Please change taxes...

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Originally Posted by Darkwerk

Showing the listing price of items on the market is the root of every issue currently that we are seeing. It is simple as limit shown history for sales and do not show listed prices.

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I disagree. What we have in FF14 is a Market. Much like in the real world, you venture to the market (store) and pay the merchant for the product you want. You normally do not have an option on what you want to pay for what you want. The listed price is what you pay if you want the product.

Flea Markets and Swap Meets are a different animal as you cannot guarantee the authenticity of the products you buy and once you buy it, no refunds.

When you want to buy an item but doesn't know the price, it's a blind bidding. I fail to see how that is a better system. Buyer have to bid with a price, in which the order might or might not be fulfilled. It creates more hassle for the buyer. In a way, that benefits the seller as less information is available to the buyer to make an accurate guess at the price an item. Any savvy economist will tell you that is not conducive to trading in a large market

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Originally Posted by Wazabi

When you want to buy an item but doesn't know the price, it's a blind bidding. I fail to see how that is a better system. Buyer have to bid with a price, in which the order might or might not be fulfilled. It creates more hassle for the buyer. In a way, that benefits the seller as less information is available to the buyer to make an accurate guess at the price an item. Any savvy economist will tell you that is not conducive to trading in a large market

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Depends who you ask..Economics is a conversation one side can rarely sway the other on. What blind bidding actually does in an MMO game however is this. It keeps prices from spiking very much when supply is steady. it also can cause massive price jumps if supply is non existent,while if we see a glut the bottom will fall out.

It protects the seller from rampant undercuts,while also forcing them to list at decent price as they can not bump the market near as easy. {snip}

{continued}

Every time a buyer steps up to the MB he then has the chance to either push the market price up or down simply by intelligent bidding. Even if a seller dominates the recent history with over priced sales if only takes one decent seller, or a smart buyer 1 item and a friend to correct the market.


We are not living a life, we are playing a game. The markets in MMO games that reflect that have always been both more rewarding and entertaining .

I agree, I found the FFXI system frustrating in ways that were significant. It annoyed me that to get the best deal, and buy at the lowest price, I had to judge what I thought the cheapest undercutter would list at and bid upwards in small increments. Too much time spamming the market board for my liking and less time playing. I did make a judgement call on which ones it was worth bothering on - but stuff like Shihei, Squid sushi+1 etc it makes a big difference over time to pay the lowest price. As an addicted crafter it was especially true for crafting and especially with the number of sub components some items needed. This was even more so the case when crafting for profit in bulk. {No thanks} in FFXIV in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Darkwerk

Depends who you ask..Economics is a conversation one side can rarely sway the other on. What blind bidding actually does in an MMO game however is this. It keeps prices from spiking very much when supply is steady. it also can cause massive price jumps if supply is non existent,while if we see a glut the bottom will fall out.

It protects the seller from rampant undercuts,while also forcing them to list at decent price as they can not bump the market near as easy. {snip}

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What happens is you prevent people from gaining any insightful information about the current market. Blind bidding will cause the market to lose transparency. Blind bidding would make price fluctuation far worse. All you did was hide the prices under the rug so no one can see it, and this will cause the market to be less efficient and have bigger and more frequent price gaps.

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Originally Posted by Sotek

Tax sellers the moment they put an item up for sale, then they'll be much less willing to adjust their price

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In the current model, you have the chance to make some money at no loss to fees.

Placing an initial listing fee - prevents RELISTING of an item. It does not prevent/deter INITIAL UNDERCUTTING in any way. People will undercut you REGARDLESS. You add initial listing fees in with the mess, you now have your item stuck on the market board at a price it can't sell and a penalty fee for RELISTING.

The only people who benefit from initial listing fees are the ones with a huge stock of items. We can use a small quantity to undercut you to the point where if you relist, your item will sell below the market value and you face a penalty for relisting.

Its either:
A) You sit and wait to hope I leave or sell all my goods which will rarely happen
B) You take a loss but at least recover some gil and leave the current market

Not to mention people could then actually list stuff for cheaper by abusing the proposed system of taxing on listing. What's to stop someone from putting something up for 10gil to avoid taxes and then adjust the price quickly to what they actually want. congrats, now everyone in the game will be using this for tax evasion! So if people want a listing fee, inevitably they'll also be forced to add a price adjustment fee as well.

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Originally Posted by Darkwerk

Depends who you ask..Economics is a conversation one side can rarely sway the other on. What blind bidding actually does in an MMO game however is this. It keeps prices from spiking very much when supply is steady. it also can cause massive price jumps if supply is non existent,while if we see a glut the bottom will fall out.

It protects the seller from rampant undercuts,while also forcing them to list at decent price as they can not bump the market near as easy. {snip}

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Most arguements between economist stems from different assumptions. Hayek and Keynes basically took it head on, but both were right in their own way. For the most part, economist are in agreement with regards to the fundamental mechanics of a market. The ones in disagreement mostly occurs between a person who really knows economics, with another that thinks he knows economics. I have my disagreement with Zigkid...but you don't see us banging our head against eachother trying to defend a flawed/misguided theory. Lets just say our disagreement is very different from how most will perceive or understand it.

You're right in that blind auction reduces spikes. But do you truely understand what causes that? Also, it kinda depends on are you looking at it when the market is matured, or when it is only a few months old.

Generally, asynchronous information benefits the seller more than the buyer. Blind bidding sets the stage exactly for that (which is why big corporation and government uses that for their projects). This results in buyer needing to spend more time and efford to get more information, exactly what Rylia's gripe is about. Given that, we can expect the buyer to either get the shorter end of the straw, or trades less. This translates to less market participants, which explains why prices fluctuates less. Even then it depends....this applies to a matured market, but not neccesarily a new market where prices are still adjusting to equilibrium. As you've put it, we're playing a game, not living a life. Players might not want to spend so much efford just to dig up information about an item before purchasing them.

That being said, people who plays game are real living people...so when a game mechanics involves human behaviour, it is as real life as it could be.

You mentioned protecting the seller from being undercut. Why would we need to protect against that? If he's being undercut, that simply means he's either greedy and overpriced his goods, or that he can't find a more efficient means of getting that goods to sell it at a lower price. Who's protecting the buyer then? FF11's market has everything against the buyer...most just lacks the understanding to realize it.

I am not sure if you understand how you come off,as most intellectuals do not.Im am sure you are proud of the first 2 years of college you have completed. You may want to roll back the talking down to people and the assumptions that you are better read . I back some of the same positions you do,however on this i disagree from experience in many many GAME markets. I would not hold the same positions if real life were at stake here. In general a game should be fun and needs a sense of win/loss ,every aspect of the game possible should reflect this .

It has not been my experience that a blind bid system would work out as you assert that it would. People do not act the same in games as the would with real money. They will blow more for lesser items faster,they will push a market price up and up because they just bought a ton of gil from random RMT. They will under cut further than it is sane simply because the lack basic math skill or to many beer's dulled their logic. (snip..limit}

{cont.}

To try and relate IRL mechanics to a game econemy is naive at best. From absolute experience with varying game economic systems is where i draw my conclusion on this issue,I have seen many many many models play out, and this is the one I prefer. That is not out of greed or anything, just experience. It ,in action benefits everyone with some intellect.


As a post above mentioned, nothing prevents a seller for listing a 10k item for 10 gil to beat taxes..Also nothing prevent a savvy buyer from tossing 10g,100g,500g bid to find a price. If fast and easy is what you want,quality normally suffers. Furthermore it feels much more like the haggle for skins,leathers and ore would feel in such a world,at least in my envisioning such a world.

Actually, to state that RL mechanics has no relations to game economy is a naive statement that stems from insufficient understanding on how market, or economy really works. The participants in a game market are RL people, and their behaviour will generally be similar to how they respond to choices in RL, with the addition of some constraints and slight diferent in mechanics. If you have a full understanding on how people's decision interacts and affect the economy, you will understand what I mean.

As for my attitude, I maintain my stance that I am better read than most simply because this is my area of interest. I don't know anything about sports/celebrity news, but I know about the field of economics...I'm not an expert, but very likely know more than most people since most view it as a dry subject. Fellow economics enthusiast out there can easily tell if a person is knowledgable at this subject or not by looking at how the way they explains the details. I'm stating a fact about myself that I know is true, without resorting to sarcastic attempts to belittle my opponents intellect through assumptions on education length.

Everything benefits those who's smarter and also willing to work for it. Your experience tells you its a good thing...what about others? I don't think any of us can say for certain about that. This is where we fall back to the research that acedemics does since it is beyond our knowledge and capability to answer that question...and they basically says that any disparity in information between the buyer and seller creates an inefficient market. I know most of us couldn't care less about other people making profit or not (I know I dont'), but these things matters when you're designing an economy for all the game's population. Also, economic does not look at 1 person's behaviour or the benefit to 1 person...it looks at the behaviour of the whole population.

*Also, you could just make a post, cut it down to 1000 characters, then edit it, and paste the cut out part to put everything under 1 post.

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Originally Posted by Darkwerk

{cont.}

To try and relate IRL mechanics to a game econemy is naive at best.

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Bwahahaha!! Oh that is rich! To restate what Wazabi said in the first sentence of post #92 (but in a tone that isn't as nice as his)...

Economics are based off of mathematical models and formulas which are then used to relate to real world phenomena. For the most part they are very accurate, but in the world world there can be a multitude of factors that may influence the market and skew the model such as regulation standards, contracts,etc... literally a ton of factors. However with a game economy, if anything, it follows economic models even more closely than the real world because it has so few factors or even none that get in the way of predictions, and even more importantly market information is easily displayed for everyone to see at any given point immediately unlike the real world which can require people to have to do a ton of research or not be able to get information as easily. So if anything a game market is much much more predictable.

It also works like a real life market, why can't a virtual market work like a real market? what's the difference? Keep in mind currency in and of itself and its value is at heart a subjective value that everyone agrees upon. So we have gil in the game, our currency, people place a value on it just like dollars, euros, pounds, etc... Then we have raw materials and raw material costs. In the real world it takes time and money (equipment) to gather raw materials. In the game to gather materials it takes time and money (character equipment, teleporting and repairs) as well. Time is subjective on how much you value it, this in turn will add to the cost of gathering the raw material as your 'wage' for labor. Then you have processing, in the real world its raw materials, time, and labor. In game for processing it also takes raw materials (whether you bought them or gathered them it still has a cost associated with it), time, and labor (is it NQ or HQ) this also depends if its a one or two star item which you can't mass produce and/or if youre shooting for HQ items. It's very similar.

You should try reading this entire thread from page 1, i explained this through out this thread as well.

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Originally Posted by Darkwerk

As a post above mentioned, nothing prevents a seller for listing a 10k item for 10 gil to beat taxes.

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I said that to show how stupid it is to have a fee on listing. If you do, then there must also be a fee on adjustments to prevent that from happening.

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Originally Posted by Wazabi

Cut

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Again the position you take misses the mark from what I know to be fact about gamers. Fact is most people act no where near the same in a game or online in general as they would IRL. Even less so where virtual currency is concerned.
Note i said "most", being those who view this only as a game. They could care less about end game,or maxing their gil or any of the things a more "hardcore" gamer would take as a given. When going to a market they will often,out of apathy or simply not knowing better make hasty decisions.Like say spending more for an item just because they want it, or listing items at the vendor price because it auto fills itself in. It happens a lot, you can see it right now on the MB for this game, or in the market for any other MMO.

These choices are not made out of a need to survive eat and send children to school.They are made just to keep moving along in a game they play off and on and could really take it or leave it.(most ,honestly will leave it sooner rather than later.) So no, people do not act in games the same as they do in life. As for editing my post v/s continuing ,I do what I find easier most convenient.As everyone should,maybe sooner rather than later they will figure out how ridiculous the post limit is. (however this one I'll edit just for you. )

See, it is you who's missing the point, and your statements & arguments conclusively implies to me you lack in depth knowledge on this subject.

Would a person buy an item selling for 5g or 10g? Right... what would they do in RL? same? Good.

Will a person sell something at below cost in game? They will, it's obvious. Will they do it in RL? They do too...if they need to get rid of it fast.

Are people more cautious with RL money? I'll bet they are. Are they so with in game money? Not so much...so that's a difference. However, what causes the difference? Are we looking at fundamental difference here? I mean, they still behave similarly, but seems to be more careless about their money...Can I conclude that the game has no RL economics elements in it? Not really coz they do obey some fundamental behaviours just like in real life. So why the difference?

Say in RL you have no money...can you just go get a job and get money? Not neccesarily. If you have no money in a game, can you get money after farming for 1hour? Definately! This introduces the principle of uncertainties which causes human to behave differently in RL and in game. Slightly different in terms of their moneys, but they will still generally prefer something cheaper than the ones that is more expansive.

But what about selling at below cost? Well...what does it cost you to make money in game? Only time...so even if I sell a piece of electrum ore at 1g, I'm still making a 1g PROFIT. Why would someone sell equipments at below cost price? Then they are making a loss right? ISn't that just stupid or ignorent? Not neccesarily. In taking the lost, I've gained xp for crafting the item...so I consider that a cost to pay to convert my time and gils into crafting xp. Sounds rational to me.

And as you've mentioned, there's no maintainance in the game...so you can be more liberal with your spendings...but the way a person spends still follows the fundamental economic laws. It is the constraints that has changed, but the same law governs the behaviour in this new environment.

You failed to see beyond that into the deeper mechanics, thus I can understand your persistence in this arguement. Like it or not...everything that you get in game is based of some data of the real world. As long as humans are playing the game, it will to a certain degree be governed by real world mechanics.

There are a lot of uninformed market participants out there...I see a few seller that sells with auto fill...but not as often when compared to the other players that are aggresively trying to price their goods. The occurance of such behaviours are statistically insignificant to generalize that behaviour to the whole population...which unfortunately is what most amateur cites to back their argument.

First off, you can stop taking me out of context and trying to use a wall of text to hammer everyone with a different opinion.

I think it is yourself who fails to see deeper. The elements that even you agree differ from IRL are so key as to change everything.The degree it changes would be where we disagree. You claim to have gained some insight as to my grasp of economics based upon my assertion that it differs in a game than IRL.Well I can gain insight into you based upon the method you use to debate. Sure, I will grant it to you that I was rude to you first, however that came from reading a few other posts you had made. You come off as a first or second year student,who just decided that economics is for them, now you try to wave that flag in everyone's face.

{cut}

I assure you my grasp of the subject not only rivals your own,but most likely surpasses it. I am sorry,but almost every player who will max their possible holding in any given game,understands the differences between IRL and game economies. It is actually a mix of psychology and economics one must apply. ..I will not be continuing this conversation however,as I know the type I am conversing with and trying to get any point across but the one you currently hold is pointless.

Good luck on the future conquest of Wall Street..lol..

Darkwerk, maybe instead of trying to discredit someone, try doing so by picking their argument apart rather than resorting to appeal to authority tactics and calling someone a 1st or 2nd year college student. regardless of whether or not they are will not make a difference in their actual argument. I can say for sure that wazabi knows a lot more than you do about economics. anything youve said is literally just an opinion on a difference on how people might behave in a game or irl, but nothing with validity.

Well darkwerk...none of your post have sufficiently explain your own claims. Basically what you've done here is saying "the earth is flat" and you know it for certain because you know more....but fail to provide justification, explanation, and rebuttal of other people's argument. What you've been using was just a blanket statement and trying to discredit me with, no suprise, blanket unjustified statement. When I explain my case to you in detail, then it's a wall of text hammer to you...I'll leave it for the other readers to judge.

Also, I don't know the deal about the conquest of wall street statement....but an economist is almost never a good stock market trader, what you're probably thinking is a quant...but hey, I'm sure you've already know that with your extensive economic knowledge.

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Originally Posted by Zigkid3

Darkwerk, maybe instead of trying to discredit someone, try doing so by picking their argument apart rather than resorting to appeal to authority tactics and calling someone a 1st or 2nd year college student. regardless of whether or not they are will not make a difference in their actual argument. I can say for sure that wazabi knows a lot more than you do about economics. anything youve said is literally just an opinion on a difference on how people might behave in a game or irl, but nothing with validity.

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Yes, I agree. I also feel the last post he made was very unnecessary.

Very unprofessional for someone who appears to claim to be a professional in the same field.

I think my post explained my position very well. If you expect me to feel bad for talking down to someone talking down to me and everyone else they disagree with, well then you will get no satisfaction here.

Truth is an in game economy plays out very little like a real one. Those players going to any length to deny that are simply opposed to the idea of blind bids.

I do not expect to ever see a blind bid in an mmo designed such as this one,to be as simple and basic as possible. .However, Some people are just guilty of trying to make even the most simple situation complex in order to scare others out of the debate.

Gamer mentality is VERY EASY to predict,and people act no where near the same in games as they do IRL. I stand by that, and I am truly done here.

{I do not feel it nessary to give a lecture or attempt to prove anything other than my point. }

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Originally Posted by Darkwerk

I think my post explained my position very well. If you expect me to feel bad for talking down to someone talking down to me and everyone else they disagree with, well then you will get no satisfaction here.

Truth is an in game economy plays out very little like a real one. Those players going to any length to deny that are simply opposed to the idea of blind bids.

I do not expect to ever see a blind bid in an mmo designed such as this one,to be as simple and basic as possible. .However, Some people are just guilty of trying to make even the most simple situation complex in order to scare others out of the debate.

Gamer mentality is VERY EASY to predict,and people act no where near the same in games as they do IRL. I stand by that, and I am truly done here.

{I do not feel it nessary to give a lecture or attempt to prove anything other than my point. }

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And why do you feel that people will make different types of decisions in an in game economy vs. IRL?

Even if people will value IRL currency as more important than in game currency, you can't say that it'll make people not care on how they spend their gil. They still care about how they spend it, it's just that it's used to buy in game items.

Regardless of a game or IRL people will natural want to....
Buy at the lowest possible price if they have the option.
Sell at the highest possible price if possible.

I don't see how you could even dispute those principles. If i see item X selling for 20k and for 50k, why on earth would i want to buy the 50k one for the same item?

The funny thing is, as i've said before, a game economy is much more simple than IRL and the information is much more easily available and to understand than in IRL, and transactions are instant. So if anything, game economies would follow economics more closely.

There is a clear difference when pointing out something and using facts to support your main argument and insulting someone.

It does not matter if you feel bad or not. It was very unprofessional regardless and the fact that your willing to stand firm on it makes it even worse.

Sad thing is, you then go ahead and insult the gaming community at the very end as well.

There's a problem with the "stability" of rampant undercutting:

NPC vendor prices do not change based on the market value of gil. They are static unless Square changes them. Currently right now the lack of a listing fee and the ability to freely change the price of anything without paying a fee has allowed the RMTs to intentionally crash markets, accelerating human stupidity to make everything worthless. When everything is worthless, players still need gil for things that NPCs sell--FC housing in 2.1 being a big thing that a lot of people will be wanting. It is very much in the RMTs interest to crash every market they possibly can. When every market is terrible, and nobody can make any gil from selling anything on the market boards, a lot of players will feel they have no option but to buy gil from the RMTs.

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Originally Posted by synaesthetic

It is very much in the RMTs interest to crash every market they possibly can. When every market is terrible, and nobody can make any gil from selling anything on the market boards, a lot of players will feel they have no option but to buy gil from the RMTs.

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Finally someone else sees this. This is exactly what is wrong with RMT and Bots in the game and why we need quicker resolution to both.

Additionally when things like trade-leves give horrible gil in comparison to market value on HQ items there is something wrong. I have been grinding away at crafting and often consider is the EXP turn in worth the loss in gil and the answer is usually no. When you craft or gather there are also repair costs to consider. Even when selling stacks your profits are low on most mats because the cost of repairs can be 10-20% of your profit, that is if any profit is there. Seeing 1g items on the market makes no sense at all considering NPC turn in is 1g, the obvious goal for these items being listed on the market is to sink it so no one can make gil from that item, which as you suggest forces some players hand to use RMT.

Say you have item A. You usually sell it at 100 and make a cut throat profit, but you know the item is probably only worth 50. You also know that you might not be able to sell it at 100, and the closer you move your price to 50, the more likely you're gonna sell it.

Say there isn't a posting fee. You'll probably post it at 100 and try your luck, adjusting down as it goes depending on competition since its free.

Say now there's a posting fee. Will you still post it at 100? Now think of all the other players trading this item on how they will adjust their behaviour, and think how it will impact the overall price.

I generally won't bring bots and RMT into these topic as they are a separate issue that has a separate fix. Changes in the market mechanics rarely has much impact on RMT and bots.


As for the topic of gil generation, where does your money come from when you sell something in the market board? MB trade is just a transfer of gils between players within the economy...it does not create additional money. If you make a cut-throat profit for something, it's coming out from another player's pocket. As of now, the game is still only 3 months new, and they've just lowered some of the cost of repair and traveling. They are probably observing the data to determine if all the world has enough money in the system or not to not cause a significant inflation or deflation, and then tinker with it accordingly. This is a complex matter.