I only ever sold about 6-7 keys in all of my huge buy ins of keys but that's not because I waste them on lockboxes(unless I'm in need of lobi) its because some people would rather trade keys for items such as it might take a few days to sell enough keys to buy a lockbox ship where as the same amount of keys can simply be trade to someone for the ship. However that entire thing might have very little to do with this thread.
Is that still true? I thought that with the removal of the Bug promo, those packs would be junk again, being that they contain nothing but common-grade Starbase Food.
THey still have the Fleet Ship Module as a possible drop.
Not to mention DOFFs still sell for a decent chunk of change.
But yeah, Sell anything for whatever you want. Don't let anyone tell you it's too low or too high, let the market itself decide that.
i sold a key actually 2 keys during the winter event to the first person who called me their master and gave me 6 sleigh bells. followed by "i live to serve"
gave each of them a key. for pretty much nothing short of me laughing and how other players will prostitute themselves for a buck.
Guys, come on, you paid $1.25 for every Master Key you put on the exchange, we're talking actual money spent for in game currency. Why would you degrade the worth of money you most likely worked your butt off for, for a measly 1.2, 1.3, 1.5, 1.6 mil EC?
The fact some of you even sell for less than 800k is insane, why spend so much money to sell something for so little, and have such a small return on your investment?
1.8 million should be the very least you should ever sell a lock box key for. you paid money for it, why throw it in the crapper?
First, I wouldn't buy keys with zen converted from cash.
Second, I think the Exchange should be converted to an auction format. Then, I believe, you'll see the true value of your keys.
NO to ARC RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
Then apparently you don't understand what "griefing" means.
What I was doing might be labeled exploiting, but I wasn't doing it to make other people mad or sad or otherwise ruin their day, I was doing it to control the market so I could make more gold with less time/effort invested. I wanted to be able to set the market price, similar to our OP. And like our OP, once enough people could put the same product on the market, I had no competitive advantage, and eventually the supply overwhelmed my ability to buy and mark it all up.
In that particular case, the design was pretty poor (worth noting they made that recipe an unlimited quantity item, and did away with the entire concept not too long after) and allowed some one like me to greatly slow down the rate that competitors could enter that market segment.
By all means sell your keys for what you want out of them. They might sell they might not. I always undercut everyone on anything I sell on the exchange because when I want EC I want it now....not 2 weeks from now. Does that devalue some stuff? Sure it does, but it is not my fault if you want to lower your prices. Stick to your guns and just don't sell them for any less then 1.8 million. The players who undercut might sell out of keys and you might get that price. That is the chance you take on a free market. Personally when I bought keys using EC I never paid more then 1 million EC. I don't need a next to nothing "chance" at getting a lockbox ship that bad. Like others said there are other items that will get you more EC, but there again if the market swings one way or the other you might take a loss.
No matter the item, players are always going to want quick EC and will undercut you to get it.
At the same time, if you raise it too high, many people would simply stop buying them. I buy one or two keys a month, just for fun, and I bought my two yesterday. I almost didn't buy them, because they were 1.6 million EC a piece. If they started selling for 1.8, I wouldn't buy. I have better things to do with my credits. Of course there will always be someone who will buy, but those people likely have a gambling problem and would throw away millions of EC for a single key.
OP is upset about people cutting into his profits when they post their keys at 1.3 instead of his 1.5 mil ec.
Response: Deal with it. Its a (semi) free market. Sorry you can't get everyone to go along with your price fixing scheme, but actually - I'm not.
and the second thing I got out of it is Sollvax should never be allowed to be in charge of any type of business, exchange, economy, or hell - not even a piggy bank.
I wouldn't be surprised to find out Sollvax has an alt toon named "Herbert Hoover."
See this is called "Market enforcement"
With a little bit of a clamp down we could remove the speculators entirely and then maybe we could get a decent economy going.
or sell keys directly from a vendor and make them untradable at ten days notice
No. That's called stupid. Market enforcement works by enhancing the stability and safety of the market. i.e. removing scammers, or possibly adding EC sinks or wells as necessary.
This would adversely affect the market, and make it very very unstable, as the few keys left trade-able would shoot to obscene prices. Then the price of lock-box ships would shoot up as well. Therefore, it's not enforcing the market, it's damaging it. May I suggest a high school economics class for the basic lessons.
Let's say that...
40% of keys are bought by players with the intention of selling them. I'm sure it's much higher, but nonetheless, it works for the scenario.
Let's say that 50% of the people who buy keys off the market either already buy keys, or trade dilithium for keys, or are open to that concept. The other 50% are players who refuse to pay anything on the game no matter what. Many players who are free to play would just go without.
your overall zen sale just dropped by 20%, to any Ferengi, this would be unacceptable. The latinum counters at PWE would flip tables and riot, maybe even force the programmers to change it back at phaserpoint.
The purpose of selling keys is indirect Zen to EC. Let people trade it, keys get a relatively stable price(with them shooting up and down occasionally due to supply of keys shooting up when people get their paycheck), and Cryptic sells more zen to feed the people who want more EC for real money, while at the same time not artificially setting the rate. 12000 EC to zen is a natural exchange rate. Much like Dilithium. This makes it where you can't get angry at Cryptic for not setting the rates favorably. Get angry at the Ferengi, but don't worry, we won't hold it against you and your tiny tiny lobes.
Doesn't take any longer than 10 minutes to set a full spreadsheet, with 2 minutes of maintenance per day. Not much effort at all.
Yeah... I'm working 60 hours a week doing market analytics of all things. The 30 dollars worth of Reinforcement Packs it costed me to buy a high end Temporal Destroyer meant nothing to me, but maybe meant the world to Cryptic and possibly the underemployed fellow who bought them for an entire 100k less than the next lowest offer in hopes of obtaining a Jem'hadar Attack Ship. now I've got a violent groin-kicking Pigman representing the ISS who routinely kills himself with his Mannheim Maneuver. In that light, the very thought of creating another spreadsheet during my leisure time when I could be groin kicking a borg heavy drone, is repugnant to me on at least three different levels.
No, I will leave spreadsheet maintenance to those underemployed enough to have time for it, or boring enough to think of it as a leisure activity. I will leave key speculation to those interested enough in pretend money to want to play the market and, the next time a ship pops up in a lock box or on the Lobi Store that I want, I'll blow another 30-40 bucks on keys, reinforcement packs, fleet ship modules, or whatever has the best EC to Zen ratio at that moment, and I will get it immediately. Because that's how I roll.
But on an off topic note. Thank you, your market speculation helps make sure that I only need to spend 40 dollars and not 50 when I need a large enough EC boost to buy the next shiny new ship.
Business can only exist when its honest
As soon as you start trying to justify price gouging you are out of business (unless you are REALLY good at avoiding the Tax man and the law)
There is no excuse for setting an exchange rate of 1 zen = over 100000 EC just to rob your neighbours
Sollvax clearly doesn't understand economics. Price fixing and artificial market controls always lead to less supply and higher prices, whether it be a game or real life. Free markets are self regulating, and don't need fixing by well wishing neophytes. His earlier idea of having everything sold on the exchange be account bound would do nothing but kill the exchange. People would just sell their items person to person via trading channels, and bypass the exchange altogether. And the few items that actually did make it to the exchange would be so exorbitantly expensive that they would never be sold. So all that would be accomplished is that items would be more expensive and harder to find.
Business can only exist when its honest
As soon as you start trying to justify price gouging you are out of business (unless you are REALLY good at avoiding the Tax man and the law)
There is no excuse for setting an exchange rate of 1 zen = over 100000 EC just to rob your neighbours
There's nothing dishonest about market speculation. It's simply the act of trading time for energy credits. It prevents prices from experiencing too much shrinkage, particularly in times when people are selling a large number of keys, and anyone can do it!
As for the rate of zen getting over 100000 EC's, that's entirely possible. Energy Credits are a pretend currency with an unending supply and are very prone to inflation. Zen is very much a hard currency that represents real money invested into the game. So, hell yeah, without EC sinks in place, the supply of EC's will just increase devaluing them, where as the supply of zen will grow or shrink with the player base.
better than you (or the Governments of most of the G 8)
Price fixing and artificial market controls always lead to less supply and higher prices, whether it be a game or real life.
actually no
A controlled market leads to less unemployment , lower prices , lower inflation and less debt
Free markets are self regulating, and don't need fixing by well wishing neophytes.
Nor by Ill wishing neonates
His earlier idea of having everything sold on the exchange be account bound would do nothing but kill the exchange.
How?
it would simply remove the speculators and the spivs
People would just sell their items person to person via trading channels, and bypass the exchange altogether. And the few items that actually did make it to the exchange would be so exorbitantly expensive that they would never be sold.
less than 1% of the player base are greedy spiv types
the other 99% trade at list price or lower
So all that would be accomplished is that items would be more expensive and harder to find.
100% wrong
There's nothing dishonest about market speculation.
Yes there is
its inherently crooked (ask bernie Madoff)
It's simply the act of trading time for energy credits. It prevents prices from experiencing too much shrinkage, particularly in times when people are selling a large number of keys, and anyone can do it!
A key is worth 125 zen (or 12500 dilith or about 350000 Ec)
Not 1.8 million thats just a con
As for the rate of zen getting over 100000 EC's, that's entirely possible. Energy Credits are a pretend currency with an unending supply and are very prone to inflation. Zen is very much a hard currency that represents real money invested into the game.
which is why inflating it is crooked
So, hell yeah, without EC sinks in place, the supply of EC's will just increase devaluing them, where as the supply of zen will grow or shrink with the player base.
EC sinks?>
we are talking about a mafia style operation here
Buy low , sell high and anyone says no you break their legs
(metaphorically)
Maybe cryptic should sell keys at 250000 EC direct from a vendor
A controlled market leads to less unemployment , lower prices , lower inflation and less debt
You are so completely and utterly clueless, that I will simply leave this quote here so everyone will hopefully know better then to try and point out why you're wrong. Because anything said would be a waste of time.
Anyone who could make a statement like the one above, or claim that he understands economics better then the members of the G8... Is either trolling, or beyond helping.
Reminds me when people used to sell cats in WoW on Horde side for massive markups, since you could only obtain them on Alliance. I used to fill my bags with them and occasionally collapse the market just to watch it burn.
If you were looking for cheap cats on Horde during early Wrath on Moon Guard, you're welcome.
Former moderator of these forums. Lifetime sub since before launch. Been here since before public betas. Foundry author of "Franklin Drake Must Die".
Reminds me when people used to sell cats in WoW on Horde side for massive markups, since you could only obtain them on Alliance. I used to fill my bags with them and occasionally collapse the market just to watch it burn.
If you were looking for cheap cats on Horde during early Wrath on Moon Guard, you're welcome.
I made a whole guild leave my server around the time Icecrown opened by doing this. The server's faction imbalance was one of the worst, so raiding horde side was expensive due to alliance overfarming important herbs. The top horde guild was funding their entire raid program by importing alliance-only items. I didn't know this, but I was saving up for a motorcycle mount and saw an opportunity. I did enough damage to the horde auction house with my hundreds of 15g white kittens that they retaliated by griefing wintergrasp for two weeks and then transferring off to Kargath and leaving the horde side with no viable heroic raiding guilds.
I never owned up to that, and they never managed to track it back to my main.
I made a whole guild leave my server around the time Icecrown opened by doing this. The server's faction imbalance was one of the worst, so raiding horde side was expensive due to alliance overfarming important herbs. The top horde guild was funding their entire raid program by importing alliance-only items. I didn't know this, but I was saving up for a motorcycle mount and saw an opportunity. I did enough damage to the horde auction house with my hundreds of 15g white kittens that they retaliated by griefing wintergrasp for two weeks and then transferring off to Kargath and leaving the horde side with no viable heroic raiding guilds.
I never owned up to that, and they never managed to track it back to my main.
... until today...
STO Member since February 2009. I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born! Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
You are so completely and utterly clueless, that I will simply leave this quote here so everyone will hopefully know better then to try and point out why you're wrong. Because anything said would be a waste of time.
Hmm guess what
I disagree
Anyone who could make a statement like the one above, or claim that he understands economics better then the members of the G8... Is either trolling, or beyond helping.
Check out the economies of the G8
For example the Debts of the USA come to more Dollars than there are on earth
this was caused by unregulated markets and rampant stupidity in the markets
It would take some EU nations 300 years to clear their debts
Debts which only exist because someone cheated on the math
Wrong. A key is a make believe product that has absolutely no intrinsic value outside the confines of this particular game, and no value inside other than what a person or company can successfully get another person to "pay" for it.
so the same as a bank note then
For example, I have never paid anything for any of the keys I've gotten since they were added to the game because I've used the monthly stipend I get for being a lifer to get them.
Comments
Feel free to buy them for that price and relist them for 1.8 million.
No. No. And No. In the realm of stupid ideas, this may be the king of stupid
THey still have the Fleet Ship Module as a possible drop.
Not to mention DOFFs still sell for a decent chunk of change.
But yeah, Sell anything for whatever you want. Don't let anyone tell you it's too low or too high, let the market itself decide that.
with that said.
i sold a key actually 2 keys during the winter event to the first person who called me their master and gave me 6 sleigh bells. followed by "i live to serve"
gave each of them a key. for pretty much nothing short of me laughing and how other players will prostitute themselves for a buck.
First, I wouldn't buy keys with zen converted from cash.
Second, I think the Exchange should be converted to an auction format. Then, I believe, you'll see the true value of your keys.
RIP KDF and PvP 2014-07-17 Season 9.5 - Death by Dev
Then apparently you don't understand what "griefing" means.
What I was doing might be labeled exploiting, but I wasn't doing it to make other people mad or sad or otherwise ruin their day, I was doing it to control the market so I could make more gold with less time/effort invested. I wanted to be able to set the market price, similar to our OP. And like our OP, once enough people could put the same product on the market, I had no competitive advantage, and eventually the supply overwhelmed my ability to buy and mark it all up.
In that particular case, the design was pretty poor (worth noting they made that recipe an unlimited quantity item, and did away with the entire concept not too long after) and allowed some one like me to greatly slow down the rate that competitors could enter that market segment.
No matter the item, players are always going to want quick EC and will undercut you to get it.
OP is upset about people cutting into his profits when they post their keys at 1.3 instead of his 1.5 mil ec.
Response: Deal with it. Its a (semi) free market. Sorry you can't get everyone to go along with your price fixing scheme, but actually - I'm not.
and the second thing I got out of it is Sollvax should never be allowed to be in charge of any type of business, exchange, economy, or hell - not even a piggy bank.
I wouldn't be surprised to find out Sollvax has an alt toon named "Herbert Hoover."
"We are smart." - Grebnedlog
Member of Alliance Central Command/boq botlhra'ghom
No. That's called stupid. Market enforcement works by enhancing the stability and safety of the market. i.e. removing scammers, or possibly adding EC sinks or wells as necessary.
This would adversely affect the market, and make it very very unstable, as the few keys left trade-able would shoot to obscene prices. Then the price of lock-box ships would shoot up as well. Therefore, it's not enforcing the market, it's damaging it. May I suggest a high school economics class for the basic lessons.
Let's say that...
40% of keys are bought by players with the intention of selling them. I'm sure it's much higher, but nonetheless, it works for the scenario.
Let's say that 50% of the people who buy keys off the market either already buy keys, or trade dilithium for keys, or are open to that concept. The other 50% are players who refuse to pay anything on the game no matter what. Many players who are free to play would just go without.
your overall zen sale just dropped by 20%, to any Ferengi, this would be unacceptable. The latinum counters at PWE would flip tables and riot, maybe even force the programmers to change it back at phaserpoint.
The purpose of selling keys is indirect Zen to EC. Let people trade it, keys get a relatively stable price(with them shooting up and down occasionally due to supply of keys shooting up when people get their paycheck), and Cryptic sells more zen to feed the people who want more EC for real money, while at the same time not artificially setting the rate. 12000 EC to zen is a natural exchange rate. Much like Dilithium. This makes it where you can't get angry at Cryptic for not setting the rates favorably. Get angry at the Ferengi, but don't worry, we won't hold it against you and your tiny tiny lobes.
Yeah... I'm working 60 hours a week doing market analytics of all things. The 30 dollars worth of Reinforcement Packs it costed me to buy a high end Temporal Destroyer meant nothing to me, but maybe meant the world to Cryptic and possibly the underemployed fellow who bought them for an entire 100k less than the next lowest offer in hopes of obtaining a Jem'hadar Attack Ship. now I've got a violent groin-kicking Pigman representing the ISS who routinely kills himself with his Mannheim Maneuver. In that light, the very thought of creating another spreadsheet during my leisure time when I could be groin kicking a borg heavy drone, is repugnant to me on at least three different levels.
No, I will leave spreadsheet maintenance to those underemployed enough to have time for it, or boring enough to think of it as a leisure activity. I will leave key speculation to those interested enough in pretend money to want to play the market and, the next time a ship pops up in a lock box or on the Lobi Store that I want, I'll blow another 30-40 bucks on keys, reinforcement packs, fleet ship modules, or whatever has the best EC to Zen ratio at that moment, and I will get it immediately. Because that's how I roll.
But on an off topic note. Thank you, your market speculation helps make sure that I only need to spend 40 dollars and not 50 when I need a large enough EC boost to buy the next shiny new ship.
As soon as you start trying to justify price gouging you are out of business (unless you are REALLY good at avoiding the Tax man and the law)
There is no excuse for setting an exchange rate of 1 zen = over 100000 EC just to rob your neighbours
There's nothing dishonest about market speculation. It's simply the act of trading time for energy credits. It prevents prices from experiencing too much shrinkage, particularly in times when people are selling a large number of keys, and anyone can do it!
As for the rate of zen getting over 100000 EC's, that's entirely possible. Energy Credits are a pretend currency with an unending supply and are very prone to inflation. Zen is very much a hard currency that represents real money invested into the game. So, hell yeah, without EC sinks in place, the supply of EC's will just increase devaluing them, where as the supply of zen will grow or shrink with the player base.
better than you (or the Governments of most of the G 8)
actually no
A controlled market leads to less unemployment , lower prices , lower inflation and less debt
Nor by Ill wishing neonates
How?
it would simply remove the speculators and the spivs
less than 1% of the player base are greedy spiv types
the other 99% trade at list price or lower
100% wrong
Yes there is
its inherently crooked (ask bernie Madoff)
A key is worth 125 zen (or 12500 dilith or about 350000 Ec)
Not 1.8 million thats just a con
which is why inflating it is crooked
EC sinks?>
we are talking about a mafia style operation here
Buy low , sell high and anyone says no you break their legs
(metaphorically)
Maybe cryptic should sell keys at 250000 EC direct from a vendor
You are so completely and utterly clueless, that I will simply leave this quote here so everyone will hopefully know better then to try and point out why you're wrong. Because anything said would be a waste of time.
Anyone who could make a statement like the one above, or claim that he understands economics better then the members of the G8... Is either trolling, or beyond helping.
If you were looking for cheap cats on Horde during early Wrath on Moon Guard, you're welcome.
I made a whole guild leave my server around the time Icecrown opened by doing this. The server's faction imbalance was one of the worst, so raiding horde side was expensive due to alliance overfarming important herbs. The top horde guild was funding their entire raid program by importing alliance-only items. I didn't know this, but I was saving up for a motorcycle mount and saw an opportunity. I did enough damage to the horde auction house with my hundreds of 15g white kittens that they retaliated by griefing wintergrasp for two weeks and then transferring off to Kargath and leaving the horde side with no viable heroic raiding guilds.
I never owned up to that, and they never managed to track it back to my main.
... until today...
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
Hmm guess what
I disagree
Check out the economies of the G8
For example the Debts of the USA come to more Dollars than there are on earth
this was caused by unregulated markets and rampant stupidity in the markets
It would take some EU nations 300 years to clear their debts
Debts which only exist because someone cheated on the math
so the same as a bank note then
So you did pay for them