Power Traders: Scum of Society?

I really dont care about powertrading

Today I finally got enough to BARELY scrape up a everlasting phantasmal. Now, I only got it for ~99e. I could resell it RIGHT NOW and at least make a 30 ecto profit.

I care more about the item than the prospect of potentially greater wealth. Some ppl care more about the wealth. I don't judge as long as I get whatever the hell I want

Yes its ironic I know. But whats sad is that I don't think other people are being successful at it either, and they are still doing it. I still see them selling the same items for days, and they still mess up the economy by keeping the prices of items high.

If someone puts forth the effort to make more money than everybody else, or have something that not everybody has, then they should get what they worked for.

ps- I enjoyed camping out overnight to get my Wii pre-order, life's what you make of it

And yet, it was just a bunch of bits in a database somewhere in Seattle. In a game where the best equipment is free.

So empty a boast, such minuscule a colossus.

Please enlighten us why Guild Wars needs power traders.

Its not like they reinvest in companies to make more products in the real world.

All they seem to do is encourage ebay gold buying by raising the prices.

The farmers get less money for their goods in comparison, while the power traders getting richer sit on their stack of ectos, not inclined to help enrich the economy by making stuff.

Generally, yes. They mislead others in order to take their gold. No matter how you dress it up, that's just "scummy," period.

Now, to their credit, there are some self-described "power traders" who don't try to mislead people about market values, but rather sell the time they save people in finding a buyer/seller.

You're confusing power traders with traders. It's a common mistake made by most people though.

Power traders have a goal of sorts, and it isn't generally hoarding money. Most will have an on going collection of rare stuff, and to fund this they buy/sell expensive items.

Hey that sounds like a fun way to play a game.

I did that thing for a while. No, the profits weren't ridiculous - I didn't pick up crystallines for 10k, but I would make 150-200% on an item. Buy for 50k, sell for 80... around those lines. Did that long enough only to get one set of FoW armor, then decided to drop it. Spamming trade chat is not my thing.

(This was about 6 months after prophecies release)

I enjoyed powertrading in WoW, though. There it takes the form of playing the auction house. You can buyout items that are listed under the average and resell them. On certain things you can "corner the market" for a short time, since WoW servers have isolated iconomies and each server is much smaller than all of GW, which has a shared economy. You could also buy certain items, disenchant them and sell the enchanting components for more.

Basically, no trade spam involved and spending about 5% of my playtime in AH made me enough money to get an epic flier before I hit 70.

Power traders don't spam. Anyone with half a braincell will have formed a network of like minded people in which they traded with. With such a network in place, you can have an item sold within an hour of purchase. No time lost on your part.

Esan - You seem to have an issue with me. So, either say your piece, or keep it shut.

Ignorance does not make the knowledgable scum. Being good at a game does not make you an elitist. Being smart does not mean you're necessarily arrogant. Assuming does two things that I'm sure the average Guru user is familiar with... I wouldn't recommend it.

Power trading is an essential aspect of any Capitalist society, whether it be a nation or an artificial game environment. The price of the items that are power traded in Guild Wars is not set by the state (i.e. programmers) and therefore gamers are going to do what they can to make money from their spoils... and other's.

In my experienced opinion, the original super-rich class of Guild Wars players were legitimate power traders who made their money buying and selling in a virgin market that either didn't know any better, or didn't care. The newer class of even more (in quantity of players with such wealth and also quantity of wealth attained) super-rich players is much harder to explain away, considering the massive numbers of Armbraces being offered per trade. Personally, I would say that duping is the source of the ruined economy we're all stuck with now.

power trading now a days has just gotten too inefficient in terms of profit per/hour or profit per/day etc.

even if you have a huge bank roll to start power trading now, the money you'll make is peanuts compared to what you could of made back in the "good ole days". it's just not worth it.

presently, if you want to make large amounts of money consistently over long periods of time, you're best bet is to start some type of reliable service. because the game has been around for 3 years, there are a quite a few people with lots of money that just don't want to grind new characters through certain aspects of the game.

there's your market. now you just have to figure out which services to offer.

If you think powertraders are scum then don't powertrade. I personally could never powertrade it's just a huge boring waste of time but some people like to and so they will who cares?

I care, and other people should too because everything is more expensive.

And only power traders can afford the best stuff because they got rich off everyone else.

Now I'm going to stop ranting for the night.

You know, if it's too expensive you don't HAVE to buy it. I still don't see how powertraders run prices up. When I want to sell something I sell it a bit under the standard price to save time and I'm sure some powertraders do the same to save time.

Do what?

Everything is cheaper now compared to 3 years ago.

There is no such thing as "the best stuff" in GW. A white customized sword will do as much damage as mr joe scrubs non-customized tormented sword.

If GW was gear based then being rich would actually have an effect on gaming experiance, but as it is, people choose to power trade as it's something to do besides button mashing.

They're just like used car salesmen, buying on the low end of the price range and selling on the high end. They offer a valuable for the portion of the community who does not care to find a buyer or hunt around for a commodity.

you'd be surprised how much money you can make when you just save your gold and don't buy on impulse everytime you see something you want.

that, and a.net gives out free gold in the form of zkeys every month, just predict monthly winners. it's really not that hard to make a decent amount of gold in this game. you don't need to powertrade or anything.


p.s.
just to be difficult

the white customized sword will actually do 20% more damage as opposed to mr joe scrubs uncustomized torment sword, which will only do 15% more damage(assuming his health is above 50% and he hasn't modded it since he bought it)

Ok I couldn't resist coming back 1 more time

So what happened to titles, everlasting tonics, and other expensive stuff? Did Arena Net spend days modeling rare skins and effects just so only power traders and ebayers could afford them?

Except in this case you actually need a large parking space and repair services. Its not like people are having trouble selling their mini pandas and such.

I think a more accurate analogy for power traders would be the diamond company De Beers, who buys on the high end, and are selling on the higher end, because they are one of the few people who can afford to buy diamond mines.

Wait a sec......

We have threads here about hackers....dupers....and scammers.

And you're calling the power traders the scum of the earth????