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I'm wondering what everyone thinks of "market prices" for items. Should people sell an item at a 'set price' that is "agreed to by the population"? Or should it always be left up to the seller whatever price they want to make an item?
By "agreed to by the population," take an item like holy water and they're typically sold for, say, 20k. Very little price fluctuation.(example)
Comments
Supply - indicating it's availability and/or rarity.
Demand - despite the factors above, is it in demand?
Haggling can occur. But ultimately it's up to the seller that OWNS the item.
Thank you and good night.
But back when I played, I tended to overproduce things and sell very cheaply.
There was no point in me being rich if it took FOREVER just to get things out-the-door, >>> I'm impatient<<< !!
I hate standing around,
I hated market channel,
I hate leaving games on when I'm not playing ! !
So I usually just overproduced and sold at MSRP(or undersold) under the mentality of getting rich <b>```faster``` than AFK sellers ^_^
Usually my argument towards slow-selling things is " Is this worth it or is it a retirement fund ?! COME ON ! ! "
Myself does that as well - While I don't have any 'starved' items I normally try to bump the price up a bit normal from what the 'average' is so I can haggle or get a better price for whatever item I'm selling. But overall, it is up to the sellers. Always how it has been, honestly.
—Publilius Syrus, (85–43 BC)
If someone is both rich enough and desperate enough to pay a premium for something, they're going to do it. If a seller overcharges, people vote with their feet and wallets.
A large part of the problem the in-game economy faces lies in that we have such a withered player base, and a massive wealth disparity, that the few richest people on each server end up setting the prices on everything for everyone else. This leads to wild price fluctuations as the wealthy neophiliacs rush to snatch up the latest new shiny thing, then once the next shiny thing comes out, there's no demand for yesterday's hotness among the plebeians and the prices crash.
Simple as that.
Lol I like the turn this thread has taken.
Come on guys, it's just a game.
If you want to buy something, do it, if it's too expensive ask for a discount.
If that person doesn't want to give you one, move on.
It's really that simple.
And even if we did use a vote, how would that be accurate? You list HW as an example, but think about the buyer/seller distribution for this item. Obviously buyers would vote for a lower price (10K, for example) while sellers vote in the opposite direction (30k). Because there are much more buyers than sellers, the price of the item would tank to a value that no longer makes HW gathering an optimal gold-farming method. All we would be left with is a useless, pseudo-market value that nobody takes seriously.
Mabinogi could have really used a Runescape Grand Exchange type of marketplace where:
- Players can look up the ACTUAL market values for an item (average buying/selling price)
- Players can deposit items-for-sale for an extended period of time (a few days). These items stay in the Market regardless of logout or CC.
- Players can deposit "pre-paid fliers" for items they want to buy. They deposit money and list the item they want. When a match occurs, the item is automatically bought with the money
This would solve some major problems with the current market system (excluding the House Market)
1. Having your shop close if you Logout/CC is just dumb. It's a restriction that discourages players from selling items.
- Some people don't want to leave their computers running 24/7, or they simply can't do so.
- Oh, your friends are doing something in a different channel? Too bad, you have to stay in the market channel if you want to sell your items.
2. Personal shops are dumb and inconvenient in the first place.
- Most buyers want to have a general idea of the average price of their target. In order to do that, you have to search personal shops in two continents, in addition to filtering through Party Recruit spam and forums. This is an unnecessary waste of time.
- Even if the player searches both marketplaces, they will not have an accurate estimate until after a few days of searching. This is because out of all of the people who want to sell that item, only around a small portion of them will actually have a shop open with that item for sale.
- Personal shops are annoying for the seller because you have to reserve a 2x8 space for the License and Brownie Contract. On top of that, you have to stop the sale of an item if you want to move it around in your inventory.
tl;dr Personal shops are annoying and a waste of time
2nd tl;dr Make a house-market system that is available to all players. For example, there could be an additional slot at the Bank for items that you wish to sell, along with a bulletin board that lets you search through the market. This would be similar to the Grand Exchange, albeit without average prices and pre-paid buying.
Sure, anyone can price their stuff however they want, but searching for alternatives ang comparing them usually takes more effort than it's worth. Most of the time Im like: "One day I might find this item at lower price and I don't NEED it anyway" and I end up not buying anything at all. With all offers in one place (that doesn't require VIP service) I'll be more at peace.
1) Perfect Information
That is, that all buyers and sellers know how many of the item is in the market, how much demand there is for the item, and ultimately how much value to assign the item. We do not have perfect information, which makes it possible for people to overpay/underpay for items because they don't actually know how common/rare the item is.
In a world with perfect information, all items would be the same price and I wouldn't have bought that dye for 1mil because I would have known there was a shop selling an identical one for 750k nearby.
2) Accessibility
We all know housing prices are 2-3x the shop prices. The easier it is for people to display their item for sale, the more they can price it at. This has nothing to do with the supply/demand of the item itself; rather, the buyers are purchasing the convenience of just buying the item off housing, and the sellers mark up the price accordingly.
Some people selling in the square don't understand this and will try to price their items equal to the housing price, even though they're not selling the additional convenience. Some housing sellers massively undercut their items because that's what they priced them at on the square, and their item is grabbed by a reseller (and they lose out on the extra markup).
3) Rationality
This assumes that people won't make trades that causes them to lose out. Sometimes people will sell for much lower than the usual price because they're sick and tired of the idiots in the square and just want to get out of there. Sometimes people will buy for much higher than the usual price because they're desperate/2011 dupers/on a time-limit for whatever reason. Sometimes it's imperfect information and they don't know the value of the item they are trading.
TL;DR: Your supply/demand curves are crooked, the whole market is crooked, freshmen economic models fall apart in real-world conditions as usual, no one wants to surf through the 9999 junk shops in Dunby and Belvast, nothing is priced correctly anyway, and a centralised marketplace is needed.
This guy gets it
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I mean...If you want a bad economy, players selling for whatever is a good starting place. Too bad newer players will be turned off instantly and leave. Hence your small (and still decreasin) playerbase
I'd be perfectly fine stepping on the toes of those agnest price control. as it would be a stepping to fixing your badly damaged game. Devcat has shown i the past that sometimes opinions donot matter for poor choices. forcing a good one won't hurt.
For me though, I just want people to price based off of that, the ability and willingness for people to pay for things, at the moment I usually see people price only based on how rare and how much people want x item, not taking into account how easily they can pay for things.
two laws:
Law of Supply: as prices go up so does supply
Law of Demand: as prices go up, Demand goes down.
i just want people to follow that or at least consider it.