Merch Clans

[embluss]

Ever since the introduction of the GE, merch clans have been driving prices sky high. Should they be stopped? How can they be stopped? How do they get away with making important objects such as prayer pots unbuyable for weeks? Post your answers and anything else on-topic.

 

 

 

I think they are extremely annoying and must be stopped.

 

what I would do:

 

1) Kill their Profits- create a GE tax on items which have fluctuated by 40% or more during the past week (ex: from 100 to 140). This would shrink their profit margins and make merching less attractive, while leaving solo merchers and the everyday user mostly alone. Higher fluctuation would mean higher taxation.

 

2) Offer an Alternative- add information about solo merching to the long GE tutorial.

 

3) Freeze their Assets- add a "report a merched item" feature to the website. Have a human being read them. If they are proved to be merched, they are lowered to normal and frozen at that price. This will make merchanters stop.

[ghjkl]

It is your fault for not buying extra prayer pots or other supplies these clans merch in the first place.

[stonewall337]

Nothing is wrong with them. If people are STUPID enough to fall for their scams, its their own fault. Merch clans help me more then hurt, I just counter-merch, or get the item they are merching,

[Me_Hate_Libs]

I think people often confuse merch clans for manipulation clans and vice-versa.

[anim7]

Solution is to make the GE work the same as the stock exchange. Prices need to update continuously. Increases liquidity and makes raw materials unavailable for only a few minutes or so. Liquidity is always good.

[Bows]

I think people often confuse merch clans for manipulation clans and vice-versa.

 

I agree. Manipulation and Merchanting are two very different things.

[la la la]

Solution is to make the GE work the same as the stock exchange. Prices need to update continuously. Increases liquidity and makes raw materials unavailable for only a few minutes or so. Liquidity is always good.

If prices updated continuously, buyouts would be far more effective. We don't need that. In case you didn't know, people manipulate on the stock exchange also.

[Sly_Wizard]

They don't bother me in the slightest. It's the same way in real life.

 

No one is making you buy anything.

[mario_sunny]

As someone said earlier, just spend some money on a few hundred potions and supplies so you don't have to buy them when the manipulators drive them up. Then it doesn't affect you.

[Frost]

Ever since the introduction of the GE, merch clans have been driving prices sky high. Should they be stopped? How can they be stopped? How do they get away with making important objects such as prayer pots unbuyable for weeks?

No, they haven't been making prices go "sky high". To use your example, prayer pots have kept a very stable 9.5k average this past month - hardly unbuyable, and certainly not for weeks.

 

1) Kill their Profits- create a GE tax on items which have fluctuated by 40% or more during the past week (ex: from 100 to 140). This would shrink their profit margins and make merching less attractive, while leaving solo merchers and the everyday user mostly alone. Higher fluctuation would mean higher taxation.

You said yourself above that these clans target items that are used commonly by the vast majority of the population. By creating a tax on these items after they have been allegedly "merched", how would that leave the "everyday user" alone, if they use these items so frequently?

 

2) Offer an Alternative- add information about solo merching to the long GE tutorial.

Sorry - I thought you were advocating to reduce manipulation? How would informing more people about how to do it stop the problem?

 

3) Freeze their Assets- add a "report a merched item" feature to the website. Have a human being read them. If they are proved to be merched, they are lowered to normal and frozen at that price. This will make merchanters stop.

Ignoring the abuse that would stem from such a feature, how exactly would one go about "proving" that an item has been merched? Items have natural trends of rises and falls that could quite easily be confused with some sort of manipulation.

 

 

Going back to your first question, yes, they can be stopped (not using the methods you've listed above), but, no, they shouldn't be.

[xpx]

Just learn to use the ge. Don't make rash desisions on buying items and don't sell your items all the time, manipulation clans actually make it much easier to buy raw materials and items cheap or make money off of them if you know what you are doing.

[Tim]

As someone said earlier, just spend some money on a few hundred potions and supplies so you don't have to buy them when the manipulators drive them up. Then it doesn't affect you.

Best idea yet. That's why I always keep 10 of each potion (That I commonly use) in my bank just in case.

[howbadisbad]

As someone said earlier, just spend some money on a few hundred potions and supplies so you don't have to buy them when the manipulators drive them up. Then it doesn't affect you.

Best idea yet. That's why I always keep 10 of each potion (That I commonly use) in my bank just in case.

 

Only 10? I keep like 200 of all my potions :L

[Link0000109]

They don't bother me in the slightest. It's the same way in real life.

 

No one is making you buy anything.

 

Exactly.

 

I'm still wondering how people keep falling for them.

[mario_sunny]

As someone said earlier, just spend some money on a few hundred potions and supplies so you don't have to buy them when the manipulators drive them up. Then it doesn't affect you.

Best idea yet. That's why I always keep 10 of each potion (That I commonly use) in my bank just in case.

 

Only 10? I keep like 200 of all my potions :L

 

Yea same. If any of my potions fall below 100, I restock to 200 or 300 or so.

[Omali]

No, they haven't been making prices go "sky high". To use your example, prayer pots have kept a very stable 9.5k average this past mother - hardly unbuyable, and certainly not for weeks.

 

Could you quantify one "mother" in terms of hours?

[Frost]

No, they haven't been making prices go "sky high". To use your example, prayer pots have kept a very stable 9.5k average this past mother - hardly unbuyable, and certainly not for weeks.

 

Could you quantify one "mother" in terms of hours?

 

Month*

 

Beg your pardon; I don't know what I was thinking when I typed that.

[Frost]

Double post >.<

[Frost]

Double post >.<

[yuriqiu]

I think what everyone here is forgetting to consider is the people who can't afford to have an inventory of supplies in their banks. Sure it is easy for me to make 500 overloads each month and just leave them there. But to an average player it might be quite expensive. Manipulation clans may not affect much in the long run but in the short run (which can be anywhere from a day to 3 month or even longer) they can cause massive inconvenience in the market.

 

The ideas and methods used to counter these manipulation clans should focus only on them. No point in hunting down a termite infestation if your plan to attack is by leveling the house. In other words, punish only the main perpetrators but not affect the entire economy. A more fluid update system can accomplish this by making buyouts far shorter, record far more accurate prices, and make it much more inconvenient to run a manipulation clan.

[ghjkl]

I think what everyone here is forgetting to consider is the people who can't afford to have an inventory of supplies in their banks. Sure it is easy for me to make 500 overloads each month and just leave them there. But to an average player it might be quite expensive. Manipulation clans may not affect much in the long run but in the short run (which can be anywhere from a day to 3 month or even longer) they can cause massive inconvenience in the market.

 

The ideas and methods used to counter these manipulation clans should focus only on them. No point in hunting down a termite infestation if your plan to attack is by leveling the house. In other words, punish only the main perpetrators but not affect the entire economy. A more fluid update system can accomplish this by making buyouts far shorter, record far more accurate prices, and make it much more inconvenient to run a manipulation clan.

Yes, if ge prices update around hourly, that would take the average 1 month buyout to crash within 1 day or so, while making the rare market rise also until they all crash to their real prices.

[Leyenda]

Oh man! :lol: Merch clans are a menace!! :lol: :lol: They threaten our existence on a daily basis!

 

Yes, they are annoying (mainly the advertisers), but they can't really be stopped for buying an item :| ... Now spamming "Smokin' Mils' will get you rich!!1!" in chat effects when you're just as likely to lose money because of them is a different story

[Me_Hate_Libs]

Know what would be awesome, suspend public chat at the GE. Screw 'em

 

They don't affect me though since I'm pretty much entirely self-sufficient.

[Grimy_Bunyip]

So the kind of "merch" clan we want to get rid of are manipulation clans, that buy up lots and lots of certain items.

I think the solution is fairly obvious. Jagex just needs to hijack their accounts for a few minutes and dump all their manipulated items into GE for min price.

Then take away all the GP made from those sales (for the chance that the manipulator already earned a profit anyways)

 

manipulator gets punished, and we get some deflation.

 

only issue might be double and triple checking before the punishment.

Jagex can always just unban someone, and return the account as it was.

Once you strip a player of their items, it's much harder to return those items.

[Frost]

So the kind of "merch" clan we want to get rid of are manipulation clans, that buy up lots and lots of certain items.

I think the solution is fairly obvious. Jagex just needs to hijack their accounts for a few minutes and dump all their manipulated items into GE for min price.

Then take away all the GP made from those sales (for the chance that the manipulator already earned a profit anyways)

 

manipulator gets punished, and we get some deflation.

 

only issue might be double and triple checking before the punishment.

Jagex can always just unban someone, and return the account as it was.

Once you strip a player of their items, it's much harder to return those items.

I can only imagine the public's reaction once it got out that Jagex would be doing that. Obviously the power is there, but players would lose a good deal of trust in Jagex knowing that the latter can, and will, enter people's accounts and change things around. Jagex should be enforcing their rules, not circumventing them.

 

I can't see your suggestion as a practical solution to manipulation.