Merchantile Problems

[vvyrd]

Recently, I've noticed, that the price for certain Items arent Static.

What I mean are, some people here are creating threads as to the pricing for Items like Elrue, Lix, Xir, and others, but the most common response has been, just check the other vendors.

While I agree its great to look at the market, to see how things are going, but if there was a quick and dirty way to tell how things are going, some sort of price index for helping to mediate disputes... because frankly the thousands of shouts across the chat pane, "Selling Dust and SBL for 10C" so on and so forth gets annoying.

Would anyone be willing to contribute some sort of price index to what they generally need, and what they generally are willing to pay for it?

And I'm looking for honest answers, not some bogus answer that says "1C for Elrue" or "you cant possibly give this stuff away" or worse yet, a couple posts of "well, that old soul dust should obviously go for a silver" because I believe everyone can see what would happen if that were the case.

I'm just looking to figure out what the decent price is, since finding a decent vendor in Elderine is hard, what with selling some of their Elrue products, and their "Items" for nearly a full gold. Or mentioned previously in another thread, the hidden silver cost to low copper-items.

[-Drago-]

That's a very delicate issue you brought up. It's definitely not easy to make such an index cause the prices are made at the market where demand and supply merge (like in real life). The prices aren't fix. One day Tough Meat (eg) can only be sold for 5c each and on the next day it's 10c each. It also depends on the location. Sometimes you get your materials away much higher than normal just because those players at that region do have more money. It needs some kind of sure instinct to handle the pricing. And the nuts and bolts of business is to have a survey of the current biddings. Each player who opens a vendor is a competitor to his next. It's the sence of a free market.
To say it blunt: If I would fix some prices here, saying I sell Magic Crystals for 20c (in my opinion expensive) each, then anyone who reads this just undercuts my offer, knowing well that they have a better chance of selling their goods this way.
If you have time (a lot of time) you can open a vendor and sell those goods for the same price. But this way you would risk that noone buys your goods. But if you're lucky there is really someone who buys it (sometimes they are too desperate or they just have too much money and don't care about such little details).
Hm, guess I should give you a real example: The Elrue situation in Rumen (Apoline) has changed in a few days. On last Monday you could easily purchase Elrues for about 35c each near the Smith James. Today there were only a few sellers and the price have even upraised to ~60c each. There weren't many competitors so they exploited their 'monopoly-location'. They were alone and could play with their prices as they wished (I even saw Elrue for 100c later on). As long as there is no competitor they can try to sell their goods for unreasonable prices.
See? The prices will never be fixed as long as there are people who just want to abuse Newbies or those in need of this good (perhaps even to praise their god Mammon). If you look around you can see so many people who are greedy. Only a few players would sell goods for fair prices in such situations.
I end my answer here. If you still have questions, post em and I try to answer them too. It's a hard issue (and my answer is even harder to understand :p ). But I hope you get what I mean. ;)
You can also post some items here and I tell you for how much I would sell them (or I had sold them).

[babykitt10]

*economics*

[ManRooster]

Price guides ALWAYS seem to cause problems with games.

On every game I've played that had some kind of fan-made price guide, I've seen fights saying-

Player A: This item is worth 10 dollars!(Or whatever the game's currency is called)

Player B: No it's not! *Fan-made website's name here*'s price guide says it's 5 dollars!

[joecracker]

its worth whatever your willing to pay for it

think gas prices ;) they wont ever go down, maybe for a while but will always go higher, supply and demand ;)