Aye unless theres another annorax event theyre not going down any. If we dont see another event soon, theyll be 1B + keys in a few months. 750m wells though thats interesting, probably "just because they can") there have been one or two regularly up for 500m the last few weeks
Aaaand big surprise! It happened exactly as predicted. Vonphs were initially put on the exchange for the maximum price of 750m, then were immediatly undercut by someone who put it up for 700m, then 675m, 649m, 639m, 625m.. and all this happend in just 10min.
So...just 5 of them listed ? hmmmm
I'm not home yet, are there any Annorax vessels posted ?
Annoraxes were at least 900m already.
750m cap isn't high enough for annoraxes.
Ahh thanks D
and ancient fighter...still at work here.
... How about this solution: items once bought on the exchange cannot be sold again (become bound or something like that)? ...
Bad idea. Once in a while I´m buying items (traits or whatever) on the exchange and give them to my fleeties.
Perhaps it is indeed a somewhat bad idea if it involves severe restricitions as "bound to character" and "bound to account", especially so when you want to give items purchased from the exchange to your fleetmates. Make it "bound to fleet"? Or if you are helping a friend from a different fleet and faction - "bound to buddies", lol. And so on.
Joking aside, It is definitely not a bad idea if its intention is prevention of reselling for the sake of profit making and inflating prices, speculating and manipulating the market for selfish reasons. Make it "after purchase you cannot sell this item again" (or any more suitable wording)?
A digression in a more general direction, not entirely unrelated:
Black market? We have that? I got few mails offering ships/items for $$$ but it never crossed my mind even to consider those offers. 750M or 900 lobi for a ship? Ok, go ahead, knock you self out. I did. And I will probably buy more ships from that Ferengi at Drozana or unknown seller at the exchange. But not from a third party outside the game.
Free market as a regulator of economy will eventually lead to a complete disaster. And there is no free market when supply and demand can be manipulated. Resources are not always available and are always limited.
Any game or competition is more fun when oponents are equal or at least not far from being equal. It also provides oppurtunity for learning and advancing. Helpless bug squishing was fun for the first... 3 minutes. Every minute beyond that triggered (in)sanity alarms. In my case, at least. Another analogy would involve ice cream but i will not write about it. Will just go get some. For a fair price and in a modest quantity.
If you (not only the quoted fellow player) reached this far reading this text I thank you for your attention and patience and hope it was fun read even if you dissagree with some or all of it.
The only two ships I did not see was the Annorax and Strike Ship/Recon Ship. The Sheshars and Vonphs were plentiful. I was surprised to see the Temporal Science up at max. There were two, one was below by about 10 or so million.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Some of the conclusions I'm seeing people draw are downright entertaining. I'm particularly fond of the ones explaining how the STO economy works and reacts to things from the perspective of the space poor. I like these because I am also space poor, and I know what it's like to want to understand something I know nothing about.
I am digging this new 750m EC cap on the exchange, but it'd be nice if the error message for trying to post something over 750m didn't say the limit is 500m.
The thing is there is no consistency with policies here. With some aspects of this game the developers try to create balance between possibilities for "new" and "old" players, unlike here where the balance goes (again) in favour of "old" (rich-est) players. Prices are definitely too high already. Not to mention the problem of resseling items for higher price just to make profit and not actually use the items. How about this solution: items once bought on the exchange cannot be sold again (become bound or something like that)? However, in rl we have same situations. Greed and other flaws, vices, sins, call it whatever you like, will always be there. Let us just not feed the greed.
And let's stay civil when communication with each other, thank you.
You can try selling your items for higher than what's searchable in the Exchange all you want. Unless there's a massive buying frenzy to capitalize on, your exorbitantly priced item will just sit on the Exchange and come back to you in your mail because nobody bought it.
Me selling some ship at double the going rate on the Exchange / market doesn't mean I'm going to get that EC. It means the sale will fail and I'll get my item back in the mail because nobody bought it.
You putting up some item at some unreasonable cost on the exchange doesn't mean you magically got that EC all the sudden.
The thing is there is no consistency with policies here. With some aspects of this game the developers try to create balance between possibilities for "new" and "old" players, unlike here where the balance goes (again) in favour of "old" (rich-est) players. Prices are definitely too high already. Not to mention the problem of resseling items for higher price just to make profit and not actually use the items. How about this solution: items once bought on the exchange cannot be sold again (become bound or something like that)? However, in rl we have same situations. Greed and other flaws, vices, sins, call it whatever you like, will always be there. Let us just not feed the greed.
And let's stay civil when communication with each other, thank you.
You can try selling your items for higher than what's searchable in the Exchange all you want. Unless there's a massive buying frenzy to capitalize on, your exorbitantly priced item will just sit on the Exchange and come back to you in your mail because nobody bought it.
Me selling some ship at double the going rate on the Exchange / market doesn't mean I'm going to get that EC. It means the sale will fail and I'll get my item back in the mail because nobody bought it.
You putting up some item at some unreasonable cost on the exchange doesn't mean you magically got that EC all the sudden.
Thanks for the quote.The actual "reselling" mechanism is like this:
Let's say there are exchange items listed at prices 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6... etc (of any monetary unit).
Depending on the initial budget, the speculator buys items prices at 1, 2 and 3.
Next step is to post them for 3.5 (or any price below the next higher price that makes the initial purchase profitable).
Result: invested 6, sold for 10.5, profit = 4.5.
I did this to make enough to buy that JH bug ship (it was around 350M then).
The risk is minimal should one choose wisely the items for resseling.
Works the same with dil/zen.
Now everyone (or those who still did not how to do it) should try and do this and possibly make a mess of the whole STO trade system. Or perhaps not. Its not that easy.
"But, but, its legitimate to make profit!" protests the speculator, Ferengi or whatever lazy unscrupulous selfish kind he/she is.
Is it? Why?
But thats an different story...
(...)
If it was as simple as buying up the supply and relisting it, all ships would cost a nearly unlimited amount. But it isn't that simple, because there really is a price where it becomes very difficult to sell an item.
Zhat's the point however where cartels or monopolists enter the equation, artificially influencing the pricing until people are "cooked" enough to pay the higher price for their own reasons. In STO, nothing essential is sold so it's not like people can be pressed into paying more because they have no choice, but if some commodity is entirely controlled by one seller (or a cartel thereof) prices do not follow supply and demand any more.
Mind you, I'm not saying this is the case in STO but I feel that this is a big worry players have and they may have a point since the exchange is anonymous (until the transaction is done) and F2P allows for infinite surrogate accounts. I'm not sure anyone would actually go through all this for in-game currency in a closed system F2P MMO with a finite lifespan, but who knows.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
*This is turning out to be a very interesting real-time economy lesson, and something we can watch in action for months to come.
Last night I watched the Vonph market, since that is what we were discussing for the most part in this thread.
When I first checked there was about 13-14 Vonphs posted, at 750 - 630 mil
So the undercutting was a LOT more severe then what I had predicted.
I did NOT expect to see such large gaps between prices.
Like 750-725-700-675-650-630 for example.
The undercutting was indeed in play, and more substantial then I had thought. (Figured it would be small reductions)
for ex: 750-749-748-747 etc
And I didn't expect to see more then 5-8 postings at any given time.
By my last check there was 10 Vonph's posted at 750 - 680 mil.
So making some observations from my "extremely small sample size", when more ships were posted on the market (anywhere from 14-15 Vonph's), the price undercutting was "way more" prominent. And cuts were coming in the 25 - 50 mil range.
That said, the lowest price I witnessed was at 630 mil, but it was said they went as low as 600 mil.
Which probably can substantiate Druks price curve per ship, as in, what is required on average to obtain one of these ship (1/750), +possibly a small markup for reasonable profit for taking the risk.
When the supply had hit 8-10 the undercutting/price gaps shrank drastically. Ranging from 750-680 mil
This could be people re-posting their sales as they notice supply dwindle and asking a higher price (a basic of economics - scarcity).
So at a first glance, it is more favorable then what I expected. There was more supply, and greater cuts in price under such conditions, but as the supply tightened up so did the undercutting gaps.
Will have to keep on watching this market for several weeks to get a better feel for where things will level out.
But all in all, the cap raise wasn't the end of the world after all.
Things did, more or less, follow the ship cost curve.
And if you happen to be in the market for a Vonph, don't buy when there is 10 or less available. You'll get better opportunity's if you can shop a market with 15+
The Vonph is not a limited promo, and that should ensure there will always be a few floating around in the economy.
The one thing I did check, that didn't make much sense to me was the Temporal Science Vessel selling for 750 and 740 mil.
Suppose that could be because temporal boxes are not dropping, and not being opened as much anymore, and that the console is needed for the Annorax.
That said though, You can still get as many Temporal boxes as you want when they release a new lockbox in the dil store.
So people do have them, I myself have about 50 sitting in my bank just from the random lockbox drop event they do now and again. So that price seems over excessive.
The price curve on that ship doesn't fit, while there isn't much in the temporal boxes of value these days, you still can pull quite a few mirror ships from them which sell for what now ? 5-10 mil.
So the Wells market seems a bit out of whack imo. Even considering possible scarcity vs need. I don't feel it's adding up.
But there was only 2 for sale.. so someone looking for max profit perhaps.
But so far on the whole, things seem, pretty reasonable.. imagine that.
***BUT, I for one would still appreciate some more transparency on the number of unboxed ships available in the economy.
I would love to know how many Vonphs are out there unopened, especially if I was in the market to buy one.
It would add some perspective as to what is being offered on the exchange vs what is floating around the economy, sitting in peoples banks.
It could give buyers a better idea, of "when or when not" to buy.
I think this small change would make things better for buyers, who want to fly the ship, and not flip it.
It would also have a benefit to sellers, who could justifiably charge far more for said ship when in short supply (and everyone can witness it). So it would be good for both parties.***
And for the record, I don't want things for free, just want to be assured I'm paying a fair price, based on REAL supply numbers, and knowing I'm not shopping within an artificially low supply market.
That's all I would ask for.
I don't think that's unreasonable, and would make things better for all. Not too mention it would cut down on accusations of Cartels and such. (I myself thought there would be more market manipulation going on then what I witnessed last night - Ill admit that right now, I could have been very wrong about how far the manipulation goes in STO)
It could end up being very minor, to almost none at all.
Anyway I love these economy threads they're very informative.
And we've got a great teaching tool going on in real-time as we speak. The ripple effects of the cap raise will be seen for months, as new/old/hoarded supply comes on to the market.
Kinda makes me wish we had an Exchange App where we could watch the market when not at home, logged into STO... this is really interesting to witness.
Edit: Something else just occurred to me.
Let's say we were given real numbers on how many unboxed ships are in the economy(not just the exchange), We would then have firm numbers on whether a ship is in short supply or not. Being in short supply these ships would fetch higher prices right ? Therefore more gambler's would open those boxes, thus increasing said supply, and thus driving the price back down on said item or ship.
Which would then in turn ensure certain ships will always remain available and in "relatively" good supply for those who want them !
Aaaand big surprise! It happened exactly as predicted. Vonphs were initially put on the exchange for the maximum price of 750m, then were immediatly undercut by someone who put it up for 700m, then 675m, 649m, 639m, 625m.. and all this happend in just 10min.
You can't watch the Vonph and make any assumptions based on that. It's new. Supply is constantly being increased and it's being acquired by the space poor, middle class and rich. Nor could you watch the price of new promo/doff pack ships. It's the older ones, the ones that are primarily acquired by the space rich that will show whether or not the increase in the cap will lead to higher prices or not. Quite a few of those sorts of ships now have entries at 750m and I suspect at least one of them is going to go from around 300m-400m up to 600m-750m in the next few weeks.
Comments
Ahh thanks D
and ancient fighter...still at work here.
Perhaps it is indeed a somewhat bad idea if it involves severe restricitions as "bound to character" and "bound to account", especially so when you want to give items purchased from the exchange to your fleetmates. Make it "bound to fleet"? Or if you are helping a friend from a different fleet and faction - "bound to buddies", lol. And so on.
Joking aside, It is definitely not a bad idea if its intention is prevention of reselling for the sake of profit making and inflating prices, speculating and manipulating the market for selfish reasons. Make it "after purchase you cannot sell this item again" (or any more suitable wording)?
A digression in a more general direction, not entirely unrelated:
Black market? We have that? I got few mails offering ships/items for $$$ but it never crossed my mind even to consider those offers. 750M or 900 lobi for a ship? Ok, go ahead, knock you self out. I did. And I will probably buy more ships from that Ferengi at Drozana or unknown seller at the exchange. But not from a third party outside the game.
Free market as a regulator of economy will eventually lead to a complete disaster. And there is no free market when supply and demand can be manipulated. Resources are not always available and are always limited.
Any game or competition is more fun when oponents are equal or at least not far from being equal. It also provides oppurtunity for learning and advancing. Helpless bug squishing was fun for the first... 3 minutes. Every minute beyond that triggered (in)sanity alarms. In my case, at least. Another analogy would involve ice cream but i will not write about it. Will just go get some. For a fair price and in a modest quantity.
If you (not only the quoted fellow player) reached this far reading this text I thank you for your attention and patience and hope it was fun read even if you dissagree with some or all of it.
Have fun playing STO
a few pages back you called it, price drops with every post... lol
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Some of the conclusions I'm seeing people draw are downright entertaining. I'm particularly fond of the ones explaining how the STO economy works and reacts to things from the perspective of the space poor. I like these because I am also space poor, and I know what it's like to want to understand something I know nothing about.
I am digging this new 750m EC cap on the exchange, but it'd be nice if the error message for trying to post something over 750m didn't say the limit is 500m.
You can try selling your items for higher than what's searchable in the Exchange all you want. Unless there's a massive buying frenzy to capitalize on, your exorbitantly priced item will just sit on the Exchange and come back to you in your mail because nobody bought it.
Me selling some ship at double the going rate on the Exchange / market doesn't mean I'm going to get that EC. It means the sale will fail and I'll get my item back in the mail because nobody bought it.
You putting up some item at some unreasonable cost on the exchange doesn't mean you magically got that EC all the sudden.
Thanks for the quote.The actual "reselling" mechanism is like this:
Let's say there are exchange items listed at prices 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6... etc (of any monetary unit).
Depending on the initial budget, the speculator buys items prices at 1, 2 and 3.
Next step is to post them for 3.5 (or any price below the next higher price that makes the initial purchase profitable).
Result: invested 6, sold for 10.5, profit = 4.5.
I did this to make enough to buy that JH bug ship (it was around 350M then).
The risk is minimal should one choose wisely the items for resseling.
Works the same with dil/zen.
Now everyone (or those who still did not how to do it) should try and do this and possibly make a mess of the whole STO trade system. Or perhaps not. Its not that easy.
"But, but, its legitimate to make profit!" protests the speculator, Ferengi or whatever lazy unscrupulous selfish kind he/she is.
Is it? Why?
But thats an different story...
Zhat's the point however where cartels or monopolists enter the equation, artificially influencing the pricing until people are "cooked" enough to pay the higher price for their own reasons. In STO, nothing essential is sold so it's not like people can be pressed into paying more because they have no choice, but if some commodity is entirely controlled by one seller (or a cartel thereof) prices do not follow supply and demand any more.
Mind you, I'm not saying this is the case in STO but I feel that this is a big worry players have and they may have a point since the exchange is anonymous (until the transaction is done) and F2P allows for infinite surrogate accounts. I'm not sure anyone would actually go through all this for in-game currency in a closed system F2P MMO with a finite lifespan, but who knows.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Last night I watched the Vonph market, since that is what we were discussing for the most part in this thread.
When I first checked there was about 13-14 Vonphs posted, at 750 - 630 mil
So the undercutting was a LOT more severe then what I had predicted.
I did NOT expect to see such large gaps between prices.
Like 750-725-700-675-650-630 for example.
The undercutting was indeed in play, and more substantial then I had thought. (Figured it would be small reductions)
for ex: 750-749-748-747 etc
And I didn't expect to see more then 5-8 postings at any given time.
By my last check there was 10 Vonph's posted at 750 - 680 mil.
So making some observations from my "extremely small sample size", when more ships were posted on the market (anywhere from 14-15 Vonph's), the price undercutting was "way more" prominent. And cuts were coming in the 25 - 50 mil range.
That said, the lowest price I witnessed was at 630 mil, but it was said they went as low as 600 mil.
Which probably can substantiate Druks price curve per ship, as in, what is required on average to obtain one of these ship (1/750), +possibly a small markup for reasonable profit for taking the risk.
When the supply had hit 8-10 the undercutting/price gaps shrank drastically. Ranging from 750-680 mil
This could be people re-posting their sales as they notice supply dwindle and asking a higher price (a basic of economics - scarcity).
So at a first glance, it is more favorable then what I expected. There was more supply, and greater cuts in price under such conditions, but as the supply tightened up so did the undercutting gaps.
Will have to keep on watching this market for several weeks to get a better feel for where things will level out.
But all in all, the cap raise wasn't the end of the world after all.
Things did, more or less, follow the ship cost curve.
And if you happen to be in the market for a Vonph, don't buy when there is 10 or less available. You'll get better opportunity's if you can shop a market with 15+
The Vonph is not a limited promo, and that should ensure there will always be a few floating around in the economy.
The one thing I did check, that didn't make much sense to me was the Temporal Science Vessel selling for 750 and 740 mil.
Suppose that could be because temporal boxes are not dropping, and not being opened as much anymore, and that the console is needed for the Annorax.
That said though, You can still get as many Temporal boxes as you want when they release a new lockbox in the dil store.
So people do have them, I myself have about 50 sitting in my bank just from the random lockbox drop event they do now and again. So that price seems over excessive.
The price curve on that ship doesn't fit, while there isn't much in the temporal boxes of value these days, you still can pull quite a few mirror ships from them which sell for what now ? 5-10 mil.
So the Wells market seems a bit out of whack imo. Even considering possible scarcity vs need. I don't feel it's adding up.
But there was only 2 for sale.. so someone looking for max profit perhaps.
But so far on the whole, things seem, pretty reasonable.. imagine that.
***BUT, I for one would still appreciate some more transparency on the number of unboxed ships available in the economy.
I would love to know how many Vonphs are out there unopened, especially if I was in the market to buy one.
It would add some perspective as to what is being offered on the exchange vs what is floating around the economy, sitting in peoples banks.
It could give buyers a better idea, of "when or when not" to buy.
I think this small change would make things better for buyers, who want to fly the ship, and not flip it.
It would also have a benefit to sellers, who could justifiably charge far more for said ship when in short supply (and everyone can witness it). So it would be good for both parties.***
And for the record, I don't want things for free, just want to be assured I'm paying a fair price, based on REAL supply numbers, and knowing I'm not shopping within an artificially low supply market.
That's all I would ask for.
I don't think that's unreasonable, and would make things better for all. Not too mention it would cut down on accusations of Cartels and such. (I myself thought there would be more market manipulation going on then what I witnessed last night - Ill admit that right now, I could have been very wrong about how far the manipulation goes in STO)
It could end up being very minor, to almost none at all.
Anyway I love these economy threads they're very informative.
And we've got a great teaching tool going on in real-time as we speak. The ripple effects of the cap raise will be seen for months, as new/old/hoarded supply comes on to the market.
Kinda makes me wish we had an Exchange App where we could watch the market when not at home, logged into STO... this is really interesting to witness.
Edit: Something else just occurred to me.
Let's say we were given real numbers on how many unboxed ships are in the economy(not just the exchange), We would then have firm numbers on whether a ship is in short supply or not. Being in short supply these ships would fetch higher prices right ? Therefore more gambler's would open those boxes, thus increasing said supply, and thus driving the price back down on said item or ship.
Which would then in turn ensure certain ships will always remain available and in "relatively" good supply for those who want them !
You can't watch the Vonph and make any assumptions based on that. It's new. Supply is constantly being increased and it's being acquired by the space poor, middle class and rich. Nor could you watch the price of new promo/doff pack ships. It's the older ones, the ones that are primarily acquired by the space rich that will show whether or not the increase in the cap will lead to higher prices or not. Quite a few of those sorts of ships now have entries at 750m and I suspect at least one of them is going to go from around 300m-400m up to 600m-750m in the next few weeks.