Auction house monopolies...??

[Arterra]

I fear these. in another game, i pretty much had a monopoly on a certain item, so that I bought up all those below my price and sold them for higher. I had the monies, so I could.
WHAT could stop a monopoly like that in this game?? I bet if some really rich dude got smart he could buy up all the new AO3 drops and sell them for crazy prices.
:( :( :(


EDIT: THE Antitrus Banhammaer of Fair Trade!
http://i902.photobucket.com/albums/ac221/yuyuhakushi/antitrusthammer.jpg

[Royce]

Weird, I was just thinking about this possibility the other day. I was saying to myself, why on earth do people want tons of gold. However, if you have the buying power, you could literally buy up all of certain item types when they appear in the auction house, control supply, and set your own ridiculous prices. Of course in the end, all you get is more fake money, and I'm still not sure what good that is, but people seem to like having it. Anyway, simplest solution I can think of is place a cap on how many auction hous transaction s a given account can take part in (or at least a cap on buying) per day, or something like that.

[Arterra]

Weird, I was just thinking about this possibility the other day. I was saying to myself, why on earth do people want tons of gold. However, if you have the buying power, you could literally buy up all of certain item types when they appear in the auction house, control supply, and set your own ridiculous prices. Of course in the end, all you get is more fake money, and I'm still not sure what good that is, but people seem to like having it. Anyway, simplest solution I can think of is place a cap on how many auction hous transaction s a given account can take part in (or at least a cap on buying) per day, or something like that.

= new accounts being made JUST for buying.

edit: also capps in general just seem limiting those players with real lives lol.

editedit: JustG will need a new banhammer: the Antitrust Hammah of fair trade!

editeditedit: someone post me a laquint troll pic... i wanna make a hammer with photoshop :P

[Royce]

= new accounts being made JUST for buying.

edit: also capps in general just seem limiting those players with real lives lol.

If you make a new account, you have to have 2 devices or a friend to transfer the gold every time you want to do it, so it would still be a significant impediment. Also, if the buying limit was like 10 items per day, how would normal people be affected? Just get what you need today, buy other stuff tomorrow...

[flaimdude]

That's how a real in-game economy works, because that's how (in real life) the economy works. If somebody can make tons of gold off of one item, more power to them.

[Royce]

That's how a real in-game economy works, because that's how (in real life) the economy works. If somebody can make tons of gold off of one item, more power to them.

Actually there are laws in real life to prevent monopolies and price fixing ;)

[flaimdude]

Actually there are laws in real life to prevent monopolies and price fixing ;)

Well obviously, because we have government. ;) But you think that Google doesn't make a crapton of money because it's the most used search engine? I think not.

[Arterra]

http://i902.photobucket.com/albums/ac221/yuyuhakushi/antitrusthammer.jpg

[Arterra]

Well obviously, because we have government. ;) But you think that Google doesn't make a crapton of money because it's the most used search engine? I think not.

but there are others, and actually used a lot. China actually has a browser more popular than google.cn

[Royce]

but there are others, and actually used a lot. China actually has a browser more popular than google.cn

True. Clusty ftw! Edit: Whoops forgot it's Yippy now. Anyway, google is certainly not a monopoly. And though monopolies can exist, the point is we are inclined to oppose them. Why not do the same in PL?

[Arterra]

It's about time we set the hounds on those rich scammers that enjoy their monies like a vampire does blood...

[Royce]

It's about time we set the hounds on those rich scammers that enjoy their monies like a vampire does blood...

I'd lmao if STS just decided to limit gold per account to like 1 million, and just yanked the rest on some patch. It will never happen, but I would love to see it :D
(and yes I'd lose some money but don't really care)

[Gaabob]

Or... You can't buy more than two or three of the same item in a day, and you can't sell more than two or three of that item in one day(or can only have 2 or 3 of that item in the house at a time). This would make monopoly very hard to do, and very tedious if using more than one account.

Also just be sure to report any suspicious monopolizing- if support is given the ability to deal with it, the players can police themselves with the support FBI.

[Pleasure_Pirate]

I agree with Gaabob, you have no reason to buy more than one of each item other than to merch it, do placing a cap per specific item should prevent this.

[vulgarstrike]

thats incredibly stupid. some people would like to make money to buy other things, and we need a free market for that. I definately buy more sometimes, because I am reselling for a profit. I am not scamming anyone, nor am I doing anything dirty, it is an honest trade. Honestly, I say let the free market run.

[flaimdude]

FREE MARKET WOOHOO.

But srsly, in a completely free market, if people can make monopolies, they can keep them. It's probably just the capitalist in me but I'm ok with that in-game.

[FluffNStuff]

Buying to sell in this game can be extremely risky because of the swings. Consider when a new item is released:
First person to get it sells for a fortune.
People see that fortune and over farm the item.
Prices drop extremely fast.

And consider the fact that no item is unique, so 'buying them all up' is near impossible. People will just farm more and the person who thought they controlled the marked will end up broke. Just ask Joshua Norton, the Emperor of the United States and the Protector of Mexico.

[Vyvin]

It called merching get with it... U buy low sell high that's how it's works and will always work...
Speaking of which sold red scarab Osiris for 70 made a 20k profit!
/Vyvin

[Arterra]

So this has fallen into a argument of whether to implement a completely free market system with no constraints (and run the risk of monopolization, if not of a individual then of a Guild) or a limited trade system in which you cannot be allowed to distribute or collect too much of one item (at least via auction house. if you loot it or do a secure trade then on your own)
even if there isn't a monopoly of a individual or group, there could be talks of keeping the price at a certain point. I think that current prices are sort of arbitrary decisions based on rarity, and the only reason they sell so well is because all people can focus on is obtaining the rarest things... when the auction house opens, the true rarity of a item may shine thru, but prices will still be set based on a personal opinion of what it is worth instead of true value (scarcity and usefulness)
i do not know if i made sense lool...

I THINK we should just let things run as they will for a while, then make decisions on what is what.

[vulgarstrike]

makes sense. kudos to you

[Arterra]

makes sense. kudos to you

SWEET! i am A-cing my econ test...

[Duke]

I doubt there will be much to worry about. The items ae not limited in supply -- if a "monopoly" drives up the price too high, people will simply farm the items themselves, or execute trades outside the auction house for less than the "going rate". Also, as previously noted, item values have limited lifespans due to the introduction of newer items.

[Arterra]

I doubt there will be much to worry about. The items ae not limited in supply -- if a "monopoly" drives up the price too high, people will simply farm the items themselves, or execute trades outside the auction house for less than the "going rate". Also, as previously noted, item values have limited lifespans due to the introduction of newer items.

the reason of the auction house is to capitalize on selling to everyone as a whole. while you can just use trade, u will be limiting yourself...

[Chickdigcookies]

farm loot> buy loot

omg, i solved the crisis.

[Galois]

I wonder if there will really be such an issue. This game is different from other MMOs I've played in that there really isn't a restriction on how many times someone can farm for an item other than time. For example, when I played Final Fantasy XI, monopolies on items existed (earlier on in the game this was more of a problem; later on SE changed this by making some items bind to characters) because an item dropped from a monster that spawned every 21-24 hours, and even then the item was a random drop. There, people could just camp the monster each day, use somewhat questionable methods to claim it, and dominate the flow of an item. There's no such constraint in PL.

Granted, valuable drops are not frequent by any means, but there is nothing stopping someone from running a dungeon as many times as they please except for the time they want to devote.

[FluffNStuff]

Earlier when I posted I mentioned Emperor Norton so I figured I would expand on that. Emperor Norton was a real person living in the mid 1800's in San Francisco who went insane and declared himself emperor. He really is a fascinating person, so you should read about his insane period, but what is relevant to this topic is what happened to him to drive him insane. He was an investor, and when China shut off its rice exportation to the United States, he found an opportunity to corner the market and create a monopoly by buying the only ship with rice. This did cause the price of rice to spike, but he was not able to sell before two more boat loads of rice arrived from Peru. This caused a flood in the market, the price of rice dropped way below what he bought it for and he went bankrupt.
So what does this mean for the economy of Pocket Legends? To really create a monopoly and dictate prices, you need to control BOTH the supply AND the SOURCE. Consider the Zuraz Shock Lance. To create a monopoly, you would first go around and buy up the current supply. But of course people could farm more, so you would need to 'buy the rights' to AO2:4 so that any new shock lances that drop are yours. Considering STS would step in and block any deal you might have made with Z'moxx, controlling the source would be a bit tricky. So don't fear monopolies.

tldr; A monopoly must control the current supply and the SOURCE to work, and that can't happen here.

[setec]

I'm all for the free market. However, I also can't believe some of the prices I see being asked for items. It's insane. 275k for this piece or 1M for a set. Give me a break.

[TwinkTastical]

Aaaaaand, Im gonna do this xD

[Azrael]

MMORPG auction house buyers still have to deal with the market. Sure you can buy up everything and resell at a higher price, but all the player base has to do is not buy the item and the seller will be SOL.

A game designer solves this problem by charging a fee to list an item on the auction house, and limiting the time an item remains on the auction house. Thus if a player tries to sell an item for a price that is clearly to expensive and no one buys it, that player will loose money over and over again by putting it back up on the auction house.

[Teflon]

Very well said Fluff!. Folks please digest the main concept being explained here. You would need to be able to control the SUPPLY and SOURCE for this to be a real threat.

Cheers.

[Arterra]

Very well said Fluff!. Folks please digest the main concept being explained here. You would need to be able to control the SUPPLY and SOURCE for this to be a real threat.

Cheers.

if you consider that the source of certain items is a very veeery narrow chance of looting, you can take the chance of new supplies as negligeble, and if they do come in, your shop wont be overwhelmed and you can just buy it (and sell it high of course)

you know, like the sunkiller, the vyxnar helm... very rare items that a guild can pool money into buying up.