[Lojik]

Originally Posted by Thulack [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

A item is worth whatever someone is willing to pay. Someone with more money then time probably is fine with paying more then market price for a item to have it then. I see it all the time playing FIFA. People buy players off the market for 2x their value because they dont bother sorting through the 200 of the same card for sale just to find the lowest priced one.

Don't think anyone's arguing that their are fair or unfair prices. Yes, an item is worth whatever people are willing to pay, but most people try to maximize the gains from trade. Despite whatever people may think, goods are not traded until both parties perceive the item they are trading for to be more valuable than what they are trading. Most people have a certain level of price sensitivity and will do at least a little bit of research, any more research required increases transactions cost.

Originally Posted by Lhancelot [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I started on P99 in 2012, took a long break and came back less than a year ago. Originally, I never verified through email my forum account, and lost that email sent from P99, so had to use a new email and do it over again when i came back to the game. The join date you see doesn't reflect accurately how long I have been on the server.

When I first started on P99 I used to use wiki for prices, there was no P99 auctions. I learned about P99 auctions when I noticed wiki prices were not updated frequently and the prices were old, so I started asking how people checked prices.

Your examples and what you use as proof of how P99 auctions made prices fair and less varied are strictly subjective personal experiences of your own. You have no hard data that proves your case, only what "seems" to be the case. That being said...

I personally could manipulate the P99 auction prices without even putting hardly any effort into it. I did it. This isn't subjective, this is fact.

You can stand by your opinion that P99 kept prices regulated fairly etc., but that's not really the case because the fact is P99 auction prices were being manipulated by sellers.

That "monthly average price" of items, where do you think it came from?

It came from prices that were collected from EC that were set by the players, and I know it's hard to fathom, but many players understood this and put up false advertisements for the sole purpose of setting the price for items they commonly farmed and sold.

You are correct when you say prices had a much less variance I agree with that, because the prices set were easy to go look up and read from P99 auctions... That doesn't mean those prices were not fixed by players selling specific items or that those listed prices gave a fair price for an items actual plat worth.

Not once have I argued that prices are more or less fair with or without p99auctions, nor do I consider my experiences to be proof that dealing in the ec tunnel was easier with that around. However, i find the claims about manipulation to be absurd. You'd need definite proof of 2 things. 1) amount of manipulation before p99 auctions, and 2) definite proof of the extent of it during p99 auctions. You gave an example that you"manipulated" prices on p99 auctions, yet do you really think no one would do that without p99 auctions, or that the wiki prices aren't manipulated at all? If it turned out that the manipulation was much worse before p99auctions, can you really say that the fact that you could manipulate the numbers still be a negative for this site?

The only thing we know is that readily available information (that would be harder for people not in the tunnel all the time to gather) is lost, so for most people who aren't ec traders the transactions costs just went up. Even for ec traders transactions prices just went up, but some will look to make gains to offset this by informational advantages.

Side note about resellers: i think you have to break these into two categories: some know that their cost of selling an item is lower since they'll be in ec anyway, so they'll pay a little below the going rate for an item and sell for a little higher (think of this as a convenience fee, like how prices on things at 7-11 are slightly more expensive.) I think for the average player this is a good thing. You then have sellers who try to stretch the margins by a lot, and instead of facilitating trade they actually stymie it, these are the ones I feel like most people gripe about.