extra stuff. Furthermore, most good guilds will divide up collection tasks and doing so really mitigates cost.
Lol ah healer. Well most raid guilds i have known and always followed (top end guilds) always make players use potions as a must to maximize DPS. There is no reason not to do it either, you do 120k dps you could do 122k dps with a pot why wouldn't you want to do that xD
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United States24740 Posts
Pandemona I get what you are and have been saying about the auction house, but I can't believe the lengths you will go to to defend the labeling of many wow players as idiots with no brains, and other similar insults. Someone who didn't research a raid boss ahead of time, or who didn't research the best price on the auction house might be slightly worthy of your ire, but it certainly doesn't make them an idiot. You have to realize it's inherent in this type of game for people to have varying degrees of dedication when it comes to things like this.
Also want to comment asking trade chat for advice regarding the pricing of items would be a horrible idea lol... 1 gold? wait 100k gold? 50 copper!?
Finally I want to point out that your examples of blizzard supporting third party addons seem to actually show that they try to implement the same functionality themselves, rather than 'support' the addon.
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts
I label them idiots i guess is very strong but as you probably as well you have played this game so long and you have seen the community go from a strong base of 90% of people being at the same level of all knowing what to do and being pretty hardcore on the game to now where it is so casual and more and more age groups have access to the game that it has changed so very much. Idiot is to strong i do agree but i have not other word in my vocabulary to call them ;_;
It is not even dedication though is it >.< You play a game because it's fun and you enjoy it. When you start delving in the economics side of it or the raid side or PvP side you would think you would research the best PvP spec for your class or the best PvE class or how to do bosses in the raid before you do them. Or what is the best way to make gold if thats what you play for. Hell lots of people just play WoW to make lots of gold. So even a casual player should have interest in something ;_;
I ALWAYS answer people asking questions in trade if i can help and that is true. If i see someone asking where is "x" place or what is the best tanking spec or some advice on warrior tanking / fire mage, i will respond. Back in LK i remember frequently people asking what is "x" worth in trade and they always got answers from people because of said addons xD
Yeah i guess they dont "support" addons i agree but i meant what you just said, they implement something in the game similar. The only MAJOR addon they have never looked to make in game is a form of Damage or Healing metre. Took them ages to implement a threat helper xD
I always apologise if i caused anyone offense with my idiot comments ^_^ it just is very annoying.
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There was never a point in WoW's history during which anywhere close to 90% of the player base were sufficiently knowledgable about the game. Those are rose colored goggles.
On an aside, I finally got a legendary cloak on my pally 
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On January 08 2014 03:38 farvacola wrote:There was never a point in WoW's history during which anywhere close to 90% of the player base were sufficiently knowledgable about the game. Those are rose colored goggles. On an aside, I finally got a legendary cloak on my pally
Haha yea I would say it's always been more like 90% of the population is not knowledgable/willing to devote time to learn class/spec, at least from my perspective. Maybe 90% of the people you associated with, but the majority of the people that play this game don't research every aspect of the game like some people do.
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On January 08 2014 03:44 nikj wrote:Show nested quote +On January 08 2014 03:38 farvacola wrote:There was never a point in WoW's history during which anywhere close to 90% of the player base were sufficiently knowledgable about the game. Those are rose colored goggles. On an aside, I finally got a legendary cloak on my pally Haha yea I would say it's always been more like 90% of the population is not knowledgable/willing to devote time to learn class/spec, at least from my perspective. Maybe 90% of the people you associated with, but the majority of the people that play this game don't research every aspect of the game like some people do.
Id even go as far as to say 99% dont research ANYTHING about the game and just push some buttons to see some graphics.
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House51493 Posts
Not in vanilla where i was talking about ;_;
I didn't find many nubs or mass things wrong with the community back then :S
Can't go in any form of PvE or PvP group without a few players who have no idea what they are doing, from not knowing the tactics of a boss fight or knowing what to do in a battleground!
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I played vanilla as well, had many real life friends that played. None of them researched the game in any way. None of them looked up a spec or read a forum, or optimised a rotation. I was in a mid tier guild (for our server) in which almost everyone had to have their hand held the whole way through by the 4 or 5 people out of 40 that knew what was going on.
I'm not saying that there wasn't people that knew what was up, but there was a vast majority of people that just played the game for fun didn't care to go out of their way to learn anything about the game. Maybe you had a better experience than I did, I was on an NA server after all 
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EPT
