please read thank you market manipulation

i have played entropia on and off since before the day "project entropia" went gold, that is many years ago... this is nothing new and this is not something that will go away.

offering over-priced items is not against the EULA, so filing supportcases about it is a waste of your time and mindarks.

not saying this to be rude, don't get me wrong. i would love to see all those people trying to rip others off banned, but knowingly offering items at prices way higher than they are worth is not a crime. despicable, but not a crime.

 

What you are discussing and market manipulation are two totally different things Boost. They're both bad, but it's very important to be able to distinguish between the two.

Trying to sell overpriced items in auction or in street trade has nothing to do with market values. People should indeed always learn to check and double check any items markup, never do deals when drunk (happens more times than you think) or tired.
People always tried and always will try to take advantage of other peoples needs combined to their lack of knowledge. It's bad, but it's not market manipulation by any means.

Market manipulation is creating artificial shortages of items to bring the prices up, buying up every available resource and reselling high, etc. It has to do with mass movements, not trying to take advantage of 1 person.

 

MU isn't a fixed value, it varies with the current need for a certain item. An item is worth that ppl wanna pay for it. Dynamic as the real world..... If no one wanted to buy for an example a pixie armor, the MU would be zero.... since you can't loot pixie (yet or if ever) on NI the price will rise due to demand for it. Remember that there is a tax on the trip to get it (if you want a pixie for +4 then you'll have to pay 80 PED to go to calypso and back first so the +4 PED MU is really +84 PED....seems +26 PED is cheap) or you can pay the fee directly in auction, bout 2 PED per part so it's cheaper that way, approx +18 PED but +4 PED nah that's current calypso MU-price...not NI MU-price.... as long as the auction doesnt show planets individually MU and 99% of the trading in auction is done at Calypso you can't rely on the Market Value-tab while on RT or NI or even on F.O.M.A. It will probably change in the future but for now every planet has it's own MU. If you're not on Calypso and have some reliable numbers you'll have to ask yourself what a certain item is worth for you. Well you could ask someone that's gonna do a round trip if he/she could bring one for ya. Most Entropians are friendly....:o

 

Actually, since transport fees are calculated on the items TT value and Pixie (as with all UL items) is repairable, getting it shipped from Calypso would be pretty cheap as long as you only go for the lowest TT value parts you can find and then repair them.

 

Not against the rules but it is very sleazy. We should maybe make a few tutorial videos and post them here for new players. Anyone good at making videos?

I am doing a round trip on Tuesday(ish), on that trip I am picking up a load of pixie, then delivering it to a shop owner on NI. I think he's charging below MU for it.

 

Next time I make a round trip I will also pick up a bunch of misc armor I have, and host a little event, or give to someone wanting to host such, to give these pieces away. Make it fun, and a little reward in the end to those wishing to participate. If anyone is interested in such, lets talk. Would be fun, the more the merrier!
:D

 

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Rufwon again. Damn.

Great Idea Rufwon, i think i can dust a pixie set i have to offer too after my round trip.

 

You are confusing two things as someone else said. Market manipulation means to artificially drive prices up or down according to one`s agenda.

Selling items for higher the normal markup is something personal and should NOT be your concern. If an item is too expensive, the seller should suffer as he won`t find any buyers for his item. Even if seller could sell an item or two it could effect volume and time needed to create turnover so he might end up losing. People who sell WAY over markup are usually idiots for the reasons specified above. :)

Selling an item however that one may perceive to be devalued by the market and selling it higher would just mean that item was undervalued by the market and seller saw an opportunity to make a premium on that. It`s exactly the same thing as in RL stockmarket. Ofc seller might be wrong in his assumption that the item is more valuable than what the market is offering for it and he may be losing money with the deal.

I think however role of resellers in the market is very important because they keep liquidity in a market and are always there to purchase items for those who need fast ped or will overbird other resellers so items won`t sell for total crap price.

 

Thanks Manny....
Shoot me a message and maybe we can start something like this. Or wait till after VU and things are a little more stable. Maybe some new introductions will help with a few events!
:D

 

This very clearly said what needed to be said. I did not appreciate the original post. It seems like misplaced heroism, and the entire premise behind it was wrong.

For the record, market manipulation occurs when you collude with another avatar or group of avatars through orchestrated sales either on the auction house or via a privately owned shop to buy and sell commodities at extreme rates with the goal of actually changing the recorded markup on the item. Markup will change over the course of time, averaging itself out according to the sales numbers recorded. Even the month and year values will fluctuate towards this median.

A market manipulator (or rather group of manipulators) will, for example, take 10,000 PED of Animal Eye Oil valued currently at 103% purchased on the auction house, thus clearing out all Auction House reserves. Theyll sell and resell this same stack of commodity within their own circle at say, 400%. This drives the percieved prices up, then they actually split their original stack to manageable parts, and sell it for 112% or thereabouts, making a tidy profit over normal markup for themselves because their current rate is "lower" than the recorded market value for the item. Prices then normalize as regular trading continues on, however by then the manipulators have disappeared, taking their profits with them.

 

Prices are not dictated by our opinion, but by supply and demand. Since there are no blueprints at the moment, because the uber market manipulator (MA) has created a shortage on them, prices will go up.

For the record: Both of the topics, market manipulation and overpriced selling to take advantage of people who don't know how to read market value are BAD. The way you're pursuing the subject though, disregarding other people's genuine interest and advice and taking it a bit personally, is certainly not helping your cause.

 

Its a nice thing to want prices to be lower. That would encourage more people to spend (theoretically), bringing more money into the economy (theoretically), and thus improving everyones chances of breaking even on hunts (theoretically again). Then again it might just do nothing, and people may still complain about markups being too high, and so on. If you observe trends in EU prices over the past year, this is indeed the case. Prices on most commodities and items has gone down, enabling many lower end crafters to turn a quicker profit. However we still see complaints on the boards about prices being high.

Why?

I contend that those arguing about the prices and markup are either playing for free or dont know how the system actually works. These folks either are looking for a bargain not realizing they are getting one already, or are not factoring in the cost of failure in their price vs production models of their desired quantity. Take for example the VTOL. Its TT value is rather low, yet its sales value is high? Why?

Because players are building seats, plating, gauges, landing gear, modular units specific to the VTOL. Each time they attempt to build the VTOL these items are consumed, but a VTOL is not guaranteed from the production attempt. Furthermore, each one of these seats is created from other items built by players that suffer from the same lack of guarantee. There is a severe attrition in items obtained during crafting from items used. The only way a crafter can make up for this attrition is by charging a markup. Is the crafter making money? Yes, they are if they are marking up the product significantly. Are they making a killing off the current markups? No they arent, unless of course they are a really good crafter and taking advantage of the fact that there are alot of less skilled crafters trying to break even.

Economics in EU isnt as simple as TT value + markup. People really need to consider what the actual production cost of an item is.

This is what I meant when I said that the heroism is misplaced. Though helping players is a noble sentiment worthy of heroism, this particular conversation isnt helping players --- its misleading them.

 

Boost, I feel your pain, and It was a good thing to warn others to be careful when they trade Boost, however:

Many players feel that the way the system runs rip them off, I myself was all happy to go and try to produce some goods I had purchased (for less than 108%, mind you) to sell it at market price, only to find out that I actually only got 10% of the value I invested on that slotmachine of a crafting roaster - THAT - is a potential ripoff.

So what is probably causing this "overprice" (I call it supply and demand) is MindArcs way of running the game, not that some of the players are trying to compensate their MASSIVE losses (anyone ever wondered in here how much raw material you loose to produce anything?)

Hate the game - not the players.

This game might be forcing people to overprice, was the Crafting machine less greedy perhaps (just perhaps) your complaint would not have been nescessary.