Market ideas, and how to fix it.

[Chauve]

Similarly, if you're a seller, you should be able to see 8-10 of the highest offers.

5. Selling/Buying options - With the above system in place, you should not be able to place orders for an item that is lower than the NPC buyback price. Likewise, you can't sell for lower than that either. The default price should be blank, with two options while selling: "match lowest price" or the ability to input your own price, with a quanitity field. When buying, "match highest offer" or a custom input field, and a quantity field of up to 99.



This creates an auction system in which you can place buy orders, fill existing orders, and sell your items efficiently. Yes, it's a "playable" market that people can sit there and make money just by flipping items for minutes a day. But it also gives you a better idea of what the actual demand of an item is, and you can farm/craft accordingly. Playable or not, it's a lot more stable than what exists now.

[gadzi_h]

Similarly, if you're a seller, you should be able to see 8-10 of the highest offers.

5. Selling/Buying options - With the above system in place, you should not be able to place orders for an item that is lower than the NPC buyback price...

Number 5 starts to solve some issues. If an NPC buy back is the same price as a market listing those items should just be absorbed into the NPC market as the NPC would flip it for a profit. Some equilibrium between NPC item supply needs to be met, as having an infinite supply and NPC's not sourcing goods from the market makes no sense. This could stoke market participation by making gathering, and GC turn-in's more important to the over all stability of the economy. Right now there are 2 economies NPC and Player (through the market boards) and even a different/competing currency seeing as tomestomes are used to buy gear at end game. I wish there was more synergy between NPC and the player economy. But 5 starts to address some odd market behaviour.

[Xystic]

#1. No, the fee is not what you think it is. It is a gil sink fee and removes gil from the market. In any mmo, the amount of gil that enters the market must also be removed from the market to keep the game healthy. If gil is not removed from the game you get a pile up of gil and inflation of prices. Anyone new and entering the game would never be able to afford anything in the game. We eliminate players into the community thus hurting the game. This scenario has been seen thousands of times over countless MMOs. This is why the term gold-sink came into existence.

At the same time, gil must enter the community at the same rate it is being destroyed or there will be no gil eventually over time. Adding a fee to any item sold is a great way to remove gil. If you've seen MMOs since the dawn of their time, you would know that listing fees of any type is a gil/gold sink feature. Like these FC houses which will be gigantic gil sinks.This should be common knowledge.

[Xystic]

#3. You contradict yourself. You state there is no way to know what the supply and demand is but then you state the recent transactions history list. That alone is plenty. If used and studied properly it is already too dangerous.

These 1,000 word posts are rather annoying lol.

[Chauve]

#3. You contradict yourself. You state there is no way to know what the supply and demand is but then you state the recent transactions history list. That alone is plenty. If used and studied properly it is already too dangerous.

Gold sink, yes. But it still stabilizes prices and discourages sporadic changes in price. I also don't believe it would hurt people that are complaining about it, or casuals. If you're early on in the game and don't have a lot of gil, you're going to be selling cheap items anyway. As you progress, it evens out if you're managing properly.

Secondly, I don't believe I contradicted myself. I specifically said there was no way to place buy orders to test demand. Buy history does not accurately represent demand, and yes it is dangerous. The buy history shouldn't even be there. That alone is going to cause long term problems. Reread my post--you misread this the first time.

[Tommara]

#1. No, the fee is not what you think it is. It is a gil sink fee and removes gil from the market. In any mmo, the amount of gil that enters the market must also be removed from the market to keep the game healthy. If gil is not removed from the game you get a pile up of gil and inflation of prices. Anyone new and entering the game would never be able to afford anything in the game. We eliminate players into the community thus hurting the game. This scenario has been seen thousands of times over countless MMOs. This is why the term gold-sink came into existence.

At the same time, gil must enter the community at the same rate it is being destroyed or there will be no gil eventually over time. Adding a fee to any item sold is a great way to remove gil. If you've seen MMOs since the dawn of their time, you would know that listing fees of any type is a gil/gold sink feature. Like these FC houses which will be gigantic gil sinks.This should be common knowledge.

Gil sinks are required, but they don't have to be a surcharge for listing an item. It's not a "great way to remove gil". It's an awful barrier to entry. Google "barrier to entry" if you're not familiar with the term. I've played MMOs since the dawn of time, although my primary source of information derives from about 2 decades as a regulator of monopolies.

WoW's auction house majorly sucks, as have all of its AH clones, with its onerous barriers to entry compared to EQ, EQ2, Eve Online, and more recently, Anarchy Online (relatively recent improved access to market), etc. lack of market barriers. What makes their markets work is the fact that items sold are useful, sometimes not trivial to obtain, and there are few barriers to entry.

Gil sinks are necessary, but put them elsewhere, anywhere but barriers to entry to the game's market.

What's causing FF14's markets to fail is the fact that there are so many people uninterested (or filling time waiting for a group) in the level 50 combat game that they are now crafting and harvesting instead. I'm on a relatively new server, and am making a ton of gil from crafting, but I don't expect that to continue. Adding barriers to entry would only make the problem worse, creating a situation where high level characters have the means to eliminate competition.

Low prices derive from the fact that level 50's have nothing better to do, which creates too much competition and reduces their incentive to pay other people to provide things for them that they should be too busy to obtain for themselves.

[Zigkid3]

Gil sinks are required, but they don't have to be a surcharge for listing an item. It's not a "great way to remove gil". It's an awful barrier to entry. Google "barrier to entry" if you're not familiar with the term. I've played MMOs since the dawn of time, although my primary source of information derives from about 2 decades as a regulator of monopolies.

WoW's auction house majorly sucks, as have all of its AH clones, with its onerous barriers to entry compared to EQ, EQ2, Eve Online, and more recently, Anarchy Online (relatively recent improved access to market), etc. lack of market barriers. What makes their markets work is the fact that items sold are useful, sometimes not trivial to obtain, and there are few barriers to entry.

Gil sinks are necessary, but put them elsewhere, anywhere but barriers to entry to the game's market.

What's causing FF14's markets to fail is the fact that there are so many people uninterested (or filling time waiting for a group) in the level 50 combat game that they are now crafting and harvesting instead. I'm on a relatively new server, and am making a ton of gil from crafting, but I don't expect that to continue. Adding barriers to entry would only make the problem worse, creating a situation where high level characters have the means to eliminate competition.

Low prices derive from the fact that level 50's have nothing better to do, which creates too much competition and reduces their incentive to pay other people to provide things for them that they should be too busy to obtain for themselves.

a tax for gil sink isn't a barrier to entry. I don't think you fully understand the term.

are obstacles that make it difficult to enter a given market.[1] The term can refer to hindrances a firm faces in trying to enter a market or industry—such as government regulation and patents, or a large, established firm taking advantage of economies of scale—or those an individual faces in trying to gain entrance to a profession—such as education or licensing requirements.

You can technically count the tax as effecting economies of scale to enter a certain market, but that'd be a real stretch considering the tax is after the sale so you can already easily invest in selling certain items.

A barrier of entry for MMO's would be the following:
1) level of certain gathering/crafting classes. for example in WoW you're limited in the amount of professions you can have at a time. on top of that you have to take the time to level it to max level. for FFXIV anyone can level as many crafting/gathering classes as they like so there's no limit, however you still have to worry about leveling each one.
2) How much money do you have. the amount of gil you currently have may determine which markets you're able to enter, and how much strength you have in that particular corner of the market.

because this is an mmo, everyone can pretty much do anything if they wanted to. there's no complicated real life stuff to worry about. if you want to enter the undyed cotton cloth market for example, you can enter it at will and you can leave it just as easily. there's almost next to no barriers of entry, which is nice because it helps prices get to equilibrium. If a certain market is seen as profitable, people will easily flock to it because theres almost no barrier to entry if any at all. people will continue to join that market until there's no profit to be gained. if it's too costly then people can just as easily leave that market.