The market place on all forum, MMOs, and anything where there are limited are harder to find items has an economy. The economy is based on a few things; supply & demand, prices willing to pay, the flucuating flow of gold in an out of the hands of users and how much is implemented into the system.

Looking at the economy on this site. I see event-orientated items, money-orientated items, controlled released items, store items.

• Event-Orientated items: These are the items released during events. The supply is based on the limits set by staff for event currency. What also dictates this is the amount of active users during events and how many use all their event currency.
• Money-Orientated items: These are the Contribution items. The number of items released into the system are solely based on the people who donate/contribute to the site and use their 'Mennies' to receive them. Then based on how many of them they wish to sell off.
• Controlled Released Items: These are the Special NPC Items. These are controlled by the staff, maybe by a quote per month/event/week. Who knows. These are logically the rarest items on the site.
• Store items: These are the ones that have no end. They take gold out of the system.

Now, with that onto the discussion portion. Do you think there is a possibility of profit through the economy? What do you think would be most profitable to trade with. There are a few aspects to it. You can do like some do and hoard items. Hold onto them for long periods of time and look for a turn around rate. Do you think this is even a great way to make a turn-around on profit? Then you have the Trading (buying and selling) of items for profit. How do you think this would work on this site? Do you think that it could be more beneficial then hoarding? I am bringing this discussion up as to view other peoples view points on this current economic stagnant. I have noticed that the prices seem pretty stale with the exception of a few items that rise to a point in which they just stop rising.

My personal opinion. I think that there are ways to expose the market for what it can really do legally. Viewing over the last month or two of posts on in the exchange. I have noticed it seems pretty stale. The trading scene seems to be a stale market. No real trading going on. People are hoarding things and holding onto them more then trading them. Trading would release items more out to people. Make them more accessible to users and would create influxes and defluxes in prices. There just does not seem to be a large effort from people who are trying to trade just have a lack of care for it. Creating their own stale-mate on the items they are holding onto. As far as hoarding goes. Everything is being hoarded which creates no rise or fall. Just sits there. It also doesn't prove benefiticial. Those items are rising at the same rate as the majority of the other items.

Topics of Discussion

• Is there a potential to use the market for profit?
• Is the hoarding causing this stale in the prices?
• If you are a trader. What percentage do you normally make in profit (on your net trade worth) do you turn around in a month?

Exchangers are generally frowned upon here in this small community. Utilizing other people's items for your own personal gain is more or less considered bad tastes.

This is not the monstrosity that is Gaia's marketplace, and hopefully it will never follow suit.

Encouraging exchangers and hoarding is the first step down a slippery slope leading to supreme, uncontrolled inflation.

I find the best way to "play the market" is in a sense to just have a spare item or two and sell it when you need the gold. That way you profit, and the one who is questing the item profits, while the time you kept the item is the amount of money you gained.

I don't like when people hoard something to play the market, as many of us just want the item... not beg and grovel for them to put more out.

What I generally do is I get spare event items and let them go up before I sell them, and I just get one of everything else for my personal benefit. Feels less greedy personally

Originally Posted by Gabriel

Exchangers are generally frowned upon here in this small community. Utilizing other people's items for your own personal gain is more or less considered bad tastes.

This is not the monstrosity that is Gaia's marketplace, and hopefully it will never follow suit.

Encouraging exchangers and hoarding is the first step down a slippery slope leading to supreme, uncontrolled inflation.

The thing is it is already happening. It is easily noticeable that people are buying 10-25+ sets of each month contribution items and not reselling them. Hoarding is already creating a stagnation of items. Items that are 'popular' are up for sale less and less. Items that are deemed 'not cool' are out in the open. How is this not already creating a monopoly?

Frowned upon or not. I believe that creating a constant flow of popular items will do better for the community. It will make them more available to everyone. Yes, it will create a steady inflation on items. This is easily determined. However, when you have 10 people wanting a Kitsune & Caboodle. None go for up sale for a month or two then one or two go up for sale in a week period. Now you have 10 people going after the same item. With their stockpile of gold/items they have laying around will create a larger inflation because they do not know when the next will come up. So they all try to go for it. Exchanging around create a steady flow of items in an out of the market versus the attitude right now with "I need gold. I am going to sell one of my 10 K&C."

Trading is inevitable. Frowning upon the people who use that as their way of earning gold is unfair. You have people who Roleplay for gold. Others who play games for gold. Others who chat. Essentially traders create less gold due to the fact their posts are shorter and the majority wouldn't/do not bother with playing games for the 1k a day. If the community frowns upon traders they should frown upon the people who post 100+ times a day. Or the people who roleplay and earn 10-20g a post. Don't forget the people who use their main and mule to play games. They are creating the gold and bringing it into the system daily. Those are the people who create the gold that are there to create the base prices for items. They are the ones who are creating the capital to raise prices. Traders simply trade items for other items they want. Trading and browsing is the average day for a traders. This site doesn't allow you to gain gold from that so in essence they are creating less gold towards the sites gold capital.

@Kaze:
That is the point of hoarding though. Holding extras of items to gain profit off of them in the short/long-run. Nothing wrong with it. Just seems to be the way most people do it.

Playing the market is more or less, you find an item for lets say 5,000g that you can sell for 5,500-6,000g. Maybe trade 18,000g in items for a 19,000-21,000g item.

I'm a hoarder by nature, but at the same time I'd be willing to become an active trader if/when I reach my goal of getting the last three items I'm seeking. The biggest reason I don't exchange is because I don't have the time to manage it effectively, not because I'm hoping for some item(s) to eventually be worth X amount of gold.

That and I don't really have a strong drive or passion for selling/trading items.

I hoard items, but my intentions are geared towards obtaining artwork with my hoard, not making a vast amount of gold. So I buy/sell/trade with that in mind.

I have had very little turn-over in my stock because I haven't heard back from some of the people I'd attempted to commission in awhile. ::shrug:: And not really felt like pursuing artwork for items I haven't set aside for art.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with hoarding. <<,, People who hoard cause an increase in the total number of CI sets wanted each month, meaning in an increase in the total number of CI sets purchased from the site. So, the site makes more money, which it needs to survive, especially in such a small community.

Besides, it's just plain good investing.

Also, there's nothing wrong with inflation. I get annoyed at people who seem to think inflation is evil. Inflation shows that the site is healthy and growing, and it encourages people to purchase CIs.

Cami - I think the OP's concern isn't so much with hording in general, but in being all draconic about it, not letting anything go. Just making the pile bigger and bigger. xD No overturn/turnover/circulation of items.

@ Shoplifter - Well, personally for me hoarding is more keeping loads of an item that you would otherwise allow in circulation. But the difference it that I don't buy say multiples of an item which I already have, I merely collect event items during the event and hold them, as I spent a large amount of time getting them and I have given them a specific value that must be obtained before selling; however, I also have a tendency to give them away, so if I was a hoarder XD I'd fail hoarding school

CK is correct as to what I mean. I am posting to show I have not abondoned this. I am just not around all that much currently. I will give more feedback in a day or two. For right now though, definitely time to get to bed. Morning comes quick.

I have been known to hoard quite a bit in the past. Though, most of my hoards go into donations to other users. I have a set amount I trade around with.