[dev 1018] Markets and price history

[ObeiKinstar]

Good Morning

This post is to address ONE of the problems facing the market wards.

Honestly a lot of ppl will debate this but I think the markets would benefit from having a price history to help determine proper values for items.

How this price hisrtory would work is on the table, but I think if it was a history of the average of the last 100 items sold it would be more than fair and hard(er) to manipulate.

In addition of the price history, you could put up a scroll on the wall (which would change with the economy) with set prices of what SE thinks those particular items should sell for, so the history cant be manipulated outrageously, or if it is then we will know better. The list could be updated by a dev every few motnhs with the changes in economy.

[akisato]

the big problem with a price history is it makes ppl set the price of an item at what a few ppl have arbitarily decided.

[Rentahamster]

the big problem with a price history is it makes ppl set the price of an item at what a few ppl have arbitarily decided.

No it doesn't. That only happens when the price list goes back a short time period so it's easy to manipulate. If the price history goes back 6 months to a year, it is impossible to artificially manipulate. (unless you wanna buy and sell to yourself for a year).

Names on the price list would also show you any attempts to try to manipulate the price list.

[akisato]

No it doesn't. That only happens when the price list goes back a short time period so it's easy to manipulate. If the price history goes back 6 months to a year, it is impossible to artificially manipulate. (unless you wanna buy and sell to yourself for a year).

Names on the price list would also show you any attempts to try to manipulate the price list

really you mean to tell me if you saw an item sell for 600gil 6 months ago but is now selling for 25,000gil you would sell it for 600gil? also FF11 had names on the price history and it didnt stop anything.

[Roaran]

Mmm, whether or not there is a price history, the price of the items are determined by the time it take to bring the items to market and the demand for the item. I think the only useful place for a price history is determining the relative value of an item when there's no comparison to be made.

In addition of the price history, you could put up a scroll on the wall (which would change with the economy) with set prices of what SE thinks those particular items should sell for

Never ever going to happen and for good reason. Aside from it being entirely useless, it's entirely arbitrary. SE can hardly control the supply of items and certainly could never control the demand for them. The actual value of the items would float around and it would only be a reaction to these changes that some determination could be made. It would be better to implement an FFXI price history than to have something like this.


Even with abuse, items are still, with few exceptions, sold at prices that channel the scarcest items into the hands of the richer and the most plentiful to everyone. A price history just gives people an excuse to be abused or to use less than rational decisions, and, in the end, simply hurts rather than improves the economy.

[Rentahamster]

really you mean to tell me if you saw an item sell for 600gil 6 months ago but is now selling for 25,000gil you would sell it for 600gil? also FF11 had names on the price history and it didnt stop anything.

I "mean to tell you" that with a price history that spans a year, I can see whether or not if the 25,000 gil price really represents the fair market value of the item, or if it is an anomaly caused by someone trying to artificially manipulate the price. It would be especially obvious if the person whose name occurs on the abnormally high price is a known price manipulator or if it is that person whose name appears only on the unusually high prices.

With a price history that goes back a long time, it would be easy to spot the general trend line as well as pick out any abnormal price readings.

A price history just gives people an excuse to be abused or to use less than rational decisions, and, in the end, simply hurts rather than improves the economy.

Nope. EVE Online has a price history. It doesn't hurt them.

[Cutriss]

Mmm, whether or not there is a price history, the price of the items are determined by the time it take to bring the items to market and the demand for the item. I think the only useful place for a price history is determining the relative value of an item when there's no comparison to be made.

I didn't even use the auction house in WOW until I got Auctioneer. Half the items I wanted to sell had no other listings when I put them up, so I had no idea about what kind of traffic they experienced, and I would just vendor crap since I didn't want to waste money listing things that weren't priced to sell. I had better things to do with my time.

Similarly in XIV, I've got two retainers holding all manner of crap right now that I'm unwilling to sell because it's just too inconvenient to supply right now. I'd basically have to take a couple of hours to look up everything in the markets, write down a price, set the price, and then stand up the retainers. And considering:

A: My retainers are in Gridania
B: I don't get any detailed information about my sales to help me determine how to adjust pricing

I just don't see any reason to bother right now.

[akisato]

I "mean to tell you" that with a price history that spans a year, I can see whether or not if the 25,000 gil price really represents the fair market value of the item, or if it is an anomaly caused by someone trying to artificially manipulate the price. It would be especially obvious if the person whose name occurs on the abnormally high price is a known price manipulator or if it is that person whose name appears only on the unusually high prices.

With a price history that goes back a long time, it would be easy to spot the general trend line as well as pick out any abnormal price readings.

you didn't answer the question. and if the market changes you cant tell if someone just decided to make the price go up or if the demand required it. no matter how far a price history goes back all most ppl are going look at is last sell.

[Roaran]

Nope. EVE Online has a price history. It doesn't hurt them.

I haven't played Eve, so I can't comment specifically to that point. Whether or not there is a price history, I will form my decision based on the time it took me to gather and its scarcity. If I something is selling for 1,000gil per unit and there are none for sale, I will naturally raise this price. Will others do the same? Most likely. All the price history does is give a base line for players to go off of. It would be better to allow players to see, as they are selling items, the price of their competitors and the quantity available. This is available already.

The only use a price history offers is giving that base line when nothing is available to compare. This simply removes the decision the player has to make when guessing its relative value. It's not a hard decision and I can understand why players would want to skip this step, but it is more likely to create arbitrary prices than promote stable and accurate prices.

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I would admit that it's more important to implement convenient market mechanisms over realistic ones. I enjoy playing a game more than playing the market. But I don't see implementing a price history having enough benefits to displace how prices are currently established.