What is the point, exactly, of the listsold?

A

August

Dalayan Beginner
I understand of course, the immediate implications of the listsold. It provides a place for people to sell their wares while not being online and not traveling around to make physical trades. That's great, and I really think the idea is novel.

However, lately there have been changes to the listsold that are disconcerting. For one, I can only scan the listsold once every 3 seconds. Secondly, I'm not allowed to make databases of the listsold anywhere.

What this boils down to is a giant system that must be linearly searched for any results. Sure, you may know the name of a couple of key sellers that sell things that you want, but those sellers are few and far between and more often than not these sellers are overpriced compared to the deals you might be able to find on a different person's listsold (Classic example is Weaponsmith versus Gwinn. Gwinn had mithril weapons for 10-15pp less than weaponsmith, although you never would think to /cm listsold gwinn for those weaopns).

And thus, when I go to buy my items for a new char, I am faced with sitting in front of a banker for hours. And i mean hours. I say this not because it takes hours to get through the listsold system, but because the gear I may want is few and far between on the vendors, and there are several pieces that I might consider for each slot. Not only that, but because of a lack of a searchable database, item prices are stratified graely. Shawl of Lost Blessings costs 10p on one merchant and 100pp on another, so EVEN IF I FIND A PIECE I WANT I have to write it down with the price and see if I can find it for cheaper throghout the next listsold. This ends in me scanning the whole database over 2 times to make sure I've got everything I want. Then I go back adn buy everything I need, rinse and repeat. Of course the ironic thing about all of this is by writing down the individual sellers with item prices is effectively creating a database of the listsold system, which is strictly prohibited!

Now, most people won't take the time and the effort to do what I did, and will just auction or look haphazardly through listsold and buy the first things they see. Because of this, what the listsold actually promotes is inflated item prices that are still viable in the market. For instance, one can find the Shawl of Lost Blessings and, if hyou're a noob and you haven't scanned the listsold 1000 times you might think it's actually worth the 100p it's listed for, and it gets bought. Similarly, prices all around the listsold are allowed to remain higher than normal because the listsold destroys competition. Oh sure, you can have your wares lsited for cheaper than everyone else, but that doesn't matter because there is no comparison in the listsold. I've seen moderate maps sell for 500pp on the listsold while a lesser known vendor's maps sit at 325 untouched. This is of course because the /cm listsold next function always returns the same string of players so the ones in the front get more attention.

So what is it, exactly, that we're trying to do here? Promote a lazy economy that denies healthy competition by not letting us actively compare item prices? Or do we want to make it easy for people with determination to make money. My max toon is level 40. I to date have spent over 6000pp gearing out me and my friends solely because of the listsold. I find deals that people don't find, and sell them for their inflated prices that can be found elsewhere around the listsold. It just denies common sense to have an item listing service that demands zero competition because of the difficulty of scanning in and the inability for users to make a searchable database.

The bazaar didn't ruin live in any case of functionality. It ruined an aspect of the games social interaction because we no longer bartered. What it did do was stabilize the value of platinum on the server and drove down prices on item goods to where they were affordable. As this BoE faux pas further illustrates itself, I think we'll all find that our prices need to be driven down and our currency stabilized, as currently the value of platinum is inflating heavily (don't believe me? compare prices on your everyday goods now as to 3 weeks ago. they're higher, because of inflation/item deflation). The listsold has ALREADY taken away the human social interaction of selling, so I see no reason for it not to be searchable by price, item, slot, etc. Promoting healthy competition amongst vendors only helps the consumers, and we're all consumers here.

So please, please consider changing the way you have your listsold setup. We need to nip this teetering economy in the bud and get some stable item prices before all our items dry up and inflation has kicked out the lower and middle class from the buyers market.

August

And btw, i'd be more than happy to help develop some models to stabilize the economy.
 
August said:
The bazaar didn't ruin live in any case of functionality. It ruined an aspect of the games social interaction because we no longer bartered. What it did do was stabilize the value of platinum on the server and drove down prices on item goods to where they were affordable. As this BoE faux pas further illustrates itself, I think we'll all find that our prices need to be driven down and our currency stabilized, as currently the value of platinum is inflating heavily (don't believe me? compare prices on your everyday goods now as to 3 weeks ago. they're higher, because of inflation/item deflation). The listsold has ALREADY taken away the human social interaction of selling, so I see no reason for it not to be searchable by price, item, slot, etc. Promoting healthy competition amongst vendors only helps the consumers, and we're all consumers here.

So please, please consider changing the way you have your listsold setup. We need to nip this teetering economy in the bud and get some stable item prices before all our items dry up and inflation has kicked out the lower and middle class from the buyers market.

August

And btw, i'd be more than happy to help develop some models to stabilize the economy.
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First of all, I would like to put it out there that I hated the bazaar selling system. It completely omitted that social/bartering that was once the East Commons (long love for the tunnel rats :keke: ). The way the listsold is currently set up it caters to both those who are and are not interested in this aspect of the game. I personally can't dispute if prices have or have not been driven up due to the new BoE because I have not been played since the holidays. I can however attest to the fact that previous to bind on equip, prices on raid comparible gear were sickeningly low and people were still not buying. Tradeskill items were flooding the economy driving down prices at or below cost to make. The economy was stale (this is all discussed in the Pristine items/BoE thread and really doesn't need to be revisited).

Just as an aside, the time limitations on the listsold were put in place to prevent lagging out the server (from what I understand at least - someone can correct me if I'm wrong).

Edit: One thing I would like to add and suggest is perhaps a way to browse the listsold out of game similar to the way we use fomelo. I agree that searching the listsold in game can be tedious and frustrating if you don't set up your chat boxes to specifically do so.
 
You have a greatly differing opinion on prices then say...most people. Prices are dropping and dropping fast from what I see lately. Pendulum used to sell for 9k+ now its 7k, Girdle of Ancient Rocks was 3.5-4k now I see it for 1.8 cause it didnt sell at 2k. These are just 2 items that stand out in my head, its not indicative of prices as a whole by itself but if you look closely I think you will find lower prices pretty much all along the line. People tossing gear up on listsold at higher then avg prices means little, it sure dosent mean it will sell. Lower level items are more likely to be on listsolds for dumb prices for several reasons, they are easy as fuck to obtain, they are easiy to chuck into a listsold and forget about it, and many people dont know the value of lower level items anyway.

While I may be a fan of an alternative to the listsold system, it sure isnt cause prices are too high. There is NO INFLATION AT ALL. Seriously. We are facing the opposite actually so I am confused how you came to your conclusion that prices are too high. I can list items from BB at 5kp on my listsold, that dont mean there is inflation.

PS. Everyone is capable of using the /auc chan to announce their wares, nobody knowing to check Gwinns listsold for his wares is probobly Gwinns fault, not the listsold system.
 
iaeolan said:
It's a lot better than the mail system. Although I miss the messages :(
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I wouldn't mind seeing the messages incorporated into the listsold system to be honest. Not sure how plausible it is though.
 
JayelleNephilim said:
I wouldn't mind seeing the messages incorporated into the listsold system to be honest. Not sure how plausible it is though.
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/cmd listsend [name] [price] [message]

Although you would need to send an item if you wanted to just message and it would time out after 2 days.
Bring back Mr. Postman?
 
Sylara,

The point is: What's the point of the listsold if we're having to hawk our wares anyways? Gwinn not auctioning led him to a disadvantage, thus taking away one of the many advantages of the listsold system.

And yes, item prices are inflating. It is still in its early stages of development, but the fluctuations you see are due to a limited target audience of said items. I'm speaking of items that are greak lowbie twink items, etc. that were once abundant but are now becoming more rare. There is still a surplus of items and thus prices are still lowering on some of the more specialized items.

However you look at it, though, that's not my argument with the listsold. The listsold argument is that it allows higher priced items to be bought because of the inability to compare other vendors wares with another. Shawls can sell for 100pp because someone doesn't know that if they do /cml istsold next 57 times they'll find a different vendor that has the same item but for 10pp.

And yes, eventually guys, item prices will skyrocket due to the BoE conundrum. This is an economy of limited input. Since our loot is not being produced in an instant setting, there is a constant and slow rate that items enter into the game -- sometimes faster rate if the item is more common, etc.

I.E. King Trannix only spawns once every 4 days an has a loot table such that the Crown of King Trannix drops once every 4 times. So one crown comes into being every 16 days. If King Trannix was in an instance his crown could drop as many times as he wanted, as he is a repeatable encounter.

Thus, what happens is is right now we have a surplus of items, say we have 10 Yactic Cloaks of the Damned floating around for sale. This competition, if made public, is going to drive the price down because more than likely there aren't 10 buyers for this item that have that much cash. Now postulate that this cloak can drop (and i dont know the numbers, let just use 1 a day for the sake of ease. The model works out whatever the time period). once a day. So once a day another cloak comes in. When these cloaks are bought, assuming that it's faster than once a day, the item surplus is eventually straightened and Yactic Cloak of the Damned is no longer available on listsold. Further assume that when this cloak drops, there's a chance someone can USE it in the group, so it becomes nondroppable and never touches the market.

What happens is with all the surplus items out of the game, there is 1 cloak coming in mayve every 2-3 days depending on who is camping the item. This produces a monopoloy on Yactic Cloak of the Damned. The Richer people who want this item are going to be able to afford it at an uncompetitive price because there is no competition. The limited stream of items coming into a barren market will effectively push out the lower and middle class of the server, until they are unable to use their money to purchase anything, thus indicating platinum inflation.

It's not an hard logical step to see people. You take out all the items of the game and the items that are droppable become worth a lot more. Since money flow is constant into the game the people with accumulated wealth will be able to benefit off of this, and new people will be left to dry. Really, all you have to do is think about any economy where reselling of goods is illegal. What wil happen to market prices. Will there be any incentive to keep prices low if there is no submarket to regulate the prices? What if demand is much much higher than supply?

Wiz is right in saying this is not a free market. It's NOT FREE because the introduction of goods are regulated through an outside medium. If we had the ability to make unlimited quantities of items, then this wouldn't be a problem. The rate of item introduction willl slowly kill this economy if the consumers are unable to resell their goods, end of story.

Sorry for the BoE rant. A little fiscal common sense would expose the erroneous assumptions and it's yet to be properly addressed.

August

P.S. What happens when people see a need for cash in the immediate future because their assetts are no longer sellable? They're going to liquidate the unneccessary to provide cash on hand for future purchases. Hence, you see an influx of say, butcher's apron, because everyone and their mother is getting rid of theirs that they had equipped on their alts. It's the same as saying to a farmer, hey, you're fields are going to be burnt and unusuable in a couple of months. That farmer sells everything he cans and moves somewhere else. In the same way, you're seenig an influx of items into the market that were once sitting on mules and alternates because they had an assumed asset value. Now that they don't, they arrive, and cheaper.
 
It is a matter of time vs. cost.

If you are willing to pay at the first price you find for an item, then buy it.
If the price is too high, keep going through the listsold.

I have spent MANY hours going person by person through listsold to find a price I was willing to accept.
 
Right Jinanea, which is what I oppose. Browsing the listsold is a non-interaction activity timesink in SoD. It doesn't really belong here. With a limited playerbase and the need for every person to be out grouping to make the world feel immersive and alive, do we really haev time to sit in front of the Majordomo in our house and /cm listsold next for hours because there's no suitable search method? We've already robbed item selling of it's interaction value, why make it a timesink as well?
 
August, I think there's a few things you're missing, and I don't mean any slight.

There are lots of things in SoD that aren't set up for your convinience. It is pretty obvious that the listsold system is set up to be inconvinient to encourage player interaction. If you would like to parse through every listsold every time you want to buy a new item you are welcome to, but there is already a more efficient method which is /auc.

With your arguments about the BoE system you aren not taking into account the fact that it is a low population server with similar drop rates as a large live server would have. If there's an average of about 400 people on every night (a quarter of which wiz estimates are boxed) then the server population is still very low. Even if every person created 8 alts and played them actively the ammount of items that drop in exp spots would still out-strip the demand for them.

Not everyone plays the game the way you do, and not everyone farms PP or bargain shops to get the newest best items as they level. I've met quite a few people in SoD that have decided to level in only the gear they could get to drop themselves or drop for groups that they were in.
 
the idea behind the listing system replaced an older player bought vendor system, which only the rich could afford. In response to this, these player-bought vendors were replaced by the listing system as we know it, albeit it has been tweaked a bit for better or worse, depending on the player.

On that note, there is a penalty to using the listing system for sellers. They lose 2% of whatever they sell to the banking system, giving some impetus to sell directly to a player. From personal experience, i try to sell items in person as much as possible, as the person appreciates it more, and i don't lose any plat the the bank.

The listing system isn't entirely devoid of interaction. If I see a price listed for an item that may be out of my price range, i try to send a tell to the person negotiating the price. You can do that too!

In reference to the time sink involved, if someone is looking to buy an item for a certain price, they can always try to /auc WTB to get what they are looking for. If they want to take the time to search through it, it's their right.

In reference to conviencence: the listing system wasn't made to be the most convient way to search, like the auctionhouse/bazaar. It was made just as a way to have your own personal vendor.

If there was no listing system, everyone would be /auc their items, or would not be selling it at all. This is a nice medium for those who prefer to passively sell.
 
The only part about the Bazaar that i miss was finding items in the bazaar selling for less then thier Vendor value.

Use to make a fortune spending a hour or 2 just combing Bazaar for people that never bothered to check what a SSOY sold to a vendor for and just throw it up as a 50pp crap item (even though the vendor would give you 298pp).

I like the Listsold systems honestly, it doesn't have all the short falls of the bazaar but still gets the job done.
 
It makes no difference, but the best economy-wise selling feature I ever saw in any MMO was the vendor system SoD had when I originally started. I loved it, it was sort of thrilling. You went from vendor to vendor, comparing, checking it out, waiting on the guild bank chars to update their vendor, etc. I really loved it.
 
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