Price Manipulation

[Blutters]

Essentially the Grand Exchange was made to be an easy, convenient way of buying items that you wanted or needed.

 

If, due to people intentionally buying out items to raise the price, the ease and convenience of the Grand Exchange are removed, then it is not serving its original objective.

 

 

 

Regardless of whether or not it affects you two personally, some people simply do not have the time to wait until the prices 're-stabilize', and their personal gaming experience is decreased because of this tampering.

[ReapMe]

Essentially the Grand Exchange was made to be an easy, convenient way of buying items that you wanted or needed.

 

If, due to people intentionally buying out items to raise the price, the ease and convenience of the Grand Exchange are removed, then it is not serving its original objective.

 

 

 

Regardless of whether or not it affects you two personally, some people simply do not have the time to wait until the prices 're-stabilize', and their personal gaming experience is decreased because of this tampering.

 

 

 

 

 

lol they don't have the time to wait :lol:

 

it does affect us but not to the point where we would let it ruin the game. if you really need something then pay the extra cost for convenience just like before ge or buy it from friends.

[TomcatLX]

During the bunyip rise, I took advantage of the situation by getting rid of all the green charms in my bank. As you know Green charms are very bad to train due to the expense but the rising price helped that out.

 

 

 

 

 

Anyways to be more closer on topic, the "manipulators" of the GE are more in line with Pyramid schemers in real life. Those who are on the bottom (the most recent to join in) will always lose out.

 

 

 

I really have mixed feelings about the situation so I can't really comment on the practice. I feel like it is a bad thing because it is like an implicit "hot potato" version of a monopoly. At the same time, knowing how to take advantage of the situation (like training green charms during a bunyip rise) makes these "manipulators" a useful advantage in the system.

 

 

 

 

 

So you may have noticed I use manipulators in quotes. That is because originally the term was used to define anyone who did not own the item but spammed the RSOF with prices in the attempt to make up a new price. Those who actually OWNED the item were free to set whatever price they wanted since it's their property and their money. It was up to the consumer if they wanted to pay since the idea of Competition helps safeguard any "unfair pricing". It's more of a legal wording issue but many players were confused and alot of misconception was formed by the majority who didn't read the market rules before the GE came out.

 

 

 

 

 

I'm personally an investor and I know that whenever I go on my long hiatuses, I have to rely on people changing the graphs up and down. It kind of makes you think if the real world Stock exchange works on the same principle...

 

 

 

Do those with the power and money change the markets while the masses must try to skillfully predict which markets are being "manipulated" before it's too late? Is that why some people make such bank in Real life while others cluelessly treat the exchange like if it were a Casino?

 

 

 

(BTW, it still bugs me that I didn't buy alot of Ranger boots before I went off for a long period. 600k to 6m per boot would have been....sweet... *checks graphs* Wow and now they are at 7m! But oh well, at the time, I predicted that they would have made a ranger armor update to compliment the bandos boots and infinity boots out there.)

[strilmus]

I looked at the scale for the total period of time it takes for a yew seed to recover.

 

 

 

It sort of almost fills the thirty day chart.

 

 

 

I can't really wait for that long.

[Dragonlordjl]

Essentially the Grand Exchange was made to be an easy, convenient way of buying items that you wanted or needed.

 

If, due to people intentionally buying out items to raise the price, the ease and convenience of the Grand Exchange are removed, then it is not serving its original objective.

 

 

 

Regardless of whether or not it affects you two personally, some people simply do not have the time to wait until the prices 're-stabilize', and their personal gaming experience is decreased because of this tampering.

 

 

 

 

 

lol they don't have the time to wait :lol:

 

it does affect us but not to the point where we would let it ruin the game. if you really need something then pay the extra cost for convenience just like before.

 

 

 

And when that "convenience" comes at a price grade of over 400% more than the GE price? It's absurd that at many times the only way to get a particular item is to pay almost quintuple its GE price. There's paying for convenience, and then there's being price gouged for every thing you have. Merchant clans do the latter.

[Y2g2003]

Eh, personally I don't see what the fuss is about. Back in the day when I actually took a stance against people like this (before GE even existed)... most people could give two hoots about it. This kind of trend started with r2pleasant. He, from what I herd, turned out to be a gold farmer... using merchanting to build GP to sell to idiots for real money. Granted, it's now probably being done on a bigger scale with somewhat more common of items (back then, the most common thing being merchanted was Blood runes, as I recall), but it just goes to show how the more things change... the more they stay the same.

 

 

 

It's sad in one way, but not entirely unpredictable either. Greed is what fuels most people. Sensible people, like the people who have a problem with it, just need to learn to adapt to it or deal with it. Sounds cold, but it's true.

[magzar]

I have no problem with merchanting, but manipulate should be a bannable offence.

 

What's the difference? Simply the volume of people doing it to one item?

 

 

 

A merchant uses price trends to try to predict when an item will be worth its lowest, which is when they buy it, and then its highest, at which time they sell making a profit.

 

 

 

A manipulator ignores price trends and buys all of an item they possibly can, granting themselves a monopoly, and driving up the prices of an item due to the greatly reduced supply. When the price rises to a level they're happy with they dump all their items for the highest price they can.

 

 

 

A merchant tries to predict trends

 

A manipulator creates their own

 

 

 

hope that clears things up

[Dragonlordjl]

Merchants ride trends, Manipulators create them. The vast majority of merchant clans are really manipulator clans, but since price manipulation is technically a bannable offense, they call themselves "merchants."

 

 

 

One of my friends doubled his wealth in a week by merchanting. He predicted the great Sara Brew rise during the age of "unsellable godswords" shortly after the GE came out... He already had over 1b gp, but he turned it into close to 2b by pouring hundreds of millions into brews and then selling them after a few days. While one could argue that he bought up the supply, that really doesn't hold ground. It's really, really difficult for ONE person to buy up an entire supply of any item, particularly resource items.

 

 

 

That's one thing that separates the two-- true merchants work alone. They don't collaborate with other people to form "cartels." Therein lies WHY manipulators are so devastating to the economy... They operate in groups. One person cannot control the economy unless that person is Chessy (she has 7x max GP piles from running the biggest manipulator clan -_-), but a group of ten or twenty billionaires can easily corner any area of the market.