Topic

The auction economy

So I have a question:
Why is it that Extremely Hallowed Shrine Powder (a useful item that isn't sold by vendors) sells at auction for 1800 currants, yet the raw components (163 sparkly, 52 beryl, and 92 dullite) sell to a tool vendor for about 1600 currants? Does that mean that all the mining, grinding and alchemizing (assuming you do it yourself, as that is probably the most cost-efficient way to), not to mention all the food and drink you consume while doing it, is only worth 200 currants? Am I missing something here? Is there any economic advantage of spending the time to learn all the skills to make things, or is EHSP just really over-produced? Any sort of insight would be awesome, I'm just a bit confused.

Edit: Thanks to GrindOTron and the Glitch Wiki for their help!

Posted 14 months ago by Devers Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

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  • It's even worse than that -- if you look at the market value of the ores you need to make an EHSP, they'd come in considerably higher than 1800.

    In general, auction prices seem surprisingly low, to a degree that I find puzzling. Considering the tons of raw materials that are been hoovered out of the game by road construction and favor donations, you'd think there wouldn't be a whole lot of supply left for auctions. And yet looking at auction prices, clearly supply is still very high.  Maybe it's just that the majority of players at this point are saving for a nice house and so are putting lots of things up for sale? I dunno. It's a good question.
    Posted 14 months ago by Pease Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'd also like to mention that making things takes a LONG (compared to other activities) time if you're harvesting all the ingredients. Even the recently removed from vendors Wood Tree Beans are selling for very very minimal profits, assuming you make them yourself. I'd like to think I'm missing something, but I'm not so sure.
    Posted 14 months ago by Devers Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Auction Prices for Sparkly are even lower than the NPC price.

    Auction prices in general seem to be very wonky and I wouldn't count on them for much.
    Posted 14 months ago by Bluigi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Could also be not everyone knows about the user-driven market (I'm avoiding calling it auctions from now on!!), so there might appear to be less demand and more supply than there really should be.  There's not a link in the main navigational menu - I usually access it from home or just typing the url, but you'd have to know it was there to use it.

    Newbies!  The lot of em.  Like me.  Thanks for the info - I didn't know EHSP cost that much to make, or what EHSP stood for, or even how it was made.  Hopefully it will all pick up when more people are on a more level playing field knowledge-wise.
    Posted 14 months ago by Lara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Mining ore, grinding it, and crafting EHSP gets you more experience than only mining and auctioning the raw ore. You could think of the currant value of XP as being very high.

    I'm not that surprised that the auction economy rebounded fast after the street projects.  Resources are abundant and a lot of people spend most of their game time gathering something or other.
    Posted 14 months ago by Lucille Ball Subscriber! | Permalink
  • this is commonplace in all MMOs for some reason.
    i remember times in wow where a crafted item would sell for 50g while the materials for it would sell for 150.
    Posted 14 months ago by Jindujun Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yes, I've noticed this in all areas, too.  I know that the reason General Gas or Bubbles go high at times are because of street projects, but many times I could sell the raw material and make way more than the finished product...but it's fun to make the product, I get XP (as Lucille mentioned) and can offer food at a competitive price!  If I am in need of fast cash, I run to my stash and auction off something that's in high demand...so I can see both sides of the market...
    Posted 14 months ago by Mogen Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The reason I don't even stop to think about the true value of an item is due to the time limited auctions with steep fees.  If I'm putting something on the AH I need to know that it will sell.  That means I have to put it up at the lowest price, or lower.  The last thing I want is to eat 9.5% in fees and have the item not sell.

    Edit -- Oops just realized that the 8% fee is only charged on successful sale.  I guess it's only 1.5% loss if it doesn't sell.  Wonder if I'm the only one who confused that.
    Posted 14 months ago by Issek of the Jug Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I just auction stuff off for the hell of it. I run around and get so much stuff that if I have any left over, selling it at a price that seems fair to me is fine. I won't sell something if it appears to be going for less than I think it's worth.

    It's also sort of nice for people to pick up things for a good price, I've been considering making and leaving a jar of EHSP at each of my neighbors doors in Leeteg, just to be neighborly.
    Posted 14 months ago by rorschach Subscriber! | Permalink
  • 1. People are, in general, not very good at estimating costs of raw materials and process, unless they're the kind who actually sit down with pencil and paper and do the math (which I suppose doesn't count as "estimating.")

    2. I personally tend to only sell things in the player market that I don't have another need for, that I just don't want lying around. That means that getting rid of it for some ready cash is more important to me than making my costs back - the "pawn shop" approach if you will.

    3. And of course if you sell something that you got for free as a reward, like a musicblock, then your "cost" was zero, so any amount you sell it for is profit.
    Posted 14 months ago by Columbina Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm in AB 100% of the time. There are no tool vendors to sell my rocks to. Just saying.
    Posted 14 months ago by Bashere Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It is pretty weird.  I think there's a bunch of ways to figure values for things - I continue to be astonished that Flaming Humbaba's sell so cheaply, given that they can cover the energy requirement for a full run at grinding - the food costs there would be alarming.

    I think ultimately, the risk of not selling drives prices down.  The way the auctions are sorted, plus the way that "more expensive" (per unit!) auctions can't be seen at all really drives prices down all over.

    I think there's also something to be said for the "street value" for items being included, and reflecting somehow in the default prices for things.

    Until we see a complementary set of buy orders, the auction house is a pressure not to craft.  In other words, only to harvest, since as you point out, crafted goods are severely underpriced. Or: XP is severely overpriced, when got by crafting - I'd argue that e.g. 400c buys a caterpillar worth about 145XP in donations, which puts the cost of an XP at about 2.8c.
    Posted 14 months ago by Yarrow Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yeah, I did the math on creating molybdenum bars for auctioning they were worth slightly more net profit than just selling plain metal ingots. Of course, I really got into it and calculated the wear on the tool used for harvesting, energy cost, avg yield, etc... I don't have it in front of me right now, but I believe it was 11.7c profit to sell molybdenum (per bar) and 11.4c profit to sell plain metal ingot.(To Yarrow's point, I am not counting xp gain so I suppose there is value in that too).

    I think that two things really need to happen for that to change:

    1. Remove more items from vendors.
    2. Continue to expand the skill tree.
    Posted 14 months ago by Wizzleford Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think part of it is that people don't pay attention. I saw a particular item spike in price. I had one and I was able to buy a couple that someone listed quite cheaply as I was listing. After they were up, I saw a few more come in cheaply (a bit more than half of what I had them listed for). I bought those and relisted a couple at the higher price. Turns out this person had a bunch more and kept listing and listing them at about 60% of the price I had listed at. Now I'm screwed on that deal. Mine will never sell and he has left a few grand on the table that he could have made if he had priced them at the same level as I did (or even a few bucks cheaper).

    I'm convinced people don't check to see what the items are selling for before listing. Or some are just Commies. Go drop them in the street, Ivan, and quit screwing up my profits!
    Posted 14 months ago by Billy McBinky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Mind you, all of this figuring seems dependent on actually purchasing the ingredients, which if you're a miner/refiner and actually make the Extremely Hallowed Shrine Powder, you just go out and mine the ore, and make it.

    Yes, the auction economy has a lot of supply/demand issues, but it always will.
    Posted 14 months ago by Demetra Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I always sell stuff on auctions lower then everybody else because i want to make a quick profit!...even if its just 1 currant less
    Posted 14 months ago by Riddleguy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If the dude has priced his stuff 1 currant less than me, fair play. Putting it at more than 40% off, that's just shooting himself in the foot and shooting me in the back.
    Posted 14 months ago by Billy McBinky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Bashere - good point, I haven't even been in Ajaya so I had no idea this was even an issue.

    I hear a lot of speculation in the forums but I'm pretty sure we are all still learning about the various still-emerging factors.  In the meantime I'm personally just going to enjoy whatever comes along and be open to different ways of doing things, until everything stabilises.  I figure if I make a loss, too bad, currants are made of imagination anyway!
    Posted 14 months ago by Lara Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Demetra I actually figured it on mining the ingredients yourself and then selling the final product, as that seems the most logical way to make a profit from crafting. The auction economy has problems that at this point seem to make it kinda not worth it at all, which is a real shame
    Posted 14 months ago by Devers Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Another problem with market is that it only lists a certain number of offers. It automatically arranges them from lowest per unit cost to highest. Problem is, if there are more than 20 auctions, it doesn't show the others, it just says "and x more expensive items." There is no option to view the other items or sort them. What if I want to buy a small quantity of an item and am willing to pay a higher per unit cost? What If I am selling items in small lots at highter per unit costs? In either case, I'm screwed because those auctions are inaccessible.
    Posted 14 months ago by Billy McBinky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If you're looking to make a profit, it tends to be more efficient to sell raw ingredients and buy the finished goods than it is to make finished goods yourself.

    That's a huge problem as I see it.
    Posted 14 months ago by Prof. Woland Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I will play my teeny tiny violin for all you thwarted millionaires.  
    Posted 14 months ago by Jewel Stoned Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks for being a jerk. I see you've run that skill tree up to the max.

    If somebody wants to play the game as a trader, why do you wanth to crap al over that?
    Posted 14 months ago by Billy McBinky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Oh, it gets even funnier. You're level 23 and already have a fine house. Just to Hell with anybody else who comes after and wants to get the same, eh?
    Posted 14 months ago by Billy McBinky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I've also noticed that items even 1 step away from basic ingredients (i.e. more advanced spices like Cumin, Camphor, Nutmeg or Heavy Gas or whatever) don't quite add up to the sum of their parts. So learning Gasmogrification or those skills seems like it isn't economically beneficial at all
    Posted 14 months ago by Devers Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Games don't quite add up with real life, since a lot of people value their time as having zero, or even negative value: they're here to waste time, and anything that lets them do that is worth something to them!
    Posted 14 months ago by Saro Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Wauw Billy McBinky, bad hairday?

    It's a free market. If people want to price below vendor selling price then they can do that. Some people just want to be nice and offer others a chance to get ingredients cheaply.
    I got my house at level 10ish I think. And I had not used the auction house once.
    I earned currants by doing quests and selling things to a vendor.
    So your comment about "to hell with anybode else who comes after and wants to get the same" - you can get a house if you save up for it, you can get a house all by yourself without needing other players to buy stuff from you. So putting up items below market value is not hindering anyone.

    I am more annoyed by people who maximize prices, who buy up goods that were put on cheap and sell them for more. I don't want to sell to resellers, I want to sell to endusers. My products need to be used, not traded around.
    Currants are unimportant to me. It is hardly needed in the game besides for getting a house.
    I saved almost every penny for my house. Only after that am I expanding my bags, getting more expensive equipment. I still haven't gotten all bigger bags or all the best equipment, but I'm fine, I still got x years to come to gather that. I am in no rush to "reach the end of the game" and be bored.
    Posted 14 months ago by Miriamele Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Also, the thing that would totally solve any problem of this kind? If vendors stopped buying things.
    Posted 14 months ago by Saro Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If vendors stopped buying things, prices would bottom out at like 1c per item, and that certainly wouldn't be pretty...
    Posted 14 months ago by Devers Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Saro - Then we'd have a lot of trash items on the floor. No thank you!
    Posted 14 months ago by Bluigi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Devers not really, some item prices would fall a certain amount before people realise it's actually worth buying them. Forcing street price to stay above the vendor price just messes up the pricing. At least force the vendor price to stay below the street price, that would work better...

    @Bluigi Well, if they did that, they'd need to have recycling bins... Or a recycling skill. A recycling skill would balance out a lot of prices.
    Posted 14 months ago by Saro Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Our maybe an altar of some sort
    Posted 14 months ago by Bwern Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Miramele,

    As far as acquisition of tangible goods goes, I'm set.  I've got a nice house, with an active back yard.  Clothes aren't bought with currants.  And Glitches don't drive cars.

    One thing I'm feeling the lack of is a drive to real interaction.  There's a lot of "hey, hey" and parties, which is fine.  But an ongoing interaction?  A shared endeavor?  There are street projects and Rook attacks, but those come and go and they're both triggered by TS.  Feeling like there's a bunch of rock-crushing refiners out there who need the Flaming Humbabas I make would be a good feeling.  But there's so many cheap ones on the market, it doesn't make sense to do.  

    Better to just harvest the spice and bubbles that make FHs and sell those - a lot better.  So now it's back to repetitive unthinking strip mining of Ur, rather that crafting anything.  And that depresses me.

    Re: reselling, though.  I've found a couple of times that I've put a fair amount of something up for auction, spending the listing cost for it, only to have someone else undercut by a lot.  I don't like to do it, but it can seem like the only thing for me to do is to buy the undercutting products and reprice them so that my original auctions will sell.

    I understand the impulse to sell things cheaply and share the joy, but it does start to interfere with other people's fun, too, you know?
    Posted 14 months ago by Yarrow Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I've only used the auctions to put items on sale a few times, and I'm not sure what would ever make me want to use them that way again.  About half of the time, even though I put in the lowest price, someone quickly put the same thing on sale at an even lower price, I lost the fees and got the item back.  And then went and donated or sold it to a Vendor.  The only successful auctions I've had are when calls for specific items go out to supply street projects.  You agree on a price ahead of time, and only a few people tend to respond, because the call goes out when the supply is already pretty low.  If Vendors stop buying things, and auctions stay like they are now, that will mess up a big part of the game for me.  I'm also far enough along the skill tree, that I tend to make whatever I can, buy what I really have to from the Vendors, and ignore the auctions.
    Posted 14 months ago by KhaKhonsu Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Well, if you don't like the EHSP underpriced, buy it all and put it for sale at more than 2500c, you'll be rich in no time!
    Posted 14 months ago by Dee Sub Wun Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Yerrow - After I've gotten my house and got back on good financial terms I've noticed the same thing, even if something like Guild Halls comes out I'd probably have the money/stuff saved up to help get one made ASAP. I have enough money that I bought 2 houses, all I do now is try and populate areas with animals, because there doesn't seem to be a downside to this at all, chickens are pretty good as people can't just take them.

    Prices on the market are just too problematic though, there's nothing I want to make that will be worth making, because 10 other people are already making it and selling it so cheap that people are just buying it to sell it to vendors.
    Posted 14 months ago by Bluigi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't think it would be so bad if vendors stopped buying things, or at least lowered the price they would give. The only time I ever find myself selling items is when I need 40 more mushrooms or something. The biggest problem this might cause is making it fairly difficult to get your initial house, but that might also make the lower priced houses more desirable. It seems most everything 10k+ is sold out already.
    Posted 14 months ago by Spittle Gauze Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Lucille Ball has the most compelling observation here, I think:  crafting advanced goods gives XP, and after you have your house, XP is a heck of a lot more valuable than currants.  That fact alone goes a long way to explain high supply in crafted goods.
    Posted 14 months ago by Pease Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The low prices are probably due to the fact, and now I'm speaking from my own experience, that every listing sets you back 3 currants... This is not much at all, but the psychological effect is that you want to make sure that people by YOUR products.. so you go below the competitors prices..
    Posted 14 months ago by Princess Sarah Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Sarah, unfortunately, it was that way even before they instituted the listing fee. :(

    The underlying problem is that most skills are easy to learn. Donate stuff, unlock emblem, wait a day or two and you have a skill. There is no real "skill" in learning skills...if that makes sense. So then you have an economy with a not-so-diverse range of skills, and a whole lot of players end up knowing them, and there's a mad rush to buy houses...so a lot of stuff ends up on auction.

    I can tell you that as a strategy, I learned Intermediate Admixing *first*. I was one of the first people after the game went live to be able to craft EHSP, and I was selling it for 4499 currants, then 3999 currants. Then, a couple days later, the price plummeted as more people learned the skill. As long as skills are as easy to learn as they are now, prices will remain suppressed.
    Posted 14 months ago by Mackenzie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Prices are suppressed? Good. That means everybody gets everything at a low cost.

    The purpose of the Auction marketplace could be so that people can specialize in specific segments of the skill tree, and rely on others who they might not even have as friends, to specialize in other things, so that there can be a mutual exchange space. It isn't necessarily 'to make a profit.'

    Resources are really easy to mine or harvest directly. People don't need to focus on the trading bit as a major focus of their work. We don't need a speculators' market for people to succeed. As in every society, there will be people who think that moving stuff around rather than producing things is how to get ahead. But the market shouldn't be strucutred to foster their (the speculator and price maven's) success.

    I've used a few 'coulds and shoulds' up there. Take it as you will, because I am sure some will disagree. So be it.
    Posted 14 months ago by Parrow Gnolle Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I really hope they don't nerf the NPC vendors' buying capability though.  I'm not interested in having to create an auction for every stack of stuff,  waiting forever to sell my crap, make a bit of money, so I can go off and have fun with it. 
    Posted 14 months ago by shhexy corin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • My impression is that most players who sell things on auction are looking to make quick cash for items they don't want or need, but don't take the time to make an informed pricing decision. I am guilty of that behavior myself - I personally see the auction as a way to give other players items they may find useful. My #1 use for the auctions is to make musicblock sets for trophies, and I usually sell back the blocks into the marketplace to break even after I'm done with them.

    That said, the "post auction" UI could stand to show more information to lazy sellers. It shows current lowest price and a suggested selling price without explaining how that suggestion is derived. It doesn't show how much a vendor would buy the item for, nor does it show the range of prices being offered for the item at auction. Thus it's easier to match or underprice, but setting an intelligent higher price takes work. For example, the lowest offer for Pleasing Amber is currently 160 currants. Unless I go to a different screen that takes a couple clicks, I have no idea how many people are offering it at 160. If there's only one person doing that and every other offer is at 200 or above, then 190 might be smart. If there's gobs of offers at 160, then I should offer at 160 or lower if I want to sell.

    There's probably a couple reasons that crafted items don't sell well.  Glitch also isn't nearly as hardcore as more typical MMOs like WoW. The number of players using crafted items to minmax their experience is a much smaller proportion, so items that provide short-term buffs aren't nearly as popular.  Also, once a component is used in a crafted item, it can't be used for anything else.  I used to see crafted items being sold on the WoW auctions that had components I wanted, but I didn't want the crafted item itself. If a lot of sellers think a crafted item will sell well, then you end up with a market glut.

    Incidentally, the only hardcore behavior I've observed in the game is street projects, which is not-coincidentally the one place where you can find some players making a killing on auctions.
    Posted 14 months ago by mirth Subscriber! | Permalink
  • utilize price floors and price celings in the auction. that way stuff wont be overpriced, and there wont be people driving prices down either. I think this would be the best solution
    Posted 14 months ago by Seymour Buttz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Seymour: we sort of have unofficial price floors already, they are just very low: street vendors will buy for at least 70% of value and Tool vendors for 80%  Selling items below 80% of market value creates an arbitrage opportunity for anyone near a tool vendor - they can just buy from the market and sell for an instant profit. 

    Unless you're inconveniently far from a vendor, you shouldn't sell for anywhere below 30% and, depending on the product, for no more than around 20% discount (especially considering the auction listing fees). I really have to wonder about, say, people who are selling milk for 6c/pc - they can get the same price from any vendor in the world and save on auction fees... 

    I don't think ceilings are a good idea either - if prices for anything go through the roof it is because of an undersupply. This should be tackled either on the dev end or by players within game, who should rush to fill that gap and hopefully profit from the shortage.

    Edit: Besides - taking the interaction between buyers and sellers, between supply and demand in game would take away a really interesting aspect of the game (at least for me). I find it fascinating to observe the way the supply and demand sides interact. To artificially fix prices wouldn't be an ideal solution.
    Posted 14 months ago by Prof. Woland Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Why should prices be 'controlled' by an outside force. That's the influence the NPCs have had on the market, and it's what the game ops are trying to do away with.

    People should be able to sell at a big loss if they want to. I don't, nor do I advocate anybody doing so. The point is, it's nobody elses' business what anybody here prices items at. There are perfectly valid reasons why someone might want to do that, though 'just because' is enough. There are times when someone might just need another 1000 currents really fast and selling something for a low price is how to accomplish that.

    Market forces will correct it if and when prices are too high or too low. If you're not making the profit that you need, do something else to get your income.
    Posted 14 months ago by Parrow Gnolle Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I have an additional theory for why materials tend to be more expensive than crafted products.  Materials have the potential to be anything they can be used for, and thus there tends to be a higher demand for them.  If the culture of a game tends toward self-sufficiency or relying on friends, this is magnified as people actively avoid buying finished products.
    Posted 14 months ago by Magic Monkey Subscriber! | Permalink
  • If you want really quick cash, the fastest way is to go to a vendor and sell your stuff there. However, ifyou want more cash for your item, auction generally will give you a higher price even after factoring in the undercutting of prices and auction fees.
    Posted 14 months ago by anonymoose Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @anonymoose, if only it were so.  The problem that some of us are having is that, for lots of goods, the way products are priced mean that there isn't a higher price to be had.

    @Parrow Gnolle, the problem with your reasoning ("everyone get's a low price, which is good because you should be buying the inputs for something productive") is that it means that there's no reason to be doing anything but end-products - which amount to donations and street projects.  The actual pricing tiers at auction are skew to that idea: basic components are priced higher (proportionally) than mid level products than end products.  So in effect, labor has a negative value.
    Posted 14 months ago by Yarrow Subscriber! | Permalink
  • " So in effect, labor has a negative value. "

    Not exactly. The same people are not selling the raw materials as are selling the higher level products. So the cost to the people selling the higher level products is not the price the materials they use are selling for on the market. Many higher-level item producers are using raw materials they harvested/mined themselves.

    My point is that it all gets sorted out in the market. It's good for people to do these analyses, because people will read it and the market may correct for it.

    The people producing the higher level products might consider what they are doing as providng a service to the rest of the community, not a nickel-and-dime operation. They're getting what they need for what they list for sale in the form of a reasonable amount in currants and also from the satisfaction of helping others out. That's likely all they expect to get. This is not a bottom dollar 'see who can make the most money' game. Anybody who is thinking that way is going to hit a brick wall of boredom once they have their $50,000 house, all the cubimals they want, and run out of anything else they can spend currants on. The money ain't it here in Ur.

    I don't get what people in this discussion bemoaning the issue are proposing. Price controls? Really? That's exactly what the game admins are trying to wean us off of by doing away with NPC vended items, to let prices stablize through a natural process. If and when people realize "I could sell the raw materials and make more currants" (if that were their goal in playing the game in the first place...) then prices will change. Until then, it's just a mysterious phenomenon, interesting to ponder, but not a 'problem' that needs correcting. So this is an interesting discussion, but one without any urgency behind it.
    Posted 14 months ago by Parrow Gnolle Subscriber! | Permalink
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