Gser messing with the AH again

[Prep]

Just a heads up since i havent seen it posted.

I saw the history of Sniper's rings and Fuma Sune-Ate taking rather large up and down swings and i think its cause someone (GS?) is trying to buy low sell high.

here are the histories:

http://www.ffxiah.com/item.php?id=15...1&ig=1&stack=0

http://www.ffxiah.com/item.php?id=13280&sid=1

[Shuemue]

Hasn't been posted because it's been going on for years and will never stop.

[Mizango]

Hasn't been posted because it's been going on for years and will never stop.

Qft, sadly.

[chewbar]

its also a great way to make money if you're real careful :D

[Valisk]

It's called capitalism and free enterprise.

[Dammerung]

It's called capitalism and free enterprise.

No it's called fraud and manipulating records.

[Priran]

It's called capitalism and free enterprise.

No it's called fraud and manipulating records.

No.

[Valisk]

It's called capitalism and free enterprise.

No it's called fraud and manipulating records.

So when I buy low and sell high my stocks on Wall Street (ohsnapzrlcardson!), I'm committing fraud and manipulating records? The system is how it is for a reason. So people can determine how much they want to sell or buy an item for. If I buy an item at low price and the demand increases and the supply diminishes, I have every right to sell it high. Even if my sole purpose for buying it in the first place was to wait for an economic opportunity.

[inafume]

It's only a problem if they start buying and selling to try to clear the history of an item. Otherwise, deal with it.

[Sho]

It's called capitalism and free enterprise.

No it's called fraud and manipulating records.

lol wot?

[ringthree]

It's called capitalism and free enterprise.

No it's called fraud and manipulating records.

No.

Actually, yes it is, and gil sellers have been banned for this before. They are intentionally trying to erase the history of the items by removing all of the ones on the AH then selling them all for a higher price to themselves. Once the history is cleared, they can sell the normal items to other people for the higher price. It is price manipulation and it's very much not part of "free enterprise".

[ringthree]

It's only a problem if they start buying and selling to try to clear the history of an item. Otherwise, deal with it.

Check the buyers and sellers.

[Spekkio]

buying low and selling high is not inherently a bad thing. that's how capitalism and the free market works. the problem comes in when one entity has sufficient resources to take complete or near complete control of a critical commodity, be it anything from gold and silver to fhuma and kote. the digital nature of the goods does not prevent real world economics from applying. let us consider the case of the hunt brothers for a moment.

the hunt brothers were members of a wealthy family at the time that the gold standard was abolished and paper currency no longer had backing in precious metals (bet a bunch of the kids in the audience have never even seen a silver certificate!) realizing that the result of this and the federal reserve being able to print as much money as they cared to would result in a lot more money floating around and thus making each dollar worth less than it was before (inflation). since you can't print more silver, they rightly thought that they could turn a good profit by buying up a bunch of silver at the current market rate at the time (about 2 dollars per ounce) and resell it later for more than they had paid (today, it's worth 17.78 dollars an ounce, thank a huge government bailout for that...) which would be quite a tidy profit. but then they realized they could make a ton of money right away if they borrowed money, bought a ton of silver, drove the price up, and sold it off. largely due to changes in the rules regarding the sales of these commodities, this plan went bust and they found themselves with huge debts and not nearly enough cash and silver to pay it off, leaving them broke.

further reading and sources:
http://www.buyandhold.com/bh/en/educati ... _bros.html
http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/200 ... orner.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornering_the_market

this is in contrast to the nigh laissez-faire economy that ffxi operates in. beyond some rudimentary taxation that occurs on the AH and in bazaars in certain zones (in addition to other more major gilsinks such as dynamis but that's not really in the scope of this) the economy is nigh unto unregulated. since no such rules as the ones that defanged the hunt brother's assault on the silver market exist, the CGF are fully enabled to operate and use their large supply of liquid currency to strongarm and manipulate the market, just as the hunts did. this would allow them to function as an unchecked monopoly and enable unfair competition on their part.

further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly

[Seraph]

Half the problem is the people trying to pull this off, the other half are the idiots who pay the new magically higher prices. Let the buyer beware.

[ronin sparthos]

It's only a problem if they start buying and selling to try to clear the history of an item. Otherwise, deal with it.

This is exactly what the RMT are doing? Hardly free enterprise when your buying up EVERYTHING and resetting the price higher for your own personal gain.

Not that people dont benefit from idiots who buy anyways, and from sellers who profit from the RMT manipulation.

[Valisk]

It's called capitalism and free enterprise.

No it's called fraud and manipulating records.

No.

Actually, yes it is, and gil sellers have been banned for this before. They are intentionally trying to erase the history of the items by removing all of the ones on the AH then selling them all for a higher price to themselves. Once the history is cleared, they can sell the normal items to other people for the higher price. It is price manipulation and it's very much not part of "free enterprise".

Half the problem is the people trying to pull this off, the other half are the idiots who pay the new magically higher prices. Let the buyer beware.

The item is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. I'm not going to sell something for 500k just because that's the norm, when Joe Blow will pay me 900k for it. Nor am I going to tell him, "if you be patient and wait until the supply goes up then the price will come down", as that should be common knowledge.

[tymora]

So when I buy low and sell high my stocks on Wall Street (ohsnapzrlcardson!), I'm committing fraud and manipulating records?

I don't think the police will stand idly by if someone deliberately (and manages to) manipulates the prices on Wall Street. So yes, I think this is a form of fraud. Said people are misleading the "public" into believing the prices are higher than what the "merchandise" are worth for the benefit of selling the same items for a higher price.

That said, I don't think you can really compare the 2.

From my very amateurish understanding:
1. You (as a typical buyer/seller) trade stocks with a public pool and you have no clue who held that same stock (if they are even differentiable from each other). Hence you can't decide who you want to sell the stocks to when you do regular public trading. I.e. You can't be 100% sure that you are selling to yourself.

2. Stock trading occurs in a much much larger volume than the AH. By virtue of this, it would not be as susceptible to the same issue of price fixing. We do however see a spike in prices during takeovers or on "hot" stocks. It only takes 10?-15? sales to wipe the history off the game's AH and 25 off FFXIAH's. I think we can track company stocks for years on most public trading sites.

3. You can't trade stocks outside the stock exchange but you can trade AH goods outside the AH. The flow of "merchandise" is different. A single item can be used to give the illusion of "volume" in the game. In stocks, we can check how many units are available for a listed company. But we have no clue how many copies of an item are available in game.

4. Stock value is rooted in the economic condition of a company. People can easily(comparative term...impossible for people like me lol) decide if a company's stock's is overvalued by looking at the reports. Of course there are cases of manipulated records. And when found out, those companies' get into big shit. Enron anyone? Perhaps it would be more proper to compare those cases of companies changing their reports to get better values to the activities of these people rather than comparing to the regular act of buying low and selling high.

That said, I have no background in economics so feel free to correct me where I am wrong. It will be most educational.

[Fhqwghads]

http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/166/advancedtz0.jpg

[ronin sparthos]

It's called capitalism and free enterprise.

No it's called fraud and manipulating records.

No.

Actually, yes it is, and gil sellers have been banned for this before. They are intentionally trying to erase the history of the items by removing all of the ones on the AH then selling them all for a higher price to themselves. Once the history is cleared, they can sell the normal items to other people for the higher price. It is price manipulation and it's very much not part of "free enterprise".

Half the problem is the people trying to pull this off, the other half are the idiots who pay the new magically higher prices. Let the buyer beware.

The item is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. I'm not going to sell something for 500k just because that's the norm, when Joe Blow will pay me 900k for it. Nor am I going to tell him, "if you be patient and wait until the supply goes up then the price will come down", as that should be common knowledge.

This could be argued that people dont know the 'norm' price for an item and when people are manipulating the price via erasing the records that unless you have prior knowledge you are at the whims of the RMT.

Venerer Ring is 100k
RMT pricefix this to 300k
New player looking to buy said ring doesnt know price, buys for 300k
Capitalists sell in tamdem for 300k until the price eventually drops back down to 100k.
RMT pricefix back to 300k
etc etc.

It works in favor of people who know the static prices, you'll know who to sucker but the fact is that it is still manipulation and no better than RMT inserting tons of new gil into the economy, this time its just taking tons from the playerbase, getting paid for it and giving it to gilbuyers. Perpetuating the RMT problem is quick profits but also screams hypocracy when people condemn them.

[Valisk]

You dont need to know the price history to determine how much you are or are not willing to pay for something. If the norm for a Sniper's Ring becomes 1M, you know whether or not you are going to pay a maximum of, let's say 1.6 mil, or not before even going to the AH. You are either going to buy it because that price is fair to you or you are going to spam the BC and get it crafted.

So if the AH was reset and all price histories where removed from the game, would YOU establish how much YOU will or will not pay or are you going to let Peter Piper determine how much gil he is going to take out of your pocket? Just exercise some common sense and if you can't keep up with the market then farm the mats/NM yourself. Time and effort are usually a major factor in determining price. Is your time and effort worth what the seller is pitching? If not, do it yourself.