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Why I Don't Want Market PvP

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jag40
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GH wrote:
GH wrote:

I completely agree with you, if it's that hateful, vote with your wallet and don't play.
I've done that with many games.

yeah, and that is why some games don't make much and end up shut down and in some cases don't make a profit. They pigeon hole themselves to a certain crowd before they even can get off the ground, then they retroactively try to correct it but by then the damage is done, then after that they fade away.

I think the focus of this project is to try and get a wider range of players, old COXers and new people but simply aiming for only a portion of the old COXer is bound for not good numbers at all and possibly as info that have been passed on to me, if a company sells or pre sales more than 500,000 grand worth of product they are required to pay their employees. And IRS and the labor laws consider kickstarter like things to be pre order especially if goods are promised in return aka the gift brackets. Thus making a profit might be more a time of the essence than previously thought.
Plus if t he point was to thumb their teeth at NCSOFT, at least making a game with significant population would help.

Either way yeah, people will vote with their wallet I nthe end. Hopefully between now and then, people realize that Strict "Well I loved the feature so that means no other feature besides that feature should be in the game and everyone should be forced to play that feature or leave the game." way of thinking is not healthy. That way of thinking kept the number sliding after the market was introduced and all the goodies there. People listened to those "Well you don't like it, leave the game." people. And guess what, now those people don't even have COX to play. Go figure. I guess those that voted with "their wallet" had the last laugh in COX. I wouldn't recommend letting them have the last laugh again by starting off with "Well if you don't like what I like and don't like it being the only method, then leave" way before the game even goes live because then it will happen before the game gets a chance to shine again. And this time, people like that forget, CoT isn't the only successor project in the works. If they keep on, they will end up with their own little group of maybe a couple of thousand like they wanted and everyone loves the market and everyone that don't isn't in the game just liked they dream of. Yeah, that's really saying FU to ncsoft with only a few thousand folk and maybe ten percent of COX income in it's final days. If anything it will add to the thought that games cant make it big without the big corporations because they have no clue how to cater to different playstyles and have mentality of "I like this market. Everyone else should leave the game" and are blind to see that is bad for business. That would set indie games if anything backwards instead of forward.

Von Krieger
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Jag, you're doing the logical

Jag, you're doing the logical fallacy thing again.

jag40 wrote:

Sure in game purchases may be needed or seemingly so be needed to make money for the game although I don't think none of those billions of influence had any effect on the game's income. In fact, COH made the most money prior to the market being implemented.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

jag40 wrote:

But it doesn't seem like the market was the savior of COX as it is sometimes seemingly referred to.

Straw man.

jag40 wrote:

Pro-marketeers. Anyone else do not apply.

False dichotomy.

BIZZARO MEDIA FOLLOWER

Gangrel
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If you want to see how a

If you want to see how a gameplays without an Auction House... look at Path of Exile.

Granted, it also works on a barter system so there is no actual direct currency drops from mobs, and when you "sell" stuff to the vendor you get "parts" of an item in return (combine the parts to get the full item).

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1) I reject your reality.... and substitute my own
2) Not to be used when upset... will void warranty
3) Stoke me a clipper i will be back for dinner
4) I have seen more intelligence from an NPC AI in TR beta, than from most MMO players.

jag40
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Von Krieger wrote:
Von Krieger wrote:

Jag, you're doing the logical fallacy thing again.
jag40 wrote:
Sure in game purchases may be needed or seemingly so be needed to make money for the game although I don't think none of those billions of influence had any effect on the game's income. In fact, COH made the most money prior to the market being implemented.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
jag40 wrote:
But it doesn't seem like the market was the savior of COX as it is sometimes seemingly referred to.
Straw man.
jag40 wrote:
Pro-marketeers. Anyone else do not apply.

False dichotomy.

Normally yes that would be a false dichotomy but in this case it isn't as it seems the pro marketeers judging by their replies, either don't want their to be option besides the market, or "don't like it, then leave" mentality of thinking. So by the replies given by them it seems that the line of thinking for the market is "market only and nothing else" which then caters to the pro marketeers and leave anyone else that doesn't enjoy or want to play the market out of the equation which makes the statement that would in many other situations be a false dichotomy accurate. In order to make it a false dichotomy, then those pro marketeers have to leave their black and white thinking out. AKA Play the market or have no other options black and white thinking.

That straw man is also false as some people actually said that about the market in various places. Even in the old forum, many said without the market COX would have been losing money and would have been shut down long time ago. Or that COX cannot function without the market when in fact it was functioning just fine prior to the market being implemented. Thus it's is not straw man.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc- Not really. It was in reply that the market is needed for the income and that the in game purchases make money for the game. In reality, the statement I was replying to is a Post hoc ergo propter hoc, and what I was saying is that I don't think the market is correlated with the income of the game which lead me to the second point which you said was straw man.

Just because you don't agree does not make it logical fallacy.

The point is, that there should be an option besides one player ran market and although pro marketeers makea lot of money and enjoy the market, it doesn't mean every one does. Like I said prior I didn't mind the market personally, but I'm too selfish to think that since I didn't dislike it, that means everyone should like it and it should be the only option in the game. AKA catering to one player group and not leaving an equal quality bone for the others. That is business fallacy. If they do go down that path where either every must play the market to stand a chance or else be left out, then they have not a leg to stand on as they been doing for even thinking about poking fun at the business sense or rather lack of business sense of NCSOFT. Because usually focusing on one niche group usually results in very niche money which isn't good for the long term business strategy in the MMO world especially an indie group that is trying to "show up" another business. Especially when it's supposedly to be game being built for the community by the community, the fallacy comes into play when in reality if they only cater to the pro market part of the community. The bare bone question still remains, what bout people, the part of the community, that didn't find the market enjoyable and rather not partake. Shouldn't they, as part of the community that is said to be the focus, be kept in mind and get something for them too instead of only pro market part of the community? If it will be focused on only the pro market community with no option for those that don't like the market then the stated focus should be changed to "for the pro market part of the community. But since it doesn't say that then it's logical to assume and or expect that those that are not in the pro market category but part of the community is taken into consideration just as much, equally, as the pro market part of the community.

Hyperstrike
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Quote:
Quote:

Flat out disallow flipping.

Quite honestly, they can't. There ARE systems that would make it PAINFUL to flip. But they're huge and kludgy and would eat massive amounts of server resources in tracking that sort of thing.

Quote:

Possible solutions could be either not allowing the resale of an item purchased from the market

Which destroys the market since anything bought from it, if not used, is essentially deletion-bait. Worse, it harms the marketplace itself if you have a high demand for an item but the only ones available are unsalable.

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only allowing a 5% markup every 180 days from the last market purchase price

No. Because at that point you have A STORE, not a market. Moreover, the amount of system resources to track this on a user-by-user or character by character basis would be redonkulous. Doing a flat "this amount" globally for ALL users would be horrific, and could be abused by creeping the amount up over time to untenable levels.

Quote:

and disallowing the resale of an item for one calendar year.

Again, see "demand spikes when most "available ones" are unavailable.

You're not asking for the market to be fixed. You're asking them to destroy the marketplace from the outset.

Quote:

Also add a Report button for people trying to sell in chat.

No. It's their item to sell. Who are you to set the price for them or tell them how to sell it?

Maybe if they're abusing certain, non-market, channels, sure. Report them. But the simple act of trading/selling in chat shouldn't be criminalized.

Quote:

You are effectively putting a ceiling on the price of an item. While this will limit flipping (that's a good thing), I'm not sure how I feel about it. I like letting the market find its own level, as long as there are safeguards against manipulation.

Again, limiting flipping isn't necessarily a good thing. Flipping doesn't always mean the price goes UP.
And "manipulation" will happen regardless. Anyone who believes otherwise is deluding themselves.
It's like farming in AE. The devs would whack-a-mole the most efficient farming method extant at the time, and the hardcore farmers would roll on to the next most efficient. And the next. And the next.

Eventually we wound up with an AE system that was so badly hamstrung it wasn't even funny.

I'm sorry, what you refer to as "market PVP" is simple market function.

While this game will start with a market and everyone ostensibly equal, eventually you're going to have some long term players who have a good grasp of the market dynamics and systems who'll be "more equal". Especially in comparison to new players.

The only way to stop this is to not have a market in the first place.
If you don't want to have to deal with a dynamic market, simply get behind the "Give me a store" movement and be done.

1) 99% of the stuff that comes out of my mouth is intended to be funny on one or more levels.
2) The other 1% is just straight BS.
3) You're never going to be entirely sure which is which.
http://cox-supergroups.com

Hyperstrike
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Basically:

Basically:

Without a market and with limited Account/Character/SG storage, you have no interaction between players and resources ALL have to be acquired personally. Which means that people who simply don't luck out on the roll of a virtual set of dice are screwed. You also have the destruction of various "unusable" pieces on a massive scale.

With a CoH-style invention system, this sort of thing destroys the ability to tailor builds to any sort of specific criteria.
And if you simply make everything available in the store, drops from missions are essentially just worthless chaff that needs to be deleted.

Without a market and with unlimited storage, you essentially have Accounts/Characters/SGs becoming a massive junk drawer of crap. And, over time, disk space on the servers for tracking it becomes an issue. And it still doesn't alleviate the problem of "well what if you simply can't get a specific drop you want?" Telling people they have to essentially grind 24x7x365 in the hopes of getting exactly what they want is IN NO WAY casual-friendly.

1) 99% of the stuff that comes out of my mouth is intended to be funny on one or more levels.
2) The other 1% is just straight BS.
3) You're never going to be entirely sure which is which.
http://cox-supergroups.com

jag40
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Hyperstrike wrote:
Hyperstrike wrote:

Basically:
Without a market and with limited Account/Character/SG storage, you have no interaction between players and resources ALL have to be acquired personally. Which means that people who simply don't luck out on the roll of a virtual set of dice are screwed. You also have the destruction of various "unusable" pieces on a massive scale.
With a CoH-style invention system, this sort of thing destroys the ability to tailor builds to any sort of specific criteria.
And if you simply make everything available in the store, drops from missions are essentially just worthless chaff that needs to be deleted.
Without a market and with unlimited storage, you essentially have Accounts/Characters/SGs becoming a massive junk drawer of crap. And, over time, disk space on the servers for tracking it becomes an issue. And it still doesn't alleviate the problem of "well what if you simply can't get a specific drop you want?" Telling people they have to essentially grind 24x7x365 in the hopes of getting exactly what they want is IN NO WAY casual-friendly.

That is why I never said get rid of the market and only that those that don't find the market an enjoyable part of their experience, or don't want to use it for what ever reason, should have something for them where they don't have to go to the market to get items they want or else simply depend on maybe getting lottery lucky.

Of course it's optional. So are badges, but it's good for pve players not to go through pvp zones to get pve badges because they don't enjoy pvp. I'm saying why not have the same thing for people who don't like to do the market. That way those that want to do the market, can those that don't, can still have equal opportunity and not have to do the market or else be left out if the equation.

Majority of items were already deletion bait even simply with the market around. So adding an option for those that don't like the market wont change that aspect. One way to solve that problem is to make most items actually useful instead of most of them not very useful and a few select pieces useful and thus have high prices that is out of the reach of normal game play unless again one play the market or get the lucky drop.

And telling people that they either must use the market to be equal or else be SOL is in no way fun either. Never said this would be equal problem to fix, but something should be done to not cater to simply one section of the community and leave the rest in the cold with Telling people they have to essentially grind 24x7x365 in the hopes of getting exactly what they want. It's not casual friendly if everyone have to do it and it's not casual friendly for telling those that don't play the market that is their only other option.

But interaction on the market is limited. There was plenty of player interaction prior to the market being put into COX. People still speak of the interactions of the days in issue 1-8 and how it was and the player interaction just as much as they talk about the player interaction I9- and beyond.

"With a CoH-style invention system, this sort of thing destroys the ability to tailor builds to any sort of specific criteria" This is the exact dilemma players that don't like the market faced. Their choice was unequal. Either play the market or face what you described above. mart player and non market players pay the same subscription so why not have equal rights to access to fun instead of one side gets the meat gravy and potatoes and caviar and the other side don't even get a drop of water for their payment? If the market is supposed to be optional, then make it actually optional. Not the other option is bootleg that even market people don't find enjoyable.

Von Krieger
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Ok, let me phrase things a

Ok, let me phrase things a bit differently then. Jag, I haven't seen ANYONE in this thread say "YOU WILL GET YOUR ITEMS FROM THE MARKET AND NOWHERE ELSE."

The most common opinion that I've been seeing is along the lines of how CoH handled it with multiple ways to acquire the needed items. If you don't want to wait for the random drop, you could save up one of the various currency alternatives, Yes, CoH had a stupidly large number of similarly named currencies, but I think they worked quite well if you didn't want to use the market to grab things. Between AE Tickets and the various sorts of Merits, I think literally every single IO was available to purchase without touching the market if you worked at it.

Is that the sort of thing you're wanting?

BIZZARO MEDIA FOLLOWER

jag40
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Von Krieger wrote:
Von Krieger wrote:

Ok, let me phrase things a bit differently then. Jag, I haven't seen ANYONE in this thread say "YOU WILL GET YOUR ITEMS FROM THE MARKET AND NOWHERE ELSE."
The most common opinion that I've been seeing is along the lines of how CoH handled it with multiple ways to acquire the needed items. If you don't want to wait for the random drop, you could save up one of the various currency alternatives, Yes, CoH had a stupidly large number of similarly named currencies, but I think they worked quite well if you didn't want to use the market to grab things. Between AE Tickets and the various sorts of Merits, I think literally every single IO was available to purchase without touching the market if you worked at it.
Is that the sort of thing you're wanting?

every IO/item wasn't available through other means in COX, sans lucky drops, but yeah I think it should be available without having to use the market and I don't think it will have the dire effects as some described. Will it be different than COX, and maybe less people being funneled into the market? More than likely. But that is the point. To give those that do not want to play the market an alternative equal way to get the same items as the ones that like to play the market get.

And I wasn't saying strictly in this thread only. The market been talked about even before COX shut down, after the announcement and even before this forum came into being. And while in this particular thread it wasn't said in those exact words, some replies seem to insinuate that the market should be the only way and there should be no other option or way out side for players to buy the items they need besides the market.

Those currencies worked well if the items a person was looking for just happened to be available and even with that system I didn't see or noticed the destruction of the market as described by, some within this thread, if another equal option besides the market was available. The market still went on, and those that could find the items for sell elsewhere could. I'm talking about expanding that to ensure that all IO equivalent would be available in similar manner instead of only some of them like what happened in COX.

In short, I think there should be equality for pro market people with the market AND those that don't play the market. Along the same lines that pvp should not be forced and anything dealing with pve should not require participation, or even entering the pvp zone to get pve items. Equality for community members and not the goods for only a certain section and nothing for the other.

GH
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again I wholeheartedly agree

again I wholeheartedly agree with you.
I'd quit now.

If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev

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What wasn't available via the

What wasn't available via the Merit means? The only thing I can think of that wasn't covered by Reward, Alignment, Astral, and Empyreal Merits were Hami-O's. Well, those and the Crystal Titan's set of O's, but no one used those.

BIZZARO MEDIA FOLLOWER

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Von Krieger wrote:
Von Krieger wrote:

What wasn't available via the Merit means? The only thing I can think of that wasn't covered by Reward, Alignment, Astral, and Empyreal Merits were Hami-O's. Well, those and the Crystal Titan's set of O's, but no one used those.

The Hami-Os, the Crystal Titan-Os and the holiday event receipts, such as Winter's Gift. Every other Enhancement or recipe was available without ever needing to even see the market, much less use it.

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Mendicant wrote:
Mendicant wrote:

The Hami-Os, the Crystal Titan-Os and the holiday event receipts, such as Winter's Gift. Every other Enhancement or recipe was available without ever needing to even see the market, much less use it.

We've been though this before, upthread. I asked Jag which IOs weren't available with the various merits. I even provided a helpful link to the Paragonwiki so he could find some examples easily. Strangely quiet.

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning

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Grouchybeast wrote:
Grouchybeast wrote:

Mendicant wrote:
The Hami-Os, the Crystal Titan-Os and the holiday event receipts, such as Winter's Gift. Every other Enhancement or recipe was available without ever needing to even see the market, much less use it.

We've been though this before, upthread. I asked Jag which IOs weren't available with the various merits. I even provided a helpful link to the Paragonwiki so he could find some examples easily. Strangely quiet.

Actually I did answer that question not much longer after. One example I can think of off the top of my head that I couldn't find and gave was Hetacombs, and mostly the purp sets could not be done through merit vendor. After that you got strangely quiet.

But overall the convo went on to the keywords of "equal" and how it shouldn't be spread over numerous currencies and stuff and there should be one place, just like the market people have, that non market players can go, just like the market people, and buy the items they need. Whether it uses the normal game currency or some other currency it should be just as equal in efficient and no crazy hoops to jump through, aka just like the market, for the non market players.

And even if that was true that ever single item was available through the merit vendor then the point against having equality for market in the way of "it would destroy the player ran market" would be null and void and false. Then if that was the case it would be more a matter of simply ensuring it is equal, all the stuff is available, and it's on equal keel with the market ran market. Not the market gets better faster more efficient while those that don't want to play the market get every hurdle thrown at them as punishment for not enjoying the market.

If a person can walk into the market and buy what ever item they want, then so should those that don't play the market be able to go somewhere and buy what ever item they want. Equality.

The easiest test for this is if it would be bad for the market if what is suggested for the people that don't play the market, then that probably means it's not equal for those that play the market. Meaning if it wouldn't be right if in order to use the market one must have four different currencies and some gated by time and still not be able to purchase all the items available in game, then that is a sure sign it isn't equal for those that don't find the market enjoyable.

In a nut shell, non market players shouldn't have to unduely farm currencies especially ones that are only available at certain levels, and non tranferfable between toons while market players get one currency and able to use the market from level 1-50. That is not equality. If there is another currency available for non market people then it should be available obtainable from level 1-50 just like the currency people use for the market. And should be able to be obtain at a comparable rate and not be time gated or team based for efficiency just like the inf that is used o nthe market. Basically non market players should not be punished because they dotn enjoy the market. And if those hurdles are not unduly, then how about make the market people jump through the same hoops in gaining their money and using the market. How about they cant buy or sell items outside their levels. How about making them bound., How about making they only can make only so much inf off the market per day, make the market people use nearly have dozen currencies, and they can only buy recipes not completed items, and some items like purps cant be sold on the market, like the things that non market people had to go through if it was indeed equal. In a nutshell of a mustard seed, give non market people that do not want to partake in a pvp market an equal, truly equal, method that is pve. Just as pve badgers wont have to do pvp to get the badges they needs, have viable equal option for people that don't want to do pvp market aka equal treatment. Not skewered in favor in the way ease and efficiency in one direction towards a single portion of the community that loved the market. It's really simple.

I gave some examples of what could make it equal and the pro market people gave nothing but to ensure it stayed skewered in their favor. I'm open to ideas that would actually make it more even. Not keep it in favor of pro maket people and screw everyone else. AKA something for the community not only the good stuff for pro market people and nothing for the rest which leads to basically "Use the market or nothing else of equal manner." which is what pro market people seem to be saying. Use the market or deal with no other equal viable option. If market people get bread then give non market people bread. Not give one bread and the other vinegar. And if vinegar is indeed good enough for non market people then take the bread and give pro market people vinegar too. It's about equality. True textbook dictionary equality.

Over all who knows what the true effects will be by giving an equal alternative to the market will be besides another option for players to choose from .COX never had one. Maybe more people would use the alternative more maybe not. But if it isn't or was never offered who can truly say? Either way one group should not be catered to while the other is viewed as merely a pay day. Pro market and non market pay the same sub and pay the same for the game so why should one set get shown more gratitude for being a customer and the other get treated worse than the rejected step child? We been there with the game closing so why would that same group after going through that turn around and treat part of the community in the same manner?

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jag40 wrote:
jag40 wrote:

Actually I did answer that question not much longer after. One example I can think of off the top of my head that I couldn't find and gave was Hetacombs, and mostly the purp sets could not be done through merit vendor. After that you got strangely quiet.

I don't think you meant 'got strangely quiet'. I think you meant 'gave you a list of merit vendors that sold purple, PVP and AT IOs'.

And the worry has never been about 'destroying the market'. The worry is about mechanisms for setting vendor prices and maintaining item rarity (real, actual rarity) as previously discussed. People have made various suggestions, but it's a hard problem to solve. Just saying 'I want an item vendor' over and over isn't actually the same thing as proposing a viable solution.

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning

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Grouchybeast wrote:
Grouchybeast wrote:

jag40 wrote:
Actually I did answer that question not much longer after. One example I can think of off the top of my head that I couldn't find and gave was Hetacombs, and mostly the purp sets could not be done through merit vendor. After that you got strangely quiet.

I don't think you meant 'got strangely quiet'. I think you meant 'gave you a list of merit vendors that sold purple, PVP and AT IOs'.
And the worry has never been about 'destroying the market'. The worry is about mechanisms for setting vendor prices and maintaining item rarity (real, actual rarity). People have made various suggestions, but it's a hard problem to solve. Just saying 'I want an item vendor' over and over isn't actually the same thing as proposing a viable solution.

Nah I said what I meant. Lets not get into you telling me what I meant. I'm talking about after that.

I said more than simply "I want an item vendor over and over." Yes many times I repeated some things because neither is people saying over and over "market only" is viable options.

So want viable options? I gave some. Lets see some viable options besides "it will destroy the market and people have said that in fact a few posts up someone said that. Or that it was equal when it wasn't.

So now, lets get down to viable equal options where people don't have to go through the market or a bunch of extra hurdles to get same thing as market people. You say my options are not viable, then offer some viable options then. Equal viable options. If the market people don't have to go through that level of trouble, and the expected that non market people must then it's not equal. Equal option meaning it is no more or less trouble than what market people have to go through. If my options are not viable, then step up and offer some. Because saying my options are not viable over and over doesn't solve anything either. And I keep getting the same type of replies of course my answer will remain the same. Just because the same thing is said over and over that doesn't mean my meaning and idea will change. More than likely, it will be repeated. Thus if one doesn't want me to repeat the same goal over and over and same option, then stop offering the same reply over and over and lets come up with some new ideas that would put pro market people and non market people on the same level.

Like the vendors list. Like some of items were available through other means as you said and linked. Now I'm saying put the rest of the items there through that means, all the items on one vendor under one currency, like the market. And then make the currency as easily obtainable as it is for the currency used on the markets. And boom there you have it, it's more even for both. It is pretty simple. If it was simple to create a mechanic for one group then it should be as easy to create an equal mechanic for the other that is left out of the market. Now what is your idea?
Equal being key word not one group simply play the game and the have all the currency while another set have to farm iTrials or if they free account, left out of that, and team to get their currency (emp. merits) with some purple sets missing.

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The problem is, what people

The problem is, what people are advocating for is:

1: A store (which I have no problem with) but also
2: A severely curtailment on what can be put on the market and how.

1) 99% of the stuff that comes out of my mouth is intended to be funny on one or more levels.
2) The other 1% is just straight BS.
3) You're never going to be entirely sure which is which.
http://cox-supergroups.com

jag40
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Hyperstrike wrote:
Hyperstrike wrote:

The problem is, what people are advocating for is:
1: A store (which I have no problem with) but also
2: A severely curtailment on what can be put on the market and how.

Hmm, I see.

Well I do not remember the items that happened to be available in the vendors such as merit was bound to the character. And the market still ran fine and didn't have some sort of apocalypse of the market.

Maybe there is no reason to curtail what can put on the market. As long as any item that can be put on and sold at the market is also available outside the market. Like the vendors that were already in COX, just cut them down to one currency, one vendor sort, and ensure all items that can be sold and bought on the market is also there. If someone plays both, more power to them. But at least those that have no wish to partake in pvp in the form of the market do not have to for real at all, and still be on equal footing and those that want to do the market and hate vendors do not have to touch the vendors at all a single bit and still be on equal footing. With each not really affecting the other one or tied to each other. Vendor- steady prices, no players monkeying around with the prices. Market- player on player market as some people like it. Players call the shots, players set the prices and player buy from players.

Someone try and flood the market with items from the vendor which may be a possibility, well, flooding was never considered a downside to pro market people so why would it be an issue now if it comes fro ma vendor. Maybe the price will drop to the point where it wont even be profitable to buy from the vendor and try and sell because the vendor price wont change. And maybe players cant simply charge what ever crazy number they come up with simply because there is no other viable way to get it and then try and use that as "See, I'm simply putting it on there what people are willing to buy it for. Yeah put an alternative in there and then the true amount people are willing to spend on an item is shown. And if player charge too high some will simply go to the vendor. If they charge too low, they don't make as much as they could.

Each purchase from vendor takes inf out of the equation. Each purchase from the market simply transfer it with some fee that no one even hardly notice erased.

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jag40 wrote:
jag40 wrote:

Hyperstrike wrote:
The problem is, what people are advocating for is:
1: A store (which I have no problem with) but also
2: A severely curtailment on what can be put on the market and how.

Hmm, I see.
Well I do not remember the items that happened to be available in the vendors such as merit was bound to the character. And the market still ran fine and didn't have some sort of apocalypse of the market.
Maybe there is no reason to curtail what can put on the market. As long as any item that can be put on and sold at the market is also available outside the market. Like the vendors that were already in COX, just cut them down to one currency, one vendor sort, and ensure all items that can be sold and bought on the market is also there. If someone plays both, more power to them. But at least those that have no wish to partake in pvp in the form of the market do not have to for real at all, and still be on equal footing and those that want to do the market and hate vendors do not have to touch the vendors at all a single bit and still be on equal footing. With each not really affecting the other one or tied to each other. Vendor- steady prices, no players monkeying around with the prices. Market- player on player market as some people like it. Players call the shots, players set the prices and player buy from players.
Someone try and flood the market with items from the vendor which may be a possibility, well, flooding was never considered a downside to pro market people so why would it be an issue now if it comes fro ma vendor. Maybe the price will drop to the point where it wont even be profitable to buy from the vendor and try and sell because the vendor price wont change. And maybe players cant simply charge what ever crazy number they come up with simply because there is no other viable way to get it and then try and use that as "See, I'm simply putting it on there what people are willing to buy it for. Yeah put an alternative in there and then the true amount people are willing to spend on an item is shown. And if player charge too high some will simply go to the vendor. If they charge too low, they don't make as much as they could.
Each purchase from vendor takes inf out of the equation. Each purchase from the market simply transfer it with some fee that no one even hardly notice erased.

I sure as hell hope that crafting components are available from a vendor like this as well ;) ...

Quote:

1) I reject your reality.... and substitute my own
2) Not to be used when upset... will void warranty
3) Stoke me a clipper i will be back for dinner
4) I have seen more intelligence from an NPC AI in TR beta, than from most MMO players.

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Gangrel wrote:
Gangrel wrote:

jag40 wrote:
Hyperstrike wrote:
The problem is, what people are advocating for is:
1: A store (which I have no problem with) but also
2: A severely curtailment on what can be put on the market and how.

Hmm, I see.
Well I do not remember the items that happened to be available in the vendors such as merit was bound to the character. And the market still ran fine and didn't have some sort of apocalypse of the market.
Maybe there is no reason to curtail what can put on the market. As long as any item that can be put on and sold at the market is also available outside the market. Like the vendors that were already in COX, just cut them down to one currency, one vendor sort, and ensure all items that can be sold and bought on the market is also there. If someone plays both, more power to them. But at least those that have no wish to partake in pvp in the form of the market do not have to for real at all, and still be on equal footing and those that want to do the market and hate vendors do not have to touch the vendors at all a single bit and still be on equal footing. With each not really affecting the other one or tied to each other. Vendor- steady prices, no players monkeying around with the prices. Market- player on player market as some people like it. Players call the shots, players set the prices and player buy from players.
Someone try and flood the market with items from the vendor which may be a possibility, well, flooding was never considered a downside to pro market people so why would it be an issue now if it comes fro ma vendor. Maybe the price will drop to the point where it wont even be profitable to buy from the vendor and try and sell because the vendor price wont change. And maybe players cant simply charge what ever crazy number they come up with simply because there is no other viable way to get it and then try and use that as "See, I'm simply putting it on there what people are willing to buy it for. Yeah put an alternative in there and then the true amount people are willing to spend on an item is shown. And if player charge too high some will simply go to the vendor. If they charge too low, they don't make as much as they could.
Each purchase from vendor takes inf out of the equation. Each purchase from the market simply transfer it with some fee that no one even hardly notice erased.

I sure as hell hope that crafting components are available from a vendor like this as well ;) ...

That is what I had in mind.

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Go whole hog, and remove the

Go whole hog, and remove the market and make it like CoX was pre Wentworths, where everything was available from vendors...

Quote:

1) I reject your reality.... and substitute my own
2) Not to be used when upset... will void warranty
3) Stoke me a clipper i will be back for dinner
4) I have seen more intelligence from an NPC AI in TR beta, than from most MMO players.

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jag40 wrote:
jag40 wrote:

Grouchybeast wrote:
Mendicant wrote:
The Hami-Os, the Crystal Titan-Os and the holiday event receipts, such as Winter's Gift. Every other Enhancement or recipe was available without ever needing to even see the market, much less use it.

We've been though this before, upthread. I asked Jag which IOs weren't available with the various merits. I even provided a helpful link to the Paragonwiki so he could find some examples easily. Strangely quiet.

Actually I did answer that question not much longer after. One example I can think of off the top of my head that I couldn't find and gave was Hetacombs, and mostly the purp sets could not be done through merit vendor.

Not true. Every single purple recipe, including the Hetacombs, was available via merits. Either 20 Alignment Merits or 40 Empyrean Merits would purchase any of the 60 purple recipes. They could not be purchased via Reward Merits or Astral Merits, but they were available via a merit vendor.

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Mendicant wrote:
Mendicant wrote:

jag40 wrote:
Grouchybeast wrote:
Mendicant wrote:
The Hami-Os, the Crystal Titan-Os and the holiday event receipts, such as Winter's Gift. Every other Enhancement or recipe was available without ever needing to even see the market, much less use it.

We've been though this before, upthread. I asked Jag which IOs weren't available with the various merits. I even provided a helpful link to the Paragonwiki so he could find some examples easily. Strangely quiet.

Actually I did answer that question not much longer after. One example I can think of off the top of my head that I couldn't find and gave was Hetacombs, and mostly the purp sets could not be done through merit vendor.

Not true. Every single purple recipe, including the Hetacombs, was available via merits. Either 20 Alignment Merits or 40 Empyrean Merits would purchase any of the 60 purple recipes. They could not be purchased via Reward Merits or Astral Merits, but they were available via a merit vendor.

Well I know definitely that is not true for alignment vendors. I personally checked that one. Emp. merits is a little bit more fuzzy so that may been the case. Either way, if it was indeed true that all of them were already available through vendors then the hoopla over that having vendors sell them would cause market crash and the sky to fall is null. As then that would mean COX already had one of some sort and the market did fine.

Now it's about time to even it up. Take those vendors, turn it into one currency, one that can be easily gotten as the currency that market people use, and basically combine those vendors into one. And with those little tweaks, there we have it, a somewhat equal but viable option. One that don't require teaming to get the emp merits efficiently or gated by time like the alignment merits. If the market people don't have to team farm for their currency then neither should non market people have to. If market people are not gated by 24 hour time limit, then neither should non market people. The system was already somewhat in place there where either all or some of the recipes were available. Now that the hard part is out the way and the example of a vendor and market can co exist without the market going haywire, then the easy part is evening it up to make it just as viable as the market and put it on equal viable terms with the market.

If a market person can go to one place with one currency and buy what the yneed then so should non market people be able to do the same. If non market people have to team farm and wait until level 50 for currency for access, or have to wait 24 hour per merit, aka 20 days to get one purp, then so should Market people or neither. Having it set up for one group to have to jump through those type of hoops and one easy street is not equal. Remove those hurdles, make it just as viable as the market and there you have it. People have a true equal viable option besides the market. If indeed, waiting until level 50 and 24 time limit per one and nearly half dozen currency is good for non market then market people should get the same treatment. If that would be harsh for market people then it should be considered harsh for non market people and shouldn't be good for them if it isn't considered good for market people.

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WarBird wrote:
WarBird wrote:

Well, here's the thing for me. And please don't read too harsh a tone into this.....I played City of Heroes because I wanted to be a super-hero, not a market analyst. I don't want to be forced into an artificial out-of-game mechanic to get full enjoyment of/access to the game I expect to pay a subscription fee for.
The fact that I don't have thirty hours a week to devote to a game should not limit my ability to reach the upper levels/rewards of that game at my own pace. In six years of playing CoX, I might have gotten 3 purple drops total. And I could NEVER afford to buy one. I had 5 level 50 characters and probably did 6 or so large raids. I remember sighing and wondering if I could ever get a single power fully slotted with IO's. (I never did.) I still enjoyed the game, but felt like I got more and more marginalized when I couldn't run at +5 dif like half the kids I tried to team with. I still kept playing, DGMW, But I found myself soloing more and more, making it even harder to get the drops, etc. So don't tell me "Oh, it wasn't required/wasn't designed to use that ..."
I'd rather not see a system, any system, that allows a player to get "rich" by manipulating a market to the point where a few can begin to "control" the market. If we must have an open market, can we at least keep supply balanced against demand? Lets not have "Rare" be nearly "Unique". If the only way to get a particular drop is to run a particualr mission, can we get a 50/50 chance of getting the bloody thing?
I'd like a simple, linear sort of market that doesn't require a degree in economics to get the benefit of. If it's that important to so many people, they should be developing a game called "City of Investors."
Don't take away my precious game time with stuff that's not related to playing the hero. Crafting I can kinda wrap my head around as part of being the hero. Shopping? Not so much.

And this would completely ruin the game for me. If you playing 4 hours a week can get a fully pimped out toon in a month, how is this game going to have any longevity for those of us who actually play much more. There were balances in the system (patrol XP) in your favour and I approved of that. You entirely missed the point about the market.

The market was actually very much in your favour, you could have spent 10 minutes placing bids one day, and the same seeing what had filled and crafting and/or reselling 3 days later, this could earn you tens of millions a day (I was making upwards of 150 million a day for a long period, but spending a little longer at it). Purples could be earned pretty fast.

The market WAS how a lot of patient casual players (including many of my friends) picked up bargains and funded their purple habit.

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jag40 wrote:
jag40 wrote:

Well I know definitely that is not true for alignment vendors. I personally checked that one.

You personally checked it wrong, then.

Very Rare and PVP recipes were available with Alignment Merits. Here's the page on alignment vendors on Paragon wiki. Very Rare recipes, 20 merits. PVP recipes, 25-35 merits.

jag40 wrote:

Either way, if it was indeed true that all of them were already available through vendors then the hoopla over that having vendors sell them would cause market crash and the sky to fall is null.

No, it isn't, because you don't apparently still don't understand the difference in the effect on the game between an inf store with infinite stock, and a vendor that uses time-limited purchases and non-tradeable currencies that are acquired by rate-limited means.

The problem isn't the effect on the MARKET, it's the effect on RARITY. And, just to go over it once more, 'rarity' doesn't mean whether you can buy something in the market, it means how fast items enter the game, and how many there are. The market has no effect on rarity. A vendor does.

The reasons that a unlimited stock inf vendor doesn't work has been gone over several times. Still doesn't work. Come up with a different idea. And, frankly, since you're the person who has a problem with the way the CoX market worked, it's really rather on YOU to come up with suggestions for alternatives.

jag40 wrote:

If a market person can go to one place with one currency and buy what they need then so should non market people be able to do the same.

You keep saying this like it's some fundamental principle, but why? Games don't, and can't, reward every possible play style equally. There is no absolute right for people to be able to progress at the speed they like and get the rewards they like at a rate they determine for themselves while ignoring the parts of the game they don't want to use.

There were RPers in CoX who would far rather spend their time RPing in Pocket D in than going on missions. Did they get XP and drops for it? No. Is there some universal law of MMOs that says they should have? No.

Farmers could power-level level characters from 1-50 in a fraction of the time it took with non-farming play -- a situation which, actually, is pretty much identical with people being able to IO a character more quickly through the market. Does that mean that the XP curve needed to be constantly adjusted so that people who preferred to play through story arcs could match that levelling speed? No.

Task forces gave special rewards and badges. Does that mean that people who hate teaming had an automatic right to get those rewards anyway? No.

Brutes and scrappers could solo at high difficulty pretty easily. Does that mean people who hated melee and preferred to play support characters absolutely had to be able to be able to match their soloing performance, or the game was horribly broken? No.

You're focusing on the market, because you hated using it. But you have no more right to have a game cater perfectly to your play style at the expense of game balance and longevity than I did because I hated the later game levelling speed and would rather have been able to hit a button and skip direct from 30 to 50.

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning

jag40
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Grouchybeast wrote:
Grouchybeast wrote:

jag40 wrote:
Well I know definitely that is not true for alignment vendors. I personally checked that one.
You personally checked it wrong, then.
Very Rare and PVP recipes were available with Alignment Merits. Here's the page on alignment vendors on Paragon wiki. Very Rare recipes, 20 merits. PVP recipes, 25-35 merits.
jag40 wrote:
Either way, if it was indeed true that all of them were already available through vendors then the hoopla over that having vendors sell them would cause market crash and the sky to fall is null.
No, it isn't, because you don't apparently still don't understand the difference in the effect on the game between an inf store with infinite stock, and a vendor that uses time-limited purchases and non-tradeable currencies that are acquired by rate-limited means.
The problem isn't the effect on the MARKET, it's the effect on RARITY. And, just to go over it once more, 'rarity' doesn't mean whether you can buy something in the market, it means how fast items enter the game, and how many there are. The market has no effect on rarity. A vendor does.
The reasons that a unlimited stock inf vendor doesn't work has been gone over several times. Still doesn't work. Come up with a different idea. And, frankly, since you're the person who has a problem with the way the CoX market worked, it's really rather on YOU to come up with suggestions for alternatives.
jag40 wrote:
If a market person can go to one place with one currency and buy what they need then so should non market people be able to do the same.
You keep saying this like it's some fundamental principle, but why? Games don't, and can't, reward every possible play style equally. There is no absolute right for people to be able to progress at the speed they like and get the rewards they like at a rate they determine for themselves while ignoring the parts of the game they don't want to use.
There were RPers in CoX who would far rather spend their time RPing in Pocket D in than going on missions. Did they get XP and drops for it? No. Is there some universal law of MMOs that says they should have? No.
Farmers could power-level level characters from 1-50 in a fraction of the time it took with non-farming play -- a situation which, actually, is pretty much identical with people being able to IO a character more quickly through the market. Does that mean that the XP curve needed to be constantly adjusted so that people who preferred to play through story arcs could match that levelling speed? No.
Task forces gave special rewards and badges. Does that mean that people who hate teaming had an automatic right to get those rewards anyway? No.
Brutes and scrappers could solo at high difficulty pretty easily. Does that mean people who hated melee and preferred to play support characters absolutely had to be able to be able to match their soloing performance, or the game was horribly broken? No.
You're focusing on the market, because you hated using it. But you have no more right to have a game cater perfectly to your play style at the expense of game balance and longevity than I did because I hated the later game levelling speed and would rather have been able to hit a button and skip direct from 30 to 50.

First of all I didn't hate using it. I said many times, I didn't mind it. And here I may the only one saying something about the market but I aint the only one saying this idea about the market.

And you say it's up to me to come up with the idea. And I did. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's flawed or that it should be this uneven.

Just because you love the market doesn't mean everyone love it just as much as you and it's perfect. But since you want another idea. How about removing the market and going back to the way it used to be and even it out that way. But that is not my intention. I think the market can exist as well a mechanism for people that don't play the market equally. See, I don't see you had no objection for pve players not having to be forced into pvp. I see you have no objection to forced teaming. But since you love the market, you seem to want everyone to be funneled into it. And just because I'm here and whether or not one or thousand people agree, it doesn't hide the fact that it was skewered in marketeers favor with no equal viable option option for non market people.
COX only made up about 2% of NCSOFT income yet you and many others was highl pissed when they shut it down. Just because it was only 2% I doubt people agree that means it should have been shut down. and that cox players shouldn't have been catered to. They paid money for a game and felt tossed to the side. Same here. Non market people pay the same as market people. Maybe they should get a discount on their sub. There is another idea for you.

Just because you love the market doesn't mean it's proper and right to cater to only what YOU like and screw everyone else. This game last I checked was made and being made for the community not only pro market people part of the community or only things Grouchybeast likes.

There are my suggestions. I said it, it's done. I guess at this point we'll see if they value non market peole as customers or only want pro market people to play. Whether they mean the community or only pro market portion of the community. If you don't like me repeating myself, then come up with true ideas that would make equality bad besides "I like the market and no one else should play anything but the market." saying it over and over doesn't all of a sudden make inequality bad, whether one person say it or two people say it. inequality is inequality. With that mind set think about the inequality in history and those same exuses was used. "Well you're the only one that is saying something about. It's fine the way it is." Usually that stem from the lack of logical real real why the in equality and they try to attack the number of people saying it instead of trying to defend they know good and well it messed up. Because if that logic as you stated, with the number of people that is actually saying something, then this whole hoopla about the game closing, CoT, and ect, and the whole NCSOFT kicked us to the curb, you just made it null and void there buddy and made it a very good reason why they did it. The majority of their players did not play COX. So did that mean in your eyes, COX should have been shut down? I think not. I think it's more selfish reason. You like market so everyone should play it. You liked COX so everyone supposed to like it. While that may be goods for you, in the end , thinking about others and other playstyles should be part of building an MMO.

Either way like I said, we'll see if they actually value the community or only pro market players. YOur idea is to leave nothing for non market players my idea is to have something viable equal for non market people so they do not have to partake in any pvp if they chose including market pvp. That is my idea. I did my part. And it wont change with people like you keep repeating "Well it's supposed to be unequal. As long as I benefit F everyone else. They should play like me and should have no other option." doesn't mean that it's right, and doesn't mean that non market people should be forced as you want them to play YOUR way and only YOUR way with no viable. Like I said, if you have a better idea on way to even it up and not "Destroy the market as you say" then I'm open. Don't try this Oh it's on you to come up with ideas. because on another post when someone in the past said no to a presented idea, you yes you, said that one should tear down an idea without offering one in stead. Live up to your own words you said in the past or is it only applies when it convenient for you?

I'm, here to discuss options that will even it up for non market people if you are not, then I have nothing for you and if you offer the same type of replies you already know what I'm going to say but if you say it then I may repeat. Don't want repeat stop saying the same 'Inequality is good because it favors me." nonsense and lets actually discuss the issue. If you don't want to discuss the issue you are free to stop replying to me as you already know whatI'm going to say apparently and you don't want to offer any other ideas beside a "I love market. NO. I don't want people to not be forced to play the market.." What it sounds like to me, is that you know good and well it's a messed up system in inequality and you are simply afraid of competition because you know good and well you and you ilk wont be able to take people to the cleaners and control everything like you did before. ANd basically cause uncontrolled inflation while enriching yourself. If the market is as good as you say it is and everyone love it as much as you do as you claim, then add an extra option even if the price is low, would have not a slightest effect on the market as all because if what you state is true, everyone loves the market hate vendors and will continue to use the market as if the vendor never existed. Only down side you offer to equality is, your fear. Which is similar to the reasons stated for inequalities throughout history.

And no, there were more than one person within this thread that said they didn't like the market, but I'm not among them. The least you could do is give a good reason why non market people shouldn't get equal treatment. I say they should. If you are going to refute the point that non market people should be given equality then at least you state the reason why they as paying customers just like market people shouldn't be given equal choice just like any paying customer and it should be for pro market people only and non market people shouldn't be given equality. Like I said earlier if it's good enough for non market people then it should be good for market people. Let the hurdles that are implemented for non market people be implemented for the market, since you think it's proper. then. Let them have to use multiple currencies, let them have 24 hour time limit on the amount of currency they can gather and use on the market. Let them have to go to multiple places to get all the items they need. Let them have to wait until upper levels to have access to the currency that allows them to get the currency and have it be they must farm a certain set of itrials for it and for it to take just as long and be just as hard for them to gather that currency to buy the items they want and or need. If what you claim is good enough for non market people then it should be good enough for market people too. If it isn't, then you know good and well then it's not equal. And there go another idea.

I'm for equality for the players whether they like the market, they can keep the market play the market ignore the vendor and for people that either don't like the market and or want an equal viable option to the market and they don't have to play the market or even touch the market and still get the stuff they want in an efficient manner. And you seem to be for inequality as long as it favors you. Ad that is fine too. But my opinion that there should be equality wont change with you repeating that it should remain in equal in the favor of what you like to do and find fun and anyone that don't find the same thing as enjoyable as you should kick rocks means my opinion that inequality is not good is going to change. Want a different response, then say a different response. Keep saying that "I want the market to stay the monopoly because I enjoy it" then my reply will remain the same as yours.

Although I don't get, I didn't see you go to this length in the topic of pve should not be forced to be pvp and you didn't seem to have a problem with that of keeping them separate so in a way I don't see how logically you can think that the inequality should exist between pro market people and non market people and every one should be forced to participate in that type of pvp besides from what you said that you play the market and thus everyone should be forced to play the market and even though they pay the same they do not deserve equality. If that is true, then why not forced pvp? Why should this version of pvp be forced but not the other one?

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This thread has become

This thread has become extremely counterproductive. People have given their opinions, I suggest we leave it as it is without causing any further discord.

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syntaxerror37 wrote:
syntaxerror37 wrote:

grouchybeast wrote:

Although I liked this post in it's entirety, I really wanted to highlight this part. I would always hear a certain portion of the community in essence whining about "evil marketers" or on how causal players will never see the huge piles of Inf necessary to buy the high ticket items on the market. What it broke down to was they didn't want to invest the time into the system. That of course was their choice, but they had no right to complain that because other players did invest in the system and were rewarded for doing so.

I used to agree with you. I was one of those guys who loved to market. I went from 21 million to over 100 Billion before the game shut down, learning market nuances as I played the game - picking up a lot of tips from the forums.
The reasoning behind those that complained was that they didn't find the marketing part fun like I did. They thought that part of the game was drudgery and boring. They wanted to go, hunt and kill skulls. Not play the market. A lot of them only got a few hours a week to play - kids and spouse, job - they have priority for most folks. Me, I just had a job to worry about. I could afford to spend a few moments here and there buying low, selling high, doing a farm run for purples with a lovely fire/fire brute. But - the folks who don't have that time, and don't care to spend that time, they just want to play - and they want to play on a level field. What can be done about that? I've no idea. But, I do see now, in retrospect, what bothered them.

Those who have no idea what they are doing have no idea that they don't know what they are doing. - John Cleese

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Emancipist wrote:
Emancipist wrote:

syntaxerror37 wrote:
grouchybeast wrote:

Although I liked this post in it's entirety, I really wanted to highlight this part. I would always hear a certain portion of the community in essence whining about "evil marketers" or on how causal players will never see the huge piles of Inf necessary to buy the high ticket items on the market. What it broke down to was they didn't want to invest the time into the system. That of course was their choice, but they had no right to complain that because other players did invest in the system and were rewarded for doing so.

I used to agree with you. I was one of those guys who loved to market. I went from 21 million to over 100 Billion before the game shut down, learning market nuances as I played the game - picking up a lot of tips from the forums.
The reasoning behind those that complained was that they didn't find the marketing part fun like I did. They thought that part of the game was drudgery and boring. They wanted to go, hunt and kill skulls. Not play the market. A lot of them only got a few hours a week to play - kids and spouse, job - they have priority for most folks. Me, I just had a job to worry about. I could afford to spend a few moments here and there buying low, selling high, doing a farm run for purples with a lovely fire/fire brute. But - the folks who don't have that time, and don't care to spend that time, they just want to play - and they want to play on a level field. What can be done about that? I've no idea. But, I do see now, in retrospect, what bothered them.

Indeed.
Because if the only way to level the field is to play the market then in reality the market is not optional as some claimed. To make it truly optional, it has to be some other option that is still level. Then there would be a choice and then the market would be optional.

Although some think it's no right to complain, then if that logic was applied to a lot fo things, then they shouldn't be complaining about anything themselves including the way the shut down was conducted, the way that COX got no marketing, hell even they shouldn't be or have been complaining like some of them did about COX prior to the market. Of course many of them see no reason to complain because they have their fun. And for some people it's just something they cant wrap their minds around that someone don't find what they find fun enjoyable. But seeing how those same people have complained about many things in the past and some recent, then yes, if a person do not find something enjoyable, and there is no other option then yeah they have a right, just as they do, to voice their opinion about what they like to see to have that enjoyment same as the folk that already have theirs. If no one havea right to complain then this CoT game development, this forum, or hell even Titan forum wouldn't and shouldn't exist. One doesn't have no right to complain simply they cant grasp the concept that not everyone else find everything they find enjoyable as fun as they do.

I bet if CoT devs said there would be no market and never be a market they would be up in arms and wouldn't like people telling them that they have no right to complain. So the least they could do is extend that same courtesy to others if they can find or think about that concept that other people exist with different definitions of fun than they do and that they or the people they know that like the same thing they do DO NOT actually in reality consist of the entire cox community. There are other people out there beyond them and in their inner circle whether they believe it or not. And like any one all they are asking for is simply a fair even level shake as they do pay the same as the market people. So unless the non market people get a discount, then they have every right to complain about inequalities. Just as people do about inequalities in real life and they face the same answers sort. "they have no right to complain. At least they have a water fountain. Why are they worried about equal quality?"

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Minotaur wrote:
Minotaur wrote:

WarBird wrote:
Well, here's the thing for me. And please don't read too harsh a tone into this.....I played City of Heroes because I wanted to be a super-hero, not a market analyst. I don't want to be forced into an artificial out-of-game mechanic to get full enjoyment of/access to the game I expect to pay a subscription fee for.
The fact that I don't have thirty hours a week to devote to a game should not limit my ability to reach the upper levels/rewards of that game at my own pace. In six years of playing CoX, I might have gotten 3 purple drops total. And I could NEVER afford to buy one. I had 5 level 50 characters and probably did 6 or so large raids. I remember sighing and wondering if I could ever get a single power fully slotted with IO's. (I never did.) I still enjoyed the game, but felt like I got more and more marginalized when I couldn't run at +5 dif like half the kids I tried to team with. I still kept playing, DGMW, But I found myself soloing more and more, making it even harder to get the drops, etc. So don't tell me "Oh, it wasn't required/wasn't designed to use that ..."
I'd rather not see a system, any system, that allows a player to get "rich" by manipulating a market to the point where a few can begin to "control" the market. If we must have an open market, can we at least keep supply balanced against demand? Lets not have "Rare" be nearly "Unique". If the only way to get a particular drop is to run a particualr mission, can we get a 50/50 chance of getting the bloody thing?
I'd like a simple, linear sort of market that doesn't require a degree in economics to get the benefit of. If it's that important to so many people, they should be developing a game called "City of Investors."
Don't take away my precious game time with stuff that's not related to playing the hero. Crafting I can kinda wrap my head around as part of being the hero. Shopping? Not so much.

And this would completely ruin the game for me. If you playing 4 hours a week can get a fully pimped out toon in a month, how is this game going to have any longevity for those of us who actually play much more. There were balances in the system (patrol XP) in your favour and I approved of that. You entirely missed the point about the market.
The market was actually very much in your favour, you could have spent 10 minutes placing bids one day, and the same seeing what had filled and crafting and/or reselling 3 days later, this could earn you tens of millions a day (I was making upwards of 150 million a day for a long period, but spending a little longer at it). Purples could be earned pretty fast.
The market WAS how a lot of patient casual players (including many of my friends) picked up bargains and funded their purple habit.

Actually, I'd say I averaged between 6 and 10 hours a week. And no, I certainly wouldn't expect to be able to get the goodies at the same pace as someone who's playing more. That was the "at my own pace" part. :) But, when I was playing, I was actually PLAYING. Doing missions. Not spending time watching how the market was reacting. Or going off to collect and craft stuff I didn't personally need because I knew it would be a big seller.

I take your point, I really do. What I'm lamenting is a situation whereby someone is able to spend their time playing the market, instead of playing the game, thereby netting them ludicrous piles of cash compared to those who are out trying to experience the content, and artificially inflating the market. I know, one can argue that inflation isn't artificial, it's endemic, but it doesn't address the problem. Of course, if you're someone who's willing to spend a significant portion of your time doing that it's easy to say "what problem?"

Anyway, thanks for responding directly. I've found your other posts to be cogent and well-informed.

In the end, I expect to be over-ruled by the majority of MMO players for whom these types of mechanics are built. The ones who want to squeeze every ounce of performance they can out of their toon so they can feel more "epic" than the next guy. I don't derive my self-image that way. For me, Paragon was just about me being able to bring my imagination a tiny step closer to reality, and sharing it with other like-minded folks. Give me that and I'll still play. Gimped or not. ;p

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Emancipist wrote:
Emancipist wrote:

The reasoning behind those that complained was that they didn't find the marketing part fun like I did. They thought that part of the game was drudgery and boring. They wanted to go, hunt and kill skulls. Not play the market. A lot of them only got a few hours a week to play - kids and spouse, job - they have priority for most folks. Me, I just had a job to worry about. I could afford to spend a few moments here and there buying low, selling high, doing a farm run for purples with a lovely fire/fire brute. But - the folks who don't have that time, and don't care to spend that time, they just want to play - and they want to play on a level field. What can be done about that? I've no idea. But, I do see now, in retrospect, what bothered them.

I never had the interest in learning how to take advantage of the market to earn lots of inf (it's not that I didn't want the inf, it is just that the activity never engaged me). I put things up for sale and I put in bids for stuff I wanted and then just checked every so often to see if they were sold/bought. I didn't really enjoy farming, so I didn't do that either... I mainly just leveled up alts doing mission arcs and TFs and whatnot. Crafting and WW were things I did when I didn't have time to get into something more involved.

So, I think I kind of fit the profile of the 'other folks' you describe, with the exception that I didn't complain. I felt like I did have a level-enough playing field. There are always going to be better geared folks than I am. Hell, there will always be better *players* than I am (in terms of being able to squeeze more performance out of my character if they were in the drivers seat). But none of that kept me from playing the game I wanted to play, to the best of my ability.**

There was stuff wrong with the economy of CoH, but I don't think the market is what caused that. In general, the market is just a way for players to value things they own and things they want, and to use that info to transfer stuff between players. The basic system CoH had for that (blind auction, and the high-low method of resolving trades) was a nice way to manage that. If CoT added a lot more price history (like a graph of the past week or so, at the very least), to make it harder for folks to temporarily manipulate prices, it would be pretty close to ideal.

Anyway, the market is just a way to move stuff (items and currency) around between players. It doesn't create items or currency. I think the problems with the economy were with the parts of the game where the supplies of items and currency were created (and removed). Based just on what I have seen in posts, it sounds like CoT folks are keeping the game economy in mind, so I expect that to inform their decisions on risks and rewards and incentives in the game. I also expect them to get it wrong, and that people will need to point out issues with it when we get to the alpha and beta. I also expect that to be an ongoing issue throughout the game's life that people will need to keep working on.

--

** Technically, it would have kept me from PvP, since the game's focus on one-on-one battles would make relative levels of build tweaking a bigger deal. In practice, however, the game's focus on one-on-one battles had already kept me from PvPing in this game, long before we had crafting or markets... even then there were people who focused on particular builds and strategies that would put a casual player with a PvE build at a great disadvantage. That is inevitable if you are just focusing on who would win a one-on-one battle. If CoT has more team-based goal-oriented PvP scenarios, that will reduce a lot of the emphasis on that (much like I didn't need to be the best duelist in CS in order to make great contributions to my team winning a round there).

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Hyperstrike wrote:
Hyperstrike wrote:

Quote:
Flat out disallow flipping.
Quite honestly, they can't. There ARE systems that would make it PAINFUL to flip. But they're huge and kludgy and would eat massive amounts of server resources in tracking that sort of thing.
Quote:
Possible solutions could be either not allowing the resale of an item purchased from the market
Which destroys the market since anything bought from it, if not used, is essentially deletion-bait. Worse, it harms the marketplace itself if you have a high demand for an item but the only ones available are unsalable.
Quote:
only allowing a 5% markup every 180 days from the last market purchase price
No. Because at that point you have A STORE, not a market. Moreover, the amount of system resources to track this on a user-by-user or character by character basis would be redonkulous. Doing a flat "this amount" globally for ALL users would be horrific, and could be abused by creeping the amount up over time to untenable levels.
Quote:
and disallowing the resale of an item for one calendar year.
Again, see "demand spikes when most "available ones" are unavailable.
You're not asking for the market to be fixed. You're asking them to destroy the marketplace from the outset.
Quote:
Also add a Report button for people trying to sell in chat.
No. It's their item to sell. Who are you to set the price for them or tell them how to sell it?
Maybe if they're abusing certain, non-market, channels, sure. Report them. But the simple act of trading/selling in chat shouldn't be criminalized.
Quote:
You are effectively putting a ceiling on the price of an item. While this will limit flipping (that's a good thing), I'm not sure how I feel about it. I like letting the market find its own level, as long as there are safeguards against manipulation.
Again, limiting flipping isn't necessarily a good thing. Flipping doesn't always mean the price goes UP.
And "manipulation" will happen regardless. Anyone who believes otherwise is deluding themselves.
It's like farming in AE. The devs would whack-a-mole the most efficient farming method extant at the time, and the hardcore farmers would roll on to the next most efficient. And the next. And the next.
Eventually we wound up with an AE system that was so badly hamstrung it wasn't even funny.
I'm sorry, what you refer to as "market PVP" is simple market function.
While this game will start with a market and everyone ostensibly equal, eventually you're going to have some long term players who have a good grasp of the market dynamics and systems who'll be "more equal". Especially in comparison to new players.
The only way to stop this is to not have a market in the first place.
If you don't want to have to deal with a dynamic market, simply get behind the "Give me a store" movement and be done.

Yes, they can flat out disallow flipping. It's an extra bit (literally a binary digit) in the database for each marketable item. Was this item purchased from the market Y/N? If "Y" then it can not be sold on the market again.

This in no way destroys the market. It turns it from a mini-game for the few to a tool for the many. If all you want to do is flip stuff, I guess it destroys the market for you. I prefer not to see rampant inflation caused by, and for, the RMT group. And that's in addition to the inflation caused by those playing the mini-game for personal enjoyment.

So don't buy items you can't use, DuH!

I don't want to see a bunch of sales spam in highly populated channels. If the devs think it's a good idea to put in a market channel, great. I don't.

And people can set whatever price they like on their item in the market, no one is forcing any sort of price on them. Furthermore, if they price the item too high and no one is buying, I have no objection to the original seller removing the item and relisting it.

But yes, I personally would like to see all sales confined to the actual market. Less chance of scamming or RMT that way.

And how can flipping NOT make the price go up? Are there idiots flipping who buy high and sell low? I highly doubt it.

Your fear-mongering is duly noted and mocked.

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Minotaur wrote:
Minotaur wrote:

WarBird wrote:
Well, here's the thing for me. And please don't read too harsh a tone into this.....I played City of Heroes because I wanted to be a super-hero, not a market analyst. I don't want to be forced into an artificial out-of-game mechanic to get full enjoyment of/access to the game I expect to pay a subscription fee for.
The fact that I don't have thirty hours a week to devote to a game should not limit my ability to reach the upper levels/rewards of that game at my own pace. In six years of playing CoX, I might have gotten 3 purple drops total. And I could NEVER afford to buy one. I had 5 level 50 characters and probably did 6 or so large raids. I remember sighing and wondering if I could ever get a single power fully slotted with IO's. (I never did.) I still enjoyed the game, but felt like I got more and more marginalized when I couldn't run at +5 dif like half the kids I tried to team with. I still kept playing, DGMW, But I found myself soloing more and more, making it even harder to get the drops, etc. So don't tell me "Oh, it wasn't required/wasn't designed to use that ..."
I'd rather not see a system, any system, that allows a player to get "rich" by manipulating a market to the point where a few can begin to "control" the market. If we must have an open market, can we at least keep supply balanced against demand? Lets not have "Rare" be nearly "Unique". If the only way to get a particular drop is to run a particualr mission, can we get a 50/50 chance of getting the bloody thing?
I'd like a simple, linear sort of market that doesn't require a degree in economics to get the benefit of. If it's that important to so many people, they should be developing a game called "City of Investors."
Don't take away my precious game time with stuff that's not related to playing the hero. Crafting I can kinda wrap my head around as part of being the hero. Shopping? Not so much.

And this would completely ruin the game for me. If you playing 4 hours a week can get a fully pimped out toon in a month, how is this game going to have any longevity for those of us who actually play much more. There were balances in the system (patrol XP) in your favour and I approved of that. You entirely missed the point about the market.
The market was actually very much in your favour, you could have spent 10 minutes placing bids one day, and the same seeing what had filled and crafting and/or reselling 3 days later, this could earn you tens of millions a day (I was making upwards of 150 million a day for a long period, but spending a little longer at it). Purples could be earned pretty fast.
The market WAS how a lot of patient casual players (including many of my friends) picked up bargains and funded their purple habit.

Sorry, Minotaur's right.

Being purpled out should be a goal that requires more effort than a week, even if one feels pressed for game time. The game needs long-term goals, and it's not possible to create incentives for hard-core players and simultaneously let casual part-time players have the same incentives. Flat-out can't be done, although you're welcome to keep talking about it, I guess.

Meanwhile, as the honred one said, the blind-bid market from COH was probably the easiest way for casual, part-time players to catch up on high-end items. The closest thing to solving the "problem" you have identified. Too bad you don't like it.

It's important to note that I hate economics, was an idiot about marketing, just wanted to play, and still did well enough to purple out a few characters. I once thought like you, but am an unwilling convert to reality.

Captain of Phoenix Rising

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Col. Kernel wrote:
Col. Kernel wrote:

And how can flipping NOT make the price go up? Are there idiots flipping who buy high and sell low? I highly doubt it.
Your fear-mongering is duly noted and mocked.

As stated above, I am not an economics guru, but I believe you misunderstand the benefit "flipping" brings. An economist would say flipping moves prices up to the price point supported by demand, not above that point. When the items were cheaper (i.e., underpriced) everyone would snap them up and use them -- resulting in there never being any in the market for sale, because they all vanish immediately, being underpriced.

Flipping may seem painful, but it does (in theory) leave items in the market available for purchase. Otherwise the problem (which I indeed ran into) is "none available at any price."

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Emancipist wrote:
Emancipist wrote:

But - the folks who don't have that time, and don't care to spend that time, they just want to play - and they want to play on a level field. What can be done about that? I've no idea. But, I do see now, in retrospect, what bothered them.

Step One: realize that there is no such thing as a level playing field.

"I have a job, am married, and I have children so I don't have much time to play, therefore the devs should..." is, frankly, an awful attitude. If someone who can only play four or six hours every week wants to keep up with someone who can play four or six hours every day, then they'll have to find some way to invest more time in the game, won't they? If they cannot or will not do so, how does it follow that this becomes a problem the developers need to address or solve?

I may as well add that I find the suggestion that a market is some kind of PvP to be highly suspect.

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Wanders wrote:
Wanders wrote:

Emancipist wrote:
The reasoning behind those that complained was that they didn't find the marketing part fun like I did. They thought that part of the game was drudgery and boring. They wanted to go, hunt and kill skulls. Not play the market. A lot of them only got a few hours a week to play - kids and spouse, job - they have priority for most folks. Me, I just had a job to worry about. I could afford to spend a few moments here and there buying low, selling high, doing a farm run for purples with a lovely fire/fire brute. But - the folks who don't have that time, and don't care to spend that time, they just want to play - and they want to play on a level field. What can be done about that? I've no idea. But, I do see now, in retrospect, what bothered them.

I never had the interest in learning how to take advantage of the market to earn lots of inf (it's not that I didn't want the inf, it is just that the activity never engaged me). I put things up for sale and I put in bids for stuff I wanted and then just checked every so often to see if they were sold/bought. I didn't really enjoy farming, so I didn't do that either... I mainly just leveled up alts doing mission arcs and TFs and whatnot. Crafting and WW were things I did when I didn't have time to get into something more involved.
So, I think I kind of fit the profile of the 'other folks' you describe, with the exception that I didn't complain. I felt like I did have a level-enough playing field. There are always going to be better geared folks than I am. Hell, there will always be better *players* than I am (in terms of being able to squeeze more performance out of my character if they were in the drivers seat). But none of that kept me from playing the game I wanted to play, to the best of my ability.**
There was stuff wrong with the economy of CoH, but I don't think the market is what caused that. In general, the market is just a way for players to value things they own and things they want, and to use that info to transfer stuff between players. The basic system CoH had for that (blind auction, and the high-low method of resolving trades) was a nice way to manage that. If CoT added a lot more price history (like a graph of the past week or so, at the very least), to make it harder for folks to temporarily manipulate prices, it would be pretty close to ideal.
Anyway, the market is just a way to move stuff (items and currency) around between players. It doesn't create items or currency. I think the problems with the economy were with the parts of the game where the supplies of items and currency were created (and removed). Based just on what I have seen in posts, it sounds like CoT folks are keeping the game economy in mind, so I expect that to inform their decisions on risks and rewards and incentives in the game. I also expect them to get it wrong, and that people will need to point out issues with it when we get to the alpha and beta. I also expect that to be an ongoing issue throughout the game's life that people will need to keep working on.
--
** Technically, it would have kept me from PvP, since the game's focus on one-on-one battles would make relative levels of build tweaking a bigger deal. In practice, however, the game's focus on one-on-one battles had already kept me from PvPing in this game, long before we had crafting or markets... even then there were people who focused on particular builds and strategies that would put a casual player with a PvE build at a great disadvantage. That is inevitable if you are just focusing on who would win a one-on-one battle. If CoT has more team-based goal-oriented PvP scenarios, that will reduce a lot of the emphasis on that (much like I didn't need to be the best duelist in CS in order to make great contributions to my team winning a round there).

Well, you guys have just about covered the way I felt about the market. With a bit less attitude. I lean more towards Emancipist's feelings, but reached the zen level of Wander as I kept playing. As I've said elsewhere, If CoT is at least as good as its "spiritual predecessor" I'll enjoy the H311 out of it, regardless of how the market ends up working.

I'll also admit that, in comparison, CoH's market was not the worst I've seen. I just wish that it didn't have to be such a large part of the experience if you wanted to enjoy all the content of the game. Any game.

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I used to hate the Market. I

I used to hate the Market. I argued about it on the Forums a LOT back in the day. I hated certain aspects of it so much that I wrote this thread (remember me...the guy who started all this?). I ranted and raved for two years about how the Market needed to be fixed. Then I changed my tune and became a Believer. Why? Because I began to look at the WHOLE Market instead of just MY view of it.

Fact: Some items on the Market were essentially worthless. Players earned them through drops and, not wanting to simply trash them, put them up for 1 Inf each. In many cases this was to work towards Market-related badges. I used to buy these by the ton and Vendor them for seed money for new toons that were broke before Gleemail came in and I could mail my new toons Inf. This harmed no one since they were obviously not popular and the buying even helped the sellers for those badges. Players who used these things (mostly recipes) LOVED the Market because they could get stuff for a song.

Fact: Some 'common' items were insanely expensive on the Market because even though they were Common, they were always highly sought-after because they dropped at lower levels that some players would race through. Alc Silver was always good for between 30k and 100k each. This was bad for me because if I wanted one and didn't have the cash I felt cheated...right up until one dropped for ME then I could turn around and sell it.

Fact: Inflation in a game is NOT the same thing as inflation in real life. Why? Because rising prices can be taken advantage of by everyone, not just the select few. In RL you go to work, earn your pay and it's all fairly stable for the most part. You can't often go and work TWICE as many hours and make twice as much money. However in the game you can. Yes, buying Alc Silver might be a pain when the price is high but SELLING it is great! And as long as you play in the level range that it drops in the only thing you need to do is PLAY THE GAME. Playing more results in more rewards. What could be more fair than that? Sure, that ONE item you really needed might be too expensive to buy but that OTHER item you have a ton of is the thing some OTHER guy needs. The Market is sort of like a swap meet with a fee attached.

Fact: As a casual player you never had to go near the Market ever. You could either use the drops you got or buy new ones and craft them. What's that? The sets make your character more effective? Sure they do...so does dropping a 442 in a stock Charger...but that costs. You can't give 442s to every guy who drives them once a month when the guy who drives it every day has to work to get one. Or you can save up your cash and BUY one from another guy...just like the Market. Don't like Crafting? Ok...I'll make it for you and sell it to you. My price is too high? Buy from someone else. ALL the prices are too high? Gee, I guess that item is really valuable then.

Jaguars perform better than Fords, cost more and are MUCH rarer. If I want a Jag, I have to work for it. I do NOT expect someone to give me one just because I go out and spend 5 hours a week looking for one...

The basics to play the game should be free so that everyone who wants to play can do so. However if you don't give the players who are willing to put forth extra effort something extra they will stop playing and the whole game dies. Kinda like Communism really...

I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...

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How bout we just use the same

How bout we just use the same market system CoH used and just LEAVE IT ALONE........if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The market wasn't broke. SOME people just didn't know how to use it. Like I said, I was one of those people that didn't know how to use it until I took the time to actually learn how to use it. Once I did, it took me about 30 minutes to an hour to run to the market, make my bids, sell my stuff, and collect my inf. After that it was nothing but pure playing time with all of my friends in RO. Trust me, I did A LOT of ITF's.......A LOT.

I got chills! They're multiplyin'. And I'm losin' control. Cuz the power, I'm supplyin'. Why it's ELECTRIFYIN'!!

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Well yes, some people may not

Well yes, some people may not like the market because they dont know how to use it. But what is seemingly overlooked is that people that know how to play the market and know how to make money off it and etc. And I qwould hardly call the ability to make 1 billion in a few minutes extra work. Because two players one use the market one dont, both put in hours insiude the game, one play the market probably will be instant billionaire the other still have to grind so it's a bit contradictaory to say that there must be some work to go for the items and such and without working for it, the longevity of the game will suffer yet the market allows just that, simply buy the item in a few minutes and forgo the work and make all the inf one ever needs. Thus adding an option of sort of something other than the market will not affect that aspect anymore than the market does. And not everyone that dont like the market doesnt know how to play it or havent learn to play it. Many people that dont like the market used the market simply because that was teh only way to even the field and because there was no other option besides the market that was even closely as efficient.

Yes sometimes certain groups need something extra, like market people. So do non market people and people that dont find the market an enjoyable item. Market people should not be the only ones entitled to that extra and everyone are given no option. No the market itself is not broke besides the point there is no I dont like the price buy from someone else because the individual prices are not listed so who knows who is over charging and the true price one can get something i na double bnlind auction mechanism. Yes, keep the market as is, by all means, but give people that dont find the market enjoyable whether it's because they dont know how it works or simple actually like many know exactly how it works but dont find it fun some semblence of balance to opt out and still be proficient at getting what they need. As I said if it was equal, then impose the same hurdles that is put on non marklet people onto the market people.

Non market people are part of the community too and what actually destroys and create rifts in the community faster than anything is catering to one part of the community and not even respecting or even giving the other part of the community a bone whiel expecting them to shut up about the inequality. Market people want to play the market, fine let them play the market leave it as is. But at least remember that not all of the community is the market people or find enjoyable and they spend just as much play just as much and as hard as market people do. The least they should be expected is treated equally for their money.

And with that car anology, there are options. One doesnt even have to bu ya Jag or have to go to only one place where someone charge what ever they feel like it for a Jag. They could go to one place, that place is too expensive they can go somewhere else. Unlike how the COX market where there isnt an option to go to and that is what I'm proposing. If one is goign to use an analogy like that then first of all there is also should be the realization that markets in RL also dont run on monopolies. If one person or one store is not up to the cup of tea, they can go somewhere else. In COX, dont like the market, well they are SOL. The market is the monopoly and that is not how RL markets work so it cant even be compared to real life markets. Adding an option besides the market would bring it closer to how actual markets work and that Jag and ford analogy actually would have worked better. But for all the talk of real life markets and such, what it actuyally sounds like is that the pro market people are simply afaid of competition and if an option is given the truth that the market is not as popular as they thought it was will be revealed and the days of them charging what ever they feel like it because they are the only option would be over and they would have to charge real actual reasonable prices like in a real market.

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oOStaticOo wrote:
oOStaticOo wrote:

How bout we just use the same market system CoH used and just LEAVE IT ALONE........if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The market wasn't broke. SOME people just didn't know how to use it.

The market system used in City of Heroes was based on a Low Information Model, where both buyers and sellers had only a tiny fraction of the information they needed in order to make good decisions with. It left the market open to and ripe for abuse and manipulation that would have been harder to achieve if a larger history of transactions had been available beyond merely the last FIVE. Increase that to the last 10 to 20 transactions (preferably 20) so as to give buyers and sellers more of a history to work with and *some* of the manipulation practices will be more costly to sustain over time.


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Sailboat wrote:
Sailboat wrote:

Col. Kernel wrote:
And how can flipping NOT make the price go up? Are there idiots flipping who buy high and sell low? I highly doubt it.
Your fear-mongering is duly noted and mocked.

As stated above, I am not an economics guru, but I believe you misunderstand the benefit "flipping" brings. An economist would say flipping moves prices up to the price point supported by demand, not above that point. When the items were cheaper (i.e., underpriced) everyone would snap them up and use them -- resulting in there never being any in the market for sale, because they all vanish immediately, being underpriced.
Flipping may seem painful, but it does (in theory) leave items in the market available for purchase. Otherwise the problem (which I indeed ran into) is "none available at any price."

The post I was replying to specifically stated that flipping could make the price go down.

As for your scenario, that's just a matter of letting the market find its own level. Redlynne is right, more data points (minimm of 20) would let both buyers and sellers make better decisions on how much to list an item for, and how much to pay for it.

oOStaticOo wrote:

How bout we just use the same market system CoH used and just LEAVE IT ALONE........if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The market wasn't broke. SOME people just didn't know how to use it. Like I said, I was one of those people that didn't know how to use it until I took the time to actually learn how to use it. Once I did, it took me about 30 minutes to an hour to run to the market, make my bids, sell my stuff, and collect my inf. After that it was nothing but pure playing time with all of my friends in RO. Trust me, I did A LOT of ITF's.......A LOT.

Static,
It's not about learning how the market works so that I can participate in a broken system. It's about changing the market from a mini game for a few to a tool for everyone.

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To be honest, "Last 20 sales"

To be honest, "Last 20 sales" wouldn't work differently from "Last 5 sales," it would just move the bar higher for people who wanted to influence the price the record showed...they'd have to do it 20 times instead of 5. Appending a date to each sale (probably suggested above already) would be a start at least. Of course, given time, a patient marketeer could still create their own price record over the course of days, but at least that would only work with things low in demand.

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Am I understand this

Am I understand this correctly? In the CoH marketplace, the only way to find out what prices people are asking or offering was to post a bid and see if it results in a sale?

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Foradain wrote:
Foradain wrote:

Am I understand this correctly? In the CoH marketplace, the only way to find out what prices people are asking or offering was to post a bid and see if it results in a sale?

hm, the answer to that is complicated by how transactions were fulfilled.

From the Auction House entry on Paragonwiki:
Auction Houses use a secret bid system. Here is the in-game explanation of this system as provided by the Wentworth's Employee in Talos:

At Wentworth's we use a 'secret bid' auction. To make a long story short, you set the price for your item, but the Buyer does not see it. The Buyer bids what he wishes to pay and if he meets, or exceeds, your requested price he will receive the item. You may even receive more than you asked for! In order to help the Buyer with a bid, there is a history of how much that item has sold for in the past.

The other Auction Houses uses the same secret bid system as Wentworth's.

If multiple players are selling an item for different amounts, the person with the lowest list price will sell first as long as a bid is higher than their list price. Thus, if a lot of people are listing an item for 100 inf, someone who lists the same item for 10,000 inf may never sell it even if people are paying 100,000 inf for it. Likewise, it's possible for someone who lists an item for 100 inf to sell it for 100,000 inf while someone else who lists the item for 10,000 inf only sells it for 10,000 inf.

So, for instance, as the seller, you can end up seeing what someone was willing to pay when a sale occurs, but the buyer won't know how much you put it up for.

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Foradain wrote:
Foradain wrote:

Am I understand this correctly? In the CoH marketplace, the only way to find out what prices people are asking or offering was to post a bid and see if it results in a sale?

Yes, which is one of the reasons why bargain hunting was such a time sink of a process. You just had to underbid and slowly work your way up until something sold for you.

Star Trek Online handles this process much better, because it just shows you what the purchase price is for items on the market, rather than forcing you to guess what the price is right now (leading to overbids). Their Dilithium Exchange system is even better, because it shows you the 5 lowest Sell Prices for the commodity, and what quantity is available at each price point, on the Buy Tab, showing you what's on the market right now and available for sale ... and then shows you the 5 highest Buy Prices for the commodity, and what quantity is available at each price point, on the Buy Tab, showing you what bids are outstanding on the market right now and waiting to be fulfilled. So it's still a "rule of 5" sort of thing, but it gives you the 5 up and the 5 down from the currently agreed on price point where sales are currently occurring. That then gives you a real time "sense" of which way the winds in the market are blowing, so as to be able to get a good feel for how "sticky" a particular price point is at any given time. It also gives you a sense of when the market starts "demanding" that the price for a commodity either be raised or lowered, simply through sheer supply and demand in terms of where people place their Bids and the buyout level for their Sales. WAY BETTER system than the "first draft" that the City of Heroes Market wound up using, since it is one that makes it a lot harder to manipulate the market through Data Falsification (ie. the last 5 Sales prices).


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WarBird wrote:
WarBird wrote:

Minotaur wrote:
WarBird wrote:
Well, here's the thing for me. And please don't read too harsh a tone into this.....I played City of Heroes because I wanted to be a super-hero, not a market analyst. I don't want to be forced into an artificial out-of-game mechanic to get full enjoyment of/access to the game I expect to pay a subscription fee for.
The fact that I don't have thirty hours a week to devote to a game should not limit my ability to reach the upper levels/rewards of that game at my own pace. In six years of playing CoX, I might have gotten 3 purple drops total. And I could NEVER afford to buy one. I had 5 level 50 characters and probably did 6 or so large raids. I remember sighing and wondering if I could ever get a single power fully slotted with IO's. (I never did.) I still enjoyed the game, but felt like I got more and more marginalized when I couldn't run at +5 dif like half the kids I tried to team with. I still kept playing, DGMW, But I found myself soloing more and more, making it even harder to get the drops, etc. So don't tell me "Oh, it wasn't required/wasn't designed to use that ..."
I'd rather not see a system, any system, that allows a player to get "rich" by manipulating a market to the point where a few can begin to "control" the market. If we must have an open market, can we at least keep supply balanced against demand? Lets not have "Rare" be nearly "Unique". If the only way to get a particular drop is to run a particualr mission, can we get a 50/50 chance of getting the bloody thing?
I'd like a simple, linear sort of market that doesn't require a degree in economics to get the benefit of. If it's that important to so many people, they should be developing a game called "City of Investors."
Don't take away my precious game time with stuff that's not related to playing the hero. Crafting I can kinda wrap my head around as part of being the hero. Shopping? Not so much.

And this would completely ruin the game for me. If you playing 4 hours a week can get a fully pimped out toon in a month, how is this game going to have any longevity for those of us who actually play much more. There were balances in the system (patrol XP) in your favour and I approved of that. You entirely missed the point about the market.
The market was actually very much in your favour, you could have spent 10 minutes placing bids one day, and the same seeing what had filled and crafting and/or reselling 3 days later, this could earn you tens of millions a day (I was making upwards of 150 million a day for a long period, but spending a little longer at it). Purples could be earned pretty fast.
The market WAS how a lot of patient casual players (including many of my friends) picked up bargains and funded their purple habit.

Actually, I'd say I averaged between 6 and 10 hours a week. And no, I certainly wouldn't expect to be able to get the goodies at the same pace as someone who's playing more. That was the "at my own pace" part. :) But, when I was playing, I was actually PLAYING. Doing missions. Not spending time watching how the market was reacting. Or going off to collect and craft stuff I didn't personally need because I knew it would be a big seller.
I take your point, I really do. What I'm lamenting is a situation whereby someone is able to spend their time playing the market, instead of playing the game, thereby netting them ludicrous piles of cash compared to those who are out trying to experience the content, and artificially inflating the market. I know, one can argue that inflation isn't artificial, it's endemic, but it doesn't address the problem. Of course, if you're someone who's willing to spend a significant portion of your time doing that it's easy to say "what problem?"
Anyway, thanks for responding directly. I've found your other posts to be cogent and well-informed.
In the end, I expect to be over-ruled by the majority of MMO players for whom these types of mechanics are built. The ones who want to squeeze every ounce of performance they can out of their toon so they can feel more "epic" than the next guy. I don't derive my self-image that way. For me, Paragon was just about me being able to bring my imagination a tiny step closer to reality, and sharing it with other like-minded folks. Give me that and I'll still play. Gimped or not. ;p

It's funny, I started marketeering because IMO at the time it took less time than farming which I found dull, I too wanted to use most of my playtime doing content. Then somebody made an "I never had any money, it's impossible to make any" post, my response (as I had the time) was to do a marketeering exercise.

Start with a clean server and a level 1, see what I can make. The answer was a nicely IOd out 50 (LotG 7.5s but no purples), a base with all TPers (red side so not a stupid number), field crafter, 3BN in the bank in 6 weeks. Yes I played a lot in that time but it taught me the market. I made my money in unlikely places, I wasn't selling purples, I was buying recipes and salvage and crafting obscure things like expedient reinforcement and analyse weakness triples, numina heals of levels 45-49 and the like, things where you could buy the recipes for 3M or less, the salvage for 3M and sell for 20M, then just shift lots of them.

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It doesn't matter if you have

It doesn't matter if you have 5 listings or 100, if somebody is determined enough to skew the market in the direction they want they will. Just ask Smurphy. All it takes is enough time and patience to buy up a particular item and start padding it in the way you want it to be padded. Most of the marketing strategies I learned were from listening to what Smurphy was doing on the market. Find a high demand item, buy up as much of it as you can, hold on to it, buy more when you can, keep holding on to it, wait for everybody to start high bidding for an item cause they need it nao!, start dropping it into the market slowly, and ask for a ton of money. If you drive up the demand for something eventually people will start buying it for outrageous prices because they need it for a particular recipe. If anything THAT was the problem with the market. The recipes themselves. After figuring out which recipes were the best and most wanted it wasn't hard to keep a list of all the items needed to craft it and then jack the demand up on those items, recipes, or enhancements.

Seriously, the market system from CoH was fine. Leave it alone. It wasn't so hard that you wanted to go beat your head against the wall a bazillion times out of frustration. It was a simple system, and the best advice I've ever been given was "Keep it simple, stupid." I understand a lot of the frustration from people when it comes to the market and not having the desire, or want, to learn how to manipulate it to your advantage, or just take advantage of the situation period. I offered many times to try to help people out when it came to the market and how to play it, most people turned me down because they just simply didn't want to do it. Fine. Go drop off your salvage for 1 inf., your enhancements for 100 inf., and your recipes for 1000 inf., and don't make money off of them. That's your call. But to not try to learn how to use a tool that's available to you to help improve your life? Kind of dumb in my opinion.

I never let the market stand in my way of playing the game and loving it. That's one of the biggest gripes I see. "I didn't want to spend HOURS a day doing marketing stuff just so I could IO out my character to play." I NEVER spent hours at the market. At the MOST 1 hour. Usually I would hop on and hit it first thing to see if I sold anything and collect my money, took maybe 30 minutes. Then I'd stop by at the end of the night before I signed off from doing my 3rd ITF of the night and drop off any salvage, recipes, or enhancements to sell, took maybe 30 minutes. The most time I spent doing anything other than playing the game with all my friends was crafting. All the recipes I had and trying to make sure I had all the necessary salvage available by running back and forth between the University and my Base took hours to do. That got annoying to me.

If I've learned anything over the years, it's that people will find a way to do whatever it is they want to do if they want to do it bad enough. So, where there is a market there will be an ebil marketer.

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MMOs need a market, need

MMOs need a market, need market pvp, it's just another thing people look for in MMOs.

What they need to do, is allow all items obtained, for instance, Boosts that can only be obtained through cash shop or completion of taskforces (whatever they call them in CoT), to be sold on he market, and to make it where none of them are worthless, like may where in CoH. If the item is worthless, shouldn't be made!

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Brand X wrote:
Brand X wrote:

MMOs need a market, need market pvp, it's just another thing people look for in MMOs.
What they need to do, is allow all items obtained, for instance, Boosts that can only be obtained through cash shop or completion of taskforces (whatever they call them in CoT), to be sold on he market, and to make it where none of them are worthless, like may where in CoH. If the item is worthless, shouldn't be made!

If people are looking for market PvP they need to go play a market simulator, not an MMO.

Make the market a tool for the many, not a minigame for the few.

I pretty much agree with everything else you've said, with a couple of additions.

I am also a strong supporter of the Hero/Villain Merit method of acquiring Purples. This is a great leveler for people who come into the game 5 years down the road. Inflation has happened (can't be helped, can be minimized) and some prices are out of reach for new players - even at level 50. A metered (paced? measured?) way of earning the most powerful boosts in the game should be made available so that those who do not wish to play the market, or who wish to (relatively) quickly get some startup capital, have a means to do so.

Should MWM clone the directly? No, but some method that allows the acquisition of top level boosts outside the market and cash shop should be available.

One mans trash is another mans treasure. Collectively, the players of any MMO are smarter than the devs. No offense to the devs, it's just a numbers game. There are more of us than there are of them. We (collectively) have more time to test (and break!) the game than they do, so we figure stuff out faster.

My point being that yes, the devs should attempt to ensure that all boosts are viable. However, they are probably going to fail and some worthless stuff will be made. That's the price of creativity.

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Col. Kernel wrote:
Col. Kernel wrote:

My point being that yes, the devs should attempt to ensure that all boosts are viable. However, they are probably going to fail and some worthless stuff will be made. That's the price of creativity.

Off the topic of "market pvp" for a moment, one thing that's bugged me in many games is when some reward offers an undesirable type of boost, AND sets the value at in insignificantly small level.

In COH, a bonus of only 2% reduced debt (even lower in some sets), when debt itself was insignificant? Since it's a) impossible to stack more than 5 of them and b) you are giving up OTHER bonuses by doing so, it seems like even a fairly high value like 15% wouldn't be out of line. 15% would allow someone to build for debt reduction and get 75% of it reduced -- still not at all a power build, and useless at 50 anyway, but it would be a niche thing if someone wanted to do it. At 2%, however, the bonus is literally trivial, and causes mild annoyance in, as far as I know, everyone who even notices it. "Why did they make me waste time reading this?"

Now if it were a bonus to EXPERIENCE, 2% would be very nice, probably overpowered -- although still useless at 50 -- because that's a valuable TYPE of bonus. So it's useful/desirable even at a fairly low VALUE.

Lower value on something desirable can be taken too far, however. Defense bonuses were hugely desirable and heavily slotted for in COH...but how many of us went for those 0.625% defense bonuses?

Quote:

Discouraging Words: Three enhancements increases Melee Defense by 0.625%.

Make bonuses and rewards provide some sort of value worth the time spent developing them, let alone acquiring them. And set the more desirable ones at lower values, and the less desirable ones can be set at higher values, to make them at least mildly interesting, without breaking the game.

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"Play the game like you want

"Play the game like you want and earn your goodies" seems to be consistent with what MWM will be whipping up, and I think that the "right" answers for minimizing market PvP are in this thread. Using CoX terms, these suggested ideas among others stand-out to me and would go a long way to that goal:

1) Minimize in-game currency types
2) Create multiple options for/paths to the acquisition of all loot
3) Ensure that worthy/valuable bonuses are applied to each and every IO set
4) Introduce an "an account vault" feature

The account vault would hold in-game currency and merit points. So as you complete story arcs, various events, TFs, etc. and earn your currency and merits just like CoX. However, the CoT version would add the ability of the player to allocate 0, 25, 50, 75 or 100% of her merit points to her account vault. (Shouldn't my main/personal SG leader be able to share the rewards of her duty or deeds with her SG trainees/proteges? Whether with or without an SG, this would be nice for those who enjoy level 50 content damn near exclusively....whether events, TFs, arcs or farming. So have your fun however you want...share your loot however you want.

Additionally, these CoX-influenced ideas could be helpful...

a) "Day job" path -- Not sure of the specific mechanics that would be involved, but it would be rewarding for RPers and/or those with deep connections to their toons.

b) An additional "end of TF" mechanic (subject to a very long cooldown) -- You still get to pick from a menu when TF is completed, but once every 72, 108, 168 hours or whenever, a random unique/ultra rare appears in the menu. If it's a non-ultra then the player gets to choose the level. This would apply to all TFs.

c) "Achieving specific objectives across multiple-events" path -- Don't like TFs, nor have the time to run them? Do event A, event B, event C and event D within 72, 108, 168 hours and get a random unique/ultra rare drop. Again, the player chooses the level.

(Currently developing the Sapphire 7 Initiative)

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oOStaticOo wrote:
oOStaticOo wrote:

After figuring out which recipes were the best and most wanted it wasn't hard to keep a list of all the items needed to craft it and then jack the demand up on those items, recipes, or enhancements.

Luck Charms

Alchemical Silver

... need I go on?


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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

oOStaticOo wrote:
After figuring out which recipes were the best and most wanted it wasn't hard to keep a list of all the items needed to craft it and then jack the demand up on those items, recipes, or enhancements.
Luck Charms
Alchemical Silver
... need I go on?

But the supply was always there - someone manipulating prices simply couldn't keep it up. Need a Luck Charm and the going price is too high? Put in a low bid and walk away; by the next day, that bid will have filled. Which is a distinct difference from systems like CO or WoW, where if you want something valuable for cheap... well too bad, you might get lucky if you log in at 3AM, but you'll probably just never see it.

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Wyvern wrote:
Wyvern wrote:

Redlynne wrote:
oOStaticOo wrote:
After figuring out which recipes were the best and most wanted it wasn't hard to keep a list of all the items needed to craft it and then jack the demand up on those items, recipes, or enhancements.

Luck Charms
Alchemical Silver
... need I go on?

But the supply was always there - someone manipulating prices simply couldn't keep it up. Need a Luck Charm and the going price is too high? Put in a low bid and walk away; by the next day, that bid will have filled. Which is a distinct difference from systems like CO or WoW, where if you want something valuable for cheap... well too bad, you might get lucky if you log in at 3AM, but you'll probably just never see it.

Not really. Plenty of bids stayed on there for weeks that was low bids. Some never got filled.

In CO plenty of valuable items sell cheap all times of the day. More than likely if one was to wait until 3AM, they probably would actually miss out on the deals. People sometimes even announce they are putting a bunch of valuable items on the market on the channels, global chat, COX chat, CORP chat and other channels. I see that happen at least a dozen timesa day in the couple of hours I play. especially with the keys. Many people put those things on the market for 40-75G a pop even though the most common going rate is 100G. And when it's listed, people can see the price, pay the price and be out instead of guessing bids and hoping someone is not profit oriented place some valuable item on sale in the COX market and hope they get the item any time soon. In fact I found more valuable items for cheap on CO in one month than I ever did the entire existance of the COX market. CO make it easier that you can see the actual price. Although downside is that a person cant place a holder on it log out and wait until it's filled. In CO market you can see the itme price. In COX, never see it. Just guess and hope.

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@Sailboat

@Sailboat
You are absolutely correct. And those sort of things need to be caught early and not implemented, or changed if shortsightedly put into the game.

@Catherine America
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Redundant with an account vault, but useful for people with multiple accounts (how many character slots will we have?) or for helping out friends and SG mates.

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Wyvern wrote:
Wyvern wrote:

Redlynne wrote:
oOStaticOo wrote:
After figuring out which recipes were the best and most wanted it wasn't hard to keep a list of all the items needed to craft it and then jack the demand up on those items, recipes, or enhancements.

Luck Charms
Alchemical Silver
... need I go on?

But the supply was always there - someone manipulating prices simply couldn't keep it up. Need a Luck Charm and the going price is too high? Put in a low bid and walk away; by the next day, that bid will have filled. Which is a distinct difference from systems like CO or WoW, where if you want something valuable for cheap... well too bad, you might get lucky if you log in at 3AM, but you'll probably just never see it.

Then if your bid doesn't fill, spend a few minutes in AE, 100 tickets should get you a luck charm or two IIRC, and I could generate 1500 tickets in a few minutes.

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Redlynne wrote:
Redlynne wrote:

oOStaticOo wrote:
After figuring out which recipes were the best and most wanted it wasn't hard to keep a list of all the items needed to craft it and then jack the demand up on those items, recipes, or enhancements.
Luck Charms
Alchemical Silver
... need I go on?

But what made these two things (and a few others) SO valuable? They dropped below lvl 25ish IIRC, a point that many players raced through. They were also valuable for the 50s tricking out their toons with lvl 27 IOs for exempting down. None of this would have been an issue if the higher-level recipes didn't use low-level salvage.

Build the crafting system so that lvl 50s only use stuff dropped at lvl 40+ and suddenly the common stuff dropped at lower levels won't be gobbled up by high-level toons.

I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...

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Comicsluvr wrote:
Comicsluvr wrote:

Redlynne wrote:
oOStaticOo wrote:
After figuring out which recipes were the best and most wanted it wasn't hard to keep a list of all the items needed to craft it and then jack the demand up on those items, recipes, or enhancements.

Luck Charms
Alchemical Silver
... need I go on?

But what made these two things (and a few others) SO valuable? They dropped below lvl 25ish IIRC, a point that many players raced through. They were also valuable for the 50s tricking out their toons with lvl 27 IOs for exempting down. None of this would have been an issue if the higher-level recipes didn't use low-level salvage.
Build the crafting system so that lvl 50s only use stuff dropped at lvl 40+ and suddenly the common stuff dropped at lower levels won't be gobbled up by high-level toons.

The reason that high level recipes required low-mid level salvage was specific to the way CoH was rolled out. I.E. the market came along after existing players had hundreds of millions of Inf to burn. The drops were at low to mid level to help spread the wealth for new players coming into the game.

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Wyvern wrote:
Wyvern wrote:

But the supply was always there - someone manipulating prices simply couldn't keep it up. Need a Luck Charm and the going price is too high? Put in a low bid and walk away; by the next day, that bid will have filled. Which is a distinct difference from systems like CO or WoW, where if you want something valuable for cheap... well too bad, you might get lucky if you log in at 3AM, but you'll probably just never see it.

The problem I have with systems with visible sale prices is that they hand the advantage to people willing to bot for valuable items to use or resell. The CoX market was 'self-botting', in the sense that it was possible to place a bid for the desired price and then go play the rest of the game, or even log off. There was very little advantage in sitting and watching the market, or getting a bot to sit and watch the market for you.

I don't like systems with a design that makes cheating advantageous, both because that it makes the game less fun for people who want to play legitimately, and because it wastes resources trying to keep on top of the cheating. Devs have better things to do with their time than try to counter market bots.

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning

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I have no problem with Sell

I have no problem with Sell orders being put out there in the slightest...

In fact, I took advantage of that with Eve Online and Guild Wars 2. If they are visible or not to the rest of the other playerbase is open to debate (its used a lot for Eve Online, but that has markets that are *not* game wide... although there are market hubs in the game (with Jita being the biggest/most well known).

I had much less luck with it in City of Heroes... about the only time i did it was when I was looking for items to flip.

Now saying that, it is possible to set the market up so that you *cannot* put an item up for less than vendor price (Guild Wars 2 does that), but that doesn't stop people putting buy orders up in Guild Wars 2 for less than vendor price... *shakes head*.

Guild Wars 2 also lets you see how many other buy orders are available and how much items are going for (and at what price points) as well.

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jag40 wrote:
jag40 wrote:

Not really. Plenty of bids stayed on there for weeks that was low bids. Some never got filled.

You're talking about very low bids for the relatively few highly-desirable items (like alchemical silver). Sure, the things that are not produced much and everyone needs lots of are not going to to for bargain-basement prices...pretty much period, in any working economy.

Your CO cites sound like items that are not infrequently produced, since you're always seeing people selling them. Different animal.

Yes, it was possible to bid low enough not to fill in COH...not sure what that shows. It was, however, almost always possible to get salvage immediately without breaking the bank, and quite cheaply if one was willing to let it sit overnight.

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Sailboat wrote:
Sailboat wrote:

jag40 wrote:
Not really. Plenty of bids stayed on there for weeks that was low bids. Some never got filled.

You're talking about very low bids for the relatively few highly-desirable items (like alchemical silver). Sure, the things that are not produced much and everyone needs lots of are not going to to for bargain-basement prices...pretty much period, in any working economy.
Your CO cites sound like items that are not infrequently produced, since you're always seeing people selling them. Different animal.
Yes, it was possible to bid low enough not to fill in COH...not sure what that shows. It was, however, almost always possible to get salvage immediately without breaking the bank, and quite cheaply if one was willing to let it sit overnight.

Actually I wasn't even thinking about the rarely produced items or alchemical silvers in particular and not talking about very low bids either. Talking about standard below the usually price bids not really super low or else that would be shooting fish in the barrel it usually end up not being filled no matter how long the wait. Most sat on the table to more than over night. But was talking in over all terms not excluding high end items or only including high end items. In mind actually the high end items only made up a few part of it.

In CO I don't think of any gear that is on the market that is not usually produced Most items I noticed and seen up to legendary gear is usually on there and can be had for cheap from time to time. In fact usually it's the upper end high priced listings that stay on there for ever due to cheaper ones being posted often.

In COX the price cant be viewed. And the history is very short and bid much lower than the price, regardless of how many on there, many times the low bid just sit there , usually definitely more than over night if it ever gets filled. Many items under bid what it is going, even with dead common salvage it's not uncommon to be waiting a week or more to fill the bid even if one placed a bid at the price it was, not too low, that it was a weeks ago even though the amount haven't fluctuated much. This means in COX availability wasn't the catch all reason of why prices went up and it wasn't only for items that sold out or wasn't many listing. Sometimes the price went up even with thousands available or even the same amount available as it was at the lower price a couple of weeks ago. But as price went up less likely and longer the wait was to get an item if a person was to place a lower bid and thus if one wanted to get the item anytime soon they had to spend high and break the bank (normal game play inf rate) to get enough common salvage and mid level and useful IOs to fill a set to 5-6. Even at the cheapest if one wanted to IO one power out, usually they ended up spending 5-9 million per IO and salvage for it at least. Sometimes 3-5 million for one common piece. For someone who play the market 20 million for one power isn't much but for a regular game player that doesn't play the market 20 million may be significant for one power and well into breaking the bank, unless once again, funneled into playing the market. No choice.

But of course play the market to win if they want the item is not an illogical argument for the market but that same argument can be used for anything including pay to win. Many people that like pay to win don't understand why people fuss about it so much because in their eyes they have the same logic as the pro market people have. "If people want the goods, they just pay for it and no option should be available.." Just as pro market think that if people want the goods, they must play the market and no other option should be available.

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jag40 wrote:
jag40 wrote:

Actually I wasn't even thinking about the rarely produced items or alchemical silvers in particular and not talking about very low bids either. Talking about standard below the usually price bids not really super low or else that would be shooting fish in the barrel it usually end up not being filled no matter how long the wait. Most sat on the table to more than over night. But was talking in over all terms not excluding high end items or only including high end items

I guess I don't understand what you're saying at all, then. The terms "low bid" and " not really super low" are somewhat subjective. You seem to me to be saying that it was possible to place a bid significantly lower than what a desirable item usually sold for, and find that the bid did not fill. That seems to me to be exactly, perfectly what one would expect. Those items were of course selling, but to higher bidders -- and in the COH blind-bid market, if the seller priced it for ONE influence, it still wouldn't sell to your lowest bid -- someone else bidding higher would get it.

Is your beef with other buyers paying a standard market rate, not sellers setting a price too high as you've been saying?

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Sailboat wrote:
Sailboat wrote:

jag40 wrote:
Actually I wasn't even thinking about the rarely produced items or alchemical silvers in particular and not talking about very low bids either. Talking about standard below the usually price bids not really super low or else that would be shooting fish in the barrel it usually end up not being filled no matter how long the wait. Most sat on the table to more than over night. But was talking in over all terms not excluding high end items or only including high end items
I guess I don't understand what you're saying at all, then. The terms "low bid" and " not really super low" are somewhat subjective. You seem to me to be saying that it was possible to place a bid significantly lower than what a desirable item usually sold for, and find that the bid did not fill. That seems to me to be exactly, perfectly what one would expect. Those items were of course selling, but to higher bidders -- and in the COH blind-bid market, if the seller priced it for ONE influence, it still wouldn't sell to your lowest bid -- someone else bidding higher would get it.
Is your beef with other buyers paying a standard market rate, not sellers setting a price too high as you've been saying?

I was originally replying to someone that said
"Put in a low bid and walk away; by the next day, that bid will have filled."

And I'm saying low bidding, that is not true. Usually it don't get filled especially in a day, And as you said and the reason you just explained, that is a reasons why placing a low bid usually result in a lot of waiting and chances of it not getting filled. And when I said low, you assumed I meant very low so I added not really super low. And yeah, how low? Usually less than the going rate, it wouldn't getting filled over night in most cases, When it gets significantly lower likes chance of it getting filled at all, thus , things really cant be done "cheaply" as it have been spouted about, "Yeah place low bid and come back next day and it will be there.? Riiiight. Many times trying to d o it cheaply and under bid resulted in waiting for the item to be filled and it never get filled, as you said, that is what one should expect placing a low bid and of course it happened that way usually.

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jag40 wrote:
jag40 wrote:

I was originally replying to someone that said
"Put in a low bid and walk away; by the next day, that bid will have filled."

hm, yeah, I guess you can't really dispute Wyvern's account meaningfully until he defines what he had meant by "low bid". When I had read...

Wyvern wrote:

But the supply was always there - someone manipulating prices simply couldn't keep it up. Need a Luck Charm and the going price is too high? Put in a low bid and walk away; by the next day, that bid will have filled.

...I interpreted him to be describing the thing I usually did, which was to look at the current Luck Charm price and think, "hmmm... I think that is high since I think I have seen that going as low as X before, I'll put in some bids at X and walk away". In a case like that, yeah, by the next day, the bid would get filled. So, I was reading "low bid" there as just in the context of the current price. I may have been interpreting Wyvern incorrectly, though.

The only part of doing that which bugged me in CoH was that my head is not oriented toward memorizing or recording prices for a bunch of stuff, so that made knowing X a pain. I would have been much happier if CoH had shown a little vector graph that indicated the sell price for the item over the past week, as opposed to just listing the sort-of-last-5-trades deal it had used.

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Wanders wrote:
Wanders wrote:

jag40 wrote:
I was originally replying to someone that said
"Put in a low bid and walk away; by the next day, that bid will have filled."

hm, yeah, I guess you can't really dispute Wyvern's account meaningfully until he defines what he had meant by "low bid".

Yeah. jag40, sounds like you're talking about an inconsequentially low bid. Yeah, those usually will fail, which is entirely appropriate. Any new market system should be designed to make sure that trivialities like that usually fail. Carry on.

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Sailboat wrote:
Sailboat wrote:

Wanders wrote:
jag40 wrote:
I was originally replying to someone that said
"Put in a low bid and walk away; by the next day, that bid will have filled."

hm, yeah, I guess you can't really dispute Wyvern's account meaningfully until he defines what he had meant by "low bid".
Yeah. jag40, sounds like you're talking about an inconsequentially low bid. Yeah, those usually will fail, which is entirely appropriate. Any new market system should be designed to make sure that trivialities like that usually fail. Carry on.

Hopefully this will clear it up. I'm talking about low bid, it is vague, and can mean anything from 1 inf below current price down to 1 inf bid. But I was talking about more in the middle say like thye see something that is high priced in the past five bid sells. They remember abou a few days ago it was at a certain price. They put in that price. Although the amount available havent changed aka supply and thus the price they can get is like the one where it was last seen it. So they enter taht amount. Low bid. Then it sits on the market unfulfilled or as I said in some cases dont get filled anytime soon. Especially if the price continues to go upward in trend or prices dont drop. Thisi s especially true for mid level items where usually the price is low enough that people with billions simply buy it outright just to get it immediately insteado of trying to wait. And given that the past five bids are viewed, and when people buy multiple of the items, people start to list and buy that item at the new set past histroy price and thus the low bid still sits until in some cases it actually do become an inconsequentially low bid even though it didnt start that way when the bid was placed.

AKA bidding low doesnt always work even when waiting overnight and a person can and have many times found out that the order havent been filed even after waiting for a few days.

Of course very very low bids will sit forever usually that is a given and thus not what I was talking about.

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In the early days of the

In the early days of the market, you could put very low bids in and they would fill, that disappeared when the flippers moved in. A friend of mine who was impecunious but patient managed to acquire all 3 of the healing set specials and still have change out of 6M for example.

You could often but by no means always pick up stuff that had got really expensive for bids of around 2/3 of the display price for highish volume items like alchemical silver.

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Minotaur wrote:
Minotaur wrote:

In the early days of the market, you could put very low bids in and they would fill, that disappeared when the flippers moved in. A friend of mine who was impecunious but patient managed to acquire all 3 of the healing set specials and still have change out of 6M for example.

If you were willing to be long-term patient , bid outside from the levels at which most of the turnover happened, and look at recipes and crafted IOs, things could be bought well below going rate even after the market had developed. I still think overall it was probably a bad thing to have single-level increments for set IO, but it was good for bargain shopping.

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning

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I'd also like to vote to keep

I'd also like to vote to keep different currencies. There were different aspects of the game, they should have different rewards. It promotes longevity - you need three heal IOs, you can do a TF and take merits, three or four days of that will get you an IO. To get all 3 would take 9-12 days.. that's a lot.
So you can do dailies which give you credits. Three or four days of that will get you enough to pick up a second heal IO.
Then there tickets from another activity. Three or four days of that would get you the last one.

I appreciate the complaint about the number of currencies but in CoX they were distinct. It's when you can exchange them for each other with differing exchange rates that it gets out of hand as you have to have an economics degree to figure out what is the "best" way to obtain your three heal IOS.

If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
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GH wrote:
GH wrote:

I'd also like to vote to keep different currencies. There were different aspects of the game, they should have different rewards. It promotes longevity - you need three heal IOs, you can do a TF and take merits, three or four days of that will get you an IO. To get all 3 would take 9-12 days.. that's a lot.
So you can do dailies which give you credits. Three or four days of that will get you enough to pick up a second heal IO.
Then there tickets from another activity. Three or four days of that would get you the last one.
I appreciate the complaint about the number of currencies but in CoX they were distinct. It's when you can exchange them for each other with differing exchange rates that it gets out of hand as you have to have an economics degree to figure out what is the "best" way to obtain your three heal IOS.

I expressed a similar sentiment, either in this thread or another one.

And I'm all over that. If I can play the game and earn what I want to earn w/o touching a PvP marketplace I'm ecstatic.

Given a non-PvP marketplace where I can funnel some Inf to another player in return for something that's of no use to them, I'm happy to participate in the market. And still wouldn't mind having alternate ways to earn stuff while just playing the game.

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My thoughts on gear is to

My thoughts on gear is to only trade it to people in my social hub (friends, and SG mates).

I tend to think the idea of lair only elite gear is good. People hate to hear it but I love being rewarded for doing something great by something completely rare.. especially if it's something I that has a chance of fitting my character concept perfectly. Nothing makes me feel better than getting that PERFECT piece of gear. It doesn't have to be that much better than others.. but the psychological effect is enough.

Nothing makes me feel cheaper than when it's in the auction house for chump change .. I don't know what I'm saying here but don't want you to take away my high

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perfect is so subjective, how

perfect is so subjective, how would you even achieve that in a reward system?
And if everything is "perfect" how do you make any in-game cash?
You NEED that vendor trash, that unusual, maybe rare, possibly worth a bit more to someone else item that you can stick on the AH.

The high in CoX was the whole build, a badge, getting your base just right, earning enough merits to do something, knocking off a TF or 4 with your SG or friends or even getting that horribad Pug up the hill of lag. The actual reward never matched the effort you put in, how could it measure that metric?

If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev

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syntaxerror37 wrote:
syntaxerror37 wrote:

grouchybeast wrote:
And then it was possible to get involved in buying and selling and crafting at various levels, to have fun and make inf. Yes, using the market to its fullest required the investment of some time and thought, but that's true of any part of an MMO. If you wanted to reach the inf cap in five days on the market, then you had to understand it, much like if you wanted to solo +5/x8 spawns you needed to understand defense and DPS.

Although I liked this post in it's entirety, I really wanted to highlight this part. I would always hear a certain portion of the community in essence whining about "evil marketers" or on how causal players will never see the huge piles of Inf necessary to buy the high ticket items on the market. What it broke down to was they didn't want to invest the time into the system. That of course was their choice, but they had no right to complain that because other players did invest in the system and were rewarded for doing so.

Hrm.
Pretty sure there were a handful of people flipping Luck Charms and so on for a while and I know @Bronx and @WebChambers accumulated so much stuff (low-level LOTGs and Miracles) from running Tarikoss that they dripped in level 10 Miracle Procs to ambush people placing fake bids of 2,000,000,000 inf as placeholders for unlikely items. Bronx was "running the villain economy", he jokingly said, because they'd farmed so much stuff they could basically just leak it into the market...and I saw their base stash, it was pretty nuts.

There was plenty of market manipulation. When you need to track the market for weeks to see trends so you don't lose your shirt, meh. Now, I made plenty of money off it, mostly by just undercutting people and using price extensions (I'd list/buy at XX8,675,309 Jenny likes to market dontcha know) but it was annoying that ingame stuff (the MM farm exploit) would cause a massive spike in prices and so on.

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wait.

wait.

why should smart people be punished for using their brain in a side option? noone has to use the market. noone.

socialism sucks. and competition is great. and removing the market kills what some consider to be their reason for buying the game. crafters, and market people are not there to give you stuff. or store spares for everyone. nope.

What a man thinks of himself, that is what determines, or rather indicates, his fate. - Henry David Thoreau

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To sum it up fairly simply:

To sum it up fairly simply: the market was designed to have certain properties, and it did. That is fundamentally unrelated to the fact that the economy had hyperinflation problems (it did) or that someone spending twenty to forty times as much time in the game was going to have a very sizable position from which to work the market. Whether market manipulation is even a bad thing, per se, is really not the right question to be asking (because it is, or it isn't, depending on your goals).

There are a number of ideas regarding the market, and the economy in general, floating around. About all I can offer you right now is the statement that both of them are in fact subject to being consciously *designed*, by people with relevant skills at levels ranging from what might be termed 'semi-pro' up through 'senior professional' levels. I can't promise that the choices will be the "right" ones; even if they are, it is pretty much demonstrable that there is no single option (or even small set of options) that will actively please everyone, or even a large majority of folks. Instead, we're shooting for something that is *acceptable* to as broad a base as we can reasonably manage without sacrificing what makes it fun to the devotees, while also trying to arrange for there to be other options for those that *don't* want to play a PvP market.

Remember, the rule of thumb is "There should never be anything that is 'gated' behind a particular style of play" (barring things that are truly and fundamentally only *relevant* to that style of play in the first place; for example, market slots are almost purely relevant to market-play, although if someone can come up with a good argument why they aren't then I will stand corrected in that statement). That doesn't mean market PvP shouldn't exist; it was way too big a deal as one of the meta-games for us to ignore, at least in my personal opinion. However, that doesn't mean that we should just toss it out there in the wilds and not monitor the impact it will invariably have on other meta-games. And even the first iteration of it, so far as any current plans envision it, will have some features that are either uncommon to find, or possibly unique, in order to try to address some of the places where the old system did have negative results. Which is to say, it was pretty darn good — I've written extensively about that, and the causes for it, elsewhere. But it wasn't perfect. Ours won't be either, but when you've got giants handy, standing on their shoulders is often a good place to start.


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Purely personal opinion: I

Purely personal opinion: I have watched trade-spam absolutely *destroy* public channels that were previously useful, even when trade channels existed. Since most channels will presumably be under the aegis of players (nothing new here), it would be up to the channel owners to decide what was or was not appropriate on those channels and enforce that. For the handful of public channels? Apart from possibly having a couple that are specifically *for* trading of various sorts, which makes perfect sense, it damn well *should* be forbidden on the other 'core' channels, simply to avoid the otherwise inevitable tragedy of the commons. In fact, I'm pretty sure that you'll have a hard time finding a better example of what that phrase means without it involving sheep and a grazing area.

Note that trade-spam is by no means the only thing that can have this problem, it just happens to be a particularly strongly driven offender with a direct and obvious profit motive. My personal preference is generally that when a topic starts to become overwhelming for a channel -- even one where it is topical -- it is a good time to consider splitting off a separate area for discussion of whatever is involved, unless it is expected to be short-lived enough (in which case just mitigating the flood is a better answer).

That said, my experience is also that the main thing that appeared to drive the sudden increase of trade-spam was a dramatic collapse in the usability of the market system in the game in question (for a variety of reasons). Give folks a place to market that isn't actively hostile to reasonable marketing needs and allows buyers and sellers to find each other and match prices in ways that are clearly better than spending your time trying to out-spam everyone *else* who is spamming about their goods-for-sale, and the intelligent ones will take advantage of that. There are a variety of factors involved in making that true, but in the end, having a functional market (for sufficiently broad values of 'functional'; see also the previous post) is a pretty-near-universal benefit across the entire game.

Again, all of this is purely personal observation and opinion; I have no particular information on what may or may not end up happening about this in a policy sense.


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DeathSheepFromHell wrote:
DeathSheepFromHell wrote:

In fact, I'm pretty sure that you'll have a hard time finding a better example of what that phrase means without it involving sheep and a grazing area.

OK, DSFH, fess up. What grazing area did you eat down to the ground? ^_^

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I am a one-sheep roving

I am a one-sheep roving tragedy; there is nothing common about me.


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Foradain wrote:
Foradain wrote:

OK, DSFH, fess up. What grazing area did you eat down to the ground? ^_^

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I loathed the market in CoH/V

I loathed the market in CoH/V, and to this day mourn the day that it appeared. Eventually, I was able to hold my nose firmly enough to purple out my main and acquire nice gear for various other characters, but I will never view a market in a supers game as anything better than a necessary evil. Here's hoping that CoT will provide a path to ultimate enhancement that does not involve the market.

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.

CallmeBlue
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I have considered how best to

I have considered how best to explain my position against auction houses and "markets" in MMOs. Basically, it seems to me that people mistake in-game markets for real-world markets. In the real world, markets do serve as a means of redistributing scarce resources, but they also serve as a way to gauge demand for innovative services or improved products. If something new sells well, then the associated industry gains backing to expand its production base, making the economic "pie" bigger for everyone ultimately.

In a game, itemization is necessarily fixed, so players are not able to create new products or services. In MMOs, typically they acquire goods, and thus create wealth, by completing missions and defeating foes. Farming is not qualitatively different, but merely accelerates this process. Thus, farming is the activity that builds wealth most quickly among the player base.

Once wealth is created by defeating foes and completing missions, all further transactions with it do nothing to expand the economic pie. Therefore, deals made at the "market house" are necessarily zero sum; it is not possible to become richer this way without making someone else, or more typically a large group of someone elses, poorer.

This economic exploitation has not received as much opposition as might be expected for three reasons. First, many people understandably care less about what goes on in a game than what happens in real life, and prefer to spend their time doing something other than complaining. Second, many people play MMOs to beat on the bad guys, and interact with the "market" in very rudimentary ways. These are the sorts of people who used to put all their drops on the "market" for 1 INF. As hard as it may be to believe, I knew people like that. Third, MMOs have a certain amount of player turnover. Someone who plays for a month and then leaves for outside reasons will hardly care afterward about being burned at the "market house."

However, my view is that exploitation simply isn't right, regardless of whether or not the exploited complain. I am willing to get my hands dirty this way if I have no other practical means to advance my characters, but it certainly takes much of the fun out of the game for me. Historically, I got to love CoH/V the most once my characters were all geared out and I could focus on enjoying the missions for themselves. I understand that some people feel differently, which is why I advocate implementing several different paths to character completion in CoT.

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.

Comicsluvr
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Thank you Blue for stating

Thank you Blue for stating what I used to holler about in the CoX forums all the time.

In the real world, if the demand for bread goes up a little the bread people make a little more. If the demand goes up a lot and stays there investors will open more bread factories to get a share of the market. We do not have the option of simply increasing production in CoT. Oh wait...we did...it was called the AE. If I didn't want to pay 50k for Alc silver at the AH I'd go across the street, play a few missions at the AE and get tickets. I'd trade those for Alc Silver or whatever I needed. Then the surplus went on the AH for 10% less of the going rate to undercut the flippers and generally make them mad.

But now I was out of circulation. I was in the AE instead of doing missions with teams. As the AE became more popular it became tougher and tougher to find teams. The high-pop servers didn't notice as much but the mid and low-pop servers seemed to dry up entirely. All because some gonk decided to charge 50k for the Alc Silver that my level 28 guy needed but couldn't get honestly because Alc Silver stopped dropping at level 25.

Any discussion about the AH HAS to include the Crafting system since the one drives the other. I firmly believe, and have seen no evidence to dispute, that one of the biggest problems with Crafting was that the 50s had to play in the little kid's pool part of the time. Your lvl 50 monstrosity just got his lvl 27 recipe of Goodness (which is useless really) but has this great Proc you REALLY need. The recipe calls for 6 items, three of which haven't dropped for you since Christ was in diapers. So you go to the AH to buy them. 50k? No problem...I make MILLIONS every mission! Plunk...you drop the cash because you JUST got this recipe and want it NOW.

Meanwhile the new player who JUST got his first really cool and useful recipe and needs three Common components for it can't craft it because he doesn't have a hundred grand to spend. These are the players I'm concerned with. Many players never got past lvl 30 with their characters. That means more time spent at low levels than many of us knew or would believe. EVERYONE races to the end right? No...as a matter of fact they don't. Yet these same players, who were in the majority IIRC, were at times shut out of Crafting because they couldn't afford to buy the one piece of stuff that just never seemed to drop for them.

Every item or tier of item (1-10, 11-20 etc) should ONLY use stuff that drops for that level. A lvl 50 should NEVER have to get into a bidding war (that they're sure to win) with a new player over something for their lvl 15 toon. It's like me trying to buy the same car as Warren Buffet. He likes HIS cars while I afford mine. The one really has NO effect on the other.

If two 50s or marketeers want to struggle over the same stack of items they should be able to. However there should be an alternate way to keep the more casual players in the game without a Mission Architect that takes them out of circulation.

I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...

CallmeBlue
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One point that I may not have

One point that I may not have made clear is the nature of the biggest difference between real markets and MMO "markets." In the real world, two of the main ways that companies build market share are as follow:

1) By generating brand loyalty, through some combination of marketing and superior product quality. Well, an anonymous user interface prevents brand loyalty. More importantly, it is not possible to improve the quality of loot or crafted items incrementally. A level-20 Accuracy IO is completely generic. Even an uber-rare crafted item is still generic, in the sense that there is no way to add a little bit more value to one, since they are all exactly alike.

This takes us to the next point...

2) Product innovation. With itemization fixed, there is no way to add 20% MORE CONCENTRATED POW to your level-20 accuracy IO. Not even 2%. Not even 0.000002%. No better mouse traps, either. A player can't create any new items at all, much less entire new industries. Thus, the economic pie can never grow beyond the sum of currency and loot accumulated by completing missions and defeating enemies.

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.

Neuronia
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On a way to get around the

On a way to get around the whole market angst would be simply to make a consignment house, with globals attached to each item so you know who you are buying from.

@XxxBeerBrandxxX is selling a Miracle + Recovery for X? Sure, I teamed with them so I'll give them my money.
@ForumTroll is selling the same Miracle + Recovery for Y? Eh, I'll pass.

And after X days, if the item isn't sold it returns to your inventory.

Champions Online market is kinda interesting. When I got a super rare drop I searched for the item, saw prices were very high so I listed for 40% less (800G) and got a sale instantly. I used that 800G to buy other items off players which I re-sold on the market and made more G. But the cool thing is when I did sell it told me the username of the buyer, so I could get in touch with them if they wanted more stuff.

If you remove "anonymity" (We're all anyonnymous to a point) people might feel more comfortable and it might have the benefit/side effect of creating "side pvp" as people know you're undercutting them and such.

Overall the market should definitely exist, as long as there are vendors that allow us to get the items.
Just as an example of this, my friend HATED the market, even though I explained to him how to get tons of inf and how to get items cheaply through patience. It was always "The marketers are making me pay so much for purples..." and I'd go "So place a bid for X,000,000 less and wait a few weeks...you might get it. Meanwhile I was farming and selling and storing and re-selling and had billions upon billions, heh.

I think when CoH closed I had 25 billion liquid along with a table of "Mind Dominator" IOs (All the sleep, holds, immob purples 10 of each) the other table of low level LOTG 7.5s and the other table of Hami-Os. Fun stuff.
Still a drop in the water to the hardcore marketers but that was never my goal, I just wanted my vg to always have all the LOTG 7.5s and purples they needed for builds, and we had that. :)

Oh, have stuff tradeable cross-faction please!

Gangrel
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Comicsluvr wrote:
Comicsluvr wrote:

Every item or tier of item (1-10, 11-20 etc) should ONLY use stuff that drops for that level. A lvl 50 should NEVER have to get into a bidding war (that they're sure to win) with a new player over something for their lvl 15 toon. It's like me trying to buy the same car as Warren Buffet. He likes HIS cars while I afford mine. The one really has NO effect on the other.

This is why I preferred the crafting/gathering systems in other MMO's compared to City of Heroes. I want X component? I go to Y zone and kill B Mobs and gather them that way... I might be able to gather them faster than a low level person in that zone, but in general I am going to be gathering those for myself or to sell on the market. I am NOT prevented from gathering from a group just because "they are all grey to me"...

Hell, when I play Wildstar/World of Warcraft, I generally spend some time doing low level zones gathering stuff/killing mobs (not kill stealing from low levels though...) by myself to then sell/give to lower level characters (either my own, alts of friends, or just newbies who shout for it in the area). But because I am not needing those materials from level 10 mobs just to make my "Level 200 item of doom". it means that somehow I have to find a way to recirculate it into the system.

In City of Heroes, I found it harder to get some materials because I hated the AE (crap search mechanism, and so many of them were lousy for my controller to run through easily, I ended making an alt *specifically* for AE farming; which was something I didn't want to do)., and sometimes the AH was just overpriced.

Sometimes I just wanted to be able to go into a low level zone and be able to farm the open world mobs for drops... which you couldn't do unless they were not grey to you....

Quote:

1) I reject your reality.... and substitute my own
2) Not to be used when upset... will void warranty
3) Stoke me a clipper i will be back for dinner
4) I have seen more intelligence from an NPC AI in TR beta, than from most MMO players.

syntaxerror37
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Gangrel wrote:
Gangrel wrote:

Sometimes I just wanted to be able to go into a low level zone and be able to farm the open world mobs for drops... which you couldn't do unless they were not grey to you....

I am so tired of hearing this argument. There was a simple solution in CoX, Oroborus. That is how I farmed low and mid range common salvage. Some times I wouldn't even do the actual mission and would instead just street sweep a zone where I would now get drops. For example, if I needed mid-range magical salvage I would take Skipper LaGrange's arc and just farm the Red River section of Croatoa for grey & green Tuntha. Anyone who used AE tickets to roll for common salvage was wasting them in my opinion.

-----------------------------------------
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The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame

Gangrel
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syntaxerror37 wrote:
syntaxerror37 wrote:

Gangrel wrote:
Sometimes I just wanted to be able to go into a low level zone and be able to farm the open world mobs for drops... which you couldn't do unless they were not grey to you....

I am so tired of hearing this argument. There was a simple solution in CoX, Oroborus. That is how I farmed low and mid range common salvage. Some times I wouldn't even do the actual mission and would instead just street sweep a zone where I would now get drops. For example, if I needed mid-range magical salvage I would take Skipper LaGrange's arc and just farm the Red River section of Croatoa for grey & green Tuntha. Anyone who used AE tickets to roll for common salvage was wasting them in my opinion.

Ah yes, the good old "fall back" that also had other limitations on top of it. You couldn't invite others to your team when you were part way through it. You had to quit out of Taskforce mode, and then invite the player, and then go back to oroborus, and then back again. A process that some people would complain about. And at one point in time, not all characters were necessarily able to do it at the "lower levels" easily. I know that on my fire/emp controller I had issues in the lower levels. But once past 32? Not so much of a problem.

Yes, there was a work around for it. But that is *exactly* what it was. A work around.

If you really want to get down to it, you could just "stop XP" on your character as well so that you could leave them level locked and able to farm mobs. So that was another method. Sure, it stopped you from experiencing other content, but if you wanted to do it, you could do it.

So whilst there were methods to do it, I am talking about in general terms... without having to do anything "special" to get it.

And so as a result was it then fair to say that the AE route as well was "normal" to get the salvage that you had missed? Was it fair to say that there were NOT problems with the drop rates in City of Heroes. I know that quite a few people around (on this forum and others) said that they used the AE as a more stable route of being able to farm the drops.

Why should I have to effectively *prevent* myself from teaming with others just so I can go and farm drops in missions. I could also run AE arcs. But I don't see people saying that this was also a good way to do it. The demand for it seemed to outstrip supply by a large margin, which explains the higher cost for them... unless of course alchemical silver really did have a screwed up drop rate.

But as you said, there was an alternative method to do it. But it is one that you say is "wasting your time".

So why should I have to waste my time using a mechanism that seemed to be setup to allow you to run "old content" (and badges)... I had to look up on the wiki for what story line missions gave which mobs.... I knew which mobs dropped X/Y/Z in general, so why should I have to do something special to get them to drop stuff for me?

And yes, but special I mean "go to another place to put myself into the level range for the mobs so that I could hunt them".

Sure, it *kind* of made sense in the game, but you also have to remember that Oroborus was NOT in the game when the invention/salvage system was implemented. It took them a couple of years to fix THAT problem.

And so for the CoT developers to get this fixed at the *start* they would also need to resolve this problem, in one fashion or another.

Most players out there (non CoX players) do not expect you to be able to "out level" contacts (in that they don't talk to you anymore), or that mobs no longer drop loot when you kill them.

Hell, even single player games don't really pull this stunt.

City of Heroes was unique. But not necessarily unique in a good way for this case.

Quote:

1) I reject your reality.... and substitute my own
2) Not to be used when upset... will void warranty
3) Stoke me a clipper i will be back for dinner
4) I have seen more intelligence from an NPC AI in TR beta, than from most MMO players.

Segev
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The problem of hunting for

The problem of hunting for specific goods to meet increased demand is one I've considered, and the proposed solution lies in having the various NPC vendors playing the market, themselves. They have some skewed preferences relating to their favored themes, not the least of which include items exclusive to their own shops. However, these items are not limitless in supply. They get them through various in-game processes, based partially on the success of the faction(s) with which they're affiliated in the game at the time.

Moreover, when they notice something has gotten up to a point they'd love to sell it but don't have any of it to sell, they will spawn missions for players to go on. These missions will reward either the item in question or the ingredients towards making it, and will also spawn the item in some quantity (possibly over time) in the vendor's inventory. Which the vendor will sell both on the market and in his store (at market-based prices).

I will consider deeper mechanics than this, but it's a first-order approach to helping resolve some of it. If items spike high on the market, new means of acquiring/producing them will become available through normal gameplay channels. This will not be so huge as to flatline the value of all items, but it should be able to keep things from becoming "market-cornering" elements.

Business Manager

Fireheart
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Segev
Segev wrote:

...When they notice something has gotten up to a point they'd love to sell it but don't have any of it to sell, they will spawn missions for players to go on.

That's a great solution! They could even, blatantly, ask PCs to visit a particular 'source' and collect 'wanted item x' from them. 'Defeat and Gather' may not be the most popular mission form, but it's a well-known one.

Vendors might even compete against each other in both 'goods on offer' and 'missions on offer' scales.

Be Well!
Fireheart

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