Thread: Price Gouging in the Auction House

Originally Posted by whheydt

The AH takes a cut of the actual sale price (if the item sells at all).

How do you determine what something is "worth"? Answer: An item is "worth" what someone will pay for it. Since the AH takes a cut, if the items sell for 4x what you think it's worth, the AH takes a 4x larger cut. Thus...what you've asked for is what the AH does already.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

Currently the fees work like this:

NPC price for posting
5% of sale if it sells (nothing if it doesn't)

What I'm proposing:

4% of your buy out for posting - need a buy out
1% of sale + NPC price, if it sells (nothing if it doesn't)

If you're not trying to overshoot, nothing changes for you. If you overshoot because the fee is super low...well then it hurts you (AH posting as storage for example). Also, some items have high NPC prices (or you want to sell full stacks), it would mitigate for those a bit.


1) I don't support AH used as storage. You got 75 slots with your bags, 30 basic, 150 max with your vault, shared storage up to 50, wardrobe letting you store cosmetics up to 50 and house chests storing up to 60...even with 1 character that's a lot. But with many its overwhelming. What's using up to 30 slots, for up to 48 hours, going to add?

If you're so desperate for storage, make an alt.

2) Put a buy out. You can have an initial price too, and people can bid, but forget the no buy-out deals. Put a list of last transaction of said items so you can make an informed guess of the buy out price that's reasonable (as compared to now where its all guesswork or experience).

I'm not sure what's so hot about not having a buy out. No buy out, I don't bid or buy. I want the item now, when at the AH, not being told by email I got outbid in 12 hours the next morning. And I got better things to do than stand at the AH for hours bidding and re-bidding.

If I sell a Journeyman one-use recipe, I set the initial price at 15s, and the buyout at 50s. I expect to get between 15-50s in max of 2 days. And probably more people would try it if the buy out was there - if only because they're like me and don't like waiting 2 days (always 2 days for my auctions, I hate reposting) to *maybe* get an item.

If I didn't put a buyout, I would probably put it at 30s or more, and have to repost and repost.

No buyout is only hot for the auction sites online that put items and have people bid in increments of 1 cent (but sell "rights to bid" for 1$ each), with the auction ending when its been 30 seconds no one bid, selling the item at apparently trivial prices (50$ for a 36 inch LCD TV)...but having made substantial profit (ie, 50.00$ is 5000 bids = 5000$ for them).

Originally Posted by Schala08

Currently the fees work like this:

NPC price for posting
5% of sale if it sells (nothing if it doesn't)

What I'm proposing:

4% of your buy out for posting - need a buy out
1% of sale + NPC price, if it sells (nothing if it doesn't)

It looks like what you are trying to do is make it impractical for people to list items at high prices and wait paitently until that day when they are the only one listed and some wealthy player that badly wants it now comes along and pays a fortune for it. I price things to sell because I don't want the item back and I'm not trying to squeeze every last silver in profit. On the other hand, there are those that are willing to wait and relist in order to get the most profit.

Both kinds of players contribute to making a stable market in the AH. The profit maximizers ensure the immediate availability of items for those who are willing to pay a premium for them, but there is a natural limit to the number the AH will support. The players who price their items sell ensure the abailability of items for those who are willing to spend time patiently monitoring the AH to snatch up bargains as soon as they are posted. Both kinds together create a healhy market. When you go to the AH and there are only two of the item you are looking for and both have very high prices, it is likely that there would be none at all if those two had been listed with lower prices. A few items available at high prices are better than no items at any price.

I'm not about to flail through the OP's wall o' text.

Suffice to say that the very best form of "price control" on the AH is for Turbine to implement their Smart Player patch, by which the player base is magikally gifted with intelligence.

Originally Posted by PiperPilot

Actually, technically it is price-gouging if people are FORCED to pay those prices because the sellers destroy competition by buying the cheaper stuff and reposting it at higher prices.

There are two related problems with this claim.

1. There is no such thing as "destroying competitition", because resources are free, & because nobody with even half a brain should get their panties in a knot because someone else bought their stuff & re-sold it for a higher price.

2. Nobody is "forced" to buy anything at all from the AH, because everything you can buy from the AH can be had by enterprising players who actually play the game.

Because of those two problems, your claim is utter nonsense. Simply put, there's no such thing as "price gouging" in an MMO , regardless of what MMO you're talking about or what's being sold in it.

Originally Posted by DJHall

It looks like what you are trying to do is make it impractical for people to list items at high prices and wait paitently until that day when they are the only one listed and some wealthy player that badly wants it now comes along and pays a fortune for it. I price things to sell because I don't want the item back and I'm not trying to squeeze every last silver in profit. On the other hand, there are those that are willing to wait and relist in order to get the most profit.

Both kinds of players contribute to making a stable market in the AH. The profit maximizers ensure the immediate availability of items for those who are willing to pay a premium for them, but there is a natural limit to the number the AH will support. The players who price their items sell ensure the abailability of items for those who are willing to spend time patiently monitoring the AH to snatch up bargains as soon as they are posted. Both kinds together create a healhy market. When you go to the AH and there are only two of the item you are looking for and both have very high prices, it is likely that there would be none at all if those two had been listed with lower prices. A few items available at high prices are better than no items at any price.

Okay, go to the AH, check Light armor, lv 31-31, tell me how many of the best possible ones are on it (they're purple). Then check Medium armor, lv 31-31 (again purple), and Heavy armor lv 31-31 (purple), Shields lv 31-31 (still purple).

I found it weird that lv 31 and 41 armors/shields are at best purple (from Metalsmith guild, Tailor guild)...yet I mostly find yellow items on AH, that have VERY substandard stats in comparison.

Woodworker and Weaponsmith lv 31 weapons (ie all melee and ranged weapons) are teal, they all got 2 versions of each. Look up how many there are. Jeweller items for lv 31 are also all teal. Between them are 3, 2, 2, 2 versions.

They're not worth pennies either. A lv 31 crit-crafted item can usually go fetch 1g or more in the Trade channel. I suspect that this is closer to what a guild crafter would sell than a one-use recipe maker would (one-use recipe + Journal to crit + ingredient price = more than 1g for two attempts...maybe even 1g for a single attempt given the one-use recipe price - for guild crafter, its about 500s cost + medium 3d rep item - no need for journal, or to 'hope' to crit).

I think 1g is a low enough price, though gearing yourself in only that gear would ruin the average lv 31 player (you have 16-17 equipment slots that can be crit-crafted for)...yet those items are never on the AH. I can make them all myself (Woodworker, Jeweller, Metalsmith, Tailor), and still only do them on-demand.

Heck sometimes I just ctrl right-click one of my items and I get 3-4 people ask me if it's for sale.

The low amount on AH is probably explained by people who craft for themselves and kinship in priority (ie me for now), and by the 3 day cooldown on the medium items to make them + on the recipes themselves.

I asked you to check for those, because I'm not interested in more sub-par gear. Quests can give me that.

Well this has probably already been stated but, since I don't intend to read all the posts i just wanted to say that there is a reason why someone would buy something posted at a low price to re-post it at a higher price. My main reason for doing that is, for example lothbread, when somebody post a price that I KNOW is lower the the costs of the mats to make it I'll buy it and re-post it. And yes I have taken the time to figure just how much things cost me before I post them. If I can't make a reasonable profit why am I crafting in the first place. If something is posted too high for the market it just won't sell. So stop complaining, if you don't like a price don't buy the item.

Originally Posted by Livejazz

Simply put, there's no such thing as "price gouging" in an MMO , regardless of what MMO you're talking about or what's being sold in it.

I am going to have to disagree with this, back in WoW WoTLK expansion one of the patches broke Glyph of the penguin (if i remember correctly) and it took the glyph out of scribers craft books and the price of that glyph soared at least 2000% of its original value.

Originally Posted by PiperPilot

When I post something to the AH, I try to undercut as much as I possibly can while still getting some sort of profit (otherwise, I'll just vendor it). The problem that I have with it is not the cost at which it is being sold (because that's good for me). The problem I have with it is that when I do that, those who are selling the same thing at such a high cost will buy mine (or anyone who's undercutting) and then repost it with an astronomical number. Some of us ARE trying to get the AH prices back in line with the game's economy, but it's very difficult when you have so many people gouging like that.

I would recommend, instead, make a timer. If you buy something off the AH, that item has a cooldown before you can put it back on the AH. I would say a week.

Why a whole week? Because it helps promise that the person who buys it does so because s/he wants it. Not because s/he just wants to repost it at a higher cost. Sure, SOME people are going to actually hold onto that item for the week before reposting, but most will not. In addition, with any luck (yeah, I know)... by the time that week is up, perhaps the AH cost of that item will have dropped significantly and the person won't be able to post it as high as s/he wanted.

The answer is do not buy these items, are they high, yes, but some one will buy them but I op out, problem solved.