Talk: Price check

I know market prices are not fixed but in Guild Wars, for many items supply and demand are often at a pretty constant rate. Sure new items may start out very high before stabalising but say take Bleached Shells, the -50 health Grim Cesta and parchment all have what I'd call stable prices. I wouldn't say it's personal perception what the market price is, the market price should be that price that most people are sucessfully trading at. People may misjudge the that price but market price can be defined. If you were trying to define the monetary worth of an item then yes, personal perception would be a major factor then. Of course some items have fluctuating prices but over time the trend is for that price of most items to stabalise. My minor economics background comes out here Tetris L, you'll notice I haven't even bothered changing the article to reflect my understanding, I find it far more interesting talking about something like this ;) Unfortunately I'm off to bed now but see what you think, you may not be interested is this kinda thing at all in which case I'll just make a few changes to the article. --Xasxas256 08:19, 7 June 2006 (CDT)

Sorry, I can only laugh at people who try to pretend that there are item or service prices in GW anywhere near fixed / standard / accurate. I literally LOL when I read something along the lines of "*W*T*S* <item>!!!! NO NEWB OFFERS!!! <##>k MINIMUM! WHISPER ME QUICK". Usually if you read something like that, by rule of thumb the item advertised is worth about half of what the seller is asking for.

Even the prices for stuff that is traded numerous times per day, like a Droknar Run, spread widely. Most runners will advertise it for 2.5-3.5k, but if you're patient and negotiate some you can get a run for 1.5k or for tips. That's factor 2 or more for the spread between a bargain price and a rip-off price. Similar for Bleached Shells. Sellers will usually advertise them for 1k, but buyers are rarely willing to pay more than 500g. Again, factor 2. The only thing that has fairly stable prices with little spread are materials, and that's because everybody has the NPC trader prices for comparison. -- 08:57, 7 June 2006 (CDT)

Well, the problem with the "going" price is that it's very subjective. If people are buying, they swear to you on their mother's grave that the price is X (low) and if they are selling, they swear on their family's honor that it's Y (high). The -50 Grim Cesta is a good example, I have seen people willing to buy at 7k (needs it badly) and I have seen someone refuse to buy it at 4K (doesn't need it so badly).

Another example is Ectos and Shards. When Shards started to rise (before Factions came out), it was obscene. People are ALWAYS looking to make a quick buck. So, the trader raises the sell price to 5k, and you immediately see people trying to sell them for 4500. Meanwhile, the price drops back to 4500 at trader, and they don't know it. So, overall, I think asking people for a Price Check is just a bad idea.

I think the best way is Guru. I put that much in the article. Guru takes the guessing and the dated information out of the game. You see that no one is buying that Sword for 75k but everyone is betting on the same sword for 45k, bingo, there is your good price. --Karlos 09:09, 7 June 2006 (CDT)

If you ask me for a price check, I'll gladly give you one: There is no item in the whole game that I'd pay more than 20k for. I'm dead serious. -- 09:53, 7 June 2006 (CDT)

Ok it can be difficult to analyse the market in Guild Wars the same way that you'd look at the average countries economy, Guild Wars is on a scale so much smaller. Still you can see trends, I'd say that Droknar Runs are normally around 3k and have been for many many months. This of course doesn't mean that both sellers and buyers won't offer to pay both more or less than that.

Take something like a used 2002 Ford Focus in average condition and has an average number of ks on the clock etc. (mileage for you Yanks) There is definitely a market value for this car, but that said of course a person in a hurry may sell for much less or much more or buy for much more than that. This doesn't mean there isn't a market value, it just means that people consider a fast transaction to be additional utility. You will pay more for a quick purchase because you're buying a 2002 Ford Focus which also includes a quick handover ie it's worth more to you that one you have to wait a month for. People will always pay more and less than the market value in any economy and it's not always convenience which is a factor, sometimes people will pay more for no reason other than being poorly informed. This of course ties in nicely with this article, people ask for a price check to be better informed of the market price. In essence I don't see any above example illustrating that you can't have market prices in GW, Karlos' -50 Grim Cesta and Tetris L's Droks run examples shows a person in a hurry and a person not in a hurry, there should be a price difference between these two buyers, it is an illustration of a market that is functioning correctly! --Xasxas256 18:01, 7 June 2006 (CDT)

Why is this even an article? This is completely self-explanatory. Most of the article isn't even spent on the actual topic and is tangental. Even if people feel there should be an article explaining a "price check" is "a check of the price of something," I'd prefer the miniature economics discussion be left out. --68.142.14.68 18:12, 27 June 2006 (CDT)

I don't think you mean to reply to me. --68.142.14.68 18:52, 27 June 2006 (CDT)

The stuff above it a talk page, so the eco stuff is fine here and there's very little in the article itself, beyond saying some obvious traps. --Xasxas256 19:28, 27 June 2006 (CDT)

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Drop from 50k to 20k (see Totem Axe) and how can Guru be unreliable? You see what people are willing to pay and take for this item. As opposed to someone telling you they "think" it's worth X. --Karlos 18:50, 27 June 2006 (CDT)

Ok you've reverted two things here Karlos, firstly you changed:

"...and to some extent, are a matter of personal perception." back to "...and are very much a matter of personal perception."

I've written a very long paragraph about why Guild Wars has a functioning market, if you disagree explain why, don't just revert my edit. I wonder if perhaps you didn't really object to this change but hitting the admin's revert edit function was easier (you said yesterday you're lazy with these things).

Secondly you changed readded: "Information from peers is often dated (an item worth 50k one day could fall to 20k the next day) and unreliable."

As I said in my edit summary: "your peers could be more or less reliable than GWGuru, who knows, that's just speculation." How on earth do you know my peers? They could be accurate, they might not, it is pure speculation. A line how about how accurate the reader's peers are does not belong.

Thirdly in response to the drop from 50k to 20k; A) this is an extreame set of circumstances, the vest, vast majority of stuff traded (and price checked) is not in the process of dropping by more than 50% in less than 24 hours. B) By giving a specific number, you make it sound like 50k to 20k price drops are commonly found in the game, they're not.

Fourth point, "how can Guru be unreliable?" There may be a trading hub there but the vast majority of transfers are not setup on Guru, they're done in game. The economy at work on Guru is much smaller than the one in game. Having even say 3 of an item on Guru basically could mean the market there is flooded and prices for all 3 auctions will plummet (if only 3 people on Guru want the item and 3 are avaliable, the whole auction thing works poorly). Of course Guru can be unreliable, if you really want to know an item's market value, you need to by trying to sell and buy it in game over an extended period of time and looking be at auction sights. --Xasxas256 19:48, 27 June 2006 (CDT)

Responses:

1)I don't know your peers, but this is not about your peers, is it? This is about information from peers in general. Me and my peers sure as heck don't even bother with price checks and don't ask each other for that stuff. But this is not about my peers either. Being in an alliance, i.e. observing TEN full guilds each with 50-100 members interact, and then just standing around LA and Droknar's for a lengthy period of time, you see, immediately, that the majority of PC responses given are a load of crap. It suffers from those very real issues of: lack of objectivity... Often people tell you what they THINK it ought to be bought or sold for, not what they KNOW it is being bought or sold for, and lack of preciseness... Often people will not actually be telling you a price that THEY sold it or bought it for, or even that they KNOW someone sold it or bought it for. Nar, they will be pulling answers out of their, erm, imagination. i.e. Giving you prices based on what SOMEONE on Guild chat or even Local chat in some town SAID they paid for it. Very, very, very low credibility.

2) This brings us to the second point in my response. This is not about what the item is worth this is about what people ARE or ARE NOT willing to pay for this item. Now, you bring the fringe cases of "people will pay whatever they think they need to for the item relative to how badly they need it," but that is true for any merchandise. If you need to get rid of your car badly, you will sell it at whatever price, regardless of it's KBB value. The example I mentioned above about the -50 grim cesta is to show why I think PCs as an idea are just a bad idea. Asking people: "Hey what is this item worth?" is a silly question that PCs are not really addressing. When people ask for a PC on a 15^50 Dragoncrest Axe, they are asking to find out how much they should ask for it or pay for it. If you think your Axe is worth 100k and 20 Ectos and no one else agrees with you on that, no one will buy it. No matter how many times you offer it in Lion's Arch. You might be able to scam a poor newbie into buying your item, but that's not what PC is about, is it?

3) There is no proof I know of (feel free to provide the opposite) that Guru's auctions are off from in-game prices. In fact, more and more people are responding to PC requests in chat with "go look on Guru." HoD swords were 400k in game and were 400k on Guru, Droknar runs are the same thing. Can you sell a car on e-bay for $10,000 more than it's price, of course you can. However, would you say that prices on e-bay for cars DO NOT reflect real world prices of cars? (And e-bay does not represent 1% of actual transactions in the world.) You are saying it is possible to sell an item for WAY more (or WAY less than Guru's prices), that is true, but again, that is NOT what price checks are about, is it?

I'll remove the example of 50 to 20, it's just an example. --Karlos 23:49, 27 June 2006 (CDT)

Guru isn't reliable for anything. Full stop. It has many members of worth, but is operated by a corrupt collective of thugs and trolls. Guaranteed the Price Check system there entirely reflects their wholly biased and invalid opinion much like the censorship they inflict upon the rest of the site. SotiCoto 16:56, 2 November 2007 (UTC)