So Ectos Just Hit 11k!

Yep, Ectos just hit 11k at merchant.
Thats the highest I have seen them for a very long time.

Not sure why though. Any Ideas?

Woopee?!

Sell sell sell!!

To be honest who cares ...

Those who bought low can now sell high


Too bad I'm not one of those people... haha


I couldn't think of any reason they're so high. Except on the American servers it could be because of our lack of favor...

Perhaps more people are getting their new professions FoW armor.

Should I sell my stack now or wit a day to see if it goes up anymore?

Or maybe because there isnt enough ectos in the market? u.u

Bought my FOW at 17k/ecto.

No idea why its going up though.

Shards were high as well, over 3k.

My guess is that a bunch of eBayers went on shopping frenzy. They are the only ones who wouldn't care about prices, everyone else would buy them over time for player prices.

It's really easy to affect prices on resource market, but spikes tend to level off fast.

During start of Factions I used to craft linen (I think, or damask). By buying all resources from material traders I could turn 5% profit over period of two weeks, simply by selling the crafted materials back to trader. But I had to take caution of buying and selling the materials, since I alone could push the price up or down by buying/selling several stacks. Of course, I'd be tradin 30-40 stacks at a time.

Same thing with ectos, but with much less circulation, if two or 3 players buy a stack, it will definitely push the price up. And here it's also tied to shards, so eBay is the logical conclusion.

yet another case of someone not knowing what they are talking about.
ive said it once and i'll say it again, the hundreds of thousands or millions of players activly participating in the economy can, do, and will supercede the effect of a few people, except on a short term basis.
the price goes up when people get frustrated trying to buy ecto from other players for the current market-price, and so buy fomr the merchant instead. often, because the price will be raised, the same people that helped raise the price, will subsequently have an easier time finding players selling them, as more and more people dump their ecto on the market for the new raised price.
eventually the amount of ecto released reverses the process, as all the people now trying to sell at the higher price are getting frustrated with a lack of buyers, and then subsequently sell to the merchant, driving the price back down.
sometimes this process of ebb and flow takes hours, days, weeks or even months before it hits the crest and the lull respectivly.
the fact that you chalk off economic movements to ebay is a sheer demonstration of your absolute lack of economic understanding, as is the case of ANYONE crying ANY situation of a handful of ebayers driving up prices.
fact of the matter is, the wealthiest players in the game are NOT ebayers. and even so, the wealthiest players cannot and do not control the economy; feel free to countermand my argument on this point, i welcome you to do so, as i'd be looking forward to tearing you apart on this particular matter.
but i digress; 2 years ago, before ebay was even remotly approaching the foothills of being a problem in the game was the time period when ectos were at their highest.
but i guarantee you, the changing of hands of ecto on the open market, has a higher influence on the price than people buying/selling to the merchant.
the unintelligent individual thinks that the merchant sets the price of ecto.
W R O N G. the market sets the price; its only when the market is not providing what the player base's opinions of what the ecto market should be, that it then changes. you might say "well, when the ecto buy price is 8k and the sell price is 6k, that means their player to player value (market value) is 7k!" and then i'd countermand "no, thats incredibly short sighted. its because the market WANTS ecto at 7k, that people buy and sell to the merchant (by instinct and numbers) accordingly, to fall into the realm of their acceptance." the median price perceived at the material trader is merely a representation of the strength of ecto in perspect to the market economie's demand of them. plain and simple.
this is EXACTLY the same as in the real world economy...the value of the dollar bill doesnt go up and down because the government sais so; it goes up and down because of the purchases and exchanges made by people reflect upon its ability and power as a median for commerce; and accordingly effects what you can and cant get with said dollar. if the market thinks the dollar value should go up or down, it will do so naturally, due to its increased or decreased useage.

^Akh, my favorite economist. Especially the last few sentences.

why is it i find myself arguing economics repeatedly?
do so many people really lack a basic understanding of economics?
personally, i dont think its that hard to grasp, but time and time again, i see illfounded comments like that. and time and time again, i feel the need to respond. Gah.

Hi Arcane,

This post was for people who can afford ectos. If you can't afford them yeah I could understand you not caring. :P

i got one word "owned" good job akhilleus ^^ lol

Ive never takend economics. Am I dumb? Will I be unwanted? Oh noes.

anyway, ecto! Im just farming them for armor, so no selling or buying from me ^.^ The satisfaction of completing the armor by thyself is a great feeling lol.

/corn

I got like 90, I think I bought likr 50 a while go for 6-6.5k ea. I guess if I sold I could make alot of profit, trouble is my money storage is already full

Humankind relies on Economics on an everyday basis....

Sadly Yes

Don't worry you won't be unwanted, probably poor but not unwanted

Nevermind the fact that all traders are linked across the entire game (US, EU, Korea, etc.).

I can't really convert my Ectos into gold because I'm running out of gold storage. Guess I'll have to convert them into items.

Same here. These whippersnappers today don't know how easy they got it...

market demand, market supply, yada yada is what you learn in highschool economics. more advanced economics is the study of moral, social, and financial incentives pertaining to human decision making.

ectos schmectos, akh's reasoning behind the price fluctuation might, in fact, be correct but no one really knows how much tinkering anet does behind the scenes to manipulate "market" prices.

real world economics and "mmo gaming" economics are not the same. real world economics are all based on the fact that world resources are finite. "rare" items/materials do not fall under the category of finite because anet controls the amounts they release into the game.

Well, I have one year thinking if I will actually start to farm for get my FoW armor or not and end just playing PvP.

The problem is I am a PvE character "deleter" so, I am not sure what character I will keep forever, even with more than a year of play

Aww...now I may never get FoW armor...but on the bright side, if I do get Ecto's, they will be worth more!

What I don't understand is why the heck the trader sells at 11K and only is buying at 7K (just checked). They are gouging worse than LA traders. One would think that the buy price of the npc would go up as the sell price went up.

Welcome to GW's trader system. Do you remember how dye traders used to buy dyes for 2g each and sell for at least 100g each?

I do.

As I recall Ectos occasionally spike up to 11k but that doesn't mean the price will stay there for long.

Chances are in a few days they will be back down at 8k - 9k.

Yes dear, hence the sarcasm.

Oh noes. U mean i wunt hav money? wat if I sell ectoss?? I be rich!

On another note, a lot of buyers seem to still be spamming "WTB ECTO's 7.k!!!" and when I tell them, Ecto prices have been increased to 10k (thats what it was when I logged off), they just go "Shut up noob, lol, u noob."

So yeah.

U GIV ME MONEY FOR ECTO!!1

me thinks ectos are gone up not only cuz Dervish and paragon FOW is so nice, but also cuz 2 man 55/ss doesnt works as well, so less supply of the ectos too.

yea the hardest way was when they were 100 gp each wneh market was broken :P

we made the word "control" unpopular long time ago, and it became a taboo since soviet existence, now we use "regulate", "intervene", "influence" and "screw around with".

But I am not sure Anet has something to do with price deviations of ectos and shards alike, it is just too much of a hassle if I am in the development team.

MMO world is nice, people never get old and die, swords never rust and food never spoil, and gold never deteriorate. In other words, we are all Gods and no one cares about what everyone cares about in real world, Time.

I was about to post a reply to the person with like no knowledge of ecto pricing but akhs already done it. Owned by akh

Im amazed so many people think a few ebayers could affect the price so much when in fact it would be impossible.

Also a quick check of a gold selling website shows the cost of gold has gone up so if anything the number of ebayers should decrease. Couldnt see why a surge of ebayers would happen when the price of gold increases :S If people actually research what they say it would cut alot of the crap out which is being said on these forums.

OMG ITS THEY EBAYERS!!!!!! Seems everyone cries that these days.

You know a thread like this shows up each time the price goes up, people panic and shout doom and gloom. The price will come down again, it always does.

Who knows why its gone up, some will profit, some won't. Just the way it is.

FINE! I will stop buying ectos. Sorry for spiking the price.

i disagree with u. the wealthiest gw players do, in fact, control an aspect of the economy... pricing.
of course, this doesnt apply to rare materials but prices on rare items are determined by the gw rich. take everyones basic supply and demand argument. since supply is obviously low on certain rares, demand for those rares will inevitably increase. but wait a second, since there arent labour, material, shipping, etc costs on these rares, how are prices set? by the gw rich by way of an auction system on gwg or one of the other gw auction sites. take one of the new rare sword skins from nf, the colossal scimitar. highly sought after and relatively rare. the gw rich bid up the sword until it eventually caps out at ~100+200e for a req9 max dmg one. who set that price? the gw rich set that price, this goes for all other rares in the game as well. since the benchmark for that scimitar is ~100+200e, prices for lower reqs and non max dmg scimitars become priced accordingly with prices dropping over time because of new colossal scimitar drops provided by anet.
all pricing for high-end items are set by the gw rich. its just a matter of what a person with a ton of ectos is willing to pay for it over the next person with a ton of ectos.

Actually thats strange because the last 2 days i personally had increased ecto drops (min 5 per run) and yet noone was selling them...
Maybe people stockpile them to buy a new rare skin weapon that come's out soon, or to buy the tattooed/colossal scimitars!
As for the economy, i find someone nuts to give 100k +200e for a rare skinned weapon totally nut. I would only give that money for either a prize or something that was unique and was never again going to be released->maintain its value over time(even if it was 1750 ectos).

P.S:If you need to have fun go to ascalon int1 and check what is sold there(200% overpriced most players)--> total ebayers/re-sellers paradise because a pve player know the difference. (Major ecto movement).

The price spikes at trader are not affecting the real market for ectos and it will stabilize shortly. Because it's impossible that all of a sudden, general demand for ectos rises significantly with no reason. In a stabilized market we got now the supply and demand change slowly over time
An exception was the huge spike we had 1 day before release of Nightfall, after update which nerfed some ways of farming UW which caused many players go "omg must buy ectos, no more farming, they're going upppp!!!!" so the merch price went 14k+ but even this spike went back in several hours.

I'm almost sure that these occasional spikes we got recently are generated by people buying gold for $$$. Because:
1. The legitimately rich players already got a substantial amounts of ecto and very rarely they need to buy them immediately from the trader. Especially not in huge quantites.
2. There are websites and auctions selling as much as 5M gold at one package, which is impossible to store on one account, that's why the buyer certainly is going to buy ectos for most of that gold. And he needs to do it quick, needs to buy 100s of them, needs them for fow armors and all high end trades.
3. If not ebayers then who goes on ecto buying frenzy? A farming guild decides they're going to FoW to craft armors so they collectively go to the trader and spend their millions farmed at some insects/trolls/somethingelse on ectos? Very unlikely A speculative effect of rising price causing people to buy quick just to sell when the price is at it's highest and thus causing even more price rising is also not the case here. So what then? I don't believe someone plays Akhilleus and buys from merch just to increase the price and sells much larger amounts to players for profit.

So if you don't believe that the online gold buyers cause ecto price spikes AND also understand how the trader works and his price is determined please prove me wrong.

Akh said how he dumped like 40 million worth of ectos and the prices barely changed. he only made like 3% on his investment. so many many hundreds of million of extra gold would have to be bought. this is unlikely imo as the price of gw gold has got kinda high again if you browse some gold selling websites. it is I think $80-90 per million. not long ago it was $60 ish. also there is less expensive items in gw now so people dont need as much gold. i could see people in the past needing gold but now items cost less.

sorry for poorly wrote post but i am about to go out.

You could give me 500K then you'd have plenty of room