tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post5693974778126803157..comments2024-02-27T14:44:07.868+01:00Comments on Greedy goblin: The goblin manifestoGevlonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07072766785893313616noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-54008496271648261272009-08-02T14:56:56.818+02:002009-08-02T14:56:56.818+02:00Heh, that reminds me of people who make a characte...Heh, that reminds me of people who make a character on a PvP server and then complain when they get attacked by other players.<br /><br />@Sven, I think you're taking Gevlon's comments a bit too strictly. Sure, if 20% of market A is more profitable than 100% of market B, you would be wise to retain that 20% of market A.<br /><br />I think that Gevlon's point is that if there is another Goblin on your server and he is competing in one of your markets, you have to take stock of the situation and determine if it is worthwhile to fight him, or if there's a point at which you decide that you're better off finding another market. It's very likely that you are both taking a beating at that point, and other factors (pride, stupidity) are what is keeping you going.<br /><br />The impression I get is that Gevlon's philosophy is never a case of "when A happens, <i>always</i> do B, no matter what." His philosophy seems to be built on the idea that you must be flexible and willing to make adjustments based on circumstances. Thus, if it's more profitable to retain a small portion of one market, you would do that. Otherwise you seek out more profitable markets and avoid fighting a battle with no winners.Tonushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01082528970434639776noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-16826125341665600112009-08-02T01:57:54.427+02:002009-08-02T01:57:54.427+02:00/Agreed completely with this post Gevlon.
I rece.../Agreed completely with this post Gevlon. <br /><br />I recently started a new toon on a server mor ein keeping with my time zone than my usual one. After 6 weeks I have 10k gold. I have done this through a couple of specialty recipies and via de'ing and selling the infinite dust etc residue.<br /><br />When I arrived infinite dust was selling for an average of 4.80 gold per unit. The price now sits at about 3.20 gold per unit. This has come about directly as a result of the response from the other two business types who were in the market. For 5 weeks it was easy money, making a killing with little thinking, just the time needed to make the items I could then d/e for nice profits.<br /><br />My decision is now whether to fight for the market or find another niche. The money opportunities are there. And as a sub-part of WoW it is a game I really enjoy!Thaumaturgosnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-41779854551117727732009-08-01T14:26:19.756+02:002009-08-01T14:26:19.756+02:00I am on a server with a ton of goblins in almost e...I am on a server with a ton of goblins in almost every market. By a ton I mean three or four at any time in any given market. I have found I make more money by diversifying. I sell only the most profitable glyphs, I transmute skyflare/earthsiege diamonds with my master transmuter (additional 25% production for the same materials) and pay a jewelcrafter to cut meta gems. I buy cloth and pay a tailor to turn it into moon shroud/ebon weave/spell weave (bags are difficult on my server selling at or near materials cost) Eternal Belt buckles with my blacksmith. I have found numerous small niches and use those to support 3-5k a week. Not Gelvon level, but it has paid for me to have an inscriber with every glyph, and the ability to buy pretty much anything I want.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03393172307936847941noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-90411722910703272009-08-01T12:58:09.740+02:002009-08-01T12:58:09.740+02:00Actually,
Sending letters only fails if your compe...Actually,<br />Sending letters only fails if your competitor is a goblin. If the competitor is an M&S, you send a letter, set the bar somewhere you are comfertable, and then undercut him with an alt.<br /><br />And if he is a goblin, then he thinks your an idiot. Boo hoo, like i care.Joe Nothin'http://greenpeace.org.ilnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-29115102937608552792009-08-01T11:49:59.715+02:002009-08-01T11:49:59.715+02:00Every market has a sub market that can be profitab...Every market has a sub market that can be profitable. People need to look out of the box and I am not saying to totally leave your market, but instead to spread your investments out. Gevlon is writes on the inscription market. What off shoots the inscription market? I can think of a few things off the bat...herbs, pigments, inks, cards, books, disenchanting, vellum, and glyphs. These sub markets are in every profession and can yield profit too. Try not to get caught up in tunnel vision.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-53629341085024206122009-08-01T04:28:16.117+02:002009-08-01T04:28:16.117+02:00BTW..
About the winning a market by the Goblin wi...BTW..<br /><br />About the winning a market by the Goblin with the deepest pockets: I think that theory works well in real businesses, because those always have continuous expenses to cover, whether they do something or not. They've got salary to pay (even if it's only their own, they've got to eat), office buildings to rent, etc. Also, there's the problem of people sticking to "known" sources, so if you lost a client, you have to do extra effort to get him back. This means you can't sit still, you've got to make profit sooner or later.<br /><br />In this game, this does not apply. The war for a market could actually have a complete other outcome there then expected, because here it's possible to play the waiting game without losing anything. The most aggressive goblin with the most money might go lower then you, but you share resources, so it's not likely that he can produce cheaper then you're capable of, unless he's got private providers that don't check AH (very unlikely). If he decides to lose money for a while just to get rid of you, he's killing only himself. The reason is that he's losing gold, and all you need to do is sit back and relax for a while while he burns some of his his reserves. Of course, sometimes you could still undercut him just to keep him sharp.Woolynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-85041337333743916882009-08-01T02:59:27.429+02:002009-08-01T02:59:27.429+02:00So Gevlon, what do you do in real life, that lets ...So Gevlon, what do you do in real life, that lets you fly high over the M&S in real life?<br /><br />Day trading? Some kind of financial speculation?Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08348531393587997353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-83460982774010665222009-07-31T23:20:31.208+02:002009-07-31T23:20:31.208+02:00Oh, and a corollary to that last post: I was makin...Oh, and a corollary to that last post: I was making a large amount of money for that rich purple shirt for a period of a few months. (Several a day, I think 50g a piece minimum, very early vanilla WoW days when that was actually a good amount of money.)<br /><br />I would occasionally see people list the recipe on the AH. Every time it appeared, I would buy it up. I didn't care about the price, I was out to stop the proliferation of that recipe. I was tempted to destroy or vendor them, but it turned out that saving them in an alt's mailbox was for the best.<br /><br />When the market crashed, I made a large amount of money off of those stored up recipes. When someone made the market unprofitable for me, I had my little cruel joke as a parting gift. There were a whole lot of new tailors able to make that shirt.Daniel Chapmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11206113247985853824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-16324821046695939102009-07-31T23:18:57.378+02:002009-07-31T23:18:57.378+02:00This comment has been removed by the author.Daniel Chapmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11206113247985853824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-54178599632469735802009-07-31T23:16:13.574+02:002009-07-31T23:16:13.574+02:00One thing that I don't understand is the assum...One thing that I don't understand is the assumption that the people sending the letters are expending something in order to make their attempt.<br /><br />I once made a large amount of money selling Rich Purple Shirts. It was a rare pattern, I was playing on a roleplaying server, and well, I guess they looked cool because I sold a bunch for a good price. <br /><br />Well, one day this guy sends me an email saying "I've been selling them for 50g, I see you undercutting me. If we keep the price at 50g, we can both sell some and we'll both make more profit overall."<br /><br />I agreed. Took him all of five seconds to write it. <br /><br />Later, someone did undercut us and that market became pointless, someone else didn't understand that the goal is not to sell as many items as possible, but instead to earn as much money as possible.<br /><br />I also once had someone try and convince me to raise my price, which I did, and then he very quickly broke the agreement. It cost me about two days of sales to realize he broke the agreement, but hey... It didn't really cost me that much money, since I did make a fair bit of money at the new higher price.Daniel Chapmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11206113247985853824noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-15480600252856134732009-07-31T23:06:56.447+02:002009-07-31T23:06:56.447+02:00luv2bdryvin has an interesting point, one that I a...luv2bdryvin has an interesting point, one that I agree with myself. I am more than happy to sell my glyphs anywhere from material cost + 1g and up. It makes no difference to me, I believe that even on a bad day, the 1g profit on a 4g sale is acceptable. I have a very nice production set up so it takes very little time to mill, craft, and post up my daily listings. Most of the time I'm doing housework :)<br /><br />The very low glyph prices serve two purposes to me, they identify the real goblins on my server, I can tell after a few days or a week if someone is testing the inscription market or is in it for the longer haul. I was able to eliminate many competitors on my server as the prices dropped below 8g a glyph, and even more as they went down below 5g a glyph. The very low prices also make the time investment worthless to most. I know I'm going to eliminate a competitor when I start getting mail from them begging me to use "common sense" or to "learn how to undercut" or to stop "selling below cost" Whose cost? I never sell below my cost, but if its below their cost too bad for them. When they start buying up my postings I go all out and reduce prices again so I know that they are taking losses. <br /><br />The prices always start to creep up after I've driven them down to 3g a glyph..a week or so later those same glyphs are back to selling for 7 or 8 gold or more and with no competition. I let my addons take care of pricing and once a week I go through the logs and adjust manually where needed.<br /><br />The same idea can be applied to any tradeskills on a smaller scale. I've an alt toon that is a tailor and enchanter and I've managed to develop a very nice income in the BC enchant business. I have almost no competitors there and I'm very careful to post only a few scrolls at a time so as not to create the impression that there is a big market for that stuff. Twinks never go out of style :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-82185706562000435552009-07-31T22:58:15.662+02:002009-07-31T22:58:15.662+02:00First-time poster, long-time reader.
This looks l...First-time poster, long-time reader.<br /><br />This looks like a classic example of:<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory<br /><br />A.k.a. Market equilibriumAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-90109660336991038032009-07-31T19:20:09.492+02:002009-07-31T19:20:09.492+02:00Ahah! Found a recent post on this:
Gevlon said:
...Ahah! Found a recent post on this:<br /><br />Gevlon said:<br /><br />"There are two kind of "price fixers". The first is not surely wrong (for himself), just ineffective. He suggest to undercut just by silvers. Of course the silver-undercutting war is won by the one who spends the most time by the AH. However the point of going to the AH instead of grinding elementals is exactly to save time. If you camp the AH 10 hours a day to always relist your stuff when undercut, your gold/hour ratio falls to the region of double gatherers. By undercutting several golds, you simply force the competition to either abandon their precious gold and undercut you or list on "normal" price and then your stuff will sell."Svenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07968080562561684936noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-58372146134304803302009-07-31T19:17:23.367+02:002009-07-31T19:17:23.367+02:00@luv2bdryvin
What you're doing is pretty much...@luv2bdryvin<br /><br />What you're doing is pretty much what I do - small undercuts rather than massive ones designed to drive others out of business. This leaves plenty of room for others to make profit.<br /><br />However, I don't think that's what Gevlon means by it. Judging by his previous posts, he seems to believe in large-scale "last man standing" undercutting designed to monopolise the market. I'm sure he'll correct me if I've misunderstood.Svenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07968080562561684936noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-72788803338256464592009-07-31T18:38:03.999+02:002009-07-31T18:38:03.999+02:00@Sven-
The idea of a "price war" is way...@Sven-<br /><br />The idea of a "price war" is way less complicated than you are making it. Here is how a goblin works:<br />Price of all glyphs: 20g/25g buyout.<br />Undercut by: 50s<br />Minimum listing price: 5g.<br /><br />It costs me about 4g to make a glyph. I decided than anything less than 1g profit isn't worth it (crafting expense). I am happy to sell a glyph for 5g or for my max of 25g. Either way I make profit. What you could do? Batch post right after I do, every time, with your minimum being 4g50s. Yes— you would make 50s per glyph. Go for it. Its not worth it to me. Anything more than 5g I love though.<br /><br />As depressing as this may seem: I probably won't even notice if you start a "price war" with me. It doesn't cost me a single copper to keep posting the way I do (ok... well... the posting fees, but those are tiny) and if a glyph goes unsold, I have lost nothing.<br /><br />I don't have to have "deep pockets" to be in this price war thing. It may cause them to fill slower, but I'm not stupid enough to sell below cost, so whether you are "price warring" me or not, I still make gold.<br /><br />@spinksville<br /><br />Losing and winning? Hm... If you're talking with someone who has these kind of emotions, I don't think you're dealing with a true goblin. I have the feeling gevlon doesn't think about things in those terms.<br /><br />Nice blog btw (I only read 4 blogs, you and gevlon are two of them)<br /><br />@Observ<br /><br />Do you really not get this? The only way to "destroy" a goblin is to be one yourself. And even then usually that just forces them into a market that you aren't in... this really doesn't bother them too much. <br /><br />Just pouring money into trying to thwart them will generally just cause them to laugh, and usually cause them to find a way to make money off your stupidity. If you had infinite gold, this might be possible. But, even if you bought gold-cap amount from NiHao man that would run out fairly quickly, and a good part of that would end up in the goblin's pocket I believe.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-69696524420797259892009-07-31T18:29:48.970+02:002009-07-31T18:29:48.970+02:00I do believe that asking what an M&S given tha...I do believe that asking what an M&S given that Gevlon defines it within this blog makes him an M&S.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-10175155350865974532009-07-31T18:12:52.542+02:002009-07-31T18:12:52.542+02:00"What does "M&S" mean?"
Mo...<i>"What does "M&S" mean?"</i><br />Morons & slackers. It's defined on Gevlon's "about" page. It's his catch-all term for people who are too stupid or lazy to succeed.Svenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07968080562561684936noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-59864160163749268732009-07-31T18:11:45.358+02:002009-07-31T18:11:45.358+02:00It is true that the more that people undercut, the...It is true that the more that people undercut, the lower the prices go, and this is bad for the businessmen and good for the consumer. But, like you said, when you can't make much profit, you have to find other things to make and sell. This is why undercutting is better overall to everybody than price fixing. The competition between businessmen forces them to change their business to find other profits. Then they must make and sell other items that people want. If everybody could fix their prices, what would happen is that all sorts of obscure items would never be created nor sold on the auction house, because no businessmen would be motivated to find other things that people wanted to buy. Sometimes it is me who has to do this work to find out what materials I need to buy or gather to make these other items and it is annoying but it is better overall. There are countless stories of grocery stores in the old Soviet bloc which only had very limited items for sale. This is what happens when there is no true free market and no competition between businessmen.Yagglehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15177750815584983551noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-51299271222147452202009-07-31T17:28:04.911+02:002009-07-31T17:28:04.911+02:00Okay, I give up.
What does "M&S" me...Okay, I give up.<br /><br />What does "M&S" mean?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-89936105223757270632009-07-31T16:46:27.364+02:002009-07-31T16:46:27.364+02:00@Gevlon,
You should take a look at the economic ...@Gevlon, <br /><br />You should take a look at the economic impacts of the macro/exploit ore miners and the impact this is having on the related tradeskills. With ore prices crashing on most servers, despite titanium ore being stockpiled by most goblins, and the upcoming major shift in the gem market, your perspective on how this is going to shake down accross the impacted markets would be interesting.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-27905907477554734082009-07-31T16:08:14.858+02:002009-07-31T16:08:14.858+02:00Thanks for responding to that question. I was stil...Thanks for responding to that question. I was still in doubt if I missed something or not.<br /><br />What you mention is what I've been trying to do lately: actively looking for and filling gaps in the market. And even though there are many traders like me, there's always something not sold at a certain moment. I'm glad I started inscription now, because even though the biggest no-life 24/7 camper on the planet tries to rule that market, it's just to big for one guy. That market alone will usually have a gap somewhere.Woolynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-53536395783152358012009-07-31T16:03:33.910+02:002009-07-31T16:03:33.910+02:00@Gevlon
100% of another market *may* be better th...@Gevlon<br /><br />100% of another market *may* be better than 20% of the current one, but it isn't necessarily so. Presumably there's a reason why you were in market A rather than market B to begin with, i.e. it was more profitable. it's all a question of return on capital employed. If 20% of market B is bringing you 100% profit per day, whereas 100% of market B is only bringing you 25%, that's not a good deal.<br /><br />Secondly, there is no reason why being in market A precludes you from being in B anyway. I don't imagine you're short of investment funds. So it's not a question of 20% of market A vs 100% of market B, it's 20% of market A + 100% of market B vs just 100% of market B. The latter option makes you less profit.<br /><br />But hey, if you're turning down good business just because you don't get the ego boost of "winning" in that market, that's fine by me. I'm happy to take the money.Svenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07968080562561684936noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-45264145508404821552009-07-31T16:00:22.487+02:002009-07-31T16:00:22.487+02:00This comment has been removed by the author.Svenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07968080562561684936noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-29654864587867444472009-07-31T15:34:22.377+02:002009-07-31T15:34:22.377+02:00i don't know if mentioned before but regarding...i don't know if mentioned before but regarding alchemy, Guru's Elixirs are a pretty good sell. They only need 3 Pygmy Oils + 1 imbued flash and usually the cost of the pygmy oils and pygmy suckerfish on the AH are way below the cost of the elixirs.Cristobal Cardonahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11253493093671686784noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1461700565722278823.post-47903401936328480882009-07-31T14:45:07.194+02:002009-07-31T14:45:07.194+02:00@Sven: 100% of another market is better than 20% o...@Sven: 100% of another market is better than 20% of the current.Gevlonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07072766785893313616noreply@blogger.com