Price Check Bot

[telove2]

Not sure if this has been suggested before, I tried searching but couldn't see so here goes.

I don't know what Wiz & Co. are trying to achieve exactly, but I know they don't like the idea of an auction house with a real search system like Live and WoW etc.. I can understand why too.

But one thing I do find hard to live without, is a way to find the prices of items. I see people constantly shouting, "PC on" this and that, and I myself have returned after a long break and have no idea what stuff is worth. There is no way I can find the price of an item if nobody in /auc helps, and it's not for sale. And even if it is for sale on the listsold, it's not very nice having to go through all 7 million of them just to find the value of my item. And as money is all important in a game like this, there's no way I would just take a guess on it and potentially lose out on hundreds of plat or more.

So, something I wonder is if there could be a middle ground and add a price check bot. So when someone shouts "PC on x" in /auc, a bot picks up on the "PC on" part, and gives them the answer based on a database of average values, or even a database that it makes based on the answers people may have given in the past. So if someone once asked the PC of a ruby and people responded with 500p or whatever, then the bot will suggest that answer in the future.

If this would be too hard to add to the game, then perhaps it could be added to the IRC channel, because that might be easier, and it could at least be somewhere we can get a reasonable price check on items.

 

[Cyzaine]

During the Marlow Aug Quest, there was a period of time when Giant Asp Skins were required. At the time the cost averaged 1k plat, but with the rush of people trying to do the quest, they started offering 2k+ for one. When the requirement was removed, prices dropped again.

For a brief period of time the Binding Orb of the dead also jumped to people offering 1k+ for the item, for similar reasons.

The point is, an item is valued as people believe it to be valued. The staff didn't say the price of Giant Asp Skins was now 2k, because it was now used in a quest. If something like this were to be implemented, where would the value be derived? Not everything has a vendor value equivalent to its rarity. Staff has an idea of what things are 'worth', at least due to numeric things like strength , but its not up to us to dictate what the market should or should not pay.

And obviously any automated statistic service is prone to abuse once people figure out its mechanics.

If an item is more expensive then you feel comfortable paying, don't pay it. Your bound to find an alternative or upgrade to it soon enough.

 

[Nodnal]

The thing is, items are worth what you think they are worth. If you think an item is worth 500pp, then it is worth 500pp. Most people selling will tell you a fair price, as 90% of the people on the server hate selling items and just want to liquidate it as soon as possible. A quick "PC on XXX" will usually get you a response and a sound estimate. I would rather the economy be player supply and demand driven than driven solely off of statistics (and I am a huge statistics guy).

I do not think a bot is necessary.

 

[Nwaij]

"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it."

Syrus, Publilius

 

[Dzillon]

Maybe a price check bot of what the item is vendored for is what the OP was asking ?

 

[telove2]

The point is, an item is valued as people believe it to be valued.

The price would be a guide price and explained as such so people know what they are getting. I'd rather be given a guide price than no guide price at all. And the system could avoid abuse if it was one run by a member of staff in IRC or something.

It would barely be any different to the general knowledge quizzes run in various IRC chat rooms.

The thing is, items are worth what you think they are worth.

It's easy for you to say, but I see you selling stuff constantly in /auc. You have dozens of items ranging from cheap items to items worth over 10kpp. So you obviously know the game well and have a good knowledge of the economy. Other's don't. I have absolutely no idea what the value is of most of my items. I have items that I bought in 2004 when the game was called Winter's Roar. I have no idea if some things are worth 100p or 1000p, and consequently, I have backpacks filled with loot on multiple characters, that I just keep putting off selling. And importantly, I collect stuff as I level, like several entire stacks of kobalt furs etc, and because I don't know what it's worth, and because I spend days trying to sell stuff in /auc, I usually just end up flogging "junk" like that to any NPC merchant that will take it.

Surely all this works against it being a healthy economy for both crafters and none crafters?

A quick "PC on XXX" will usually get you a response and a sound estimate.

I'm sitting in the game right now, and the last seven or eight PC's made by me and other people, have gone unanswered.

Most people selling will tell you a fair price

No, most people want to make the absolute maximum profit. At 65, it might not matter to people if something is 10p more than someone else, but at lower levels, that is very important. In fact even at high levels it can be an issue. Just now I saw a spell for sale on the listsold for 1500pp, and yet the same spell is sold on this forum in the buy/sell section for 1k. A 500p difference is a very big deal to some people, and I wouldn't even have a clue about that if it wasn't for searching all the listsolds and the buy/sell section of this forum (which most people don't even know about).

I would rather the economy be player supply and demand driven than driven solely off of statistics (and I am a huge statistics guy).

That wouldn't be any different. All that would change is that there would be more stuff for sale, because if I can instantly see that my stack of wolf skins or whatever are worth 8p, then I'll just put them on my listsold and forget about it. But when I don't know the value of things, it's not worth using up a listsold spot or wasting the time trying to work out what to sell it for. And the bot would be a guide, not a forced price that you have to sell for. The bot could suggest 150p for one of my items, and I could sell it for 1k if I wanted. That's no different to other games, and ultimately, it would still be down to the player to make the decision.

"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it."

Syrus, Publilius

That's not useful at all though. In reality, it goes something like this:

Seller: WTS Platinum Black Sapphire Earing!!! PST!!
Buyer: How much?
Seller: I don't know, make me an offer.
Buyer: I don't know what it's worth... 50p?
Seller: No way
Seller: /auc PC on Platinum Black Sapphire Earing PLZ!!!
[no reply]
Seller: How about we just say 500p?
Buyer: Uh no thanks



p.s. It also doesn't help that the Wiki is quite empty. If I could just look up an item and see that it's from a level 50 boss or something, then I'd have a general idea of it's value. But lots of items aren't listed, and lots of listed items don't mention where it's from.

 

[Cyzaine]

So you would trust a manipulatable (is this a word???) bot over your own judgment?

I can think of no way, short of the staff giving away valuable drop and rarity information, that a bot could be made to fairly estimate the value of an item. We've already given you this to an extent with vendor prices, and I highly doubt we'll give more than that.

And if it just took statistic based off of what was bought and sold by players, crafty players would jack up the price by manipulating the trade system. The only way to counter that would be for staff to personally verify that the data isn't being manipulated, and straight up, we aren't going to do that.

Tradeskill items GREATLY differ in value depending on influx of new players, who is skilling up and how much money they have, and numerous other data that would make a bot fairly useless at any given point.

Personally speaking, whenever I sell something, I start at vendor price, and live auction it. The market decides what its worth, and sometimes I get surprised, and sometimes I get disappointed, but in the end, I think its a better system than any we could code.

The wiki, of course, is community driven, and I highly encourage you and others to add to it. It's easy and helps everyone.

 

[telove2]

So you would trust a manipulatable (is this a word???) bot over your own judgment?

I can think of no way, short of the staff giving away valuable drop and rarity information, that a bot could be made to fairly estimate the value of an item. We've already given you this to an extent with vendor prices, and I highly doubt we'll give more than that.

And if it just took statistic based off of what was bought and sold by players, crafty players would jack up the price by manipulating the trade system. The only way to counter that would be for staff to personally verify that the data isn't being manipulated, and straight up, we aren't going to do that.

Tradeskill items GREATLY differ in value depending on influx of new players, who is skilling up and how much money they have, and numerous other data that would make a bot fairly useless at any given point.

Personally speaking, whenever I sell something, I start at vendor price, and live auction it. The market decides what its worth, and sometimes I get surprised, and sometimes I get disappointed, but in the end, I think its a better system than any we could code.

The wiki, of course, is community driven, and I highly encourage you and others to add to it. It's easy and helps everyone.

Yeah I'd trust a bot - if it was run by a member of staff and data was either entered by a member of staff, or was made intelligently by the bot somehow.

As for the drop and rarity information, that is supposed to be included in the wiki anyway, so it's not really any different. I take your point about the tradeskill items though, and the auctioning of items starting with vendor price is a good guide I suppose, so I'll try that. I do still think there would be some value in a PC system though.

 

[Nodnal]

If knowledge of the game is what you are lacking, then learn the game like everyone else did. It takes time, but it really is not hard to judge the prices of items once you pay attention to a few things.

I still hold to my statement that most people just want to get rid of their items...trust me on that.

 

[Ikaa|LoveYums]

Staff isnt going to control pricing on items by creating a bot that lists what we think the player to player price should be. If you are upset the wiki is empty, fix it. It's a player run/written wiki system, editable by anyone.

Prices people are willing to pay depends on a lot of things, but we are never ever going to set its standard, aside from vendor pricing. Use that as a guide if you wish.

*edit

Basically, we could accomplish what you are asking for by removing PC to PC trades altogether, and limiting buying and selling to vendors. Prices are set, no muss, no fuss.

 

[GuiardoTuneweaver]

No, most people want to make the absolute maximum profit. At 65, it might not matter to people if something is 10p more than someone else, but at lower levels, that is very important. In fact even at high levels it can be an issue. Just now I saw a spell for sale on the listsold for 1500pp, and yet the same spell is sold on this forum in the buy/sell section for 1k. A 500p difference is a very big deal to some people, and I wouldn't even have a clue about that if it wasn't for searching all the listsolds and the buy/sell section of this forum (which most people don't even know about).

If you want the absolute best price (either buying or selling), then you have to put in the time to go through all the listsolds, try PC's in /auc, or haggle prices. Anything which makes getting the absolute best price easier is a move toward the vendor and search system from live, which is exactly what SoD wants to stay away from.

A great way to get good prices for items you're selling is to be on during a busy time, and hold auctions for the items starting at what the merchant will pay for them. If nobody responds, there's not likely a demand for it at prices better than the vendor, and you're probably better off just vendoring it. If it's an item in demand, the auction will float up to reasonable market value. Sure you can miss out somewhat by being unlucky who's watching, but you can also get lucky if a couple people are really wanting an item.

If you want to do better, it's going to require taking the time to watch the auction channel, listsold, and browsing the Buying & Selling forum to get a better idea of going rates to be a more educated SoD economist.

 

[neonovas]

Even on the forums the prices can vary a lot, look at Venom of The Wild (BST,64)
http://forum.shardsofdalaya.com/showthread.php?t=15063 - 2,000pp
http://forum.shardsofdalaya.com/showthread.php?t=15957 - 1,300pp
http://forum.shardsofdalaya.com/showthread.php?t=15772 - 420pp (Sold to me!)
In game i think think i found one for 900 and another for 1k+.

Also, some people answer PC's in tells to the person asking and not always in the channel. So while all 8 of them could of been unanswered, it could of just been you. I really understand your frustration with not knowing what the price of stuff is worth because i quit 3-4 months ago and then started back and had my bank bags full of unsold stuff. And yeah, people dont always answer PCs and it can get annoying. For most lower level items the vendor prices is typically a good starting point. For crafting mats people will auction to buy them and you can get a decent idea that way, if you dont see it for a week then i'd just vendor them.
I usually try 3 things depending on how lazy i am
1. Ask for a PC
2. Auction starting at PC or vendor price
3. Toss it on listsold for 10-20pp higher than vendor
Maybe if the item "looks" much better than vendor price i'll hang onto it and ask for another PC later. Like the 19% haste chest that drops in temple of yaralith only vendors for like 40pp iirc, but you can probably sell it for 100-200 easily.

Other tips:
Another thing i like to do is use the listsold web page if i am searching for certain items, for me its just much easier on my eyes and "smoother" to find the item, then switch back to the game and then check the price or make a notepad document with all the names/items i want to check out.
You can also log all of your EQ chat and then search it for people asking for their own PC, trying to sell/buy items since it can be easy to miss when you get busy.

 

[iaeolan]

Maybe a price check bot of what the item is vendored for is what the OP was asking ?

This price check bot is called a vendor

 

[Eliago]

I only read 75% of this thread, so I apologize if I'm repeating someone, I don't have much time...

But would it be feasible to implement /cm pc rusty longsword, which would then scan listsold every rusty longsword currently for sale on the market, and return an average price? Therefore the PC price would always be based on things being sold that moment. 1 sword being sold for 250, one for 349, and one for 525, and /cm pc sword would return 375pp.

To expand this, maybe it could also search for items recently sold as well. Say two of the swords were just sold for 199 and 275, added to the current prices the command would return 320pp.

 

[Eliago]

Also I should say, Live's Bazaar really sapped an enjoyable part of the game. I personally enjoyed hanging around in East Commons all day buying low and selling high making a fortune... it was a great aspect of the game that you could actually take the time to learn the market and make a ton of money.

 

[Waldoff]

Even if this was a good idea it would be a lot of work for little return.

Prices fluctuate by a lot - and there are a lot of outlier prices. When you are running a system with imposed asymmetrical information like the one on SoD having set prices is unrealistic. If you really need to get an idea for what its normal value is your best bet is to start at the imposed price floor (vendor value) and work up from there. Otherwise you can either do the research and gain the most value for the item or not and get whatever you can.

The choice is to spend time that would be otherwise productive to do the price research or not. This is not a bad choice in such a small economy.

 

[telove2]

Staff isnt going to control pricing on items by creating a bot that lists what we think the player to player price should be. If you are upset the wiki is empty, fix it. It's a player run/written wiki system, editable by anyone.

It's not about controlling anything, it's about giving a general idea. It might suggest an item is 1000p and yet one person might have it on their listsold for 500p and one have it for 1500p. But at least it would be a general idea. As for the wiki, I can't build the wiki because I barely know anything about the items in the game. I also know that it's in the players' best interests, to not add things to the wiki. In fact, in my old guild, the guild leader found a great item that nobody else in the game had found, and he told a few of us how to get it, but also asked that we didn't tell anyone. I expect that will be the kind of thinking of most people, which is probably why it's so empty, and I can't imagine that changing unless there was some kind of incentive or reward or someone was tasked with filling it up.

A great way to get good prices for items you're selling is to be on during a busy time, and hold auctions for the items starting at what the merchant will pay for them.

Yeah that does seem to be a good idea. I didn't know that when I made this thread. I know from Live and most games like this, that selling an item at anything near vendor price is a huge no-no. For example, when I last played Live you could have an item worth 20,000pp or more, and yet a vendor would only offer you 50p. So if that is used as the guide for people here, then fair enough. That's something I can use in the future.

Other tips:
Another thing i like to do is use the listsold web page if i am searching for certain items, for me its just much easier on my eyes and "smoother" to find the item, then switch back to the game and then check the price or make a notepad document with all the names/items i want to check out.
You can also log all of your EQ chat and then search it for people asking for their own PC, trying to sell/buy items since it can be easy to miss when you get busy.

I didn't know any of that. Thanks! That will help a lot.

Even if this was a good idea it would be a lot of work for little return.

Hey you might not LIKE the idea for your game, but you can't say it's a bad idea. You only need to look at the UI mods and things for games like WoW to see how popular stuff like this is. IIRC, there was a mod you could use to scour the entire AH and show the highest and lowest prices that every single item in the AH had been sold for. So whenever you looted something, you could quickly find out a price to sell it for and add or subtract a bit depending on what suits you, and then you could get back to adventuring. I know these AH's remove some fun, but they aren't completely without merit.

 

[Manguadi]

popular != good

Also, your suggestion reeks of lazy. I hardly pay attention to auctions and I still know what stuff is worth.

 

[telove2]

But it doesn't equal bad either. And if millions *choose* it then it suggests it must have some value.

 

[GuiardoTuneweaver]

Yeah that does seem to be a good idea. I didn't know that when I made this thread. I know from Live and most games like this, that selling an item at anything near vendor price is a huge no-no. For example, when I last played Live you could have an item worth 20,000pp or more, and yet a vendor would only offer you 50p. So if that is used as the guide for people here, then fair enough. That's something I can use in the future.

Effort has been put in here to make vendor prices reasonable based on item quality, difficulty to obtain, and rarity. This was done to combat value deflation due to increasing supply over time with the small population we have. If vendoring is a viable alternative, items disappear from the economy. It also sets a floor on the value, so nice items don't become ridiculously cheap. Note that not all items have been have been updated yet, but a great many have been.

But it doesn't equal bad either. And if millions *choose* it then it suggests it must have some value.

And just because it has value doesn't make it a good idea.