AH price out of control?

[pMagic]

I've noticed that things have gotten more expensive since the switch from the gold standard.

Has anyone noticed this?

Does anyone know how much prices have changed for certain items?

[FlyingTurtle]

It's just general inflation caused by generation of currency exceeding removal of currency from the system.

[systemstate]

I've noticed that things have gotten more expensive since the switch from the gold standard.

Has anyone noticed this?

Does anyone know how much prices have changed for certain items?

Some things are definitely more expensive than before, while other items have finally leveled out and are back down to where they used to be.

Paralyzers for example are finally back down in the 100k-175k gp range for the most part. Tomes have gotten a bit spendy I think though.

[Pape_27]

The cost of ingredients has gone thru the roof. a mill plat for a large scale? waaaaay too much. 150 to 200 k plat for a funk? again, way too much.

Whats the cause beyond normal inflation? plat farmers? thats the direction i would be leaning towards.


_

[FluffyCalico]

Whats the cause beyond normal inflation? plat farmers? thats the direction i would be leaning towards.


_

Nope its people with plat capped toons who would rather pay that price then mess with finding it.

The price will always be what people will pay.

[Delandur]

You people who are condoning the ridiclous AH prices are probably the plat farmers. If I was to start a new toon on this server and be new to the game I'd want to cry, because when I really was new to the server I could buy good equipment off the ah from what I looted and sold at level 7.

I think a lot of you (I have several 20s as well just pointing that out) have had 20s for so long and just don't realize the implications that ridiclous pricing has.

For example, a new player starts and plays to level 5 or so where he discovers the AH. He thinks oh that's cool I can grab an item that I want from there. Only to find out that ALL the plat he's hoarded since being level 1 isn't even a quarter of what he needs to buy some +1 of ele damage weapon.

AH pricing is crazy, it DID get worse when the gold to plat switch went into effect, and for the most part HASN'T leveld back out.

With that being said any item I want I don't trade plat for becuase generally it's too valuable for plat alone (or at all).

The problem is that plat is somewhat useless at high levels yet you have these people who sit behind their computer for hours a day and try to hoard it. I just don't get some people. I mean go play the game or something.

This post is mostly for those plat farmers out there, which is a big pet peeve of mine

Sometimes I think they tell themselves "No, I don't want to play the game I want to become a billionaire in an imaginary fantasy game, because that makes me feel better about myself, considering I still live in mothers basement."

[pMagic]

Sometimes I think they tell themselves "No, I don't want to play the game I want to become a billionaire in an imaginary fantasy game, because that makes me feel better about myself, considering I still live in mothers basement."

My mother's basement is very nice. Thank you very much.

[pMagic]

For example, a new player starts and plays to level 5 or so where he discovers the AH. He thinks oh that's cool I can grab an item that I want from there. Only to find out that ALL the plat he's hoarded since being level 1 isn't even a quarter of what he needs to buy some +1 of ele damage weapon.

This is very true. Even low level gear price is ridiculous.

[Postumus]

You people who are condoning the ridiclous AH prices are probably the plat farmers.

No, no, no. It is not the 'plat farmers.' This is what happens in an unregulated free market with unlimited money supply.


Sellers don't dictate the price, the buyers do. No one can force a buyer to buy anything. The sellers WANT to sell, and since there is generally no overhead for them (unless they are resellers), they will take the highest price they can get. Buyers are flush with virtual cash, so they drive prices up, not sellers.


You are witnessing the same type of phenomenon that occurred in the US housing market. Cheap, easy credit allowed anyone to have access to hundreds of thousands of dollars (through financing). The market got flooded with lots of buyers with money, so prices became inflated to ridiculous levels. Similar thing happened with IPOs in the nineties.


Unlike the real world, DDO won't experience a 'bubble' since, as Ratnix explained, there is no end to the money supply. It just keeps growing. Buyers keep accumulating more and more wealth, and have less and less to spend it on. Now new players with 150pp are competing with TRX3 players with (virtually) unlimited wealth for some of the same items.


If the AH didn't exist, prices would still be sky high and the trade channel would be a nightmare. People would just use the forums to sell things, for the same high prices.


The only way to lower prices in a free market, is to increase the supply of those items. You could try to undercut every seller on the AH and trade channel - but that would be a full time job. Also, savvy AH sellers will simply snap up your lower priced items and resell them at a higher rate to try to keep prices up.


I think a better approach is to educate new players.

1- Steer them toward the pawnshop vendors and encourage people to use pawnshops rather than other in game vendors who don't resell, so items are available to other players at (practically) list price.

2- Teach lowbies which crafting items sell on the AH so they post ALL their crafting items for sale, rather than cash them in to NPCs for dubious rewards. That would dramatically increase the supply of those items and drive the prices down.

[Ratnix]

it has nothing to do with the switch from the gold standard.

It will happen in any game of this type.

Currency is created out of nothing. You loot currency from breakables. You sell junk to vendors who have unlimited amounts of currency.
That is currency created out of nothing. Every single player is able to acquire currency in this way.
The longer the game is out, the more currency is introduced into the system.

The more currency that is in a system, the more currency that is avaliable to the players to spend on items sold by other players.

There are ways to keep this in check, but with the unlimited amount of currency being avaliable from vendors and loot, it is an uphill battle.

Anytime a player with loads of currency quits the game and doesn't give all their stuff to somebody else, that currency leaves the system.
Developers can, and do, put in Money sinks such as taxes, fees, and other things that require players to spend currency at vendors that take currency out of the system.

There really is no way to stop this from happening aside from removing all currency from the game and starting over. Which, as you can imagine, would **** off the players to no end.

What usually ends up happening is developers will eventually start to give away large amounts of currency to newly created characters so as to alleviate the burden of not having the cash to purchase anything on the market. This can be done in a number of ways such as giving them starter items that will sell for decent amount of currency, but is only avaliable to newly created characters once.

The problem with that is it will then get abuse by players who just create new character after character in order to farm the currency created for the True new players.
Of course the economic system of the game is usually totally borked by the time it gets to this stage so that is less of an issue.

[FlyingTurtle]

What usually ends up happening is developers will eventually start to give away large amounts of currency to newly created characters so as to alleviate the burden of not having the cash to purchase anything on the market.

They're already doing this in the form of stone of change collectables (e.g. feverblanch, pure water, tome: prophecies of khyber). It's a good system, causing wealth to redistribute partially from high levels to lowbies without unbalancing the lowbie game too much.

[Ratnix]

They're already doing this in the form of stone of change collectables (e.g. feverblanch, pure water, tome: prophecies of khyber). It's a good system, causing wealth to redistribute partially from high levels to lowbies without unbalancing the lowbie game too much.

True, not quite what I am talking about, but a very good example of it implemented.

I played one game where they go to the point that at specific levels, new players received an item that was sold for, relatively little by advanced player standards, a decent amount of cash.
It was a one time shot, but it was just given to new players for the express purpose of selling it to a merchant for some starting cash to get them over the hump that was created by the lack of enough money sinks in the game.

[pMagic]

it has nothing to do with the switch from the gold standard.

It will happen in any game of this type.

Currency is created out of nothing. You loot currency from breakables. You sell junk to vendors who have unlimited amounts of currency.
That is currency created out of nothing. Every single player is able to acquire currency in this way.
The longer the game is out, the more currency is introduced into the system.

The more currency that is in a system, the more currency that is avaliable to the players to spend on items sold by other players.

There are ways to keep this in check, but with the unlimited amount of currency being avaliable from vendors and loot, it is an uphill battle.

Anytime a player with loads of currency quits the game and doesn't give all their stuff to somebody else, that currency leaves the system.
Developers can, and do, put in Money sinks such as taxes, fees, and other things that require players to spend currency at vendors that take currency out of the system.

There really is no way to stop this from happening aside from removing all currency from the game and starting over. Which, as you can imagine, would **** off the players to no end.

What usually ends up happening is developers will eventually start to give away large amounts of currency to newly created characters so as to alleviate the burden of not having the cash to purchase anything on the market. This can be done in a number of ways such as giving them starter items that will sell for decent amount of currency, but is only avaliable to newly created characters once.

The problem with that is it will then get abuse by players who just create new character after character in order to farm the currency created for the True new players.
Of course the economic system of the game is usually totally borked by the time it gets to this stage so that is less of an issue.

I agree with you. Things will get more as more currency is introduced. This is very unfortunate for anyone who is new to the game. I remember I was able to fully equip my toon at level 4 with only 20k plat just awhile ago. I can only get 1 or 2 decent items off the AH now for that price.

I can see the prices for higher end ingredients going for higher and higher as seasoned players get more plats in their coffers and will just purchase a rare ingredient rather then farm for it. But I would think that lowbie stuff like +1 to +3 weapon would become less and less expensive due to the fact that they drop more often.

1 mil plat for large devil scale is really ridiculous but if someone is willing to purchase it then it will continue to be offered.

Is the cap of ~4+ mil plat per toon still there? If that's the case in time you can't buy stuff of the AH anymore.

[Ratnix]

Is the cap of ~4+ mil plat per toon still there? If that's the case in time you can't buy stuff of the AH anymore.

All that happens in that case is on top of the cash that players ask for items they sell, they also require other specific items that are guaranteed.

I am still too new at this game to know all the items, but I thought I saw something about Red scales or something like that, as being a high value item that people also accept along with the pp they get for trade.

Edit. Sorry my leave for work right now alarm went off right as I started this post and posted an incomplete thought.

Add in there, yes, item that are over the ah limit wont get sold on the ah. They then get sold on trade/forums for cash and items.
Unless they are being sold by somebody who doesn't care about making money anymore.

[Aaxeyu]

Any effect that the change from gold to plat had is only temporary, and depends on people being stupid.

Just like IRL, inflation generally is "too much money chasing too few goods"

Basicly, it's easier to get plat than get the items.

[pMagic]

All that happens in that case is on top of the cash that players ask for items they sell, they also require other specific items that are guaranteed.

I am still too new at this game to know all the items, but I thought I saw something about Red scales or something like that, as being a high value item that people also accept along with the pp they get for trade.

Ratnix - you are correct. After awhile people do not sell stuff for plats anymore. I hardly do it myself. I prefer to trade rare items I have for something I don't have.

The AH should have a section where you can post trades.

[Talltale-Storyteller]

it has nothing to do with the switch from the gold standard.

It will happen in any game of this type.

Currency is created out of nothing. You loot currency from breakables. You sell junk to vendors who have unlimited amounts of currency.
That is currency created out of nothing. Every single player is able to acquire currency in this way.
The longer the game is out, the more currency is introduced into the system.

The more currency that is in a system, the more currency that is avaliable to the players to spend on items sold by other players.

There are ways to keep this in check, but with the unlimited amount of currency being avaliable from vendors and loot, it is an uphill battle.

.....................

There really is no way to stop this from happening aside from removing all currency from the game and starting over.

I'm sorry, but while I read this for some reason I just kept thinking about the Federal Reserve... :P

[aurum1]

'Fighting' outrageous prices is just silly. The prices aren't outrageous. The game just has a poor economy. Would I buy a large scale for 1mm plat? No....but at the same time I wouldn't sell one for that much either. It is worth more to me than that.

On the low end...well the problem is what is the point? Lets say I loot a random holy burst weapon. A year ago I would have posted it on the AH. Now I have lots more loot and plat and it just isn't worth the bother. Now I will post it if I happen to be looking at the AH to buy stuff and happen to look at my inventory to post stuff. Otherwise it will get vendored when I repair. I can't be bothered to use brokers or the AH to make more plat since the value of it is so marginal to me. If I post something at all it will be over priced.

[MonkeyMouse]

Its just down to the fact that Stormreach isnt immune to the global recession, I heard two coin lord "hedge fund" bankers moaning the other day, its ok things will get better and prices will level out (the weak dollar doesnt help matters tho ;o) )

[HumanJHawkins]

it has nothing to do with the switch from the gold standard. It will happen in any game of this type.<cut>

I'd be inclined to agree if I hadn't played for 3 years and saw stady inflation the whole time, followed by a HUGE leap right as the AH changed currency.

I think a lot of people put things up with a plat number that matched their old gold number. A few due to error, but most hoping to score on someone who wasn't paying attention. But things haven't leveled off yet.

Also, there is some human nature involved. I know I have a hard time thinking it's worth it to even bother posting something for less than 2,500 plat. But I used to have no trouble posting things for 10,000 gold. I'm sure I''m not the only one.