PL Market Somewhat Corrupt... I HAVE A SOLUTION!!!

[Kingofhurtz]

Hi all!To answer some questions:I used my item database and it is not complete yet, nor did I have the time to take out the non sellable ones... Working on it! Only the seller will be inputting data, the buyer will just look at the graphs.Yea I know, it requires user input.... I think the devs should make a CS API so people can make utilities for it! Working on a search function, Infact I'm working on making it look/operate more smoothly!Hope that answers some of peoples questions, thanks or the great thoughts/comments!

Hey if you want me to input the rest of the new pinks, I can finish it off.

[Survivorfan]

Awesome Idea!
*Bookmarked*

[Register]

dang man! I think im gonna record everything i sell on cs now! Then ill come here and insert it ALL in

[CrimsonTider]

I guess i'll be the voice of reason and devil's advocate all at the same time.

First, everyone needs to remember that THOUSANDS play PL yet only HUNDREDS actually use the forums. Therefore, there are a lot out there who actually don't know the price of things. They get a drop, see there are none in cs, and make a price.

Second: mistakes. Sometimes people put things in cs and accidentally put in too many zero's or not enough. Do you really want someone to enter 130k for a custom recurve because they forgot a zero? Major outlier in your statistics =not a good thing.

Another thing to remember is individual integrity. Not everyone will honestly report the actual selling price. Just sayin'.

Last, I sell things at the rate I want to sell them. If I think cs is too low, I will wait til the items leave before putting my item in. There are also times I just want to get rid of something and drop the price on purpose.

It is some excellent work and I am again in awe of your technological skills, however, you need a large sample size for this to work and I am afraid there will be few who will report regularly. My suggeetion is if you find something overpriced, laugh at it. If you find something too low, buy it!

[drewcapu]

Instead of a low/high logic, I think the only reasonable way to prevent price-tampering is some kind of meta-modding of user entries.

With that said, any kind of system like this, whether done by Daniel or by STS, is only as good as the entries made. I don't think there would be enough people to consistently do the data entry to make it as effective as it could possibly be.

Once upon a time, I was talking with G in chatbox about CS history possibilities. Since they keep all the historicals, anything is theoretically possible. But there is always the possibility of manipulation of people selling/buying to themselves and/or to friends.

Such market data could be improved simply by automatically filtering out the highest/lowest values for a particular item as well as filtering out results when the buyer and seller are in similar ip ranges. The only way I can see to prevent other market data manipulation scenarios is to automatically filter out transactions between people in the same guild (once available), on each other's friends list, and (in extreme cases) people who were messaging each other shortly before a transaction. The only scenario I can think of which cannot be accounted for are when ppl use another app for communication.

Daniel, I love your idea and the work you've put into it already. But, more than anything else, I hope it gives STS the encouragement to build something like it into PL (and SL!) so that everyone can more easily benefit from it.

[noobmigo]

Instead of a low/high logic, I think the only reasonable way to prevent price-tampering is some kind of meta-modding of user entries.

With that said, any kind of system like this, whether done by Daniel or by STS, is only as good as the entries made. I don't think there would be enough people to consistently do the data entry to make it as effective as it could possibly be.

Once upon a time, I was talking with G in chatbox about CS history possibilities. Since they keep all the historicals, anything is theoretically possible. But there is always the possibility of manipulation of people selling/buying to themselves and/or to friends.

Such market data could be improved simply by automatically filtering out the highest/lowest values for a particular item as well as filtering out results when the buyer and seller are in similar ip ranges. The only way I can see to prevent other market data manipulation scenarios is to automatically filter out transactions between people in the same guild (once available), on each other's friends list, and (in extreme cases) people who were messaging each other shortly before a transaction. The only scenario I can think of which cannot be accounted for are when ppl use another app for communication.

Daniel, I love your idea and the work you've put into it already. But, more than anything else, I hope it gives STS the encouragement to build something like it into PL (and SL!) so that everyone can more easily benefit from it.

In other words, you mean take out the outliers, then average?

[CrimsonTider]

In other words, you mean take out the outliers, then average?

Exactly what I said in my post. Welcome to the lovely world of statistics where sample size and outliers are NOT your friend!!

[drewcapu]

In other words, you mean take out the outliers, then average?

Well, High/Low is still good data for what it is, just like in stocks. But when it comes to just figuring out what a reasonable going rate for something is, it's not really needed. Of course, it also matters how many data points you have to go by. If there's only been two transactions on a Sentinel talon in the last two weeks, perhaps getting rid of high/low isn't that effective

[Derajdefyre]

Wowhead has an auction price component on their website, but even with their millions of data points it is unreliable. I think that anything trying to declare a "fair" price is doomed to fail because supply and demand in an online game changes constantly (often multiple times per hour). If there are a lot of people selling something they could constantly undercut each other and the price drops, an hour later all but one are sold and suddenly the highest priced one is the only supply and if a lot of people want one odds are someone is willing to pay the higher price.

The utility is a magnificent idea, but I think it is impossible to implement well. The variable you need to quantify is what most PL players think an item is worth at any given time and that is a variable that is constantly in flux. Even if you had data points from every player for an item, the results could change drastically a few minutes later.

Ask someone who is level 25 with 50k gold if they would spend all their money on an Iceberg Frosty Hatchet and they will say no. Ask them at level 29 the answer will be maybe. Ask them at level 30 when they have been checking the CS hourly and not a single Iceberg Frosty Hatchet has been for sale then suddenly there is ONE and it is up for 50k they will probably buy it. If you can write a program to accurately predict the price of an item on the CS then you have a very lucrative career ahead of you in economics

[bluuuue]

I think what u have come up with is a great idea. However, the economy in pl is very dynamic thanks to the random drop rate. Awarding everyone with the same chance of getting rich depending on how often you do runs. So, the price of items will always fluctuate depending on supply and demand. If by chance vibra bs of rift hasn't dropped in weeks, however unlikely that may be, then none might be for sale in cs giving the recipient the opportunity to start his price at whatever he wants. Most likely someone will undersell him and lesson learned, he wasted money overpricing an item. I bought a ff sword for 700k two weeks later it was in cs for 325k. I should have waited, but I really wanted it for my mage. I had a higher demand and was willing to pay for it. I believe if any restrictions on pricing is implemented it will ruin the economy. Unless, Of course, they change the random drops. Ty love Bluuue

[noobmigo]

I think what u have come up with is a great idea. However, the economy in pl is very dynamic thanks to the random drop rate. Awarding everyone with the same chance of getting rich depending on how often you do runs. So, the price of items will always fluctuate depending on supply and demand. If by chance vibra bs of rift hasn't dropped in weeks, however unlikely that may be, then none might be for sale in cs giving the recipient the opportunity to start his price at whatever he wants. Most likely someone will undersell him and lesson learned, he wasted money overpricing an item. I bought a ff sword for 700k two weeks later it was in cs for 325k. I should have waited, but I really wanted it for my mage. I had a higher demand and was willing to pay for it. I believe if any restrictions on pricing is implemented it will ruin the economy. Unless, Of course, they change the random drops. Ty love Bluuue

well said.

[csb]

Once the game has a huge number of players, someone will make www.plprices.com and automatically update it with scripting. ie. issue searches via scripting, screen capture, and update the database. There may be a way to do it without violating the ULA.

If the game has enough players, then such sites will start popping up. Also, www.plmaps.com, www.plquests.com, www.plguilds.com, etc.

[csb]

I think that anything trying to declare a "fair" price is doomed to fail because supply and demand in an online game changes constantly (often multiple times per hour). If there are a lot of people selling something they could constantly undercut each other and the price drops, an hour later all but one are sold and suddenly the highest priced one is the only supply and if a lot of people want one odds are someone is willing to pay the higher price.

It would benefit the buyers to see the history of lowest prices. Some program should choose the most common low price of the day, and save that price in a database. Then display a chart showing the price each day over time. This is what I do manually. I check the prices throughout the day for a week, and then buy at what I think is a good price based on my observation. It would be nice if this homework was already done for me via a web site.

That's nice for buyers, but for sellers and competition... oh well, its a tough world out there.

[Unxtoxic]

To make the price list for the items more useful is STS should like somehow tell players ingame to use forums, especially the new players.

[bluuuue]

Today I got a ff sword for 200k. I guess that makes up for the other one.....supply and demand. And maybe a littlenoobish ignorance from the seller. But im not complaining. : ) add to your list