Criticizing auction house prices is silly.

[JayDubya]

I see a lot of complaints about "out of control" AH prices and so forth. I've seen claims that "plat farmers" are responsible for the high prices. I've seen various suggestions around capping or otherwise "controlling" the auction house prices in order to "fix it". I've seen people claim that Plat Farmers "bid up" prices in the AH.

Frankly, these suggestions/ideas bewilder me.

First, Plat Farmers aren't responsible for the high price of items on the AH. Buyers are. Because apparently (some) buyers are willing to pay those prices. As long as there are buyers with money to spend, sellers will try to get every penny they can. If the sellers price their items too high, no one buys them, and the seller pays a transaction cost.

Second, if you try to control the auction house to ensure "reasonable" prices (essentially creating price controls), every interesting item will stop being posted on the auction house - and will show up on the forums instead. Case in point - Wounding of Puncturing items. Now, imagine that no more +6 stat items, no more vorpals/disruptors/paralyzers/smiters/etc, no more holy of pure good/silver bows, no more mithral shields or full plate, etc, etc on the AH. Many, many items are simply far more valuable than others of the same minimum level. (Anarchic Burst Handwraps of slowburst vs. vorpal battleaxe of righteousness)

Third, unless the platfamers are responsible for half the items on the AH, they can't reasonably create artificial shortages for very long. Let me give you an example:



Let's assume there are 100 vorpals that drop on every server on a given day. 5 of those are picked up by plat farmers, the other 95 by regular players. Each player decides for themselves what they would like to receive for the vorpal... let's say they want 100k plat on average for their vorpals, and they set up auctions with a 100k buyout.

The platfarmers, however, want the price to be a million. But they can't make the price a million if there are vorpals out there for 100k. So they have to buy up 95 vorpals at a total price of 9.5 million. So now, they put vorpals back on the market at 1 million. Now, will someone buy some of these vorpals? Probably, but not that many people have 1 million plat lying around, and most of those who do probably don't need vorpals. Maybe they sell 10 of them. So they make 500k plat in profit on that first day.

The second day, another 100 vorpals drop. But this time, some of the people who sold one the day before noticed that their 100k buyout went quickly. So some decide to go for a 200k buyout - let's say the average ends up being 150k. So now the plat farmers have to spend ~14.5 million, and they sell 10, for a loss of 4.5 million.

And the third day, other people notice the rapid buyouts at 150k, and go for 200, etc. In essence, the plat farmers can't control the price because they can't control the supply. Unless they pick up more than half the good items every single day, the farmers can't ever make enough in profits to cover their expenses in creating artificial shortages.




In summation - the prices are an elaborate dance between buyers who want to pay as little as possible, and sellers who want to make as much as possible. If the prices are high, it is because buyers are willing to pay those high prices, otherwise the sellers won't be able to sell them, and will have to lower their prices instead. The auction house works fine as it is.

[Impaqt]

/Well Said.

Most of the popel that complain about high auction prices are reletively new to the game. They either dont understand why some items are worth so much or they just cannot comprehend how easy it is to amass significant hordes or plat.

[MissErres]

There's a lot that's getting out of hand, mostly ppl complaining about STUPID (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=150988) stuff. :rolleyes:

[In_Like_Flynn]

DDO has a pretty good economy.

[moorewr]

JayDubya=smarter than most economists. :)

[Kingfish]

The auction house works fine as it is.

/agreed

I pull a LOT of 20 packs of +5 Arrows. Holy, Slaying, Bane, Shock, Acid...you name it, i get them...odd since I am on my sorc mostly, anyway...

I started putting them on the AH at 100pp buyouts and they were instantly grabbed up...next batch, I jumped to 500pp and to my surprise, same response. I continued to bump the price and it wasn't until I hit the 2000pp per stack that they stopped selling...1000 gp per arrow? Wow!!! But to ensure a quick sell I always put them at 1500pp and they are always gone within a day.

That’s about 100x what I could get from them at a vendor and the price is driven by the market. Thats how its suppose to be.

[Sue_Dark]

/Well Said.

Most of the popel that complain about high auction prices are reletively new to the game. They either dont understand why some items are worth so much or they just cannot comprehend how easy it is to amass significant hordes or plat.

Yes, somewhat true, but also somewhat false.

How can one justify a totally goofy bid/buy-out on an obviously flawed item? I've seen (just this weekend) a keen scimmy of disruption on the AH for 20million buyout. Trying to say that the keen makes it better is rediculous, IIRC it was a L14 item. Anyone intent on buying a ML 14 scimmy most likely already has imp crit (or is planning to take soon) so keen is worthless, not to mention disruption being an on-hit effect.

I get a good laugh almost every day going to the AH. someone thinks their item is totally sweet and posts it at some seriously crazy price thinking it'll sell (+3 frost burst daxe of pure good i think it was for 7million, please!). Meanwhile I love people who think about their postings (or screw up in some cases) like whomever posted the +3 shocking burst/enfeebling and +2 vorp scimmy's I picked up for just under 50k plat total, last week.

Dont forget.... another huge drawback to massing plat is the total fear of running a quest with a non-optimal group. Yes, some are better with optimized groups, but most content can be run by any combination of character classes, they just might need to use a little more caution or thought to achieve the same results.

[Rindalathar]

I feel some of the complaining might stem from what I call "aggravated window shopper syndrome". You know what you need. It's right there staring at you, but the price makes it unobtainable. This may lead to frustation and anger as you feel helpless to the system. Since this is a game and not real life, it's accentuated because we're all supposed to be having fun and pay monthly for the priviledge of trying to do so. Staring at gear you want, but can't afford it not fun. Some may feel it'd be having to pay to go to work, etc.

I also think the AH works fine, so I'm not surprised by some who feel it doesn't. I realize that something like buying plat may change the situation here, but it's an unfortunate reality of MMOs and one that companies like Turbine are painfully aware of.

Putting artificial price controls in place who not help the economy. Like others already stated, you drive the economy to a strict bartering system for the best items, which is what we had in place before the AH. It makes for a bumpier economy, since plat takes a back seat and exchanges only take place when there is a perfect match between players and their items.

As a side note, this is where being a member of a good guild comes into place, since many guilds share their items amongst themselves. If the auction house isn't your bag, maybe getting into a good guild is.

[scampb]

I think the AH is fine as well. I get good deals and give good deals. I just missed out on a +2 Frost Burst DAxe of Pure Good for 100K GOLD yesterday (for my level 7 Barb). Don't know if it sold or if the buyer cancelled but it said 3 days remaining and when i clicked the buyout it and it told me it was no longer available blah blah blah..... darn, I was so close.

My 7yo son likes the AH too. Tried to sell some gems his level 4 Barb had for a couple million GP's the other day. LOL. Had to explain how that works. I wish someone had of bought them for no other reason than to assume some kid posted it.....that would have been funny!

[Impaqt]

Yeah, I saw that Keen Scimmy too... But to attribute that to Plat Farmers is just Silly. THats just a Totally CLueless person. Not even a plat farmer would try tomilk the market that much.

[ArkoHighStar]

The only thing that annoys me about the the AH is lowbie items without a buyout, with a 3 day auction. Usually the price is reasonable and I would be willing to pay a small premium to buyout, but instead it sits there and I refuse to waste plat on it as I will probably level past it and it is no longer useful. I am not sure what people are thinking because they are always there 3 days later unsold.

[Bladededge123]

Complaining about poeple complaining about the auction house. The points you raise are valid enough, but can't really be claimed as fact. Does it make sense that the extreme prices are -all- plat farmers? No, of course not. But plat farmers can and do I'd guess use the AH for various purpose. Its next to impossible to prove a negative, and given the only poeple who would have direct experience with how Plat farmers operate won't be posting details on these forums, any ideas on how they do things end up being opinions/best guesses.

AH prices -are- ridiculous. But that is because the poeple who fuel the economy are willing to be so. If Your willing to buy an item for an insane amount of plat, well then that might be ridiculous, but your certainly entitled to do so. So long as poeple are, then poeple will sell them for silly prices. Might be silly on a common sense point of view, but this is a game, altruism doesn't exist, theres no intrinsic benefit for selling an item on the AH for a price that new/non grind style players can afford, so theres little reason to do so. (Such generosity is usually reserved for guildies or the like :P

The basis for being unhappy with AH prices is valid. It, like the dislike of the faults poeple find with the AH, is opinion. There is little point in arguing. Either we get 'The AH posts are too high' or "Poeple who complain about the AH are silly' which results in sparking the same arguement, which gets no one anywhere. No one is going to convince anyone else of anything in the vast majority of cases and such threads either die out because everything that would be said, already has been, or devolve into insulting the other poeple based on who they are, as opposed to the validity of their arguments. (You don't have any money, so of course you complain, or You have a great deal of money so this isn't a problem that effects you, so you have no right to complain about me complain, and ect)

Best to just drop it and move on.

[JacknCoke]

You all are wrong.

Its a government conspiracy to control your minds and make you want to buy overpriced gas and lime jello.

[Uska]

/Well Said.

Most of the popel that complain about high auction prices are reletively new to the game. They either dont understand why some items are worth so much or they just cannot comprehend how easy it is to amass significant hordes or plat.

Wrong on both accounts I hate the prices and have been here since the start and I have never had more then 200k pp it costs a bit to be a cleric, yes it might be easy to horde a lot of plat if you have lots of time to play. The price on the AH are insane but I dont think there should be artifical controls on it I just dont buy as there is really no item you have to have to be able to play, have fun and be an effective party member. and no item is worth 20 million gold

[Allistair]

The only thing that annoys me about the the AH is lowbie items without a buyout, with a 3 day auction. Usually the price is reasonable and I would be willing to pay a small premium to buyout, but instead it sits there and I refuse to waste plat on it as I will probably level past it and it is no longer useful. I am not sure what people are thinking because they are always there 3 days later unsold.

/QFT

When bringing up a new toon I'll often check the AH for some twink gear and be willing to pay REASONABLY marked up prices.
For example that Belt of lesser false life that you put up for 50 plat will sit there for the three days, but If you had a buyout,
I'd have given you 1k Plat just for the convenience and the fact that I wanted it right now.

Remember people, "Buyout" is your friend. The AH is full of impulse shoppers. We want it, and we want it NOW!.
You lose nothing by putting a buyout and may even sell some stuff you normally wouldn't.

We were running the VoNs last week on Level 7 alts. So we're going over what we need and someone says "Everyone got a Pink weapon?"
Well sure enough there were a couple of people checking out the AH and saying "None had a buy out"
Impulse buy that would have sold if you had just put a buyout.
Something to remember next time you check your mail to find Auction Expired.

[Sue_Dark]

Yeah, I saw that Keen Scimmy too... But to attribute that to Plat Farmers is just Silly. THats just a Totally CLueless person. Not even a plat farmer would try tomilk the market that much.

Heh, agreed.

[Sue_Dark]

/QFT

When bringing up a new toon I'll often check the AH for some twink gear and be willing to pay REASONABLY marked up prices.
For example that Belt of lesser false life that you put up for 50 plat will sit there for the three days, but If you had a buyout,
I'd have given you 1k Plat just for the convenience and the fact that I wanted it right now.

Remember people, "Buyout" is your friend. The AH is full of impulse shoppers. We want it, and we want it NOW!.
You lose nothing by putting a buyout and may even sell some stuff you normally wouldn't.

We were running the VoNs last week on Level 7 alts. So we're going over what we need and someone says "Everyone got a Pink weapon?"
Well sure enough there were a couple of people checking out the AH and saying "None had a buy out"
Impulse buy that would have sold if you had just put a buyout.
Something to remember next time you check your mail to find Auction Expired.

Yeah, I totally hate it when you realize you *need* a piece of gear for a quest and look in houses D/K and cant find it, so you resort to the AH only to find the item with no buyout or an insane buyout. I can see a ring of feathers going for a decent price since it's no level and a ring, but then you see right next to it the ML 15 feather falling ring of dump your money here for some ungodly price, cause its a ff ring! (please realize that this is an example) If the add-on doesnt make sense or isnt useful, then people shouldnt bump the price just cause my ff ring has +20 buger picking skill. I dont care about your buger picking skill, cause you didnt put anything in it at creation or since and thus +20 = +0, not to mention, there is likely someone who is a professional at buger pickery and why on earth would I want to choose your ring over their profession? <getting ranty and derailed, sry>

Buyouts are your friend and every time a new person (or new AH user) asks me anything about the AH I simply tell em that the value of their item is subjective. What you see might be gold, but everyone else on the server could see it as pooh. Be reasonable in the pricing. Let the starting bid of a general item default and set a top end that you personally would be willing to pay. Which in many cases would be a decent but not insane price, tho some are willing to pay more than they have for something they really dont need.

[ArkoHighStar]

Wrong on both accounts I hate the prices and have been here since the start and I have never had more then 200k pp it costs a bit to be a cleric, yes it might be easy to horde a lot of plat if you have lots of time to play. The price on the AH are insane but I dont think there should be artifical controls on it I just dont buy as there is really no item you have to have to be able to play, have fun and be an effective party member. and no item is worth 20 million gold

the only really insane items are the hardest to get named items or rare items like +5 MFP, or complete sets of scales etc. Most other things have reasonable prices most ofthe time. Sure you will find the yahoo who think he can get a million plat for a +1 paralyser, but thoe things sit there unsold 95% of the time. In reality the only time you see people making a killing is on the grinding items like scales, tome pieces, shield pieces and the most recent must have item large ingredients. Put one of those up at the right time and you could strike it rich. I remember getting a million plat for one scale just after mod 4 came out, why because people wanted to complete their scale armors and did not want to grind the tor for that last scale, same with ingredients, now they can esily fetch 100k plat because people are still building tier 3 weapons. But as items become more common place their price goes down accordingly. The best aexample I can find is Supperior Potency 6 items, which prior to mod 6 were extremely rare and could fetch very high prices, now they fetch between 10 and 30k plat on the AH because they drop so often in the shroud.

[GeneralDiomedes]

First, Plat Farmers aren't responsible for the high price of items on the AH. Buyers are. Because apparently (some) buyers are willing to pay those prices. As long as there are buyers with money to spend, sellers will try to get every penny they can. If the sellers price their items too high, no one buys them, and the seller pays a transaction cost.


Yes they are. Plat farmers are the equivalent of printing money. The result is called inflation.

[ArkoHighStar]

Yeah, I totally hate it when you realize you *need* a piece of gear for a quest and look in houses D/K and cant find it, so you resort to the AH only to find the item with no buyout or an insane buyout. I can see a ring of feathers going for a decent price since it's no level and a ring, but then you see right next to it the ML 15 feather falling ring of dump your money here for some ungodly price, cause its a ff ring! (please realize that this is an example) If the add-on doesnt make sense or isnt useful, then people shouldnt bump the price just cause my ff ring has +20 buger picking skill. I dont care about your buger picking skill, cause you didnt put anything in it at creation or since and thus +20 = +0, not to mention, there is likely someone who is a professional at buger pickery and why on earth would I want to choose your ring over their profession? <getting ranty and derailed, sry>

Buyouts are your friend and every time a new person (or new AH user) asks me anything about the AH I simply tell em that the value of their item is subjective. What you see might be gold, but everyone else on the server could see it as pooh. Be reasonable in the pricing. Let the starting bid of a general item default and set a top end that you personally would be willing to pay. Which in many cases would be a decent but not insane price, tho some are willing to pay more than they have for something they really dont need.


I imagine with crafting taht a lot of the junk combos will find a home in the ccrusher, so that only items with the one good attribute or good dual attribute combos will find their way onto the AH, or at least the numbers will be reduced.

[Riddikulus]

Yes they are. Plat farmers are the equivalent of printing money. The result is called inflation.
Plat farmers have to earn the money the same way the rest of us do... they are not the cause of the ingame inflation.

The economic problems within DDO are purely created by Turbine by "printing" lots of money without having very many ways of spending that money.

They tried adding a few things here and there (e.g. cash for additional pack and bank slots, the insane AH cut) but there is just not enough to soak in the cash thats being created... much more needs to be done before the economy will ever come into balance.

[Angelus_dead]

They tried adding a few things here and there (e.g. cash for additional pack and bank slots, the insane AH cut) but there is just not enough to soak in the cash thats being created... much more needs to be done before the economy will ever come into balance.
That would be a huge effort for a questionable improvement. It's better for them to mostly give up on balancing the plat-based economy, and simply interest other separate economies later.

That means a different currency which provides different rewards, such as was done with mod4 dragon scales and mod5 tome pages / shield fragments / tapestries. Of course there will be some interaction between the old plat economy and those new systems when players pay 1,000,000 plat for a single Shield Fragment or whatever, but that connection is optional.

[JacknCoke]

You know whats really silly....?



oh prob not.

[Hafeal]

/Remember people, "Buyout" is your friend. The AH is full of impulse shoppers. We want it, and we want it NOW!.
You lose nothing by putting a buyout and may even sell some stuff you normally wouldn't.

We were running the VoNs last week on Level 7 alts. So we're going over what we need and someone says "Everyone got a Pink weapon?"
Well sure enough there were a couple of people checking out the AH and saying "None had a buy out"
Impulse buy that would have sold if you had just put a buyout.
Something to remember next time you check your mail to find Auction Expired.

I agree and I believe in clearing inventory. Many items which I know are useful but not great I post for 1/2 list; if they don't sell, 1/3 list and I still get more than if I sold to the appropriate vendor since I don't keep a haggle bot. Great items I often send to alts or offer to friends and guildies. If none of that works, I usually will put it on the AH for 20&#37; less than the lowest price for the same or similar item.

[Riddikulus]

That would be a huge effort for a questionable improvement. It's better for them to mostly give up on balancing the plat-based economy, and simply interest other separate economies later.

That means a different currency which provides different rewards, such as was done with mod4 dragon scales and mod5 tome pages / shield fragments / tapestries. Of course there will be some interaction between the old plat economy and those new systems when players pay 1,000,000 plat for a single Shield Fragment or whatever, but that connection is optional.
And you don't see a problem with that?

I find having to collect large quantities of various rare stuff in order to "buy" stuff highly irritating. I'm still sitting on 20 dragonscales of various colors because I've not wanted to pay the crazy AH prices to get a set and I _still_ haven't managed to loot enough of them to this day. It's one thing to have to collect 3 or 5 ... quite another to collect 25. Smacks of WoW and their honor tokens.

[Frodo_Lives]

It's not the insanely high prices on the AH that bug a lot of people. It's the insanely high prices of total junk that bugs people.

I understand a bloodstone, min level 8 power 5, or a kardin's eye being posted for millions of gp. I can see that someone who wants one bad enough will spend their plat on it. I may not feel it's worth it, but someone else might.

What makes me roll my eyes are the semi-useful items that aren't that great, or are not that hard to find being posted for way more than what identical items are already on the AH for. All these items are doing is taking up space and wasting everyone's time.

So if you want to post your +1 ghost touch light pick of slowburst for 100K plat go right ahead, just know that you'll be getting it back in the mail 3 days later.

[Falcone]

I understand the perception that some prices on the auctions are way too high. That perception is totally correct. The thing is, you can only see the prices for items still for sale, not those already sold. So here's the way I think of the items on the auction house: Every single item I can see is priced higher than someone has yet been willing to pay.

This is generally true on other virtual auction houses as well, but the benefit of ebay and others that we don't have in a direct way: you can see the Sell-prices for items. If you put an auction in your watchlist, you can see what it sells for in the end. Add that, and you might be able to see that the last 4 bloodstones sold for average buyouts of 1.2 million plat, with a high of 1.4. If you're thinking about buying or selling one, that gives you some pretty realistic information to guide your expectations. If all you can see is that there's one on the auction with a 1.5 million buyout, that's significantly less-useful information.

When all we can see are "not yet sold" prices, it's accurate (though incomplete) to perceive that those prices are too high for anyone who's seen them so far. That's why you can still see them!

[Riddikulus]

I understand the perception that some prices on the auctions are way too high. That perception is totally correct. The thing is, you can only see the prices for items still for sale, not those already sold.
While seeing sold prices might help to some extent, IMO it is an even bigger issue that there is no useful search function on the auction house.

You spend more time paging through items you don't want than anything else so sometimes you just grab something that's good enough while there might have been a lower priced item ten pages beyond.

If you could just do a keyword search for "bloodstone", "seeker", "vorpal" or whatever and get all of the items across catagories which have that attribute it would probably bring down AH prices all by itself due to the added visible competition. Not sure how to handle things like looking for +6 dexterity items, but just being able to narrow the search by "dexterity" would be a big help.

[Tanka]

Wrong on both accounts I hate the prices and have been here since the start and I have never had more then 200k pp it costs a bit to be a cleric, yes it might be easy to horde a lot of plat if you have lots of time to play. The price on the AH are insane but I dont think there should be artifical controls on it I just dont buy as there is really no item you have to have to be able to play, have fun and be an effective party member. and no item is worth 20 million gold
If you can't make more money than you spend in a given quest, you're doing it wrong.

Either it's bad party makeup or bad players, but any way you look at it, you're doing it wrong.

Elite is not necessary for a loot run. If you've got a a mediocre group, then you should consider doing it on Normal. You'll use less scrolls and you'll come out ahead in money.

[Cholera]

[...]
I get a good laugh almost every day going to the AH. someone thinks their item is totally sweet and posts it at some seriously crazy price thinking it'll sell (+3 frost burst daxe of pure good i think it was for 7million, please!).
[...]


I think it's important to remember that not every poster to the AH is honest. Many of the items (i.e.: keen scimitar disruption), to a relatively inexperienced eye, have the appearance of quality. Additionally, it is also important to remember that plat-farmers aren't spamming plat ads for the hell of it. Many players are actually buying it. So, connect the former with the latter and you end up with a wealthy segment of the player population ripe for exploitation.

[Stormanne]

Maybe its just me, but it seems that, while I never have enough plat on any one toon to buy anything "uber" off of the AH, I never have a problem with having the stuff I need. My main has effectively outfitted all of my alts with his pulls. My haggle bard sells any of the good stuff I pull for about 70% actual value. Heck, the only thing I've placed on the AH that comes to mind lately has been dragon scales and I know they've been flipped due to my low buyouts (usually sell in less than five minutes). Now, I haven't been here since lauch, close though, started playing in May of '06. I've seen the economy go from the LFM's offering good deals, to people putting up groups for nothing but trading (used to take place every Wednesday in the tent on the Adar server) to the Quijy Mart to the AH. They all have their pros and cons.

[McBadger]

I think we could sum up nicely by saying that if you realistically expect to be able to afford high end items off the AH you must also be adept at selling there as well. Some guys think up great builds, some guys play their heart out and amaze you, and some guys can turn dog turds into gold. It's a skill, and like any skill you have to practice and research. Right or wrong, for those of us who have done our homework and really enjoy working the market it's a slap in the face to hear people complain and try to play the plat farmer card.

[Vardak]

I think we could sum up nicely by saying that if you realistically expect to be able to afford high end items off the AH you must also be adept at selling there as well. Some guys think up great builds, some guys play their heart out and amaze you, and some guys can turn dog turds into gold. It's a skill, and like any skill you have to practice and research. Right or wrong, for those of us who have done our homework and really enjoy working the market it's a slap in the face to hear people complain and try to play the plat farmer card.

Ding Ding Ding .... we have a winner. I've been saying, trading is a draw to the game. Some like to PK, some like to RP, some what to be UBER, and Yes Virginia Some folks just want to be rich!

[jozzcooper2]

I think something that irritates folks about the auction house prices and brings forth the cries of platinum farmers and exploiters is when 40 identical items are listed, 30 within a certain range, 8 rather higher, and 2 at a bizarre, stupid price. Case in point: look at the tapestry listings. You'll find a complete set of twenty for as low as 130,000 gold. Keep looking and you'll see 15 for 300, 000...and 15 won't even set you up unless you already have some, in which case you probably don't need to buy them. Then...I see some guy has 20 for upwards of 500, 000 gold. What gives?
This is most noticeable in cases where there are a lot of the exact same item. Check out the +1 tomes, where I know I'll see that one or two people ignore every other listing and put theirs up for a million gold.
Someone in another forum remarked that these have the appearance of a platinum farmer who is hoping for a misclick by a buyer trying to choose the one after theirs.
I don't waste time complaining about what people want for their goods, but things like this just make me wonder.

[GlassCannon]

Trading on the AH is a skill, and one that takes undeniably vast amounts of free time.

The people who complain about the absurdity of the Auction House and its prices are usually Casual Gamers who get next to zero shot at the things they see posted.

What I find a bit off is +4 Handwraps(plain) posted for 2,000,000 gold with a 5,000,000 gold buyout. This happens EVERY HOUR with various silly and junk items as well as a +1 Vorpal Greataxe RR Halfling going for 15,000,000 gold with a 21,000,000 gold buyout.

If the clear and shocking stupidity weren't so frequent and plenteous on the Auction House, there would not be forum threads about it.



The constraints on the AH need to be set in place at a much stricter set of limitations. As it is, the player base is horribly mismanaging it.

[Hvymetal]

Monk items are going for crazy amounts right now, not that crazy mind you but there are a lot of people thinking that they can capitolize on this and are overestimating what this kind of stuff will go for. (While I on the other hand seemed to have underestimate it:( After decided I didn't like the way Monks played sold a Vorpal Kama of Backstabbing for like 200k PP I think, it sold pretty quick)

[Lorien_the_First_One]

ISomeone in another forum remarked that these have the appearance of a platinum farmer who is hoping for a misclick by a buyer trying to choose the one after theirs. .

Why do ppl always assume thats a plat farmer? Everything I've read on plat farmers indicates they work 8 or 12 hr shifts and get paid based on what they bring in. That means they get NOTHING from a 3 day post so why would they do it?

It's greedy/strategic players, not plat farmers.

[Hvymetal]

Plat farmers are the (insert terrorist network name here) of the gaming world, anything bad ever happens first thing I always see is "It's the plat farmers", followed closely by "The devs hate _____, cause they nerfed it".....

[Aesop]

Between Working, Sleeping, and the one two punch of Friends and Family... as well as my laid back game style... I don't quest as often as I could


My apparent lousy loot luck means that in those limited quests I don't pull high priced items hardly ever.


As such I don't usually havea alot of dinero to spend on the HIgh Ah Items like +2 Tomes, MFP, Skiver Tomes for my Wizard, anything :D

And while I'd like to be able to afford them taking the time away from the rest of my life and applying the energy to loot running just ain't gonna happen... so I suck up and deal


Aesop

[scampb]

We were running the VoNs last week on Level 7 alts. So we're going over what we need and someone says "Everyone got a Pink weapon?"

Sorry, stupid off topic, noob question. What is a pink weapon? I have seen them but don't what they are or what they do. Why do you need one for VON? :o

[MondoGrunday]

Yes they are. Plat farmers are the equivalent of printing money. The result is called inflation.



people who buy money from plat farmers then use the money to buy an item on the auction house so the plat farmers can use that money to sell back to you again.....

if people stop buying from plat farmers, they will go away. as long as people support their services they will be around. the hypocrisy on this issue is amazing. its not the casual gamer who buys plat , its the hard core type to keep up with their guildies etc.

flame away, but you know its true...

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Sorry, stupid off topic, noob question. What is a pink weapon? I have seen them but don't what they are or what they do. Why do you need one for VON? :o

They are true chaos or anarcic (sp?) weapons and yes, they do have a pink weapon effect in game. Basically they do nice damage on the construct at the end of von5.

Transmuting or greater construct banes also work nicely but the pink weapons have been around longer so all the old players still think pink :p

[GeneralDiomedes]

Plat farmers have to earn the money the same way the rest of us do

They represent a separate player base that contributes additional money to the main player base that would not otherwise be produced.



... they are not the cause of the ingame inflation.


This would only be false if they did not exist at all. We can make the argument that they are a small contributing factor or a large one, but not that they aren't one.

[Angelus_dead]

This would only be false if they did not exist at all. We can make the argument that they are a small contributing factor or a large one, but not that they aren't one.
Do you know the difference between "the cause" and "a cause"?

[branmakmuffin]

If you can't make more money than you spend in a given quest, you're doing it wrong.
Your reasoning seems to have a fundamental flaw: you assume the value derived from playing DDO is measured in character profit.


Either it's bad party makeup or bad players, but any way you look at it, you're doing it wrong.
This statement smacks of so much arrogance, we need a new arrogan-o-meter to measure it.

[Hafeal]

Your reasoning seems to have a fundamental flaw: you assume the value derived from playing DDO is measured in character profit.

I did not take that from Tanka's statement. What he is saying is that if you are dying so much or wasting such tremendous amounts of resources in your questing you are:

a) probably playing at a higher quest level or difficulty level than you should be; and/or
b) probably playing beyond your characters ability; and/or
c) grouping in a poor team.

Hey, we all have bad nights that cost a lot. If you are doing so consistently, you should examine your play style. :o

[Allistair]

Sorry, stupid off topic, noob question. What is a pink weapon? I have seen them but don't what they are or what they do. Why do you need one for VON? :o

The only stupid question, is the question not asked. It's how we learn.
A Pink weapon is one that has a "Pink" graphic effect to it. These would be True Chaos and Anarchic weapons.
They work really well on the marut at the end of VoN 3. They are also a lot more common than Greater Construct bane.
Even a casual player can easily obtain a "Pink" weapon relatively cheap, where as the Greater Construct or any type of Construct bane for that
matter are hard to find and Can be a bit pricey when you do find them.

There are many ways to take down the various end bosses as well as different strategies. You don't need to have all the Uber gear or play
24/7 to succeed in DDO.

No matter what, NEVER be afraid to ask questions. There are many who are more than willing to share thier knowledge with you.
Also NEVER be afraid to speak up and say at the begining of a quest, that you've never done it before, or to ask the group to slow
down a bit as we proceed through the quest.
The new player today that enjoys and understands the game with be the future veteran player.

You'll also find a bunch of generous people who when you mention you are new will be more than happy to help you with gear and/or money
and supplies. Just remember someday you'll be in a position to help a new player. Pay it forward. Remember how generous people were to you,
and repay that by doing the same for another new player.
I've given away my twink gear to a new player in the middle of a quest, because he needed it, and honestly it could be replaced.
Nothing beats the excitement in a new player's reaction when you're in WW and give him a +1 Elemental long sword or a sickle of Sypheros.

You didn't say what server you are on, but if it's Khyber look me or any of my guild members up.
We love helping new players get acquainted with Stormreach.


***Edit***
Oops didn't catch your forum Sig line, you seem to be far from a new player. LOL My bad.
That still doesn't make it bad advice for those that are new players

[krud]

Agreed on all points, except on how plat farmers are driving up prices. It's not all about the inflated prices on items the farmers post, it's also about the extra cash they infuse into the system that gives people extra spending money. Kind of like infusing our cash supplies with a bunch of counterfeit money. If that money stays in the system it creates inflation.

However, if you think the prices on the AH are outrageous then don't pay them! It's that simple. Somehow there are always people who act like they deserve a shot at every item they see on the AH.

[Drekisen]

When I pull something...if I am not keeping it, I will always put it on the AH for 24hrs. at base price with no buyout no matter what the item is. I let the people who really want certain items tell me what they are willing to pay. I have made far more money this way than any other way, because people will buy some stuff u would not expect, while something u would normally put up for a high buyout because ur sure it will sell comes back to you in the mail.

[HumanJHawkins]

Trading on the AH is a skill, and one that takes undeniably vast amounts of free time.

<1>The people who complain about the absurdity of the Auction House and its prices are usually Casual Gamers who get next to zero shot at the things they see posted.

<2>What I find a bit off is +4 Handwraps(plain) posted for 2,000,000 gold with a 5,000,000 gold buyout. This happens EVERY HOUR with various silly and junk items as well as a +1 Vorpal Greataxe RR Halfling going for 15,000,000 gold with a 21,000,000 gold buyout.



1: I make a good profit from the auction house spending no more than 5 minutes per play period. It is more about developing skill than spending time.

2: The solution for this is to implements a useful search mechanism. There is no need to prevent these kind of posts, as long as a person can tell the game to show them all paralyzers with a buyout price of less than 50K plat for example. Or, all items with a Wis +5 bonus. Then you just sort the results by either current bid or buyout price and make your choice.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

They represent a separate player base that contributes additional money to the main player base that would not otherwise be produced.



This would only be false if they did not exist at all. We can make the argument that they are a small contributing factor or a large one, but not that they aren't one.

Right, so we would have the same problem if the game was more popular and there were no plat farmers, big deal

[Tanka]

I did not take that from Tanka's statement. What he is saying is that if you are dying so much or wasting such tremendous amounts of resources in your questing you are:

a) probably playing at a higher quest level or difficulty level than you should be; and/or
b) probably playing beyond your characters ability; and/or
c) grouping in a poor team.

Hey, we all have bad nights that cost a lot. If you are doing so consistently, you should examine your play style. :o
This.

People think a loot run must be done on Elite in the highest possible quest level.

Factually incorrect. Trial by Fire is still one of the fastest loot runs out there if you can get the right group for it (and, sometimes, even not the right group). And it's, what, L13 on Normal? Why, you can get W/P weapons from there!

[Ranmaru2]

That means a different currency which provides different rewards, such as was done with mod4 dragon scales and mod5 tome pages / shield fragments / tapestries. Of course there will be some interaction between the old plat economy and those new systems when players pay 1,000,000 plat for a single Shield Fragment or whatever, but that connection is optional.

While they have introduced these items that require a grind to get, there hasn't been an effort by the player-base to come out and negotiate any universalities in price from item to item. There's little-to-no effort to come to one place and say (on one server or all), "5 Dragon Scales are worth 100kpp" and then go from there or to create points for item Prefixes and Suffixes and go from there. I'm happy that plat farmers exist in this game as they help to at least create SOME medium for costs. They may post Vorpals for 100kpp even though there's some out for 50-80kpp, but at least they set the high/low/middle bid costs for items and then we adjust to it.

However, you can never prevent people from paying for stuff out of ABSOLUTE necessity. I sold a Siberys Dragonshard for 2 million plat (I have witnesses) on the Auction House, can we blame someone needing a dragonshard that badly as driving Siberys shards up? No. This was an Enigma. A freak accident that hasn't occurred again.

The only reason Auction House prices are so high? People are greedy, plain and simple. Complain all you want about a Vorpal being 100kpp, but if you can't go farm the vale with a caster friend more than 2-4 times and make, potentially, that much in that many runs in order to afford the item, that's your problem.

Farm Trial By Fire (30-80kpp for 8 runs - 40-80 minutes, tops). There's a bajillion ways to make that much money quickly in this game, the Vale/PoP/Trial By Fire/Maze of Madness just allow for the easiest cash farming ever.

Ending Point: You want to fix the economy or attempt to create some balance so one player type or the other won't complain? Come together and talk item prices via plat/points. Compile it all into a thread that can/will be updated based on item availability (Forum trade threads are an Ok, at best monitor, and the AH allows one to visually see and count the # available.

[Brummbar]

Best response BAR-None!


Those who don't work hard at a skill or craft and then turn around and complain about those who are successful are just a waste of spacial mass.


Learn your skill, and be as good at it as possible, ... the old adage, lead, follow, or GET OUT OF THE WAY.






I think we could sum up nicely by saying that if you realistically expect to be able to afford high end items off the AH you must also be adept at selling there as well. Some guys think up great builds, some guys play their heart out and amaze you, and some guys can turn dog turds into gold. It's a skill, and like any skill you have to practice and research. Right or wrong, for those of us who have done our homework and really enjoy working the market it's a slap in the face to hear people complain and try to play the plat farmer card.

[MrWizard]

Oh yea!!! Criticizing people who critize auction house prices is ridiculous too....:)

hey man.....ready for an all caster invader elite run??



I see a lot of complaints about "out of control" AH prices and so forth. I've seen claims that "plat farmers" are responsible for the high prices. I've seen various suggestions around capping or otherwise "controlling" the auction house prices in order to "fix it". I've seen people claim that Plat Farmers "bid up" prices in the AH.

Frankly, these suggestions/ideas bewilder me.

First, Plat Farmers aren't responsible for the high price of items on the AH. Buyers are. Because apparently (some) buyers are willing to pay those prices. As long as there are buyers with money to spend, sellers will try to get every penny they can. If the sellers price their items too high, no one buys them, and the seller pays a transaction cost.

Second, if you try to control the auction house to ensure "reasonable" prices (essentially creating price controls), every interesting item will stop being posted on the auction house - and will show up on the forums instead. Case in point - Wounding of Puncturing items. Now, imagine that no more +6 stat items, no more vorpals/disruptors/paralyzers/smiters/etc, no more holy of pure good/silver bows, no more mithral shields or full plate, etc, etc on the AH. Many, many items are simply far more valuable than others of the same minimum level. (Anarchic Burst Handwraps of slowburst vs. vorpal battleaxe of righteousness)

Third, unless the platfamers are responsible for half the items on the AH, they can't reasonably create artificial shortages for very long. Let me give you an example:



Let's assume there are 100 vorpals that drop on every server on a given day. 5 of those are picked up by plat farmers, the other 95 by regular players. Each player decides for themselves what they would like to receive for the vorpal... let's say they want 100k plat on average for their vorpals, and they set up auctions with a 100k buyout.

The platfarmers, however, want the price to be a million. But they can't make the price a million if there are vorpals out there for 100k. So they have to buy up 95 vorpals at a total price of 9.5 million. So now, they put vorpals back on the market at 1 million. Now, will someone buy some of these vorpals? Probably, but not that many people have 1 million plat lying around, and most of those who do probably don't need vorpals. Maybe they sell 10 of them. So they make 500k plat in profit on that first day.

The second day, another 100 vorpals drop. But this time, some of the people who sold one the day before noticed that their 100k buyout went quickly. So some decide to go for a 200k buyout - let's say the average ends up being 150k. So now the plat farmers have to spend ~14.5 million, and they sell 10, for a loss of 4.5 million.

And the third day, other people notice the rapid buyouts at 150k, and go for 200, etc. In essence, the plat farmers can't control the price because they can't control the supply. Unless they pick up more than half the good items every single day, the farmers can't ever make enough in profits to cover their expenses in creating artificial shortages.




In summation - the prices are an elaborate dance between buyers who want to pay as little as possible, and sellers who want to make as much as possible. If the prices are high, it is because buyers are willing to pay those high prices, otherwise the sellers won't be able to sell them, and will have to lower their prices instead. The auction house works fine as it is.

[Ron]

Plat farmers have to earn the money the same way the rest of us do... they are not the cause of the ingame inflation.
The flaw in that argument, Ridd, is that plat farmers work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They work the same quest over and over, whichever is the one that gets them plat the fastest. Basically they are printing a LOT more money than the average (or even the hardcore) player, and yes, IMO, they are driving up prices on the AH. Because, quite simply, they are responsible for dumping a large amount of plat into the economy that otherwise wouldn't be there. You can't compare them with other players, they are apples and oranges. If they didn't sell it, they wouldn't stay in business, and we wouldn't be getting those constant annoying tells all the time (and speaking of that, when is turbine going to fix the harrassment report system?).

They're kind of like the terminator. "They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever." :)

[Euthorcize]

I am a new player.

I have 20,000 plat between my 2 guys. I simply cannot imagine there will ever be a day where I can afford the auction house prices.

[Riddikulus]

The flaw in that argument, Ridd, is that plat farmers work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They work the same quest over and over, whichever is the one that gets them plat the fastest. Basically they are printing a LOT more money than the average (or even the hardcore) player, and yes, IMO, they are driving up prices on the AH. Because, quite simply, they are responsible for dumping a large amount of plat into the economy that otherwise wouldn't be there. You can't compare them with other players, they are apples and oranges. If they didn't sell it, they wouldn't stay in business, and we wouldn't be getting those constant annoying tells all the time (and speaking of that, when is turbine going to fix the harrassment report system?).
I just can't see plat farming as a profitable operation for a large number of farmers. Maybe on a WoW server with tens of thousands of players certainly, but here in niche-land it just can't be.

Judging by the spam-tells I get it looks to me like there is really only a couple of different messages... perhaps there is only a couple farmer groups who are doing this... and if so they just cannot affect the economy in any meaningful way.

Again IMO it's the other 1000 players on each server who are creating massive amounts of wealth which has no place to go in the current DDO economy which is causing the inflation. Sure the plat farmers contribute a percentage but I don't think it is as large as you would think.

As far as some mitigation strategies (be nice, just brainstorming here):

1) Make all magic items bind on equip. This reduces twinking and locks in better items so that they cannot be reused/sold.

2) Instantly disable trial accounts which get a spam report against them. Let them talk to the GM to get reinstated if it turns out to be a mistake. Give them a free month as an apology even.

3) Devalue the economy... during one maint period divide all money in-game by 5 or 10, along with all AH bids, etc. This will make it so that you can put higher value items on the AH to pull more cash out of the system in auction fees.

4) Add a meaningful search ability for the AH. This will contribute to competition.

5) Join the AH between the servers together. Again makes the seller/buyer populations larger and contributes to competition.

6) Add the ability to buy the next two bank space tabs for some kind of large fee. This increases players carrying capacity which reduces the need to buy items on the AH at high prices.

7) Add the ability to establish a guild bank. Again this increases carrying capacity for players and allows easier sharing of mid/low grade magic.

Out of ideas for the moment...

[Ranmaru2]

I am a new player.

I have 20,000 plat between my 2 guys. I simply cannot imagine there will ever be a day where I can afford the auction house prices.

ransack the vale

[Aranticus]

This.

People think a loot run must be done on Elite in the highest possible quest level.

Factually incorrect. Trial by Fire is still one of the fastest loot runs out there if you can get the right group for it (and, sometimes, even not the right group). And it's, what, L13 on Normal? Why, you can get W/P weapons from there!

bad example....

tell me how many people you see running TBF on normal? heck my wiz can even solo it on elite. yes it is ML13 on normal, but what is the chance of a W/P dropping? if it drops every run, i'll just do it on normal. however in ddo this is not like the way you put it across. maybe out of 1000 pulls, you get a w/p. however, you get 999 lousy crappy weapons. 999 ML12 weapons sell MORE than 999 ML10 weapons.

another this is for the possibly of some gear dropping. how many people run dust on normal for loot? on normal setting its L16 and 0% chance of a +2 tome dropping (reward dun count), but when you run it on hard, there is a possibility a +2 tome might drop. the only people that run dust on normal are those that do it for 1. flagging, 2. vale ingredients

so why do people choose to do some quests on elite? 1. elite has better drops, 2. xp is better, however its dependant on the difficulty of the quest

tbf = elite
dust = hard
shroud = normal

by your arguement, everyone should be running reaver on normal then..... since you can get w/p on normal

[branmakmuffin]

I am a new player.

I have 20,000 plat between my 2 guys. I simply cannot imagine there will ever be a day where I can afford the auction house prices.
Is this some kind of joke or sarcastic comment? If not, just how 00ber do you want to be?

[Euthorcize]

That is all my money after 2 weeks of playing, scrimping and saving, buying few potions or wands and generally trying to save as much money as possible. Any item I would even think of buying would take all of my money and be worthless in a few levels, so it is not viable.

[Aranticus]

That is all my money after 2 weeks of playing, scrimping and saving, buying few potions or wands and generally trying to save as much money as possible. Any item I would even think of buying would take all of my money and be worthless in a few levels, so it is not viable.

i sold all my loot (kept a few ubers) from yesterday's (just 1 day) gaming and netted 200k pp

money is easy to get when u have high level toons rolling in the dough

[Detton]

I am a relatively new player. I had a founders account when DDO was released, but I only got my main to level 6 before I quit the first time. (At the time, I didn't feel like DDO had enough depth to it; a lot has changed since then, and I'm enjoying myself, but that's beside the point)

I'm level 9 now, solo/duo exclusively, so i'm not getting into the big quests at the key levels. I am making acceptable money. There are some things I can't afford that I would like, but everything I NEED I can afford. I'd like a Dusk Heart (I think that's what it's called), but I don't see myself giving up the Voice of the Master I just got (i know that's a new item, but still) so it'd be a novelty at best.

The thing about an inflated economy is... it works both ways. What, vials of pure water sell for 250k/300k gold per 5? Outrageous? Maybe. But they're also easy to farm for, if you really want to. =)

Strings of prayer beads... Tome: Prophecies of Khyber... When Monks were just released (about 4 days into my free trial before I officially subscribed), I made a killing selling Steady Spellcasting helms. :) To this day, low-level "Frost" handwraps sell for great money.

Prices are high, because people have a lot of money. People have a lot of money because, well, prices are high. Everything is just scaled upwards, and as a new player you can take advantage of that yourself fairly easily. The only way you honestly can't afford what you want on the AH is if you don't make an effort to do it yourself, or you're unfamiliar with things.

For example, I can't tell you how many vials of pure water and funerary tokens I *DESTROYED* to clear my collectables bag just to make room for "better" collectable turnins. /FACEPALM! Since learning about what they are used for (and conversely, why they're so friggin' expensive on the AH), i've made alot of money there, too.

What would help this supposed problem is by making the auction house searchable. As it is, people buy higher priced items because it is a pain to find out if there are cheaper ones posted. If it was searchable, prices would scale down pretty dramatically almost immediately. They wouldn't bottom out, but you'd see lower prices all around.

I don't feel it's a problem though. I'll sell vials of pure water, 'overpriced', to people who have a lot of money because they, too, sold overpriced vials of pure water. *shrug*

[Arianrhod]

Been playing 2 years now, and always been short of money. However, the posters saying "get higher level and your money woes will vanish" (paraphrase) are probably right. It's always going to be hard as long as your highest level character is more than 3 levels below the cap, because all the "loot runs" on the LFMs are for the highest level characters. But even getting to, say, level 9 makes it much easier to affor the static-price thigs like wands and potions than it was at, say, 5. Sure, the best stuff on the auction house is out of reach and likely to stay that way, but a +4 chain shirt is almost as good as a +4 mithral breastplate, and dirt cheap by comparison. The hard part is making yorself go out and run quests you've done before solely to make money. That's just not much fun. It works, but it's dull. Might as well be cleaning the basement :P Sooo....as others have said before me - if you want cash without too much tedium, pick a character and level up. Tell people you group with that you don't have the resources they might expect because it's your first character, and many will be understanding (some might even donate some hand-me-down gear or expendables). Once you get at or near the level cap, money will be .... not falling from the sky, but not unbearably tight either.

[branmakmuffin]

Sure, the best stuff on the auction house is out of reach and likely to stay that way, but a +4 chain shirt is almost as good as a +4 mithral breastplate, and dirt cheap by comparison.
You partly hit the nail on the head. There are certain things people go ga-ga over, for no readily apparent reason. I remember back in the olden days (level 10 cap), when people thought thundering weapons were cool, simply because of the way they looked. I remember explaining to someone once "You know, the game values a thundering weapon as much as a flaming weapon, but a flaming weapon does +1d6 on every hit, whereas a thundering weapon does +1d8 only on a critical" (I'm pretty sure that's how it was for thundering weapons back then). He thought a moment then said "Yeah, you're right." And today, I think there are people who value a +1 elemental weapon over a +4 weapon. Some stuff is trendy, like Monk stuff is now and I'm sure too many power-gaming, nose-picking adolescents are willing to buy plat to satisfy their desires to reach level 16 in a weekend.