Greedy Goblin

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Morons of the week

Moravan of Ravenholdt-US found us someone who was bragging on selling something below vendor price:


Standard M&S letter with the standard answer by Nicciter of Smolderthorn-US. Someone could make an addon to answer this automatically:


Atkin more or less remade my flasks post with glyphs, making a desperate monopolist buying up his glyphs. Poor (2.6K poorer to be exact) monopolist:


Muted - Defias Brotherhood sold something I never would try to sell an item that every lvl 1 rogue gets for free:


Jo aka Big of Daggerspine-US found another great classic:
He also has the habit of sending those who make a ridiculous offer (like 2K for a battered hilt) to Silithus. I don't think he means it literally though:


Another classic by Lisha: hatemail for selling arrows as singles. But next to it something highly unusual. No one moron here, it's just so rare to see: someone learns!


Mikko find this great specimen. He has 450 inscription, so he's not leveling:


Keep sending morons as long as they keep being morons!

18 comments:

zi said...

"hey you bitch" lawl, fun.
keep the morons coming :P

Anti said...

question about your earlier post you linked to in this one: so you bought 214k gold worth of items on one server and sold them over 2 weeks on another server at a slight profit. does this realy count as hitting the gold cap ? it was more about liquidation of assets. sure you bought the right assets before the transfer to make liquidation easier.

Craig R said...

Altruism does not equate to stupidity.

I see a moron in the last picture, and it's not the player with inscription.

There's nothing wrong with an unconventional yet fulfilling business model if the person's aim is to work mostly under the auspices of charity.
Calling the player a hypocrite is laughably ignorant. I can think of a myriad of reasons the player might be willing to work pro bono publico, including-but-not-limited-to not being interested in involving themselves in the rigours of the auction house.

For all we know, the player makes a tidy sum doing trade chat business using their mats; likely nothing astronomical, but more than enough to pay repair/consumable bills.

again; an altruistic business model may not be pure profit, but if it supplies enough gold for the needs of the player, and they enjoy doing it, then I see nothing stupid about it.

Anonymous said...

To be fair on the Thug Shirt, it's really no different from paying somebody for a limited supply recipe in Desolace. There are no mailboxes in the starting zones, so you'd have to run all the way to the capital... not a long trip, sure, but Desolace isn't either.

But do you really want to go to Desolace?

Datwo said...

The "inscription moron"'s strategy doesn't seem a bad one at first, i'd say he does it to create a vast customer base. With that and glyphs costing next to nothing, he is able to sell all his glyphs for 10g regardless of market price.

Anonymous said...

i have to agree with some other posters here and say that the last guy does not qualify as a moron.

offering his services for free will incite people into getting that glyoph, i mean its free.
thats a hook, then they check the AH mats and see that buying the ink is most likely a bad idea and just pay him 10g, it seems like a perfectly profitable buissiness model, especialy if you sell the inks too, odds are they dont now about jessica so yure fairly certain they wont find the ink or it will be grossly overpriced, and since you moved in the guise of charity most people wont think a second thougth about giving you the 10g.
ps i enjoyed the i have to try it myself comment from one of the "morons" - strictly speaking an intelegent letter with no whining and an abbility to learn migth not qualify imoh but fun none the less

Anonymous said...

This time in the last discussion the moron clearly is the troll, who kinda pointlessly attacked the altruistic guy. If he does not take a fee, it does not imply that he should also craft for free with his mats.

And just be realistic, how many people, who need glyphs, but have no clue about inscription, will go all the way to answer the question "where the hell do I get parchment?"?

And people, who see [Glyph of something] posted to AH by Ubermonopoly for 129.99.99, will use this guys services.

It is not the highest gold/hr most likely, but it really does not matter, since he most likely "camps" the trade for half an hour or so, and after that he has enough gold for his daily repairs/supplies for a few days.

Anonymous said...

I really wonder at what your definition of 'moron' is -- someone making an offer for 2000 g for an item (not detailed in this exchange), or someone going where the 'seller' said to meet them after getting an 'ok'?

The REAL moron is the one who said 'ok'. No, make that the real 'villain'. He should have said 'no'.

Wildhorn said...

1) "Keep sending morons as long as they keep being morons!". Is it about me sending a Moron of the Week, who learned that he was moron and stopped to be?

2) I just noticed that Moron of the Week gives the same acronym (MotW) than Mark of the Wild.

3) About the guy with 450 inscription. Even if I think he is not 100% bright, its way to sell is not 100% fail. Most people do not want to use their own mats and will pay the 10g. So the guy make about the same than selling most glyphs in AH. For those who got the mats, they will most likely tip him, so he will end up with gold anyway.

Anonymous said...

Not agreeing with the thug shirt qualifying as a moron, the rest are as usual.

Would you, o noble goblins, spend 15 minutes creating/running a level 1 rogue to a mailbox to send yourself a shirt or would you just pay 10-20-30-50-100g out of your immense piles of coins that you sleep on?

The Gnome of Zurich said...

Sessurea isnt' really a moron. Most people who bring their own mats will tip, and you may make more on average by being "free" and taking tips than by charging any particular amount.

It's amazing to me how most people will give me 10-20g as a tip for something, but if I want to *charge* 10-20g, I'll get a million tells about how outrageous that is.

If you are going to use trade to sell services at all, this seems as good a way as any in my experience.

Nielas said...

Once a gain a few entries that really should not qualify for 'morons of the week'.

The first entry had that guy who put a Frozen Orb on the AH for 1 copper. The guy obviously is just doing it for the 'lulz' and is not actually trying to make any money. It would seem he just wanted to see how fast the orb would sell if he posted it for 1c.

I am disappointed in your use of the word 'ridiculous' when describing the offer on the Battered Hilt. It is probably not the 'going rate' but it would be anti-goblinish to pay the going rate if you can try to get something for much cheaper. The guy is stupid because he failed to realize that the seller is obviously not in Silithis (he was posting in Trade) and failed to shift-click the name in chat to verify where the seller is. If I had a reasonable chance to buy a Battered Hilt for 2k I would fly to Silithus in a heartbeat. The guy simply fell for a practical joke but his behaviour up to that point was not moronic.

The inscription guy is hardly moronic as well. Assuming a cost per ink of 4.50 then he is usually making a 100% profit on any glyphs he makes with his own mats and if the customers bring him their own mats (few would) it only costs him a bit of time which he might not value much since he might just be killing time waiting for a raid or friends to log on. Heck, for all we know he might be doing this specificly so people buy his inks from the AH. The other guy is clearly just baiting him so he has something to sent to this blog.

Unknown said...

Optimally, he is the one selling the inks on the auction house. It might be a decently efficient money-making trick.

However, pure altruism IS stupidity. There is no question about it. If he does this just to "be nice" he is stupid.

Anonymous said...

I don't really think the last guy is a moron. Perhaps he enjoys dealing with people and glyphs. People think the game is fun for different reasons, perhaps running a glyph service is fun for him. And OMFG, perhaps he's not even trying to earn gold.

Anyone who's not trying to make profit is a moron to Gevlon apparently. Lawl.

Bronze said...

I actually sell my glyphs the same way, your mats free my mats 10G people are generally so happy that i have the glyphs they need they give me 4-5 G for a tip even when they pay the 10g so its not a bad deal

Anonymous said...

The last guy is obviously not selling inks or doing a scheme of any sorts to get rich. He thinks giving stuff away for free will make him popular or something. Don't know what you guys are smoking...

Anonymous said...

"And OMFG, perhaps he's not even trying to earn gold. "

If he's not trying to get gold, then why is he advertising in trade?

You know what I DON'T do when I don't want to make gold?

I don't go to trade advertising my services, that's what.

Chris said...

"Free, your mats" is actually smart business sense. You just need to make sure you control the ink market, too.

Post your inks at a price that's lower than your advertised glyph price. Now, people will purchase your inks and bring them to you to craft, and you end up making profit while making your customers think they're getting a great deal. A friend sometimes makes up to 50g tips for his "free" gem cutting business, and it's often from people who purchased his raw materials at the AH.

Finding a way to let your customers select the price point that's best for them is a great strategy if you can make it work.

It also gives you opportunity to make a personal connection with your customers and maybe learn something new about the market.

Slightly off topic, I've noticed a new trend of "farmed it so it's free" going on, even with players who I usually respect the economic sense of. Specifically, a bunch of people are getting primordial saronite by running daily heroics on multiple alts. They spend upwards of 20 minutes to get one token, which works out to be about 7 hours of work for one primordial, which on my server goes for about 2000g.

If it's how you want to farm, that's fine, but be aware that it's still farming. If you want it, just buy it (or if you think the price is too high, sell it and buy more in two months when nobody cares anymore!)