Quote Originally Posted by Xystic View Post
At this point, I can readjust the prices to my liking again.
It's always adorable to see people who feel they have any kind of actual "control" over the market beyond short-term fluctuations. MMO markets aren't like real markets. When someone strongarms, no one goes bankrupt, no one is forced to leave the market forever. They don't depend on the business to keep a roof over their head, or food on their plate. If a particular market becomes unfavorable - they just stay away until it's favorable again. You haven't taught anyone a lesson, you haven't discouraged undercutting - you probably haven't even so much as irritated your target. The one and only thing you've done is make a few buyers happy for as long as your vendetta lasts.

In an MMO market, particularly one like this where nothing is sold that is best-in-slot, and very little is sold that can't be acquired by anyone who bothers to level the correct DoL or DoH classes, there is one and only one factor that affects the prices of goods in the long term: supply and demand. If there's more products available than there are interested buyers, prices go down. If there's more buyers than product, price goes up.

Anything anyone (even RMT) does to game the market or "fix" prices - buying out cheap stock to sell high, selling at cost to punish or scare other sellers, none of it works beyond the short term. People simply won't buy overpriced goods because there's little reason to - nothing is best-in-slot. (Note: "overpriced" is relative; a very wealthy player will be willing to shell out more for something than a player with very little money.) Underpriced goods will sell fast as long as players are willing to underprice them, but that's by definition a losing game.