Merching vs Playing

[Zynzyn]

This is not a merching guide. This is just a random thread I made to let out thoughts which I often do in posts.

When I enter an elite map, I hardly find people running, unless it is elite northal, cryo or heston preston. Very specific maps, perhaps because of the promise of good loot there. Maybe other pve maps need a revamp.

But when I go to a town, the chat is filled with the word merch spammed over and over again. It seems like every other person is a merch or wants to be or has made alts to spam merch merch. The word merch finds me everywhere. It haunts. Sometimes the love or wrath of merchants strikes even in forum in the forum of merch tricks.

I have observed that while pve maps are not so populated and often empty, and only a handful currently play pvp (even at higher levels where gear is available and para isnt needed), why then are towns filled with people merching?

What are people doing with the gold from re-selling hoarded stuff? Are there merchs who use merched gold to buy equipments to play better? Are there ones who sell the gold? Are there people who just like to collect gold and keep it and do nothing?

What drives a person to merch rather than play? I am very curious why people choose to stand in towns and merch rather than actually play. What drives you- gold? You can earn gold by running pve maps too. Merching is faster and less effort, you say? It must be. Yes mausoleum is very hard. Elite is hard.

But then isnt the game about the excitement of looting something new, about having fun goals and grinding towards them? And children play this game. Merching-which is essentially buying something from a desperate seller at low cost and convincing a desperate buyer to buy it at a higher price- basically manipulating human minds- children train themselves in this trick now?! What kind of human beings are they going to be when they grow up? The desperation could end if the most coveted items were just put up for sale (for plat) in the game store. Simple.

When and how did merching become the thing, the all pervading dominant trend in the game, the life and soul of arcane legends? It is such a lovely mystery to me.

[YeaSheGamez]

As you said. Kids play the game. Adding the items to the store for plat would only upset the community more and give them more reasons to fuss at sts for being p2p.

Also it's not mind manipulation, its business. That kid could grow up to be a great businessman/woman

I have always assumed people merch because it less effort and more profit (or atleast in their minds)

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[Zynzyn]

As you said. Kids play the game. Adding the items to the store for plat would only upset the community more and give them more reasons to fuss at sts for being p2p.

Adding items to the store is not p2p if the items are trade-able. The f2p can buy it with gold, like we do elite awaken gems.

[YeaSheGamez]

Wait..so what your saying is the maps are dead unless they have something worth value in it?
Wont putting the items of value in the store kill the maps completly?

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[Instanthumor]

Reading this has brought tears to my soul

[Xxkayakxx]

My guess from a non-mercher (I gain my money through auc. If I have time, I grind) point of view:
-people merch to get money. With money you can buy weapons equip pets and.....vanities! Vanities are a big thing in game.
- people that doesn’t like/know how to merch grind to get money, or like me, to get aps.
- not every map is empty. Graveyard and Mausoleum aren’t. Northal and Cryo aren’t.
At the time Brakenridge wasn’t.....you can guess why.
To bring back some empty maps would be great to have more random events like prince revlar, that spawn randomly in maps.
- some people really enjoy merching! Like some other like to chat in town or guildhall, like some other like to Pvp, like some other like helping guildies etc etc etc. This game is the sum of all this players, enjoying different sides of AL.
Have fun

[PsychoNuke]

...Also it's not mind manipulation, its business. That kid could grow up to be a great businessman/woman
...I have always assumed people merch because it less effort and more profit (or atleast in their minds)

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Price or thought (mind) Manipulation is not business. Business by definition is commerce. Sure there is no right or wrong way of business, but there certainly is good and bad way. And trust me when I say only good way give you rep and is fruitful.

There are 2 types of merchants:
1. Wholesale (ingame equivalent: Hoarders)
2. Retail (ingame equivalent: People who buy and sell to make instant profit)

Merching (In RL), the maximum profit on the item is not decided by the merchant. MRP of an item is decided my the producer of the goods.
Merching (In AL), profit is decided by the merch. There is no boundary defined. The concept of supply and demand works in real life too, but that does not increase the MRP of an item. It works the other way actually, the item is produced more if there is more demand of it in market.

Merching (in game logic), is the act of purchasing an item at a low price and then selling that item at a massive price to generate profit . A lot of people imply that trading is like stock market, I ll just say that I am certain they don't understand how stocks work as well.

I agree with your second point though, people merch because its way less effort. In-game currency is valued in all games, but its mostly farmed with hard work. Trading everything for a unmargined profit is bad, price manipulation can really take its toll on game economy, makes it unstable and can crash it.

@OP: The reason you see more people merching and not doing content is because gold has become answer to everything in this game. People prefer buying items for gold instead of running the content and getting it as a drop. Simple solution is: making items essential for gameplay untradeable and only available as drops. Reward the hard work. MMO should be more focused towards multiplayer gameplay, make people farm the maps over and over again for a reason. The reason is missing, IMHO.

[GetTheBoom]

I dont know if I should agree with @PsychoNuke or not, but his point is a very strong one


“For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?”

[Azerothraven]

Back Story:

I started playing AL in 4th April 2013. At this time I did not understand the game and eventually quit as I was unfamiliar to the concept of 'farming'. This was my first time in an MMO game. I came back to it several times after quitting.

I began playing the game properly again in August 2016 during summer vacation again and found a nice guild and decided to stay in the game as i made a lot of friends and learned a lot of new things.

Why did I become a merch?

I used to be a hardcore farmer in KM3 farming locked. I made around 20m ( this was a lot back in the day ) just farming locked and for me it was a massive achievement because all I used is lepre + luck elix and a lottt of time. ( I miss those days, plss bring back km3 sts). I had control issues and eventually had Repetitive Strain Syndrome ( Mausoleum expansion didnt help it either). This meant my hand was in unimaginable pain if i tried to farm.

While I made a lot of gold, I kept loosing it because I didn't understand merchants or scammers so I constantly lost gold. So i decided to stop farming to learn about the market. I understood it very well and instead of going back, I decided to merch as my hand didnt hurt as much and I could make gold easier.

Why did I want gold?
I was intrigued by Ice Spirit Vanity and buy it for 70m. So I promised to make 100m by the end of the year but when I did, I never ended up finding a seller.

So what now?

I stopped merching and instead, I now bought other vanities, gl sets, timed run gears, op stats set etc. I also keep gold in account just lying around if there is somthing interesting i wanna buy but barely merch now. Now I only buy if people pm to sell their stuff merch price and i just keep them for when price rises if i think it will and

Do I still play? (p.s. to all those, that says there is nothing to do and game is boring )
Yes, I have 200k points in mausoleum. I do most aps runs even though some of them I get from Timed Runs in LB.
I run most events in LB for Top 25 and help people running maps when i am free. I run elite cryostar etc. I would say I play more now than I normally do.

[Alwarez]

Running useless mauso 1-3 or useless shouting in towns? Maybe running is better BUT only if you're mage

[im jeff]

I merch alot when my internet is bad lol. I have a rog for pve etc, merching is good if you know how to do it right. I am not one of thoes people who go around spamming crap like "buy merch buy buy buy" i dont need to because i live in the auction lol. in the auc there are tons of items u can merch. for instance the elite awake gems go from 210k to 260k+ (10 gem kit) i can spend 1.2m on 6 kits and sell them for 250k ea and that leaves me with 1.43m because auc tax is 60k. My warrior is lv 64 and has 2.6k dmg (no arcane art) my hp is close to 12k and armor is almost 5k. While merching u can farm talk or upgrade stuff etc.

Best place to farm solo is elite nordr. You ask WHY?? well bosses drop chests commonly that r worth 15k-30k each and in 5 runs i say u can loot 2-3, NO lepre needed luck elix or gl just lv 60+ and decent stats (over 1500 dmg). in elite glintstone u need an op party and it takes longer to run each map. in maso u can solo but u will need to be op. i can solo maso on my rog but its hard.

chest that drops in elite nordr is (Elite Golden Warchest III) i merch these in the auc, ill buy for 15k- and sell for 20k+