How the Grand Exchange Fulfills Offers

[Zaaps1]

I posted a theory a while back about white list and black listed players, also a list in-between.

 

Basically white-listed got items instant, black-listed had to wait a very long time.

 

That's interesting. What was the final conclusion?

 

 

I don't know about that, I'm sure there is some sort of "seniority" with elder offers. Say a month in difference or somethin of the sort.

Proof?

 

The OP has proof, but you do not.

 

Well known and generally accepted facts do not need proof.

[tuggernongy]

I can share some GE insight and add to this topic. Ever merched with friends? I don't mean manipulation, i mean merching the same items either with a timeshift, or at the same time. Let's discuss some hypotheticals. SGS is currently 41.9m average. Say i feel like flipping some: I'll ask some merch friends if they have one spare lying around they want to sell at min to find the current lower bound (highest buy offer in the GE that isn't getting insta-filled). If so, lovely, i get to find out the price i can buy them at slowly with no time wasted myself, and i owe a friend a favor later on. Otherwise, if i want to find out what the current lower bound is, I'll have to try and find it myself.

 

There are two ways of doing this: I can do this either by offering to buy one at max, seeing what it buys for (for future reference, this is the upper bound at the time, the lowest sell offer that is sitting in the GE without getting instantly filled), and then offering to buy the rest of them at a lower price, with the intention of turning around and selling them for around what i bought that first one for, in 4 hours time. Otherwise, i can look at the GE graph of the item, have an educated guess about what the item is currently trading at, and put an offer in, then slowly raise the offer if none of them buy after a while, until they start buying (or if one buys either instantly or too quickly for my liking, i'll lower my offer and see if i can pick the rest up for a lower price).

 

The problem with finding the price out for myself, is if i want to find it out near-instantly, I'm cutting into my profits, but i get a good idea of what i can sell them for later, assuming the market hasn't shifted too much in 4 hours, or i have the risk of not buying any for quite a while, slowing down my flipping for the day. Hence, phone-a-friend being the preferable option, if you have friends that you're willing to trade favors with, slightly cutting into both your profits but speeding up all your trades. (Don't underestimate the benefit of knowing what items are actually trading for in the GE, not paying more than you need to / selling for less than you could get when flipping adds up to allot).

 

Now, the point of all this chit-chat wall of text, is that there have been allot of times where I've had friends ask me if i know any current prices when they get online, and I'll rattle off the current upper / lower bounds that I'm aware of. If I'm currently buying those hypothetical SGS' at ~41.55, and they put an offer in at the same price, it doesn't matter; both our offers will get filled at the same time, albeit at a slower pace than if ours was the only offer in there. First come first served? Not for buying items in bulk at least, you can throw that theory out the window. But it gets better. Say i have my offer in at 41,550,000, they put theres in at 41,555,555. Again, the EXACT same thing will happen, BOTH our offers will get filled at the same time. It doesn't matter that my offer was in first, or that they are offering MORE than i am: our offers will both slowly fill together. {* - I can and will explain, logically and reasonably, exactly why this happens, and i will later. Promise.}

 

The fun and games don't stop there, however, it gets better. One extreme example of this, the point that I've been leading up to with all this... It would have been well over half a year ago. I remember it like it was yesterday...... the sun was shining, the birds, and possibly the neighbours were twitter'ing, the.... the GE, oh, that's right. Yes, well. A friend of mine was flipping Dragon Full Helms. I forget what the price was, but they were fairly steady at the time, and for the sake of this story, let's say he was buying them ~100k below average. I get online, ask what prices he knows, he mentions them, asks me to wait til he's done buying before i buy some, because they're a slow trading item. I agree, and put in an offer that is 300k below his, just to remind myself about them later, next time i check the GE. Half an hour to an hour later, he's asking me if i put an offer in for them, because his stopped buying. I mention the offer i put in, well below his, and we figure that someone else must have put an offer in higher than his. I go to the GE to cancel the offer i had in, to discover.... *drumroll* My offer has half-filled. My measly, pathetic, 300k lower than what someone else is willing to pay offer, is getting filled, while his is sitting stagnant not getting any sellers. The GE can and does work in seemingly mysterious ways, but selling people short of 300k for something they're selling, that they could have instantly sold for 300k more to another offer that was most definitely in the GE, is hardly "working". It is broken in ways you probably don't even want to know about, in the seemingly disfunctional way it decides to connect buyers and sellers.

 

That said, that was a fairly long time ago. There's hopefully been some behind the scenes fixes to the GE since then, but... it's doubtful. With how secretive most people are about their offers on the GE, these sorts of situations could be happening allot without anyone being any wiser to it. Anyway, there was something i promised I'd explain earlier...

 

{*} - The reason offers that are within a (whatever %'age margin jagex have decided) get filled at the same time, is most probably (hint: I Don't Know Everything. Speculation Follows.) this: If you have an offer in the GE, to buy or sell something, and after a while it starts filling, you're for all intents and purposes, happy. If it doesn't, it's reasonable to expect that you're going to pull the offer out and put it back in at a higher or lower price, until it does start filling. Now, ever noticed how when the GE hasn't updated for a while, say 30+hours, allot more items start trading at either their max or their min? This is because of people changing their offers because of them not filling. Items would be stuck trading near their min / max allot quicker after a GE update if offers didn't start filling AT ALL if there was a real queue system for bulk offers, because of the impatience of your average person, that wants their stuff NOW.

 

... Hmmn, i wasn't intenting for this to be such a wall of text. Oh well. TL;DR GE broken.

[Maximusa]

I dont really know but I always figured it was both priority and random.

 

Likes this:

 

Buying 1000 rune bars.

 

If im 'first' I get the 'first' bar, after that it randomly moves onto the next person with the same price. It either cycles through people selected randomly checking them off a list so they cannot buy again until everyone else has, selling one at a time, and keeps a priority based on this selection. Or it cycles through people selected randomly, selling one at a time, and then repeats a random cycle selection.

 

To explain differently. Once everyone has bought a rune bar it either uses priority beginning with the person who bought the first bar or it randomly selects someone checking them off a list. Everyone gets a chance because they cannot buy again until everyone has bought. Once everyone has bought a bar it begins again. (Either priority or random.)

 

But im just guessing, I dont know. Thats just how it feels to me. I know for certain that it isnt purely priority based or no one would be able to buy anything... However it does seem priority based on items that sell less.. For example a party hat. Get your offer in first and you get the first sold.

 

I dont know if its really possible to know if it randomly selects a list and prioritises based on that list or just creates a new random cycle checklist that makes it so everyone gets a chance before its possible for people to buy again.

 

You could say its like a non-priority system (Dont really know correct term for this.. losing priority system?) where you lose priority once you gain the item. Everyone else has a step above you be it random or whatever it is. Each losing priority once they gain the item until everyone has gained the item. Then it repeats with one person at a time stepping down.

[No_99_Melee]

The fun and games don't stop there, however, it gets better. One extreme example of this, the point that I've been leading up to with all this... It would have been well over half a year ago. I remember it like it was yesterday...... the sun was shining, the birds, and possibly the neighbours were twitter'ing, the.... the GE, oh, that's right. Yes, well. A friend of mine was flipping Dragon Full Helms. I forget what the price was, but they were fairly steady at the time, and for the sake of this story, let's say he was buying them ~100k below average. I get online, ask what prices he knows, he mentions them, asks me to wait til he's done buying before i buy some, because they're a slow trading item. I agree, and put in an offer that is 300k below his, just to remind myself about them later, next time i check the GE. Half an hour to an hour later, he's asking me if i put an offer in for them, because his stopped buying. I mention the offer i put in, well below his, and we figure that someone else must have put an offer in higher than his. I go to the GE to cancel the offer i had in, to discover.... *drumroll* My offer has half-filled. My measly, pathetic, 300k lower than what someone else is willing to pay offer, is getting filled, while his is sitting stagnant not getting any sellers. The GE can and does work in seemingly mysterious ways, but selling people short of 300k for something they're selling, that they could have instantly sold for 300k more to another offer that was most definitely in the GE, is hardly "working". It is broken in ways you probably don't even want to know about, in the seemingly disfunctional way it decides to connect buyers and sellers.

 

To highlight on this I have two recent offers I'd like to point out:

 

 

This first ZGS bought instantly at 16,400,000 so I decided to wait another 10 minutes to keep it buying slowly at its lowest sale price. Nothing happens for the next 10 minutes.

 

My next option was to raise it so I brought it up to 16,500,000 and waited another 10 minutes. Nothing.

 

Repeated what I had just done another 2 times and within 40 minutes I found the actual lowest sell price:

 

 

400k above what I had originally bought instantly. The GE is definitely broken. The guy who sold his ZGS for 16,400,000 should have gotten at least 400k above what he sold it for.

[Ejaz01]

When im flip merchanting i sometimes put in double offers for high bulk items like uncut dragonstones, which have a limit of 5k. i put in 2 offers and they both buy uncut dragonstones relatively at the same speed. My theory is that the more offers you have on 1 item the faster it will buy, providing you've got the best bid price.

 

Edit: when i say faster, i mean the faster you'll hit the limit on your item.

 

I dont always do this though, only if i have a spare g.e slot open, and most of the time i don't.

 

Don't Dstones have a limit of 100? I think if you wanted to test out if multiple offers buy faster than single offers, you would have 1 offer for 50 dstones and 2 offers for 25, all at the same price.

 

I just realised that recently jagex nerfed the gem limit, when i flipped them they definately were 5k, without a doubt.

 

Edit: Limit is now 1k gems. Stupid jamflex.

[tuggernongy]

The fun and games don't stop there, however, it gets better. One extreme example of this, the point that I've been leading up to with all this... It would have been well over half a year ago. I remember it like it was yesterday...... the sun was shining, the birds, and possibly the neighbours were twitter'ing, the.... the GE, oh, that's right. Yes, well. A friend of mine was flipping Dragon Full Helms. I forget what the price was, but they were fairly steady at the time, and for the sake of this story, let's say he was buying them ~100k below average. I get online, ask what prices he knows, he mentions them, asks me to wait til he's done buying before i buy some, because they're a slow trading item. I agree, and put in an offer that is 300k below his, just to remind myself about them later, next time i check the GE. Half an hour to an hour later, he's asking me if i put an offer in for them, because his stopped buying. I mention the offer i put in, well below his, and we figure that someone else must have put an offer in higher than his. I go to the GE to cancel the offer i had in, to discover.... *drumroll* My offer has half-filled. My measly, pathetic, 300k lower than what someone else is willing to pay offer, is getting filled, while his is sitting stagnant not getting any sellers. The GE can and does work in seemingly mysterious ways, but selling people short of 300k for something they're selling, that they could have instantly sold for 300k more to another offer that was most definitely in the GE, is hardly "working". It is broken in ways you probably don't even want to know about, in the seemingly disfunctional way it decides to connect buyers and sellers.

 

To highlight on this I have two recent offers I'd like to point out:

 

 

This first ZGS bought instantly at 16,400,000 so I decided to wait another 10 minutes to keep it buying slowly at its lowest sale price. Nothing happens for the next 10 minutes.

 

My next option was to raise it so I brought it up to 16,500,000 and waited another 10 minutes. Nothing.

 

Repeated what I had just done another 2 times and within 40 minutes I found the actual lowest sell price:

 

 

400k above what I had originally bought instantly. The GE is definitely broken. The guy who sold his ZGS for 16,400,000 should have gotten at least 400k above what he sold it for.

 

I learnt to disregard most offers for high-ticket items that instantly get filled a long time ago, or at least treat them suspiciously. The GE seems to like pairing offers that enter it at the same time, if it can. Most likely what happened is they simply threw it in for minimum for a quick sale, at the same time you put your buy offer in, and it paired them. No idea why it does that, but it's something that most people that flip have probably seen happening before.

[Hammertime]

I would love to see some explanation for those zgs pics. it's pretty unbelievable that some merchant would not have an offer within that 400k range.

[Pinata]

The Zgs for 16.4m could have been a coinshare drop?

 

Also I like the theory that was posted earlier in this thread is

 

Player A 1:00PM Buys 600 Anvantoe max

 

Player B 1:01PM Buys 600 Avantoe max

 

Player C 1:05PM Sells 10 Avantoe for max

 

Player A 1:05PM Receives 10 Avantoe and is dropped to the bottom of the que line.

 

Player D 1:06PM Sells 5 Avantoe for max.

 

Player B 1:06PM Receives 5 Avantoe and is dropped to the bottom of the que line.

 

Therefore Player A will receive the next herb sale before Player B.

 

^

This theory would also making since if using multiple boxes, if multiple boxes counted as a separate offer.

 

Best way to prove this is to watch the GE Update offers in the message box.

[green9090]

The Zgs for 16.4m could have been a coinshare drop?

Think first, then post.

[SirIzenhime]

The Zgs for 16.4m could have been a coinshare drop?

Think first, then post.

 

Not everyone knows how Coinshare drops work with the GE

 

Think first, then post.

[green9090]

The Zgs for 16.4m could have been a coinshare drop?

Think first, then post.

 

Not everyone knows how Coinshare drops work with the GE

 

Think first, then post.

*facepalm*

 

I was talking about the fact that no monster drops a Zamorak Godsword.

[SirIzenhime]

he could of thought the Hilt turns into godsword for the ge :P

[Roz]

I thought the most accepted theory was that you have an order and each time you buy something, you get sent to the back.

 

You have an offer for 5 Unicorn stallions, before someone else puts another 5 in.

Someone sells 1.

You get 1.

Someone else sells 5.

The other person gets 5.

 

There was/is lots of speculation on the RSOF.

[Zantareous]

I always thought that this was how GE offers worked because of experience with buying the same items on different accounts. I didn't really think about a queuing system too much.

 

Although, I thought that if I were to put in the current best offer that I would receive the first sale, but after the first sale it would be random on who gets what.

[Silmandra]

Interesting topic.. Ive always been wondering who has a higher priority.

 

I have put 5x300 buy offers on the same item, ill see how mamy i bought by tomorrow.

 

Might buy only a few though due to the item being raw rabbits.

[Returnofmic]

I thought the most accepted theory was that you have an order and each time you buy something, you get sent to the back.

 

You have an offer for 5 Unicorn stallions, before someone else puts another 5 in.

Someone sells 1.

You get 1.

Someone else sells 5.

The other person gets 5.

 

There was/is lots of speculation on the RSOF.

 

This seems to make the most sense.

[Silmandra]

Thr above doesnt explain the zammy gs thing

[Roz]

Thr above doesnt explain the zammy gs thing

 

Supply+demand does though.

[Silmandra]

Well i noight much more raw rabbits then if i just put 1 offer..

 

Lasy night i got 46 raw rabbits from one offer.

Today I got 467 from 5x300 buy offers.

[Nifflin]

Well i noight much more raw rabbits then if i just put 1 offer..

 

Lasy night i got 46 raw rabbits from one offer.

Today I got 467 from 5x300 buy offers.

 

I used to collect beers, I did the same thing and had an offer in 24/7. Pretty much it's luck, some days you will get a lot overnight, some days you will get very few. Having more offers helps, but the amount you brought in increasing that much is just luck, it should increase, but not that much.

 

On topic, now I kind of wish I kept a log of how many I purchased with 1 to 6 offers in. It would have been interesting.

[Fire_Hawk154]

I have got 5 accounts to buy bronze arrows for friends, let's say account 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

When I start buying, I put the offers in on account 1 first, than account 2 and so on.

If there was some kind of "quee" system, account 1 should get arrows faster than account 2-5.

But that just doesn't happen. Sometimes account 4 completed the full offer while account 1 is only at 1/10.

It looks random, sometimes account 1 will be the fastest, sometimes account 5.

But it's not completely random though. When I put new offers in, the acc that bought the most arrows previous time is now slower than the rest.

So maybe the G E also looks to what you've already bought in previous offers (or maybe didn't).

So if you would snipe a phat for ages, your chances should increase. I'm not sure about that though ;)