Fair Market Value Tables

Something that has frustrated me to all end is the people inflating the value of items anyone can get in abundance later in the game.. Like Hilts, Hafts, strings, and Minor Runes. People are selling these things for close to 10,000 gold. That's Ludicrous. This is supposed to be a game of strategy and exploration, not grind and exploit... And these people that actually do this to the poor n00bs that are too foolish to know that is too high a price to pay for that stuff, are driving away people from the game. because of such unfair practices, people do not want to play with others or do trades or ANYTHING. I have limited my trading to my guild now, because all the people doing it I have seen are 110% corrupt in trading practices.. I have NEVER sold a rune for more then around 1000 gold. EVER... Asking 8000 gold for a minor rune is like slapping people in the face with a used condom. Its sickening...

Would it be possible for the developers to make a fair market list of some kind for runes and upgrades... Just to show fair market values for people so they don't get consistently screwed by others... then when these people start asking these stupid prices for stuff, people will be able to look it up and say that's too much... and NOT buy it from inflated vendors.

Same would be nice for dyes, because some people consistently go and make a new character and go to pre-searing and CON n00bs out of dyes for like 10 gold. I saw one guy get 10 black dyes off people go forward and sell all that for 1000s in gold... and go back and do it again. That's Just WRONG!!! Exploiting new people is a sure way to drive those people away from the game not attract them...

Maybe a way to CAP the selling of things would be nice... Like selling a rune in the trade window will only allow a trade at say 10% higher then fair market value MAX... Boy that would really fix the economy problem in the game... BIG TIME. And reduce the stupid Farming as well...

Thank you for your time.
Ingram of Haz
Haz Team guild

PS: Also would it be possible to get a storage person in our guild hall? instead of having to go to elsewhere when you want to give something to a guild member from storage...

Unfortunately these games wind up having their own virtual economies and that means you have people that will sell cheap and people that will sell over-priced. You just have to look for the deals. I think it would be wholly unrealistic for the developers to try and make a system to watch what current price trends are for items and then implement some mechanism to disallow selling that item for what may seem like an unreasonable price. (Also what about the people who want something now and are willing to overpay for it. Maybe that overpayment is what makes someone decide to give up that item. A system like you described would disallow that to happen as well.)

a wise buyer should always have an idea of the market price for that time

Yeah, the economy of a game take time to learn. Just like the economy in the real world. No one is watching you, preventing you from buying overpriced things in the real world. Why would anyone need that in a game? I admit, Ive sold some things pretty cheap, and other things overpriced...but if theres a market for something....it'll sell! The consumer needs to be educated on what they want to buy!

Ingram if you were my child I would club you like a baby seal.

Seriously man spend a moment thinking about your post. You complain about others grinding and selling and exploiting, yet, its you who are there to create the market. The way I see it is this:

First person wants to sell. Second person wants to buy.

They make a deal


So whats your real problem with this? Like omega said it takes time to learn. I agree it would be nice to have an auction house so you know your getting a fair deal , but, there isnt one so buck up bucko live and learn.


Why is it that everyday I pop on these forums hoping to learn some more things about the game I find kids each day looking for ways to restrict others game play that they percieve as hurting them. What happend to having a good time? Why the constant need to worry about what others are doing, when in essence it has no direct effect upon you.

It would be wholely impossible for the devs to make a "fair value chart" anyway. The market fluctuates so much that it just wouldn't be feasible. For example, the market for a specific type of rune could be dry today because most of the runes of that type that are for sale were bought by other people; therefore the value of the rune would be through the roof. But tomorrow, a whole ton of people could find this rune and the market would be flooded with them; the price would be at a minimum.

There would be no way to show a Consumer Price Index (measurement of inflation) in Guild Wars because nothing is keeping track of the sales of player to player. If there was an auction house, this would be feasible, but as it is right now, there is no possible way to do it.

Besides, Orderless has a good point. One person wants to buy, and another person wants to sell. They agree on a price. If they can't agree, the purchase doesn't happen. It's as simple as that.

Surely you jest.

It seems to me that the economy has balanced itself perfectly. Frivolous items, and tiny little edges are paid thousands of gold for by people with a lot, but noobs with next to nothing aren't really hurt by prices skyrocketing for those things. For example, there are players who pay 50k or more for a +30 HP bow grip, but you can get a +25 grip for about 250 gold. That extra +5 HP is not hurting anyone, and so everyone should be happy. Yes, sometimes people are going to get scammed, but its supposed to be a community, and in most communities, people get suckered every day. Relax!

We don't have the same level of (price) information. That's it. It happens in real live too.

MMO game seldom beats inflation problem. May be hiring Greenspan will solve the problem...

Actually the real world does have market economy fixes to handle supply and demand. its called a MSRP... But that's real world... I understand you MMORPG players have ALWAYS had the bad habit of hoarding and Farming and extorting the new guys. Its just not nice to do, in the real world its tantamount to Felony Racketeering. Basically its nothing more then more chest beating... uga uga uga I'm better then you are, so you got to give me your testicles to get where I am, and if you don't I'm taking them anyway...

Part of the problem I had was yes I was scammed, and it pissed me off. and then I go and get to the same place the rest of the lev 20s are and find they are in ABUNDANCE. all these people are doing is farming barrels and chests instead of playing the game for stuff... then going back and selling it for so much gold that they would never use it all... and to people that do not know that there is plenty of this stuff to find later in the game. these sellers are Lying to the public making the newbs think it is so hard to get them, when it is not... they just have to be patient and get there themselves.

You have leeway within the government to go only so far outside that range of Fair market value, when you go beyond that, you get government intervention to bring the price down to a fair price range... Or risk Sanctions, Fines, or Taxation, as a penalty for such actions... This keeps the market supply and demand ratios in balance and maintains a market economy low in inflation... Without it this country would be in another great depression in a matter of months...

OK off soapbox, I had my free speech moment... now go about cheating the newcomers to the game out of their hard earned gold, cause its obvious that's all you want to do... hell lets just get rid of the games storyline and make it nothing but that... that's all you seem to want to do anyway... Oh yea... that's what happened to Everquest, Worlds of warcraft, and all the other MMORPGs. sheesh I guess Guild Wars really is nothing but more of the same... Isn't it??

The absolute best thing in this game is being able to turn OFF the trade window, but now they have resorted to spamming standard chat as well for selling... because MANY, MANY!!!! turn off the trade window tab.

If the developers are unwilling to do anything about this ongoing problem... could we at least make a new area on the map for such activities, and save the rest of the areas for the GAME?? Like a Swap meet or auction area, or something like that... someplace everyone can go to do trades and keep them out of the regular game (trade button only active in these areas). Because it is spreading to public chat so fast its sickening...

only use gold with npcs. barter with items for players. rune that you don't need for one that you do. there has never been an economy in this game and i am happy as a pig in mud that gold is worthless and there is always plenty more to be had.

if anet really wants to set a min price for things then all they have to do is setup an npc that buys and sells that item for specific prices. ok use your minor rune example. if every minor rune in the game can be bought from an npc in ascalon for less than 8k then no one will try to sell one for more and only a fool would pay more for something they could buy from the npc.

it would certainly cut down on the 'required pve' and i am all for that.

and it may just stop all the whining from ppl who don't realize that the difference between 1k gold and 80k gold is all of about 30-45 minutes of playing time. you just don't get it? right now gold is worthless. most players with a lvl 20 have got more gold than they can shake a stick at and only runes to spend it on.

in the real world, government intervention in the free market rarely benefits the consumer.

i suspect they will probably make some kind of auction house similar to wow anyway.

Yea king, that's what I have been doing lately... I got sic of it so I just started ignoring them... I just go get one myself now, if I want something, or ask people in my guild to keep an eye out for something...

If we could get a storage in the guild I doubt I would ever go into the towns again for stuff. Glad to hear others think the same thing I have been lately. After ascension gold and all other items are so abundant its wonderful, I just hate seeing new people getting cheated and lied too... I have been helping as many as I can, and many of em end up joining our guild cause of that... Because we are about playing the game... as we have been from the beginning of the betas...

I'm working on one myself now... taking ave prices of everything and finding a mean value. statistically...

With minor base value,
major base plus some amount,
and superior base, plus major, plus some amount... for runes...

and listings for prefix suffix upgrades on weapons... at the different types...

Everything else will be excluded, because everything else is abundant...

maybe a baseline value for weapons of different dmg levels...

See stratagy guide from prima press for current listings in chapter 1.

Then I'll make a sample public and people will have a place to go to be sure they are getting a fair deal... and use that as a source for making their own adjustments over time as they wish... Then at least they are Knowledgeable going into the deal. I'm curious what the developers will have to say on this when they see how easy it would be to make, and maybe publish one for each chapter...

Are you angry because you can't afford that pretty 5:-1 +30 life vampiric short bow of fortitude with 15% damage health>50%?

No but really... If some noob wants to pay 1000 gold for a minor rune, let them. If they want to sell their black dye for 200 gold hey more power to them! It is no concern of ours how noobs spend their money. Getting ripped off or not it is THEIR money. It's not the sellers goal to make sure the buyer gets the best deal. If they get ripped off then they've learned their lesson and they don't do it again. If they don't learn their lesson then they are stupid. If they leave because they got ripped off then lets face it, I'm happy. I don't want some whiney bitch who would quit a game because someone overcharged them for an item.

i sold a vial of black dye a while ago for 1k gold i let the guy make me an offer because i have no use for it and i have have no idea what it's worth but after i sold it to him i found out that i could have got about 1600 gold for it but so what it was worthless to me i could have just sold it to the merchant for 1g if i didn't know better

there are people out there that will pay 2-5k for a firey dragon sword with no upgrades and not even max dmg simply because it has become a coveted item but my firey longsword of swordsmanship with max dmg won't sell for more than 1k because nobody wants it unless it looks like it's on fire similarly i could go out and buy a mercedes benz for an ungodly amount of money or i could go but a chrysler 300 for about half abd they share the same engineering so WTF things are only worth as much as someone else will pay for them stop being a communist and let the free market work it's own problems out

its not the 1 k deals that piss a person off... its the people selling stuff for 100k that makes me angry. and those people are growing in number every day I play... And now I have everything I personally want, but I get people in my guild I am trying to help that complain on the prices... and its understandable when people are selling even minor runes for as much as 25k... that's just stupid!!! Yes I mean 25,000 gold... I know I would never pay that and these people are actually getting that for them. that's sickening... and it has been driving new players away from the game... I lost many new players when I left town for a week. because they said they could not get fair deals going, Or fair people to play with for missions, and they just gave up playing. How you ask... here is what has been happening.
Near the end of a mission they are helping some n00b out right telling them not to worry about stuff you get it later just before battle... then they die (expected) and they don't resurrect them, these evil people then go and loot the mission for items after the time limit of reserves is up. or worse they force the guy to leave the mission and they go steal the rares that do not go off reserve... Never actually HELPING THE GUY, but instead exploiting them...

so no matter what you say now... it is a problem that needs addressing or we face a shrinking base of players to play with, and either the developers will do it, or a guild community will. either way something must be done to protect new players from exploitation... we just didn't have this problem during the betas, or during the early release, so I just feel bad for them is all... Now that we are basically finished with the game on our primary characters I have been going back and helping others where they need it. And just for the FUN of it... till chapter 2 is released... its just unfortunate to see is all that gets me upset. I guess I just long for the days when we played the game to see what was there AKA the beta days) not to do bad things to people not fortunate enough to have been there from the beginning...

well if there's fools out there dumb enough to buy minor runes for 25p then they really get what they deserve i have never seen that happen but i'll take your word for it i have yet to aquire 25p in this game at one time over all i think i've collected somewhere around 50p but i buy what i need at reasonable prices and sell 99% of my crap to the merchants but i do hold on to runes and things and i'll sell them but never a minor for more than 100gold i'm cheap and i don't mind it's not doing me any good taking up space in my inventory maybe i'm an exception but i think the market isn't out of control at this point

Here is a quick example of a table I was thinking of in Excel...
One is a base weapons table from the Prima stratagy guide with modifiers, and the other is something kinda made up for Runes. I based it on ave of prices I was seeing latly on such runes... Its nice cause you can adjust it as needed for your own needs and tastes, by editing the yellow cells to adjust base values and %s for added values for each skill.... But This gives you an example of what I meant.

Then people know if they are gettting a fair deal or if its over priced based on ave suggested prices from the tables.

I'm still working on the Weapon upgrades tables, but I wanted to get feedback on the concept from my guild members before releasing more...

Well, I agree for the most part about this.

25K for a Major Vigor Rune is quite simply, disturbing.

I thought 40K for a Sigil (which baffled me then) was high... now theyre 80-100K.. but if you check Sigil Traders, theyre 70.

All this smacks of Lineage2 Economy. 1 Million for this, 5 Million for that... Thats whats going to happen here if they dont get a handle on this silly crap.

What it boils down to is this:
If people are going to pay it, people will keep selling it for that price, unless 1 of 2 things happen.

1) NC does something about it
or
2) Merchants have items for sale that will effectively limit what people can sell the items for because they can be bought from a merchant.

And yes, I sold a max damage crystalline sword (purple) with NO MODS on it and 13Req Sword... for 25K... why? because some silly bastard wanted to pay it. I would have been happy with 5K, to be honest.

And if gold gets as valuable as say, Lineage2 Adena? look out... here comes IGE, and there goes the economy.

-Monk

lol actually guys remember back in the beta when no matter what you killed be it a scale, or a Level 22 hydra, all you got was 1 gold coin? lol Now that would be punishment!!!! lol JUST KIDDING DEVELOPERS!!!!!

PS: I made that table so you guys can adjust the base values to what you feel is fair for each as well as % changes on each attrib... Then the table does all the calculations for you, to help with bidding and determining whats fair to you as a buyer...

=HT= I have never posted on a web forum before but search them for info once in awhile and from reading your posting I had to sign up just to respond to you. I noticed that you list professor under your name you can't possibly be a professor of economics? I was blown away when I saw someone drag a liberal socialist political agenda into a video game but I read it again and saw the same thing both times. Why don't you go on about playing the game ( or not) however you feel like doing and don't try to make the developers into a governmental body to try to protect everyone that you feel SO bad for because they can't possibly take care of themselves. When I started playing this game I didn't know how anything worked and so far have survived to write this. For some of us we don't feel that we need to be taken care by the likes of you, We are perfectly capible of taking care of ourselves! This applies in real life as well as in a video game...

How much is enough once you have the best weapons armor etc what real use is virtual gold in a virtual world?I ussualy give any good drops i get to my guildies no charge.

My answer to this perceived problem is a lot simpler than yours. You know that district number in the upper left hand corner of your screen? Use it. If I am looking for a "fiery dragon sword" for example, I can "wtb fiery dragon sword max damage pst" and get a few ppl sending me tells. If they all seem too high, I can hit that handy dandy feature and pick a new district and keep shopping till I find a seller with a price I feel is more in line with what the item is worth.

If that doesn't work too well, I can hit "M" and go to a totally different city and try again. In other words, no one forces you to buy anything or pay any set price. If you're too lazy to do this simple research or ask a guildy what they think a fair price is, who is to blame?

Please stop trying to call for nerfs to classes or to the game itself. Could we use an auction house zone? Sure. I'm all for adding to the game, but please for the love of Melandru, stop asking for the game to change to suit what YOU think is unbalanced. Better yet, try using your brain in a way like I described above.

I'm not trying to offend you or anyone else. I'm simply pointing out that YOU do have options. Please exercise them.

Sheesh, why is Ingram so uptight? If you get a good deal on something, good for you. If you got ripped off, good for you. Trading is a learning experience. You get a better idea of the worth of items the more you expose yourself to the market. If everyone got the "fair" price for everything, we'd be overrun by mindless NPCs. (Unless that has already happened...)

If Ingram is requesting a Market Value table, I would like to request a perfect build table for HoH so everyone can be a winner? *Sarcasm*

It is a very simple solution for all of you who feel things are being sold for to much.... Ready for it... DO NOT BUY IT! Simple isn't it. And over paying for something as a n00b is part of learning a game. I know I did it many times, and I still do it. At the same point I have never paid more then what I felt was fair. So in short quit Wining because you spend 30k for a blue Fiery Dragon Sword that wasn't even Max Damage, and next time look before you buy.

The problem is inflation, as in all MMOs. Gold is being perpetually generated. What is needed is that the gold needs to be destroyed at a rate comparable to the rate that it is created.

What I propose is institutions be setup by the devs to comsume large amounts of cash using algorithms based on the total amount of gold in the game world.

One idea I have is perhaps a sort of sales tax tacked on any trading of gold from player to player. The percentage would be based on how much money there is compared to how many players there are. This might reign in the freight train of inflation going on, although there might be a negative impact on the trading scene.

Another idea is something along the lines of the gambling system in Diablo 2. If I remember correctly from my D2 days, the value of gold was brought up significantly by the gambling system. I must say though, that this si another thing that would have to be setup in relation to the number of players and the amount of gold in the game world.

The last thing I would suggest is an auction house or some kind of more streamlined trading system. Perhaps sections of town that are seperate areas that are specifically for trading and have entirely different setups toward trading.

The basic thing is to keep the money circulating and to maintain some stability over the value of gold. Inflation will happen and cannot simply be eliminated, but it can be guided in such a way that is stable and does'nt interfere with ones enjoyment of the game.

I'd appreciate any constructive criticism of my ideas.

hmmm, i think im gonna repost this in the suggestion forum...

Sixdartbart. the professor is a thing set by the forums not me. Just FYI. It has to do with number of postings... It changes over time. In any case I'm not really upset... I have been seeing it and I found the appropriate way to deal with it. I don't talk to anyone in towns anymore.. I just give stuff to my guild members when they want it. thus WE don't have to deal with the problem. we just do for each other and that is it.

If we go outside the guild and do this they just take it and resell it for too much money. I'm NOT ONE OF THESE JERKS THAT HAS 400,000 GOLD SITTING IN THEIR STORAGE AND 40 RUNES IN MULTI CHARATCERS.. SO ALL THEY DO IS THAT CRAP. sorry caps.. My answer was a value table which I made and our guild uses it. its nice cause you the buyer can set what you consider to be fair base values and % markups for every rune and upgrade, and the table does the work of calculating fair prices based on your values. Thus you the buyer has something to base fair prices on and laugh off the ridiculous people selling minor runes for 12k.

Obviously some don't like it and some do.. some like to take advantage of the ignorant and some like to help them and show them were to get it themselves... All the runes are easily found later in the game. there is no reason for having to trade for them at all. they are plentiful... you just have to be patient.
There is nothing in this game worth more then 30k and that is the guild island!!! which SHOULD be expensive. and even that is inflated to last time I saw it being sold like 70k??? whatever... we just won our own and didn't pay a dime for it. Same with the runes... you know that just cause you got it from someone that let you have one you did not unlock it. which means you STILL DONT REALLY HAVE ACCESS TO IT in PvP mode. so its not useful to trade for them at all. it hinders you in fact. because you think you actually have it and you do not. and you odds of finding it legitimately if its equipped is lower because of that... so all in all do whatever you want, it never was going to stop you anyway... I found my answer.. Stop buying from them, which we have. good luck...

I'm all for protecting the Public from the Enron's and Arthur Anderson's of the world - in Real Life!
In GW, the governments (at least in Ascalon and Kryta, which is all I've seen) are fully concerned with not being overrun. And being Kingdom's, probably wouldn't have any kind of buisness regulations anyway (not sure how they would do taxes/support themselves).
Put your greviences in context with the fantasy world being portrayed, and see if they still make sense within that schema.

Only buy from sellers that are confident enough of their prices to list them in their auction. That way if they really are over/under priced, its there for the whole world to see. Likewise, if you are after an actual item, list what your aiming to pay. If your offer really is too low, rest assured, the usual 'rofl you n00b, its worth x times that!!1!' wont be far behind.

Make the trader channel a global one would help immensly too, and you would start to see more accurate prices emerge. As it stands, if no one can see the extortionate prices someone is selling for, no one can call them out on it.

Way I see it, if I inflate an item I have above what anyone will pay, its useless to me, because no one will pay it. If someone wants to pay 5k gold for one minor rune, then that's the market value. If someone has 5k to waste on a minor rune, then why not sell it. Lets be honest, how many noobs do you know that can throw away 5k with a single toss, when there is armor and weapons and salvage kits and identification kits and bags to buy and customize?

That said, I'd still like to see an auction house. More because it would be easier for me to look and buy an item from it say in Lion's Arch, when the person selling it is selling it in Ascalon. It would save time and hassle. Plus, like it said, it would help stabilize the economy a bit. The bad side of auction houses though is that people use them as free storage a lot of time, charging 10 million for a minor rune. Now there are ways around it, but it does happen.

Just to put in my two cents, I see people selling max dmg storm bows with good mods for 300k.... what do they go on? The honor system for the next 200k? It really makes no sense to me.

At the risk of mentioning another game, The Auction house system in WOW works well in 2 ways.
1. It creates a central area for trades (cash for items)
2. Lists multiple sales of same item at different prices which gives a quick and dirty estimate of market value.

Now you can have this in Guild Wars only by going to a city and hoping there is someone there wanting the item you have (Lion's arch, etc), Missing out on a huge market of people elsewhere that may want your item. And it takes much longer and more research to find what an item usually sells for to know what you should price your item at.

Now I know this game is not set up for this, it is a pvp game at the end not a true mmorpg, but if an Auction house type system could be set up relatively easily I think it would find an appreciative and receptive group of gamers who would enjoy and use it.