Price Fixing

well as we all know the gilsellers have been fixing the prices on items and i wanted to say that they can go die in a hole lol state your feelings about this here

A hole is too luxurious.

if it wasnt gillsellers doing it, it would just be people looking to make some easy fast gil.

Actually what they do it isn't easy nor fast. it needs a lot of capital, a lot of inv space and the time to invest to be on AH to sell items to your other chars cheaply so ppl start selling them cheap, once they have accumulated a good deal of gear they sell it back to a high price...

If you can do that, hell do it. But I sure as hell don't have the time/means to do it

thhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhpt!

>Pricefixing baw RMT RMT gilsell bawwww
sage

I tried to get a woodsmans ring for 40k but no dice. The RMT are too fast for me :[

yea a hole is way to nice for them to die in, it needs to be a long, drawn out, painful death that lasts for days.

Just watch the market and when RMT raise the prices, put your items on sale and take advantage of it... ^_~

You know, instead of complaining....

You can just beat them to it. If they are fixing the price, take advantage of it (by buying in bulk, then selling in bulk). Then they will stop doing it because they can't abuse that part of capitalism anymore.

I totally would if I had the capital to do so to begin with :x

I do it all the time but not exactly for leet profits. If I happen to want to spam a certain synth for HQs. I clean out all the NQs and start reselling for a break-even cost. That way I don't lose much of anything on NQs and get my profit from HQs.

/sigh

just because they are price fixing doesn't mean they are RMT. price fixing is actually not against ToS. what they do with the gill afterwards in RMT transactions is. i price fix ALL THE TIME. like Ishkur said, all you need is a couple million gil (depending on what you are fixing), inventory (thank you mog satchel), and time. are you gonna call me RMT?

Just don't buy from the AH until the prices stabilize again, simple. They've upped the prices on the same items 3-4 times now in the past year and they always drop back down.

I took it to a different level.
I reported it to a [GM] last night.
Contrary to what most of you might think, it was a pleasant conversation.
The [GM] asked me why I thought "market manipulation" was happening and I explained, in great depth.
We conversed, for about 30-45 minutes.
He asked pretty indepth questions about how it affected the economy and I was able to explain it easily.
Again, I am very grateful for my degree in Economics! lol

Seriously though, he expressed his interest. Noted all the names I gave him.
And honestly took time to respond to my argument and didn't just dismiss me.

Without a doubt, one of the best encounters I have had with a [GM].
And I fully believe that he will take my argument to someone higher.
~Yote

Thats called a dream , not a GM.

I would have thought it was, if I heard it from anyone else.
But, it wasn't.
People that know me on the server know that I don't waste my time lying.

I may say things that are my opinion.
I may say things that are liked/not liked.
But when it comes to lying, I don't do that.
My word is my greatest asset, because I am an honorable person.

Whether or not the [GM] takes my statement to someone higher, is out of my control.
But my statement remains as true.
~Yote

This was my e-mail to the STF in addition to the [GM] talk I had:

I have witnessed a number of low-level characters manipulating the prices of items on the AH. This market manipulation causes the market to devalue certain items (i.e. Potent Belt) until other players begin to sell their items for that price. Then once the manipulater has a large quantity and there are none on the AH, they will slowly sell them for an inflated cost. This forces inflation and causes others to, in effect, lose gil. Players included on this market manipulation:
1) Poodevi
2) Sandrg
3) Seshero
4) Yuuryon
5) Chalka
6) Kaejyn
7) Miniru
8) Daakpunk
9) Naosama
10) Ytsdjkd
11) Weedle
12) Tonosama
13) Sefirok
14) Alynda
15) Akloit
16) Nnxinja
17) Trevaru
18) Liluck

More may be involved, but these are from my research thus far.
Very Respectfully,
~Yotevol

I think I know one of those people...or maybe not. People use such ridiculous names that I just don't know anymore. Congratulations on finding a GM that wasn't a robot though.

Thanks!
The first thing he said to me was:
"I have been a player a lot longer than I have been a [GM], so I'll try and help the best I can.
I know, personally, how frustrating people like this can make it to make money the legit way."

I was impressed. Nice level headed response, with an emphasis on caring.
Definately not [GM] Dave... lol

~Yote

yeah most of the names on here ive also submitted to the STF a few days ago, i think they were selling stuff like astral rings, snipers, damascene cloth, sirens hair etc etc...

Wait, what? People price fix the auction house to make money?!

There's somebody on Garuda who has a mule permanently camping the Auction House. This mule buys up anything on the Auction House selling for less than it sells to a vendor. They fill their mule up, run them to the nearest vendor, unload their haul and grin at their profits. I doubt it's incredible amounts of money per trip to the vendor, but it soon adds up. This is a repeated process and has been going on for months now on Garuda. This player's main character is exceptionally well geared with just about every plus one buyable you can imagine.

Guess what? He's not an RMT; he's a perfectly legitimate player. He is hated by a lot of people, but franctly, it's jealousy. Jealousy that he came up with the idea first and has the means to execute it to make enough of an income from it. It's not his fault that idiots sell items for less than they vendor for. He is simply taking advantage of a market of suckers and that winds people up.

Same circumstance with your "price fixing". It's not the price fixers you should be complaining about. They're the clever ones playing the market and making money from it.

Bottom line: Unless you have serious evidence that the people responsible for this are gilsellers, nobody cares, and quite franctly, it's tiring hearing everyone scream gilseller the moment somebody's taking advantage of the auction house.

Why are you tired of hearing everyone scream gilseller when nobody cares? :P

Quite honestly, though, Wooooo is right. People are incredibly eager to claim that anyone who isn't going to be an altruistic saint on the AH must be a gilseller. I've abused people's idiocy with the release of both ToAU and WotG, yet that hasn't magically turned me into a gilseller. As Korpg said, take advantage of the situation rather than complaining about it.

Wood,
Normally, I find your posts amusing and interesting. Sometimes there are well thought out.
Unfortunately, you are wrong in this instance. I can explain, in deatail if I must, how these players are cheating the system. If you have the time and would like to keep open to what I am explaining, I would be happy to do so. However, if I explain, you must keep an open mind and think of things that I say, before responding.

Remember, what you are talking about is "vendor" friendly. What I am talking about are key items that are high priced normally. That being said, I will wait for your response to hear my explanation- or not.

~Yote

You say that like non-RMT never try to fix prices. If I can force an item to go up in price temporarily and thus profit on it, I'm going to do so. I don't have the capital to attempt this, however. If you can't show me where in the ToS this is declared illegal, I'm inclined to find such behavior perfectly acceptable without further proof of RMT activity. Whether you're buying low and reselling to NPCs or selling high for additional profit, it all comes down to the same thing: making money off of fools.

It was an example to illustrate my point. The Auction House is full of people taking advantage of stupid people who don't understand the value of something. It happens time and time again on a daily basis; people undercut, sell cheaply and sell for more than your average player would pay for them. Do we scream gilseller at somebody everytime they do this?

Whether people are buying to resell or buying to sell to a vendor is not the relevant point; they're still buying cheaper than they're worth from, bluntly, idiots, and selling them higher than they bought for a profit. The difference is, these people are buying from players and selling to players.

It's not so much that people are doing this that rattles my cage. It's just the fact that everybody instantly assumes people are gilsellers if they're taking advantage of holes in the Auction House. I've been on the receiving end of these accusations a few times. To be quite blunt, it's pathetic. As I said in my previous post, it's jealousy of these individuals for finding a gap in the market they could exploit for profit.

As I said before, the people to blame are the morons who won't wait a couple weeks to sell their item at its usual price. Just think about it for a moment. A sensible player isn't going to sell a Scorpion Harness +1 for 50k, are they? A sensible players knows the value of his or her items, and if the Auction House is way down from the normal price, then a sensible player waits until it goes back up again.

Bottom line is, it always does.

I'd like to think that the people playing FFXI aren't complete fools, only ignorant.
They just need the information to make personal choices.
As for the ToS, it has a clause that may encompass what I am accusing them of:
Disruptive Behavior-
1. Any action that deliberately causes a monster to attack another player character, or MPK-related action.
2. Holding a Notorious Monster without attacking it while other players are waiting.
3. Deliberately interrupting a conversation or chat session by spamming the log window or other such actions.
4. Sending unwanted items to another player through the delivery box.
5. Group actions that block access and impede other players' movements within the game.
6. Any action that keeps another player from completing a quest or mission.
7. Examining other players continuously to disrupt their gameplay.
8. Actions that excessively deprive others of the ability to experience various gameplay features.
9. Any other action that is determined by a GM to cause a disruption in gameplay.

I also have reason to believe that, although not an "RMT", the players may be using third-party tools.
~Yote

I do this myself, everyday...I don't see a damn thing wrong with it, and if others wanna QQ about it, frankly, they can eat me. I didn't always do this, I used to make money the old fashioned farming way, but one day I just got sick and *** tired of stupid *** undercutting ***to below vendor price...so now I just camp the AH and buy up the retard's ***and vendor it.

And you know what? I make more money doing that ***then I did farming. There's a lot of stupid *** out there, and instead of me losing my *** mind when ***kicks back for the third and fourth time, I now get to /cheer when someone undercuts ***by thousands of gil...because they just made me even more money for like zero actual work. {Thank you}{/bow}

I make about 50-75k a week doing that, nothing major, but enough to cover expenses and basic gear upgrades. I shoulda been doing this from the start, I'd be rich by now with all the idiot undercutting and ***.

Raising the price of an item on the AH doesn't stop you from trying to buy it.

You fail

How do you know the approximate value of your item?
Do you check price history? Do you check ffxiah.com history?

This group of players, buy and sell from each other at extremely low prices on high priced items.
They do this over and over, until the entire history is flooded with the price they want it to be.

You are right, more intelligent players know the value of their items.
However, there are those that are duped into thinking otherwise, because they just don't know better.
Then they sell their items on the AH for the historical price and lose a lot of money.
This has not happened to me, but I feel it is necessary to at least inform people on what is happening.

I honestly believe that their actions cause a disruption in regular gameplay, which is a violation of the ToS.
~Yote