The Complaint Dept

[Kits Rose]

I think whoever writes the announcements needs to use spellcheck. cat_ninja  

[ThisEmptySoul]

I'd like to complain about people who hoard already expensive items to make them even more outrageously expensive! scream I've been working my a** off trying to afford Sainte Ciel: Agape, which was 1.7 million when I started. Devoted Spica came out so of course people started buying Agape up because they wanted the hair cut {which was advertised in the announcement as well stare }. So the price was going to end up between 1.8 and 2 mil.

Now suddenly, all but 4 have disappeared from the market: 5 mil, 6 mil, and two 10 mil ones. A 2.3 mil one was just listed, but that's still quite a bit over how much it was naturally increasing {and more than I have for it at the moment}. It'll probably be gone by the time whoever is out there hoarding them wakes up and finds it there.

Hoarding is a good way to make gold with minimal effort if you have the funds to invest in it and a good eye for what will go up in price, but it screws over everyone who actually wants the item. stare  

[lady ayami chan]

ThisEmptySoul

I'd like to complain about people who hoard already expensive items to make them even more outrageously expensive! scream I've been working my a** off trying to afford Sainte Ciel: Agape, which was 1.7 million when I started. Devoted Spica came out so of course people started buying Agape up because they wanted the hair cut {which was advertised in the announcement as well stare }. So the price was going to end up between 1.8 and 2 mil.

Now suddenly, all but 4 have disappeared from the market: 5 mil, 6 mil, and two 10 mil ones. A 2.3 mil one was just listed, but that's still quite a bit over how much it was naturally increasing {and more than I have for it at the moment}. It'll probably be gone by the time whoever is out there hoarding them wakes up and finds it there.

Hoarding is a good way to make gold with minimal effort if you have the funds to invest in it and a good eye for what will go up in price, but it screws over everyone who actually wants the item. stare

Try the exchange forum, you can sometimes get items for a reasonable amount there. Post you are looking for that item and the amount you will spend. You get trolls yes, but you are TES you can deal with it.

My stomach hates me, in fact my entire digestive system is shotty, or maybe I just need to learn to eat like a lady... *small dainty bites and portions*  

[Kairanha]

Tes. Now would be the right time to laugh at such hoarders because there is always a rerelease of every REI to make a rapid bundle. Go get yourself some 3rd generation.  

[ThisEmptySoul]

rofl rofl rofl
That's just awesome emotion_awesome

I think I'll buy one when the price comes down more and let Liada have the one I'm borrowing from her back. I'd gotten up to earning 1.5 mil before I quit trying to get it and at this rate, I'll only have to spend a third of that if not less.  

[Lil Brat]

Sad to say there's a guild around here somewhere filled with hoarders... can't remember what they called themselves, but yes, if you think suddenly there are only 2 or 3 of an item and it's quadrupled in price in the millions ~ you probably are not wrong. Bratty wasn't wealthy enough to join this guild ~ probably wouldn't have just cuz inflation sux enough without adding that to the mix.  

[Faerie KatrinaZ]

One of them is called Teh Vending Guild. They have vending guides, and many of their members are always looking for price checks and talk about hoarding items.  

[Kairanha]

Faerie, why are price checks a bad thing? Market data isn't always the most reliable especially where items that rarely sell are concerned. Price checks protect sellers that are inexperienced in higher level items from being manipulated into selling something for far less than it is valued at. The last confirmed sale of the red devil minis was around 5 mil when they are valued as somewhere at or above a Devil Tail/60 mil. This could have been prevented by asking for a price check, but alas, some poor noob got screwed out of 55 mil because they didn't know better.

Now who was in the wrong? Someone asking what an item is worth or the person who practically stole it because the seller didn't ask?  

[ThisEmptySoul]

I was pretty neutral on hoarders for a long time and even considered trying my hand at it because of the "easy money" appeal it has. However, I'm not very good at predicting the market and knew in most cases I would lose more money than I gained, so didn't bother with it.

Even knowing what it does to the price of items, I was still pretty neutral because the market always rebalances itself, sometimes before the hoarder has even unloaded their stock. I knew such was likely to happen with Agape and that it would eventually come out in a bundle as well, but I didn't have the foggiest as to how long it would be until that happened {I figured the bundle was probably still at least a month off}.

Not being one who typically watches the market closely, I have no idea how long it typically takes for the market to correct when someone artificially inflates the price of something, and I was wanting the item pretty soonish so I didn't like the idea of having to wait even longer for the price to stabilize after having come so close. Turns out it's for the better that it had inflated because I'm saving a bunch on it now.

But it definitely put item hoarding in a different light for me to have been trying so hard to get an item, only for it to skyrocket just as I can almost afford it. I still see it as just another way that people play Gaia, but that doesn't mean I condone it.

The more sinister kind of item hoarding is when people group up to perpetually keep an item or items artificially inflated, preventing the market from balancing out. One person taking a few of a certain item out of circulation for a while doesn't have nearly as much impact as a group of people keeping items from selling at prices that reasonably match the value of the item. I heard this is why aquarium fish were so outrageously expensive, well beyond what they were worth in either Gaia cash or what you get out of them before they die. Of course, considering fish have a really crappy return on investment, I suppose that shouldn't be surprising either.  

[Kairanha]

There are many types of hoarders. I'm short term. I specialize in EIs and RIGs/CIs. EIs are the biggest gamble because you have to make a snap judgement on many factors while the EI is still new. Even then it's not like I keep them in my inventory forever. Sometimes I sell off right after the first evolution if there is a big enough spike in prices. I make my profit and wait for the next big thing to show up.

RIGs/CIs are a bit longer, but still bought in the 3-4 week span they are in the cash shop. If a rig is popular and has a few good items and a relatively nice drop rate of them, people will still play to try to win the items even after new rigs have come and gone. The rise in price is mostly due to the fact that once the rig is played, it is forever removed from the system making that much rarer. Over time it adds up. But just like with EIs, if I make a decent profit early on, I'll sell off my hoard and move onto the next rig.

The worst kind of hoarder came out of the Fenix Professionals Guild. The leader would send out guild announcements saying which items to hoard because they would start inflating soon. So the many noobs in the guild were happy to do this because they unknowingly worked together to make things inflate and saw a chance to profit. The difference was that this wasn't with popular items. It was things the guild leader had hoarded and was losing gold on. He was dumping his fail items into the market and having his members buy them up at inflated prices. And by the time the noobs figured out they would never be able to sell the items anywhere near close to what they bought them for, it was too late.

Sad thing is that according to the ToS the guild leader did nothing wrong. Last time I checked up on him was about a year ago and he had Angelic Minis. Oh, that was during the time he made a thread in the site feedback forum about wanting every item on Gaia to inflate at a certain rate no matter what so he could make more profit off of his failed hoarding attempts. It was all really lulzy.

Then there was the guy who dumped his mega hoard of 1,000 demonic anklets into the exchange and market all at once. That did wonders for its price.  

[Faerie KatrinaZ]

Kairanha

Faerie, why are price checks a bad thing?

confused Did I say it was a bad thing? *looks at her last post again.* Nope, I'm pretty sure I didn't. emotion_eyebrow I could have sworn I was just being neutral on the subject by providing a link to a vending guild and just stating a couple of facts. Sorry if you took it the wrong way, Kai. *sighs* neutral  

[ThisEmptySoul]

It's not the post itself. It's the timing of it. When putting it in context with the posts before it, it doesn't come off as neutral as the words in it.  

[Faerie KatrinaZ]

talk2hand TES, my last post wasn't even directed at you, yet you managed to manipulate it in your favor, as you always do in civil conversations. stare

Just to make things clear here, it was not my intention to make it sound as if price checks are a bad thing, or even some hoarding, for that matter. So I'll apologize to all involved for the timing of my first post up there. My original [neutral] intent was only to provide a link to one of Gaia's vending guilds, nothing more.  

[ThisEmptySoul]

rofl I'm not going to deny having ever manipulated conversations to go my way, but in this specific instance, I was just explaining why your post was taken the way it was since you didn't seem to understand it. It didn't have to be directed at me to be able to see that.

You should try lightening up a bit. Consistently making bitter posts will cause that to be carried over into all the wrong places.  

[Kairanha]

Out of context it would be completely reasonable to assume that your post was neutral, but given the thread, timing and the fact that many users that know of the guild dislike it on the basis that vending on higher levels tends to take advantage of other people's mistakes for personal gain, T3h lala Vending Guild, and because for the longest time the most active members trolled and spammed the guild with an elitist attitude, and that hoarding was being talked about in a negative light... I did come to the conclusion that your post was not neutral.

And as the thread goes, complaining is implied. sweatdrop