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I really dont see why you're saying that guild mods cant post here... neutral

.-.; So they won't fight here. This is a topic for all of the other members to tell them I am sorry.

xp

xD He isn't a mod here any mores. Also, he is just posting smiles. Or maybe there is hidden text. My brain is fried from the sun thanks to an ecology project and having a charger stolen from me. ;-; <~ Emo tears.

Just a question to those that have posted in this thread, does this topic's title honestly sound like a command to not post here or a request? ^^;;

He's bumping XD Naughty boy rolleyes

Blargh, this is a contredictive post. You are creating drama or an apology post. sweatdrop Though, I forgive you, like I do most of the time :3

:3 We are now the 4P Just because PP sounds bad. XD

did ransu's keyboard die? is he on a PDA?

oh well.

EVIL needs to take a new approach as a guild and as a priceguide if they wish to succeed in the future. I've got a couple of ideas, but I'm one of those "powerless people" who posts in this place.

Right now, no one wants to buy, sell, or trade Casino items. I know, its a simple enough concept, its big and scary, but I've got an idea. Think about it for a moment though. If you look on the exchange, there are between 2 and zero threads dealing with Casino stuff any any given time.

There is a great delusion among Priceguides these days: That you can assign a flat rate or "current price" to Casino items as if they function on the same measure as others.

This is false. It is false because the Casino items are not based upon gold currency vs. popularity. They are based upon Casino ticket Vs. gold ratios /AND/ for the next month or two, item Id production number.

Item id production number is a relatively new idea, I have forgotten which guild it was that braught it up, but its a concept originally addressing the 1000+x variable defining who has "alpha" Halo, alpha panda hat, etc.

Currently, this means a couple of things for whatever guild is willing to do the work to corner the market.

ONE: a new integer can be, and IS being introduced to the value of an item. If you look at your guild id number, every guild has a creation date and number, just like a character registry number.

If you know the guild id number, you can hot link directly to it, from any guild just by typing 3 or four numbers. (or more rarely, two).

What does this mean for items?

Pedigree
Pedigree, as in artifact history. If you recall, popular girls (and some guys) can sell their underwear for ridiculous sums of money, even though the item itself is next to worthless and is a clone of every other item of its type.

What if you could prove that you had Alexi's underpants? There is a way. It is difficult, it has barely been done at all, but it can be done. A while ago I suggested that Items gain a sort of "karma" for the battle system based upon who owned them. I honestly did not realize until this moment that such information was already available to be coded in.

When you sell an item, imagine displaying its "previous owners" in a laundry list. Also realize that the smaller the item "number" the older it is. This is a kind of prestige more common to 2003 items, but it is no less signficant than having a high fishing score w/out a trophy.

Why casino Items?
Because no one else is doing them. Because they are smaller in number than other items. Because they are currently unpopular. Because their market value has to be calculated a completely different way. The most efficient way to calculate Casino item values is with a chart, following an index.

As the value of tickets rise, the value of all Casino items increases, as the tickets drop, all the Casino items drop. If we assign a flat rate value, we aren't doing it right. That's like saying "IBM stock is $7.50 a share in 1984 and will always be $7.50 a share." Stocks by their very nature fluctuate. A real priceguide has a duty to give accurate representations of value of anything that can be purchased, and investment advice on how to work your way to any financial investment (such as a crown, corsage, or halo)

How to standardize Ticket value?
Asside from the item id numbers, the most valuable formula of such a pricing system would be rapidly calculating the value of tickets. Unfortunately, the current programming of the Marketplace makes this very difficult, and the Admins might have no desire whatsoever to tamper with it.
When pricing tickets, you must avoid the standardized "go for broke" minimum price you can find, and recognize that as the number of tickets increases, the bell curve for the ability of the masses to purchase that many tickets is reduced. That is a simple fact that will always crush the market value of items, but it produces an interesting fact feature:

Poor people can only afford to get ITEMS for an amount of tickets they can AFFORD. Thus, the wealth categories for items also changes, based upon the "bulk" blocks you are buying in. Here is a market secret: It is often cheaper to go to a liquedation world or Walmart than to go to COSCO for your wholesale goods, ounce for ounce, kilo for kilo.

The second primary feature: Radicals. You have to throw out the radicals if you plan on grading on a curve. Just because Molly Sue is going to quit gaia and is dumping 10,000 tickets on the market for 1.2 gold/ticket, does not mean that's the new price of tickets. Meanwhile, as the above wholesale theory, just because 100,000 tickets are going for 8 gold a piece doesn't mean that's the new "high price". What it may imply, is "less time to acquire bulk".

so you are in a swing here. For once, you arent getting discount by buying in bulk, you are getting a price mark up, because the bulk saves you vending time that could be used elsewhere, (such as the exchange).

How many tickets are on the market? Ther are at any given time, 112 to 154 pages of tickets, with completely variable prices. So how do you get an active value?
First: go to "tickets" then "highest price".
You are normally used to going to "lowest price" or "lowest buy now price" right? Well that doesn't work with tickets because you miss the bulk variables (until DarkNrgy decides he wants a ticket/gold ratio sort feature, which would just kill the market in a heart beat). so "highest price:tickets" is the way to go. However, you then click through ther first 3 pages, and drop the highest and the lowest 10%.
That makes 60 ticket ratios, minus 6, for a total of 54 surveys. You will also want to "open link in new window" for pages 2 and 3 as quickly as possibly to avoid "copies".

now, comes the hard part. Assigning a team to update the this singular variable at relatively close time blocks. The very minimum is every 24 hours, the most accurate method would be every 6 hours, the most likely result would be every 12 hours, and have 3 or 4 people do it. You can create a "ticket reporting page" that focuses on group surveys like this, then plots the course of ticket values.

Why do all this work for 1 item?
Because that 1 item determines the price of dozens of other items, and if the price does infact change on a daily basis, it generates an active market that knows for itself, prices could go up or down, and will eventually do both.

You then take blocks of 0.5 gold/ticket (1.5, 2, 2.5, 3., 3.5, 4. 4.5, etc.) and write up a chart for each Casino item with a picture of the item itself.

And make the market
Create a section where every transaction MUST include either the purchase or sale of a Casino item. In creating a "hot zone" for items in the same guild that has good analysis of the market value, you have created your own Casino stock exchange, and thus, EVIL, if willing to do so, has once again become a Cornerstone of market Innovation.

- Noire