Greedy Goblin

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Morons of the week

Manu sent a screenshot of a conversation. It's long and french, so I just post the translation:

HI
I'd like to know something why do you sell your glyphs at half price ? You're crashing the market, that's bullshit they won't sell faster
I reduce my margin to take over the market, yes
you don't get it
Yeah, I must make 1000 gold per day by accident.
instead of selling at 40 you sell at 20 ...
yes.
so ?
If I lower my prices, more people will buy mine
WELL IF YOU used the same prices as those who know the game, you wouldn't make 1000 gold, but 2000
what I loose on an item, I win back in volume
No lol you don't get it people don't care about the price they even buy glyphs at 80 gold they don't care if it's 20 or 40 but I put it on sale at 40 and you put it right after me at 20 it doesn't make sense. put it at 39 they'll sell as well
ok, I see what you mean :)
but it's automatic and, I don't want to come back an hour later to find that someone is selling at 38 ^^
yeah man I always come back after you and put them 1 gold lower
lol
so don't crash the market, a glyph that used to sell at 50 is at 10 in two days
If I don't do it someone else will it moves forward margins of 0
a glyph that you sell frequently should be at 40 gold minimum I have nothing against you, we're all here to make money
fine I'll check if I have to change methods, thanks
no problem but it's guarantied, a week ago I sold (Glyph of Prayer of Healing) for 80 gold People don't care about the price see ya


Driphter sent a screenshot with another M&S mail:


Anne screenshotted some genius from trade chat:


The last idiot was screenshotted by me. It needs some explanation. My GF spotted that SoA is the daily PvP and she loves it anyway, so asked me to join. She was in with her prot warri, that can damage nearly zero, but can shoot cannons and hold up flag capturers for a minute. She was defending the last flag, after both red and purple gate was destroyed with all cannons. I was shooting from the yellow cannon platform to anyone who attacked the cannons. Suddenly she started to laugh. Not giggled like a lady but laughed as a horse. She could barely hold the mouse. I peeked to her screen and saw a catapult going to the flag, trying to kill her. It rotated and shoot fireballs everywhere but made 0 damage on her. I left the cannon and blinked there to dispose it before it draws other allies to the flag. By the time I got there, there was nothing to dispose. No, not my girlfriend destroyed it. Actually it was not destroyed at all. It was just disabled by the most pure form of stupidity I've met this week:

We won of course. Too bad I had no access to the ally /bg.

29 comments:

Belsebub said...

Nice to see a sunday post again. But I do have to say driving a demolisher into the water is propably one of the most stupid things you can do...

Carl said...

I don't see how the 2nd one is a M&S post. By your definition, isn't he just another goblin who's admitting defeat in the "price war" and heading off for another niche?

Unknown said...

That last picture made me proper laugh, thank you, saved my day :D

André said...

Although I am not a AH-player, there's just one rule I have about selling stuff I gathered while levelling.

Not Sold stuff is worth only the vendor-price. And it's only taking up bag-space. Rather sell hem 'cheap' then hold onto them.

Anonymous said...

I think you are bad person at least in wow world, if you are the same IRL then i hope i will never meet you...

Cosmos said...

Hilarious, and utterly so.
Man, each moron even worse and more hilarious than the last...

But that SoA!

I didn't... how could it... it shouldn't be POSSIBLE to be that clueless!

Ikuturso said...

On the other hand, defending the last GY is questionable at best. It is a liablity for the attackers to have to run back for the demolishers.

Wooly said...

The last picture could be an advert against drinking and driving. It's hilarious :)

About the others. 5g a glyph? That's a good price! what is he complaining about? If all glyphs sold that high on my server I could have been rich already.

That 2nd post is way over the top. I don't really believe that the guy was either thinking that for real, or was a pissed of ex-trader like Lupius said. That guy just wants to keep others out of his market and tries to convince 'm it's bad. And that's not a bad stategy, because even idiots on a market can be a pain for a while.

Wooly said...

EDIT:

Whoops, with 2nd I meant 2nd picture. Skipped the first conversation. 80g a glyph? is that guy talking about same game I'm playing? He's right on one point though, people sometimes pay insane amounts for items, even though a simple LF <insert prof> would save a bunch. That guy is truly profiting only from M&S, I give him that.

Anonymous said...

Maybe the person in SoA lagged or his mouse button got stuck or they could be teaching their kid how to play the game...

Arnock on Llane said...

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc26/arnock/Goldbegger.png

Anonymous said...

@Ikuturso - On the other hand, one of the demos alliance would have to run back for has wasted minutes of its time and is now in a ditch :)

Manu said...

I'm Manu ! Thanks for publishing my moron :)

Bether said...

So, Gevlon, how would you handle the second guy?

Not worry about it? Most of his 800 glyphs @5g would sell quickly.

Let him go, or take his inventory?

I guess I know the answer.

I'm trying out your methods on my US server (Horde). We'll see how it goes.

Thunderhorns said...

Hahaha. That last screenshot is priceless. What a moron.

Unknown said...

Gevlon, do you have fun in WoW? Much of your posts seem to be about how other players are dumb.

I love the game and have a lot of fun with it. I hope you do, too.

Sean said...

You seem to like to take the mickey out of these so called 'morons of the week'.

Let me refers to the first example: what the person did was try and get his competitor into a price fixing arrangement.

It's been proven time and time again. It is possible for people to collude and thus increase profits for themselves.

Real world examples: OPEC, etc. And you have to wonder why governments around the world have such a dim view on anti-competition practices.

Who knows? If the poster had agreed to price fix, maybe the profit would've been 1500 a day instead of 1000. They won't know until they try.

But instead, they ridicule the so called 'M&S' with their own 'goblin' behaviour which may actually yield less profit.

Of course there's no proof to say price fixing works, but the proposer is definitely no M&S.

Unknown said...

"It's been proven time and time again. It is possible for people to collude and thus increase profits for themselves."


"You obviously don't actually read this blog. Making you an M&S.

Sean said...

@Robert:
I'm certainly no M&S. I'm capable of independent thought and not a sheep follower like a lot of people.

The truth remains: if price fixing is not an issue, why are there laws throughout the world that regulates this?

Certainly, price fixing won't work in all situations. But lets consider this: One a server with little competition and on a industry with barrier to entry (like inscription), it may be better for 2 people to collude rather than fighting out amongst each other.

If you want to criticise at least come up with some evidence and reasoning. Like I did with real-world price fixing examples.

Saying I don't read the blog which makes me M&S shows your status as a sheep, blindly following advice without any thinking of your own.

Carl said...

Prices fixing is an issue in the real world because essential services and products have a constant demand regardless of their price.
This is different from the glygh industry in WoW. By selling glyphs on the AH, you're providing the service of a seller, not an inscribe. If prices are fixed too high then people would simply ask in /g or spam "LF inscribe my mats" on trade. So while your profit per item goes up linearly, your sales volume drops exponentially. Take some time to do the math.

Anonymous said...

I got these kind of emails even when selling on Amazon.

Sean said...

@Lupius:
The problem is that some people take Gevlon's word too much for granted without considering the full story.

Take the case of price fixing: in economics, there is a 'sweet spot' where fixing the price of an item at a particular price will yield the maximum amount of profit. This 'sweet spot' need not be high, it could be 20% more than the equilibrium price.

Price fixing can fail if:
1) Competitors refuse to cooperate.
2) Too many competitors and hence difficult to get agreements.

Price fixing DOES NOT fail because of the reduced demand. The reason why it may not work is because of competitors.

The point I'm making is that price fixing may be a viable strategy. Whether it is successful or not will depend on the server. However, it is too far fetched to assume that everyone who wants to adopt and organise this strategy as M&S.

Gevlon uses his own experiences in the glyph market on his server and extrapolates the results on other servers.

On my server, I refuse to cooperate because there are no other dominant big players. If however, another goblin comes into my turf, I have a choice:
1) Fight it out and have reduced profit.
2) Leave the industry and look for alternatives (but less than what it was before).
3) Collude (less than what it was before but possible better than 2).

If I was blindly following advice I'll pick 1) or 2). This may mean that I'm missing out option 3) which may yield more profit.

Sean said...

Those who are interested should look up game theory which explains competitive and cooperative behaviour:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory

Glyph, the Architect said...

The thing about price fixing in Wow is that this is one thing in game economics that isn't the same as it is in real world economics. In the real world, we don't have nodes that respawn. Price fixing works because if you get the competitors colluding with each other to fix prices, then they logically control most of the supply. They can then block out new competitors from entering the market.

In WoW, if there are four people who control the glyph market on a server in collusion with each other, it costs another competitor absolutely nothing to do exactly what Gevlon is doing. Well, it costs the price of training the recipes and some start up money for herbs to make the first glyph listings, but if they meet that qualification then they can easily enter the market and undercut by 20g per glyph.

This is why collusion is not a great idea in the WoW market (with the possible exception of the "very hard to obtain items" market). Even if it is mathematically more profitable in the short term, in the long term it will get you put out of business. Much like how the competitor who wrote the original letter was.

bubu said...

hehe...u gotta love the M&S. those moments are priceless...

manu said...

@Azzur

"Let me refers to the first example: what the person did was try and get his competitor into a price fixing arrangement.

It's been proven time and time again. It is possible for people to collude and thus increase profits for themselves."


Since I'm the one who sent the story, let me explain. Price fixing schemes in Wow are stupid, because as soon as 2 guys agree on a price, some other guy will come along and screw them both.

The guy I was talking too was definitely a moron, trying to get me to up my prices, but saying "yeah I always underbid you".

So what he was really saying was "please don't sell so low, I can't undercut you anymore".

Heywood Djiblomi said...

Why price fixing cannot work in WoW:

1) RL collusion involves competitors that have unique storefronts that each service a different segment of the consumer population (differentiated by proximity to Store "A" vs. Store "B"). The WoW AH is the ONE AND ONLY storefront (not counting hawking in /2) in the virtual world; there is only ONE lowest price on a given commodity, not 20 of the same price on 20 different AHs, each with their own unique stock. Here is the problem: Who gets to decide who will be lowest? I guarantee the other participants would rather THEY were the low price.

2) Alts. I can agree to collusion terms all day, and still make an alt to go around the agreement to screw my competitors - and they can do the same to me.

There are more, I'm certain, but these are the first two things that instantaneously came to mind.

Anonymous said...

Gevlon was just lucky that there wasn't another dedicated crafter on his realm. In Inscription, it's very easy to destroy the market by keeping the price of glyphs at just 50s above the cost of mats. You won't make much money, but neither will the undercuters. And from then on it's only a battle of wills and time spent. And time is something true ah sharks value the most, as it's the only true measure of their success :)

adrian314 said...

how do post screenshots from my screenshot folder?