P99 Auctions is Closing

[paulgiamatti]

The actual in-game community on P99 sans the raid scene is tolerable at best; the forums are a cesspool.

And yeah I mean I have to take what you're saying about these guilds with a grain of salt given how much I disagree with you on a number of things. There are douchebags in every guild, but if your attitude about intraofficer elitism is anything like your attitude about P99 Auctions, I'm gonna guess it wasn't as bad as you're making it sound.

[Lhancelot]

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

The actual in-game community on P99 sans the raid scene is tolerable at best; the forums are a cesspool.

And yeah I mean I have to take what you're saying about these guilds with a grain of salt given how much I disagree with you on a number of things. There are douchebags in every guild, but if your attitude about intraofficer elitism is anything like your attitude about P99 Auctions, I'm gonna guess it wasn't as bad as you're making it sound.

Well you are taking what I write about P99 auctions and only reflecting on what you want to disagree with. That's fine.

My take on P99 auctions is that it had pros and cons. I never said it was awful. I simply explained the good and bad of it.

The fact is that it was manipulated easily by ingame players.

Another fact is it provided a very convenient way to watch a live stream of ec, and it did provide some baseline average price on all items auctioned.

Whether that price was always a fair or accurate number is up for debate.

[Lojik]

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

Well you are taking what I write about P99 auctions and only reflecting on what you want to disagree with. That's fine.

My take on P99 auctions is that it had pros and cons. I never said it was awful. I simply explained the good and bad of it.

The fact is that it was manipulated easily by ingame players.

Another fact is it provided a very convenient way to watch a live stream of ec, and it did provide some baseline average price on all items auctioned.

Whether that price was always a fair or accurate number is up for debate.

Not to sound condescending, but judging by your join date you joined the server after p99auctions had already been around for a while. How can you really have a sense of how p99 auctions changed the server? Before p99 auctions buying/selling in EC you had assholes already. Here are a few random things I have noticed peddling a lot of farmed goods in EC before and after p99 auctions began.

1) It seems like the site facilitated trade more easily: people on both ends were pretty confident with prices being around what they expected, particularly with commonly sold goods.

2) Before p99 auctions, if I auctioned something at 3k, even if it was below what I almost always saw it for sale for in ec, I'd get tells for buying at 2.5k and reject. These people would almost always insist that 2.5k was fair price, or they couldn't afford more, or their dog died so please help them out etc. After p99 auctions, I'd say 75% of the time I reject a lowball offer they just say "fine I'll buy at 3k."

3) Prices seem to have a much lower variance: Schnickusaurus even made a thread about how he can only turn 1k profit buying/selling on Fungis and he was going to "retire" from this market.

[Tuurin]

Basic economics: Traders rely on price variation (buy low, sell high). If everyone pretty much agrees on a price for an item (historical and average price data provided by auction site) then trading becomes much less lucrative, since nobody really sells for less than value and nobody really buys for more than the value.

But if there's no set price (no auction site, no historical data) then it's the wild west again and those with more information (tunnelquesters) have a big advantage.

[fadetree]

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

Basic economics: Traders rely on price variation (buy low, sell high). If everyone pretty much agrees on a price for an item (historical and average price data provided by auction site) then trading becomes much less lucrative, since nobody really sells for less than value and nobody really buys for more than the value.

But if there's no set price (no auction site, no historical data) then it's the wild west again and those with more information (tunnelquesters) have a big advantage.

Not just more information; more patience. The primary adjuster of value in a situation like this is the relative willingness to wait.

[Thulack]

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

Basic economics: Traders rely on price variation (buy low, sell high). If everyone pretty much agrees on a price for an item (historical and average price data provided by auction site) then trading becomes much less lucrative, since nobody really sells for less than value and nobody really buys for more than the value.

But if there's no set price (no auction site, no historical data) then it's the wild west again and those with more information (tunnelquesters) have a big advantage.

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.

[Lhancelot]

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

Not to sound condescending, but judging by your join date you joined the server after p99auctions had already been around for a while. How can you really have a sense of how p99 auctions changed the server? Before p99 auctions buying/selling in EC you had assholes already. Here are a few random things I have noticed peddling a lot of farmed goods in EC before and after p99 auctions began.

1) It seems like the site facilitated trade more easily: people on both ends were pretty confident with prices being around what they expected, particularly with commonly sold goods.

2) Before p99 auctions, if I auctioned something at 3k, even if it was below what I almost always saw it for sale for in ec, I'd get tells for buying at 2.5k and reject. These people would almost always insist that 2.5k was fair price, or they couldn't afford more, or their dog died so please help them out etc. After p99 auctions, I'd say 75% of the time I reject a lowball offer they just say "fine I'll buy at 3k."

3) Prices seem to have a much lower variance: Schnickusaurus even made a thread about how he can only turn 1k profit buying/selling on Fungis and he was going to "retire" from this market.

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.

[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.

[Lhancelot]

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

Not once have I argued... *snip snip snip*

We can debate it's pros and cons all day long. doesn't matter anymore.

R.I.P. P99 Auction site. You were great while you lasted.