holy hell. RMT is back with their price spinning effort.

[Theyaden]

Re: holy hell. RMT is back with their price spinning effort.

I agree.
The problem is that whenever someone proposes something like that, half the world population will flame them and laugh at them. It's been suggested and it's been beat down to a pulp with an ugly stick...

FFXI would be better without an AH, Vanguard is eliminating the auction house because they believe its a better way for RMT to sell stuff.

Think about it.. FFXI would be very different if there didnt exist an auction house, you'd have to ask people to craft stuff, things would be a bit more meaningfull and there would be alot more interaction between sellers and buyers.

There are reasons critism is easier to come by than ideas. However often the critism can be used to hone an idea and re-draft it or add additional items to a fix. I expect anything I put forth to be shredded on the first draft at least.

Your heart is in the right place, but no AH would mean spending days looking for an item in the Roleberry fleemarket going person to person to see what is available. Having to always tie up your computer when not playing in order to sell your goods would reduce how many people could consistantly bazar to earn gil. If your on a shared houshold computer you'ld be locked out of gil making and by extension upgrading gear to go on to higher level parties and activities.

The low level consumables market would be hit preaty hard. If I could only purchase crafting supplies from people who are online curently rather than picking them up from an AH my intake would go down. It would cut down on comparison shopping that is done for gear through the AH. Comparing item 1 vs item 2 to see if the price difference is worth it and have a side by side stat comparison that is only there if the bazar has both items. Don't know what it would do to prices, but supply and the ability to sell would go down.

I'll grant I don't see many of the rank 1 subless earners bazaring in the Rollenbury Fields except when a group tried it's hand at garison on Garuda server and cut the manequin market to half prices (usual keyboard mashed names were there selling parts very cheaply since manaquin parts are bazar only and they moved on to something else as I haven't seen them there for awhile).

Bazaring is basically the ah without item search feature, central locations, but an exact price match rather than guessing at the value and being easier to visibly undercut competadors.

[Karinya]

Re: holy hell. RMT is back with their price spinning effort.

And you'd be right back to the first year of EQ where the economy practically didn't exist because you had to find someone with the right skills on at the same time as you, that was either in the same area or willing to travel there (unless you trust them well enough to deliver them those hauby materials and pick up the hauby later - and have only their word if it broke or not).

If there wasn't an auction house it would be an enormous pain in the ass. Don't have the right crafter in your LS or they're not logged on or busy? Have fun shouting for a crafter for a couple hours. After you get the materials together, because of course, you can't buy them on AH.

The ingredients for Tav. Tacos: tavnazian salad, tortillas, salsa. Salsa is NPC buyable and the rest need to be cooked (the salad is harder than the tacos themselves, so now you need a 90+ cook not just 80ish). Throw in the ingredients for the tortillas and salad and here is what you need to hand that cook for him to make you some tacos:
San d'Orian flour
Millioncorn
Rock Salt
Olive Oil
Grimmonite
Bastore Bream
Noble Lady
Emperor Fish
Frost Turnip
Beaugreens
San d'Orian Carrot
Faerie Apples
Honey
Salsa
Earth, wind, dark and fire crystals

Without an AH, nobody is importing/exporting that stuff, so unless you can find them in someone's bazaar, you have to go to all the NPCs that sell it, or for the ones that aren't NPC sold, garden/farm/fish your own. Then there's about half a dozen steps to make all the intermediate ingredients, so if there are any breaks there, you have to start over unless you brought extras.

The BEST case is that it would lead to a couple hundred more bazaar mules that you have to sort through to get what you're looking for (instead of the easily searchable AH that finds the lowest price seller *for* you), in an area that will make Beseiged look sparsely populated. Half of them would still be RMT anyway.

The worst case is that you literally do have to get all your own ingredients for every synthed item you want to use. Food, arrows, ninja tools, reraise items... it would take a rng/nin a week just to gather the materials for all the consumables they need for one night of exping, and then they have to find at least 4 crafters IIRC (a cook, a woodworker, a smith or boneworker for arrowheads and a clothcrafter for fletchings - assuming the simplest types of ammo, otherwise there may be an alchemist involved too). And *then* if they want them bundled to save on inv space, they get to travel to the circus themselves (or deliver 12 stacks of arrows/shihei to their mule in the correct city and then send the bundles back). After they grow or harvest the right flowers.

I don't think you appreciate the volume of trade on the AH and how many thousands of player-hours of irritation and frustration it saves per day. It's also surprisingly robust: despite the doom-filled predictions of some on this thread, didn't the OP then report that the price is back to normal within days?

[kiffkin]

Re: holy hell. RMT is back with their price spinning effort.

Tortillas are sold by Taajiji in Windy Waters, and all of the non-fish ingredients in Tavnazian Salad are sold by other npcs (Tenshodo, Regional Vendors, et cetera). The fish may be sold by npcs, but are very expensive compared to their AH prices and aren't always available.

My fishing just isn't going to get high enough to enable me to get my own fish (Noble Lady caps at 66, Bastore Bream at 86 and Grimmonite at 90) and the AH is my only viable option for getting them. If there was no AH, I'd have to either knuckle down and level fishing or join up with a Fisherman. I don't need to make Tacos, so if it was that much of a hassle, I wouldn't bother. There's plenty of other things I can cook for profit with much more easily obtained ingredients.

Flowers for bundling are also npc sold, so you don't have to grow them yourself or get someone else to do it.

[Clever Ninja]

Re: holy hell. RMT is back with their price spinning effort.

They just need to make looking through Bazaars easier so people can use Bazaars as another means of getting items. Like adding in a Bazaar menu similar to search, where you can browse through peoples Bazaars all through that one screen, rather that running around checking it. People could have space to put comments next to their names, so someone could specify exactly what they were selling, like "Bronze Ingots at X Gil!".

This would make relying on the AH, and in turn, the RMT's happen less often.

[Jei]

Re: holy hell. RMT is back with their price spinning effort.

that reminds me of Ragnarok online. I think being able to label yourself is pretty neat in that game.

[Theyaden]

Re: holy hell. RMT is back with their price spinning effort.

They just need to make looking through Bazaars easier so people can use Bazaars as another means of getting items. Like adding in a Bazaar menu similar to search, where you can browse through peoples Bazaars all through that one screen, rather that running around checking it. People could have space to put comments next to their names, so someone could specify exactly what they were selling, like "Bronze Ingots at X Gil!".

This would make relying on the AH, and in turn, the RMT's happen less often.

If it became easier to use Bazars as you sugested wouldn't the RMT's just keep a few computers on with a logged character bazaring what their earners brought in? A company is more likely to be able to spare computers with the minimum requirements to load the game and sit connected in an office overnight than the average legitimate character. (I have multiple computers so I could stay online with an older computer when not playing, but not all of the playerbase has this option. Some live with parents or roomates with one main computer and when their done someone else may need the computer.)

They have to buy an extra 12.95/month subscription for each character devoted to these sales and virtually no manpower beyond someone going from their earner character and hitting accept for the trade when being loaded up then setting the prices.

[Linra]

Re: holy hell. RMT is back with their price spinning effort.

that reminds me of Ragnarok online. I think being able to label yourself is pretty neat in that game.

That's exactly what it would end up being like. However there's ONE HUGE drawback to this, and it can be alittle annoying. Back when I played RO, Prortena (Kinda like the Jeuno of RO) would be filled will these player vendors, so much so that your entire screen would be pretty much flooded with these signs. You could hardly see the ground (bird's eye view) and in this case you'd either lag horribly, or wouldn't be able to see in the distance.

This would totally call for an option to turn off bazzaar signs. And in my opinion this wouldn't stop RMT, just make it a more difficult for them to do what they do sadly. Basically just buy out all of an item in their surrounding area(s) that they'd want to inflate, and be the only provider. And if noble sellers come back, buyout, and if other greedy players come by, so be it. You've successifully inflated an item, inturn causing yourself more business (people buy gil from you). Win/Win...for them...Lose/lose...for us

[Oogami]

Re: holy hell. RMT is back with their price spinning effort.

I did have an idea. It is like an extension of the /blacklist function.

It is called the /boycott <playername> function.
When this is active, your bidding will skip every item that is listed on the AH by said player and all other characters under the same POL-ID. Basically, those items "do not exist" in the AH for you and only you.

Problem is, this would be quite abusible when a large group of people decided to mass /boycott certain characters.

[Bricklayer]

Re: holy hell. RMT is back with their price spinning effort.

I did have an idea. It is like an extension of the /blacklist function.

It is called the /boycott <playername> function.
When this is active, your bidding will skip every item that is listed on the AH by said player and all other characters under the same POL-ID. Basically, those items "do not exist" in the AH for you and only you.

Problem is, this would be quite abusible when a large group of people decided to mass /boycott certain characters.

You could call it /sanction.

[dirtyclown]

Re: holy hell. RMT is back with their price spinning effort.

Wow, lots of interesting ideas. But let's be honest, everyone. This game is on it's last legs. Sure, we've got alot of new options for gears, but why in the hell is all the old stuff still the best? Every melee aspires to get a Haubergeon still, SE has yet to make anything truly equal or better for that level. Scorpion Harness, everyone who can't wear a Hauby wants one of these. Jeridah Peti is decent, but it just doesn't compare. I like the selection of Assault gear, but unfortunately NOBODY wants to do Assault to get any of the gears if they already have what they want, totally screwing anyone who didn't get their copy of the expansion during the first few weeks. I'd also like to see something that can replace the Hauby. I am so sick and tired of looking at that damned thing.

Ideas for making the Auction House less mandatory so as to combat RMT is nice, but you know what would really help? If SE would stop playing nice. They need to bring down the hammer. Revising their terms of service and actually giving their GMs the go ahead to start banhammering the people who are the subject of probably 90% of all GM calls would be a tremendous help. And not just a slap on the wrist 3 day ban, either. Permanent ban, account deleted, have a wonderful day sir. Right now it's a friggin circus, RMT groups aren't bothering to hide anymore. That's a direct "fuck you" to SE if I've ever seen it.

A slightly less extreme idea would be limited gil per character, I think I saw that mentioned before. How's 1 mil each sound? That'd definitely put a cap on how much each of those companies could hold in their online banks. It would also make me lol at the people who like to brag about how awesome their wallet is.

[kiffkin]

Re: holy hell. RMT is back with their price spinning effort.

A slightly less extreme idea would be limited gil per character, I think I saw that mentioned before. How's 1 mil each sound? That'd definitely put a cap on how much each of those companies could hold in their online banks. It would also make me lol at the people who like to brag about how awesome their wallet is.

Back in my old Diablo II days, many years ago, there was a similar limit on cash. What happened is that items became currency; in particular, a certain ring called The Stone of Jordan. Cash was largely irrelevant and trades were almost exclusively done with items (equipment, runes, et cetera) only.

[dirtyclown]

Re: holy hell. RMT is back with their price spinning effort.

Last I checked, this isn't Diablo 2.

[Clever Ninja]

Re: holy hell. RMT is back with their price spinning effort.

Yes my idea was based off RO. I used to play iRO for 2 years before I quit and played WoW, then FFXI today. I still play it every now and then, although via a private server(not gonna go beyong that) for when I get bored of FFXI.

If it became easier to use Bazars as you sugested wouldn't the RMT's just keep a few computers on with a logged character bazaring what their earners brought in? A company is more likely to be able to spare computers with the minimum requirements to load the game and sit connected in an office overnight than the average legitimate character. (I have multiple computers so I could stay online with an older computer when not playing, but not all of the playerbase has this option. Some live with parents or roomates with one main computer and when their done someone else may need the computer.)

They have to buy an extra 12.95/month subscription for each character devoted to these sales and virtually no manpower beyond someone going from their earner character and hitting accept for the trade when being loaded up then setting the prices.

I was referring more in the aspect of boycotting RMT sellers. You can just note their name, and whenever you see their bazaars you skip over it. But you do make some sense, if they just bought new accounts and had some lvl1 BLM's or WAR's standing around, it wouldn't be hard to trade their goods to one of them in hopes of fooling people who want to boycott said RMT sellers.

Hopefully this special task force thing SE is forming actually counters this problem and is ACTUALLY USEFUL. If they actually did the smart thing and go to the common spots were RMT's are found that almost all the playerbase knows of, I'd probably die alittle inside.

[Clever Ninja]

Re: holy hell. RMT is back with their price spinning effort.

Last I checked, this isn't Diablo 2.

Last I checked, your proposing a similar situation that happened in another online game where goods could be traded. It still applies, so drop the attitude please.

[dirtyclown]

Re: holy hell. RMT is back with their price spinning effort.

Last I checked, your proposing a similar situation that happened in another online game where goods could be traded. It still applies, so drop the attitude please.

NO U.

If the AH stays intact and a gil limit is imposed, how many people do you think will actually use bazaars more often? Most players would rather just put their things up for X amount and not have to deal with anyone trying to bargain down the price. Not everyone is gifted with social skills, which is why the AH system is so popular. I'm sure you've had a chance to talk to people while playing now and again, and well...Hahaha. Good times.