UNDERCUTTING....

[Kiara]

A free market is in theory an unrestricted economy yes... the "invisible hand" guides it first and foremost. But in 99.9% of cases there will be some macro level controls that affect pricing. It's difficult to say for certain, but we probably won't see a dramatic shift in the pricing of these items until something superior comes out. Keep in mind, the principle of undercutting is based on the tradeoff of earning less revenue for a quicker sale. Such is why you see people undercut by 1 gil, 100 gil, 1000 gil, or whatever. People will not undercut an item to the point where it's undervalued because the free market will correct this.

Hi Onion,

Great points. But I would say there are reasons we have the SEC and laws for Anti-Trust / Monopolies / Price Dumping, etc.

With the crappy way Price Listings are displayed right now (Top 20 Cheapest only), an RMT Corporation can easily load up 1 Char (with 2 Retainers) and price dump an item to control that market. They have an army of RMT / Bots at their disposal to price dump at super low prices and drive away real Crafters & Gatherers, and then control prices then.

Square has no one monitoring or regulating the markets. There are no Anti-Trust / Price-Dumping Protection schemes in place.

Overall I think there are a few different things being discussed here. Individual players wanting to get rid of their items or sell faster... sure they can undercut each other by various amounts and wage their little "price wars"... and then there are RMT Corporations / Bots / People with a lot of resources / multiple retainers on their hands that want to Price Dump / Control Markets. That's a bigger issue IMHO.

It's a pretty low activity game right now... but I wonder how much worse it might get once 2.0 hits?

[Rydin]

See: Supply and Demand

[Themule]

I don't understand how people talk about a Free Market like it should actually exist in MMO's. A free market would tell me that if I can find a bot to do what other players spend hours doing, its the other people who are the suckers. If SE wanted a free market, they would allow 3rd party programs and tell people who can't code or purchase their own bot to suck it. We want a controlled economy that encourages people to do the work instead of cheating. I don't care what your real life opinion is on Economics, this is not the real world. We want people to actually enjoy doing work enough to pay a monthly fee and in turn help this game survive.

[Wolfie]

one problem of having a sell history people begged for, well they have there AH now.

back in the good ol'days you could set your price in the marketwards and were able to sell for your price since no one knew what it sold for last.

Sorry guy, I wasn't going to buy your overpriced crap anyway. I'll buy from the guy selling it for 100g less than you.

[Wolfie]

I don't understand how people talk about a Free Market like it should actually exist in MMO's. A free market would tell me that if I can find a bot to do what other players spend hours doing, its the other people who are the suckers. If SE wanted a free market, they would allow 3rd party programs and tell people who can't code or purchase their own bot to suck it. We want a controlled economy that encourages people to do the work instead of cheating. I don't care what your real life opinion is on Economics, this is not the real world. We want people to actually enjoy doing work enough to pay a monthly fee and in turn help this game survive.

If SE wanted us to "do the work instead of cheating", then they would disable all inter-player trading, and all currency and purchases would be done via NPC interaction. The moment you allow players to trade or interact with each other, they're going to find a way to "exploit" the trading system to get the highest benefit. That is a tenet of how any economy works, whether its real life or virtual.

The reason why bots are banned is simply because SE is not okay with the idea that players can automate their gameplay. There are some MMOs that allow it, some that have come up with ingenious ways to thwart it, and some that opt to simply ban them. But banning bots does not make the rest of the economy any less of a free market.

And finally, if you think that virtual economies don't have parallels to real world economies, then you my friend are extremely uneducated. People write their Ph.D. theses on virtual economies, and the same laws and phenomena that happen in real world economies also happen in virtual economies.

[Themule]

Undercutting is a multi-headed beast for sure...when I started this thread, I thought it went without saying that bots are starting to really effect this economy because more and more people are doing it. But in reality, i'm really just annoyed with how much time i have to spend checking prices and re-adjusting what i'm selling.

Fine SE you don't care about bots, fair enough, I can deal and have. But don't screw me for not cheating AND make it extremely annoying to sell things...

[Rydin]

I don't understand how people talk about a Free Market like it should actually exist in MMO's. A free market would tell me that if I can find a bot to do what other players spend hours doing, its the other people who are the suckers. If SE wanted a free market, they would allow 3rd party programs and tell people who can't code or purchase their own bot to suck it. We want a controlled economy that encourages people to do the work instead of cheating. I don't care what your real life opinion is on Economics, this is not the real world. We want people to actually enjoy doing work enough to pay a monthly fee and in turn help this game survive.

It's not some easy issue though.
Blizzard had to hire real world economists to come in and fix the WoW economy
And even then, even amongst economists you'll have a hard time finding ones that agree.
Economy in general is such a vast and diverse subject with so many "professional" opinions that at the end of the day, most MMO makers decide to just let the market work itself out

[Themule]

If SE wanted us to "do the work instead of cheating", then they would disable all inter-player trading, and all currency and purchases would be done via NPC interaction. The moment you allow players to trade or interact with each other, they're going to find a way to "exploit" the trading system to get the highest benefit. That is a tenet of how any economy works, whether its real life or virtual.

The reason why bots are banned is simply because SE is not okay with the idea that players can automate their gameplay. There are some MMOs that allow it, some that have come up with ingenious ways to thwart it, and some that opt to simply ban them. But banning bots does not make the rest of the economy any less of a free market.

And finally, if you think that virtual economies don't have parallels to real world economies, then you my friend are extremely uneducated. People write their Ph.D. theses on virtual economies, and the same laws and phenomena that happen in real world economies also happen in virtual economies.

LOL...not even going to respond.

[Wolfie]

No, of course you won't. You'll get on your high horse and think you're right, despite not having a single valid point or counter point.

[Lux_Rayna]

And even then, even amongst economists you'll have a hard time finding ones that agree.

Bahahaha holy hell thats putting it *lightly*. Economists hardly agree on anything at all, except that an economy exists. Finding two economists in agreement is like finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.



On Topic: People should stop being butthurt about game economies. They function like real life economies, because all of its players grew up in an economic system. As a result, our behavior mimics the behavior of companies, corporations, etc. We are conditioned to think and operate this way thanks to the society we grew up in. Thats how the fuckin cookies crumbles. If you don't like it, play games from communist countries. I guarantee you'll find a very different kind of game market. And I bet none of you losers complain when you're shopping for mats and find expensive shit for half the price. You say "discount" and are freakin ecstatic. And you know what? The guy that sold it is happy as balls too. Everyone wins except the guy who didnt sell crap. And since you'd only complain if you were that guy, everyone complaining must just be *butthurt*.