My experiments with the economy

[Winternight]

This is probably one of the most interesting threads I've read so far. Kudos.

I've done a little bit of experimenting myself and I must say that controlling the market is extremely difficult.

First, you cannot be on that many hours to be sure you control all supply and pricing.

2nd, you cannot control supply. There's a lot of stuff out there and once in a while, I've seen an item that seems rare suddenly gain a whole bunch of supply that someone wants to get rid of or when suppliers think the pricing is right. Morever, it's usually not a single item since players can use alternative items. You must control those as well. When a particular pink is too expensive, you will see corresponding pinks and purples, and sometimes greens, gain value as well, as some people figure out they do not need that super expensive item (yet).

Third, changes in the game will change your market. So when players are rebalanced or when the new Balefort stuff went in.

I think affecting the market is possible in limited circumstances, but you can also lose a lot of money trying

It could certainly be possible with a large group of people (maybe 5-6) all working to increase the price of a single item. Once they have acquired nearly all of that item the price that it can be sold for is completely up to them. Essentially, you are creating a monopoly.