Vendor List.
- Thread starter djlbk
- Start date
Rorne
The sad fish is a reactionary creature; an enemy o
With the webportal for the vendor list it's really easy to find stuff like spells with ctrl+F or just eyeballing it. It CAN be a pain sometimes but the alternative is a much more bloated economy so probably a fair trade.
GodsOlderBrother
Dalayan Beginner
Just to put in my two cents as an economist, there exists substantial evidence that a more transparent market system greatly reduces informational asymmetries and both producer and supplier deficits (Consider Mishkin, 2008 and Allsoup, 2002- useful as a starting point, if you're interested in learning more). These effects lead to greatly increased market efficiencies in both the short and long run, which, in turn, result in greater consumer outcomes. I'm not sure what exactly you mean by the term 'bloated' (I'm imagining that it's being used as a synonym for 'inefficient'), however there exists no empirical evidence nor logical reasoning which would lead to this conclusion, as economic behavior tends to remain systematically predictable within a stable system.
There may be several reasons why a more transparent or efficient method of buying and selling hasn't been implemented, however, an increase in 'bloat' is not among them. Just a thought.
There may be several reasons why a more transparent or efficient method of buying and selling hasn't been implemented, however, an increase in 'bloat' is not among them. Just a thought.
Rorne
The sad fish is a reactionary creature; an enemy o
Libertarian spotted. Efficiency has nothing to do with it, maintaining a selling price for goods beyond vendor prices does. You're talking about lack of empirical evidence when exactly this problem occurred on the live servers with introduction of the bazaar. If you can't understand that overabundance/accessibility/competitive pricing devalues something you should really go back to fantasy economics class. Consider You're Retarded, 2011 for more.
triptoy2002
Dalayan Adventurer
I kinda wish there was one, cuz game economics always seem to be over my head.
So the problem with adding an auction house type system would be, for example:
1. Mithril Longswords, which now cost ~ 50p each would cost less, but they still cost ~ 18p to make, and vendor for ~ 10.5p, so the profit in making them would be less than the current 32p each(im ignoring the fact that they sell out really fast due to the high demand and lack of mithril ore in the system so I can make an example).
2. Also, the Perfectly Formed Stone which now sells for ~ 5k would sell for less, but would still vendor for ~ 2652p, bringing the profit in selling it to a player to less than the current 2348, and all this due to the ease of finding these items on listsold and therefore an increase in competition among sellers.
So the overall issue with adding an auction house is that it would lower seller profit margins. This would have a detrimental effect on tradeskills because the amount of work involved in crafting would more heavily outweigh the profit gained from leveling a crafter, and therefore fewer players would pick up tradeskills. But then the greater rarity of the tradeskilled items would increase their value, at least for the popular ones such as the Mithril Longsword.
Then there is the dropped BoE items, like Perfectly Formed Stone, which might sell for very close to the vendor price, and so people might just vendor them instead of selling to players, which would take them out of the market a bit, and cause players to not know that they exist, and further decrease the selling value (cause nobody would be looking for them). Or maybe that would raise the price of them because they would be more rare?
I'm talking in circles here, and I don't think I'm any closer to understanding the problem that having an auction house would create, and now my head hurts and I want to go cry in a corner.
Seriously though, I'm not taking either side in this issue, I'm just trying to understand the downside to this. The upside is clear, easier searching, yay! But the downside is more complicated :/ Help, someone 'splain it to me
Diodimus
Dalayan Elder
I think one part of the issue is that the Devs/Gms do not want to reward laziness. If there was a system in which we could search for items that are listed by ALL players there would be no need to keep track of what you are selling except for those who are trying to consistently farm the same items and sell them over and over again. This would mean i could throw items into my listsold and just forget them knowing that eventually someone would be looking for my item and buy it. No effort put forth on my part to advertise or sell the items. Thus my laziness is rewarded. With the current system, if I am not actively advertising my items, they have a slim chance of being bought. Thus I do not get rewarded for being lazy.
This is of course speculation. Any with more knowledge, please correct me if I am wrong.
Also, this idea has been argued into exhaustion and unless the staff has had a mood swing crazier than a pregnant woman, its not gonna ever happen, so we should just learn to deal with it and move on.
This is of course speculation. Any with more knowledge, please correct me if I am wrong.
Also, this idea has been argued into exhaustion and unless the staff has had a mood swing crazier than a pregnant woman, its not gonna ever happen, so we should just learn to deal with it and move on.
triptoy2002
Dalayan Adventurer
That makes some sense Dio, and I agree laziness doesn't need to be rewarded. I have a feeling though, from reading the many posts on the subject, that there may be a more pressing reason. I just can't seem to wrap my skull around the specifics of what it is.
Yeah I agree, arguing whether or not an auction house is a good idea is not worth it. Rising above the petty bickering to have an honest, adult conversation could be very informative, however.
It's just that at times I have spoken to people who feel strongly that an auction house is worth adding, and the truth is I don't have any solid reason to say it is a bad idea. I could repeat the common arguments, like: "It would unbalance the economy," "It would increase reselling," "It ruined <insert other MMO here>," etc. But the problem is these are vague statements that, although they probably have a basis in fact, mean nothing to those of us that don't have experience in those games, and/or have not seen the evidence that the economy would become unstable, or whatever.
If someone could explain their experience in the subject in detail, maybe list some reference articles that document the subject, I think a clear understanding of the details of why an auction house is a bad idea would go a long way toward preventing the subject from continually coming up.
Yeah I agree, arguing whether or not an auction house is a good idea is not worth it. Rising above the petty bickering to have an honest, adult conversation could be very informative, however.
It's just that at times I have spoken to people who feel strongly that an auction house is worth adding, and the truth is I don't have any solid reason to say it is a bad idea. I could repeat the common arguments, like: "It would unbalance the economy," "It would increase reselling," "It ruined <insert other MMO here>," etc. But the problem is these are vague statements that, although they probably have a basis in fact, mean nothing to those of us that don't have experience in those games, and/or have not seen the evidence that the economy would become unstable, or whatever.
If someone could explain their experience in the subject in detail, maybe list some reference articles that document the subject, I think a clear understanding of the details of why an auction house is a bad idea would go a long way toward preventing the subject from continually coming up.
triptoy2002
Dalayan Adventurer
I agree, I like that you need to interact with actual players to buy/sell alot of stuff on /auc.
I also agree that "auction houses make it easier, yay!" is not a good enough reason to make it happen. In fact, making things easier is not a good thing to focus on if you are trying to make a quality game.
I have been searching google for other conversations on the subject, and have run into some interesting stuff, like:
Quoted from here http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/299681/page/1
Xhieron said:
We on SoD do have an auction house of a sort in the listing system. It doesn't allow overly easy searching for one single item, but it is still a place you can list stuff for sale for a certain price and have it sell while you are offline. We also still have /auc, which does encourage people to interact. I like our system overall. Could it be improved? Maybe. Should it be a high priority to improve our system? No. I'd still like to know more of the details of what negative effects it would have on the economy and the tradeskill system.
I am aware that MMO economies do not work the same as RL economies. In RL economies are focused more on what can be likened to Player-to-Player trading. In game, there is potentially an unlimited amount of cash coming in to the economy via PvE cash drops or loot vendoring. This is tempered by the devs controlling how much cash drops per mob, and how much an item vendors for. There are also "plat sinks" like charms, tradeskills, somewhat infrequent lotteries. Whether or not we need more plat sinks, I don't know. Would be interesting if copper/silver/gold had more of a use in the economy though, instead of plat being like dollars, gold being dimes, silver being pennies, and copper being... well, fun to bank in.
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Animand
Dalayan Elder
As a follower of the Austrian school of economics, I am appalled that you could claim to be an economist and jump to these conclusions without understanding the basis of your beliefs. Such laissez-faire systems are great for the distribution of scarce resources, but scarcity is not the driving force (or even truly a major force) of the economy here. The goal is not the maximization of the mutual gain from a zero-sum game of resources, but a managed flow of the unending and continual influx of resources impossible in a physical system. Thus, 'bloat' is a term with strict meaning here that is irreconcilable with modern economic theory.
In short, please regard a primer on economic system without the concept of scarcity of resources before lauding a solution that strictly requires it.
Boehm
Dalayan Elder
As a fellow Austrian, I concur. The issue that most items are purchased and used, but are not actually consumed breaks the model causing oversupply. It's only in the segments of the economy where items are both needed and consumed, that I've seen price rationality. Because irrationally priced, consumable items have a chance to clear the system in a way permanent items do not, and the price floats back to a rational level.
While the market for most items is limited as the items themselves might be replaced, but do not decay from use. Items can even re-enter the system, competing with new products as new. Only new characters creating demand. This would be like my buying a Ford and driving it for the rest of my life, unless I kill a senator and he drops a Mercedes.
So, an irrational market has price floors/supports and induced inefficiencies to keep it from mostly collapsing. Because, the only alternative I see is a significant lowering of drop rates for all items in game to the point of being at or below demand. I won't get into how manipulating scarcity from outside the system is not in any way, classical economics either. As well as being unfun for both dev and player alike.
Last, I'm not big on lore, but it would be completely asinine to take me 25 minutes to run from Sadri to Tears of Eleal, but be able to search and categorize the entire world's market in a couple minutes hanging out in Pocket Plane.
While the market for most items is limited as the items themselves might be replaced, but do not decay from use. Items can even re-enter the system, competing with new products as new. Only new characters creating demand. This would be like my buying a Ford and driving it for the rest of my life, unless I kill a senator and he drops a Mercedes.
So, an irrational market has price floors/supports and induced inefficiencies to keep it from mostly collapsing. Because, the only alternative I see is a significant lowering of drop rates for all items in game to the point of being at or below demand. I won't get into how manipulating scarcity from outside the system is not in any way, classical economics either. As well as being unfun for both dev and player alike.
Last, I'm not big on lore, but it would be completely asinine to take me 25 minutes to run from Sadri to Tears of Eleal, but be able to search and categorize the entire world's market in a couple minutes hanging out in Pocket Plane.
As a recently new player to SoD, I have not been able to purchase much of anything from the vendor system as of yet, but I have spent time browsing through the vendor list. The one thing I think would be nice is to be able to search for a specific item you are looking for, say something you saw in came or came across on the wiki, and fine out which vendors are selling it. Then with the list of names you have just gotten you could go in game and select the vendor you wish to purchase the item from. Don't think the list needs to show prices or anything just have the items listed searchable so you could more easily locate items you are looking for rather than trying to go through the vendor list one page at a time vendor by vendor or by sitting in game watching the auction channel hoping someone advertises the item you are looking for. Don't know if you would classify this as lazy or not, too me it just helps one be in came socialize with the community more rather than spending hours cruising through the vendor list for the one item your looking for that maybe only one trader on the server has for sale, who may or may not be advertising on auction.
Tarutao
Staff Emeritus
Doing a search on the listsold is something I will fight tooth and nail not to let happen.
If you are relying on the listsold system for everything you buy, you're missing out big time. Start /auctioning that you're interested in a particular item. People who are unwilling to lower their price on listsold might consider a private sale at a discount. If you are keeping your "WTB" messages several minutes apart and in the /auction channel, you aren't going to be viewed as an annoying spammer, as some peope fear would happen.
Another benefit requires a mild understanding of some of the traditions of SoD. One of them is the "Master Looter", where a group chooses to trust one person in the group to do all of the looting for the group, sell the items afterward, and split the money with the group. This tradition bring with it an opportunity for the social WTBer. People who have just come across an item while doing group experience might recognize you as a potential buyer from your visibility in /auction and be willing to sell you an item at a discount as well simply for the convenience of the "group split".
For that matter, the Buying and Selling forum is really useful too. I'm not the only person who has come across an item and listsent it to someone for the price they said they wanted to buy it in a Buying and Selling forum thread.
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Short version: "searching the listsold is bad and don't speak ill of libertarians, just leave it at what Cless said about certain basic assumptions being wrong for SoD's economy"
If you are relying on the listsold system for everything you buy, you're missing out big time. Start /auctioning that you're interested in a particular item. People who are unwilling to lower their price on listsold might consider a private sale at a discount. If you are keeping your "WTB" messages several minutes apart and in the /auction channel, you aren't going to be viewed as an annoying spammer, as some peope fear would happen.
Another benefit requires a mild understanding of some of the traditions of SoD. One of them is the "Master Looter", where a group chooses to trust one person in the group to do all of the looting for the group, sell the items afterward, and split the money with the group. This tradition bring with it an opportunity for the social WTBer. People who have just come across an item while doing group experience might recognize you as a potential buyer from your visibility in /auction and be willing to sell you an item at a discount as well simply for the convenience of the "group split".
For that matter, the Buying and Selling forum is really useful too. I'm not the only person who has come across an item and listsent it to someone for the price they said they wanted to buy it in a Buying and Selling forum thread.
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Short version: "searching the listsold is bad and don't speak ill of libertarians, just leave it at what Cless said about certain basic assumptions being wrong for SoD's economy"
I got my undergrad in economics - so I understand exactly what you are saying.
We are in fact artificially adding assymetric informational knowledge in order to counter the problem with a system where the influx of created currency is completely related to the time that people put in and luck. It is one thing to push for efficiency when there is a cyclical economy. We are a stream economy - money appears out of nothing, is normally transfered 3-4 times and then is sunk. Keeping a relatively high transaction cost, as well as putting price floors on most items, are the main ways we keep item prices high and mudflation down.
We are in fact artificially adding assymetric informational knowledge in order to counter the problem with a system where the influx of created currency is completely related to the time that people put in and luck. It is one thing to push for efficiency when there is a cyclical economy. We are a stream economy - money appears out of nothing, is normally transfered 3-4 times and then is sunk. Keeping a relatively high transaction cost, as well as putting price floors on most items, are the main ways we keep item prices high and mudflation down.
been playing for three+ years and this is the first time i've seen an explanation that truly makes sense to me. thank you for this closure.
Nuvian
Animand
Dalayan Elder
I remember there being a thread discussing the economic situation of this server back when you had to hire an NPC to hawk your wares. Having just a few compared to the large (and growing) amount of players wanting but unable to get a vendor led to problems that were brought before the populace to debate. Our current solution is an outcropping of that, but I'm too lazy to look up threads that go back as far as Winter's Roar.