The Haves and the Have Nots...

im sure along the way we've all sold an item to an ebayer (in-game), heck, most people probably have. if people want to spend their money for in-game gold, thats their business. theres hardly anything illigitimate or morally apprehensible to trading with people who got their funds by illigitimate means. if that were the case, we'd have to burn 90% of currency in circulation, since im sure at one point or another, its exchanged hands with some form of criminal.
but many of the top-end items are reserved for legitimate wealth. the fact of the matter is, that in order to afford multiple extremely high level items, someone would probably have to spend numerous thousands of dollars, and only a select few losers have that specific lack of a life.

Power traders' money doesn't magically spawns from the void, buyers with millions don't magically appear out of the void either.

And that money is generated in only one way, mass farming, wether it be the player doing all the farming, several player's farming hours aquired through trading or ebaying.
In the end it's always the ebaying, the artifical concentration of buying power, that drive the prices upward. Then the traders make their money off that buying power.

even without ebayers, you have to figure the amount of money generalted by 2 million players would be more than enough to fuel an economy capable of producing substantially wealthy players.

Because farming for thousands of hours is any better?
Because the person that, instead, works for a few hours in real life then ebay for the gold has 'no life' or is a 'loser'?

True, but there aren't anywhere 2 million gold farmers in Guild Wars, if there's even 2 million players.

If you check the feedback record of GW gold sellers on Ebay you will find that most people only buy 100k...and this IMO would be for there 15k armor or that fellblade they have always wanted. Also you will find the average Ebayer is prob a person with a full time job and not some silly school kid spending his pocket money. Ebaying effects the market but not to the mass degree some people think.

That money spent on all those overpriced 'fellblades' (or any other similar items) goes directly into the traders' funds.

Anyway, I'm getting this back on topic.
On a large scale, making money by trading or offering service doesn't work, because trading itself doesn't generate money. It's a pyramid scheme, people like Capitalist aren't making alot of money in a short amount of time, they are just effectively suckering alot of other players into farming for them. That can obviously only work for a few players.

Sorry but you know nothing about trading..trading if done correctly is the easiest and fastest way to generate cash.

How exactly are traders making people farm for them? I never made people farm for me, people Pm'd me with items they wanted to sell or they knew that I wanted, if someone found an item for me they got 5-10% of final sell price for their effort...

It's hardly "suckering" if the players willing participate in the trade system. Everyone believes that certain items are worth more than certain other items, because of rarity, looks, prestige, whatever. It's not like one person is standing in LA dictating prices to the world; these are what people are willing to sell and buy these items at.

Everyone can't make make money by buying low and selling high, because everytime you buy low someone must sell low, and everytime you sell high someone must buy high.
Trading doesn't generate money, it just moves it around.
Trading doesn't fix the problem of 'The Haves and the Have Nots', it just amplifies the problem.

I'm not intrested in the masses, I have my interest at heart no one elses. If people can't make moeny then tough, everyone has the same amount of knowledge available to them as I do if they can't use that to their advantage then they should stay poor.

Any decent GvG player should know that the difference is insignificant between 14% and 15% (condition), because that condition, if chosen properly, will always be true while the weapon is being used.

As to Phoebe, since the mods apparently don't want to get rid of your posts, I wil say this: before you present a conspiracy theory, have some evidence to back it up. Otherwise, your arguments are pointless and empty.

If you are not interested in the masses then you shouldn't talk about them.

If everyone used as much knowledge as you do you would most likely be poor because there wouldn't be any lack of knowledge off which you could make easy cash.

Mande?

wrong.
the profit made on trading has FAR less to do with knowledge, than patience.
yes, knowledge is important but regardless of how much someone understands economics, if they arent willing to stick for the extra they wont make money doing it.
the assumption that traders "rip off" people or "abuse new players" or people who "dont know value" is an argument made from the line of ignorance.
the fact of the matter is while most people may not know the value of every item, or even a majority of items off the top of their head, theres a GOOD chance they know the value of the items they are buying/selling. even if they dont, it takes only a few secconds-hours to get an accurate pricecheck (more or less) from the same people who would buy/sell the very item in question. so, the knowledge is out there and accessible to a greater or lesser degree.
however, even armed with all this knowledge, does not mean that person is going to get what was reccomended in the PC. why?
because the vast majority of the human race is lazy. if people have an item that they want to buy or sell, 9/10 times they will sell it for less than what they could get just to make the sale quicker. or buy for more than what they could work their way down too, again, just to make the sale quicker.
these guys may not be particularly good at trading, or have a high patience for it, or know the right people, and so even if they WANT to spend the extra time selling the item for that little extra bit of profit, it may not be worth their time.
so, the vast majority of the time, people sell for less than they could, or pay more than they have too, just to escape the actual act of trading.
this, is where traders come in. we dont go out "newb farming" (as its called in the world of traders), we simply buy items for 10% less than what they sell for from willing sellers who dont have the time or patience to do so themselves, and then sell for 10% more to people on the opposite end of the line. and in the process, a 20% commission is made (an experienced trader can regularly get 10-30%). occasionally you'll be able to haggle up and down a few plat, which for each individual trade isnt that big of a deal, but when you buy and sell 1,000+ items over the course of a trading career, that haggling adds up, and it adds up fast.
not to mention, people who sell items for less than they are worth, are usually repeat suppliers, as are people who buy for a bit more. if you know the kinds of items they buy/sell, all you have to do is rememebr or write down the name, and if you're good at keeping organized its easy to build a contacts list vast enough towards you can aquire more or less anything.
if on the other hand you resort to "newb farming" that is finding idiots selling for minute amounts, the kind of trade that only happens rarely, then you will not end up with a large contact list of suppliers/buyers, and in the long run, you will lose out.
this is why consistent smaller profits, will almost always make you more money than the occasional big payout.

if you're going to post, at least know what you're talking about.

Wrong.
It IS all about knowledge.
Knowledge of who is buying, who is selling.
Knowledge of how much they sell for, and how much they buy for.
People don't know, so they make the gamble that the time they save accepting bad offers will net them more profit investing in playing/farming than spent on waiting on a better offer.

It takes time to find more clients.
It takes time to find the correct value of an item.
In that time the value of the item could change, and trade opportunities could be missed.
The same time that could usually be better spent elsewhere.
The result, pressure trading.

So yes, making decent revenue through trading IS about ripping people off.

All you people who complain bout prices out there: I can honestly say that i started playing this game for 10 month. When I first started out, i had nothing. never once did i ebay anything except the game it self. After 10 month, i've say that i have enough gold to get whatever i want. Maybe not millions but couple hundred plat in cash with several perfect items and some ectos and shards. Everyone starts at somewhere. If you want it, work at it, don't expect someone to just hand you the stuff. Don't expect Anet to make the stuff cheaper and destroy all the collectors' inventory. Play the god dam* game.

LOL this guy is talking about how expensive fellblades are, fellblades are one of the cheapest items out there bud, and if you really want one just go to Port Sledge, keys arent that expensive nowadays and I guarantee you'll get one.

Phoebe, all of which that you say should be considred 'Knowledge'... i think most people consider 'Common Sense'

When selling and buying anyway.

The overall cash in the economy may stay fairly constant, barring built-in gold sinks, but personally I find your argument faulty. It doesn't matter if the overall amount of gold in the game is preserved or not - kind of like the conservation of energy in the universe, what matters is your own personal worth. I know that may sound selfish to a degree, but that's the American (capitalist) way, isn't it? If that's the case in real-life, I don't see why it shouldn't be justified in-game.

Trading generates money for the person who makes out on the deal, and that's that. Trading is not aimed at "fixing" anything, that has never been its goal.

Knowing the price of an item has nothing to do with common sense. It is at best common knowledge, if that item is common or has a very active trading market.
The values of a 15^50 Fellblade, 13^50 Dwarven Axe or white max Crystal Sword have absolutely nothing to do with common sense, they do have everything to do with offer and demand, that's knowledge not common sense.

Yes, exactly, trading doesn't fix anything, trading does not generate wealth, it only moves that wealth around.
That's exactly what I said in my last couple of posts.

And your point is?

Phoebe, I have a couple things to say.
You're telling us that there are always going to be people with more and people with less? ZOMGNOWAI
It's called life. Not real life, not fake life, ALL life. If you're seriously complaining that not everyone can be rich... um... right. That's quite commonly known to be impossible, since if everyone was "rich" they wouldn't be rich anymore, everyone would be average.

As for your "traders rip people off" comment, uh, that's how business works. Let's take a retailer for example. They buy stuff from somewhere for $X, and sell it to somebody else for, say, $X + 20%. Oh noes, Wal-Mart, JC Penny, Dillards, Sears, Hy-Vee, Fareway, EB Games, and every other store you can possibly think of rip people off, better ban them from life for making a profit by re-selling.

Also, I don't see that you're really arguing a point, it seems to be just arguing and talking about ebay to piss people off, so if you have a point, please bring it up, or else I'm just going to close/delete this whole discussion.

Im pretty sure trading generated me wealth unless those millions of gold were imaginary. The gold I got could have been from people who farmed for it and thus created "new" wealth or gold. If someone goes out to farm for an item they are therefore creating gold which will be given to a trader so trading in some cases can generate "new" wealth. I really dont know why you are arguing about this. What is your point? And you are arguing about trading with um some of the most successful and best traders in the game.....

Im pretty sure he is trolling as comments such as ebay accusations, lier accusations, power traders are scammers etc is just to annoy people and cause arguments. Either a troll or someone lacking any form of intelligence.

Phoebe, your comments indicate that you don't have the vaguest idea what you are talking about. Just like in real life, traders generally aren't making a living ripping people off. They are making a market. And that's a good thing. Otherwise it's hard to buy and sell things that people want to buy and sell.

As a real example, if I want to sell a weapon mod that's really worth 5K, i.e. that's the "fair market value" for it, and I can find a trader who spends hours in KC or LA looking for deals who is willing to buy it for 4K and then sell it for 6K, I'm very happy to dump it. It's a lot more than I can merch it for and I can clear it out of my storage and get back to playing the game. And the guy who buys it for 6K is also very happy because he got what he needed without spending hours spamming WTB messages to get it for 1K less. Pretty much everybody wins. And it's the same on the high end as well.

The game actually needs more traders, or bettter yet a trading house, to make the process more efficient and the margins lower.

Of course trading doesn't generate wealth. It moves the generated wealth to the place where generated wealth dies: gold sinks. Trade is the mechanism that moves money and items through the economy, but the route is ultimately linear, so of course it accomplishes something.


Please do.

Agreed. I haven't sold very much and I guess I don't know much about buying or selling. I never complained or said it was too hard to get rich so I am not sure what point you are making with that comment. I said people who get FOW armor in their first 4 months of playing probably ebay'ed. That is likely because it is not likely a new player will pick up on power trading that fast. My technique for selling is to buy low and trade high not in trading weapons. I buy ecto's in buy at 5 or 6k then sell when they go up to 8 or 9k.

The rest of what you said sounded like blah, blah, blah to me. Maybe because I am married. You didn't provide links to prove me wrong like I asked you just talked crap.


I bow to you! Not only have you proved me wrong you have educated me in the art of power trading. I appreciate your comments and proving me wrong.
Overall this was a good post. This post has given me new insight.
Akhilleus - Meet me in LA D1 near storage. I will be there waiting for you about 11:00 PM CST. I intend to give you 50 ecto's

My final point to all. I consider myself to be ingame rich. Not as grossly as many of you. I stand corrected with my 4 month comment but I still feel the majority of FOW armor has been ebay'ed. Consider the real world market to sell GW gold wouldn't exist very long if not many ppl paid for it. The fact that you can power trade says that there are only a handful of you think what would happen if the majority of player’s power traded. SO most players just as in real life are not rich.

My view on ebay'ing. If you want to spend real money on game money go for it. No one should judge you for your decisions. Nor should you have you account closed. You bought the product (GW) and no one has the right to close your account if you paid for it. That’s like buying a new car for a demolition derby and the car dealer repo's it even though you paid for it in full. I have nothing against ebay'ers as some of you might think. I simply think that if you just started playing a few months ago and you have FOW armor then you are more likely to be an ebay'er then a power trader.

Alright, well, you could ride the flames from here to the final mission of Nightfall if you want after saying Ebay should be fine, so I'm just gonna close it now. And don't ever say that Ebay should be fine again, because either I or someone else will close that for being flamebait.