Is it meaness or shear stupidity -- MB Pricing

[Cyndra]

I'm on Exodus and curious why people do this:

1. List items at 1 gil (very widespread across many item types)

2. Wide variance in HQ item pricing; for instance, most HQ Toadskins listed at 550 gil and above -- then some knucklehead lists them at 150 gil.

What gives? Have mean-spirited players purposely determined to ruin the marketplace for lower level players; or, is it just ignorance and being too lazy to check prices?

Totally curious why this happens and what, if anything, SE can do to unscrew the economy. Coincidentally, I'm convinced this screwed up economy contributes mightily to continued RMT issues.

My suggestions:

1. Prices are blocked such that they cannot be set lower than what can be achieved from selling directly to an NPC.

2. Prices are additionally blocked such that they cannot be set lower than 10% below the average of all similar items (differentiated between NQ and HQ).

I'm just tossing these out as a starting point. Interested to hear other ideas -- or maybe you're one of those people who don't believe there's even a problem. Be nice, please

[MihaelB]

This is what happens when they tax after sales instead of taxing before sales.

Imagine if you were taxed before an official listing, how many people would repeatedly undercut?

This is the only game I've played with an after sale listing and it baffles me.

[Skivvy]

This is what happens when they tax after sales instead of taxing before sales.

Imagine if you were taxed before an official listing, how many people would repeatedly undercut?

This is the only game I've played with an after sale listing and it baffles me.

Pretty much this. As it is now, people can babysit their auctions and adjust as need be to the annoyance of everyone.

[Alberel]

This is what happens when they tax after sales instead of taxing before sales.

Imagine if you were taxed before an official listing, how many people would repeatedly undercut?

This is the only game I've played with an after sale listing and it baffles me.

This exactly. Most MMOs charge the seller a sales tax for LISTING the item, whereas here the tax is taken as the item is sold. A listing tax would go a VERY long way to stabilizing prices on the MB as it would become risky to try and price gouge (since you lose money if you can't sell it and have to relist it) and it would become unprofitable to keep undercutting every five minutes. Quite honestly that simple change could potentially fix most of the problems with this game's economy...

[dank1]

Tip: you buy those and resell, you make money off people's stupidity. Dont try to baby sit them please

[Synestra]

So now who becomes the stupid one? Them for listing it so low? Or the people buying it to relist it for higher? Suddenly I'm not the one profiting.

Key thing here is patience and what item it is, if its item that has steady consumer base you just wait price spike and sell them then. It might take days or even weeks depending how "hot" that stuff is. Or if its craft material and you have a crafter you can turn those to complete product and sell them instead, but to make all this work you need to know how your realms market works so you can minimize all risks.

But then again i have always treated money making in MMO's as an mini-game so i always try to maximize profits, if i cant get insanely ludicrous price out of item i wont bother to sell them at all.

HQ Brass Ring = 20k each while it costs less than 200gil to make one... good times :3

[Silverbane]

Perhaps it is generous players who are giving other people the opportunity to buy their under-priced stuff and re-list it for an easy profit?

I'd love to have a lot of people like that on my world.

[LaylaTsarra]

I've never understood the reasons for mb pricing things at 1 or 2 gil. You can get that from a vendor npc. After tax you'll end up owning SE money .

[Gamer3427]

I've priced FATE minions at 1 gil before, simply because I had no use for them and that extra 59 gil for selling them to an NPC isn't worth it. If someone wants the item that I clearly don't, then I'm basically giving it to them without shouting, "does anyone want X?" all over the place. I of course have standards on how low I'll set the price for an item I'm actually trying to sell, but on items that I have no use for, and that aren't worth more on the MB than to sell to an NPC, I'll occasionally put them up for 1 gil so someone else can have it. Even if they're just going to sell it for that slight profit, they're getting just as much use out of it as I am. If it's an item I want to sell, and someone else has put it up extremely low, then I'll just buy it and relist it to keep it from cutting the average price down too far......

EDIT: As for it "contributing to the RMT", that's not the case, I can almost assure you. If items are selling low enough on average that they get down to such low values, or stay that way, then either they're not profitable enough to sell in general, or people will stop listing them and the price will go back up. When you can get gil in fairly large amounts from just running dungeons, FATE grinding, or completing challenge log entries, you have to either be selling high priced items or in large bulk if you want to make an actual profit that way. I do sell my trash items I get for extra gil, but I don't consider it profitable to farm for them. Most of the time if you list something like that as a single stack in large enough bulk to make a decent profit, then no one will buy it or it'll sit on the MB for quite some time, simply because there are people above and below you in the price range offering a more reasonable number of items.....