Market Tracking

[Vinneh]

Howdie folks,

Just a few questions:

1. Since the website is going to be tracking the economy, over what time duration will it be checking/storing prices? Will it be an average for items over the last 30 days, 60 days etc or show a mixture?

2. Will all items be tracked and have comparisons completed or only specific (rare) items?

3. Will it be possible to browse for price of individual items (and the derivatives of each item?)

4. How is the website going to track the value of each item? ie Is it going to rely on members providing data or will there possibly be a third party program to track auction house activity (would Blizzard allow this?).

This is more out of curiosity on my part than anything else.

E: I have read the features page but everything appears to be geared towards the value of gold to currency whereas my queries are more aimed at the gold value of items.

[Azzure]

Howdie folks,

Just a few questions:

1. Since the website is going to be tracking the economy, over what time duration will it be checking/storing prices? Will it be an average for items over the last 30 days, 60 days etc or show a mixture?

2. Will all items be tracked and have comparisons completed or only specific (rare) items?

3. Will it be possible to browse for price of individual items (and the derivatives of each item?)

4. How is the website going to track the value of each item? ie Is it going to rely on members providing data or will there possibly be a third party program to track auction house activity (would Blizzard allow this?).

This is more out of curiosity on my part than anything else.

E: I have read the features page but everything appears to be geared towards the value of gold to currency whereas my queries are more aimed at the gold value of items.

1) Storing prices for all time, and yes we will be having 7 day, 30 day, 6mt, 1yr breakdown stats.

2) Equipable items will be tracked only when there is an API. Otherwise it's impossible to collect the data.

3) You can only use the AH in-game. The site will show up to date prices for common commodities and gold primarily.

4) Prices will be tracked by us (staff + trusted contributors).

The reason why that page only shows currencies is because... its the currencies page. The commodities page will look different and offer different stats. We haven't released a preview of any other pages, just the Currencies page.

[MilkmanAl]

Probable noob question alert: What's an API?

[Justace]

You can find out what API means via google, in this case it means Blizzard providing access to their AH through programs.

[TheOatman]

Probable noob question alert: What's an API?

See: http://tinyurl.com/bzlcug

[MilkmanAl]

I actually did Goggle it, believe it or not, but thought it was supposed to be some sort of economic term and skipped past the Wiki article. Oops! Thanks for the sarcasm, though. Very helpful.

[Naviaras]

I think the value of Legendary/Unique items could also be tracked since they are easily identified and usually have a low degree of variability in their stats.

[Bigfish]

I think the value of Legendary/Unique items could also be tracked since they are easily identified and usually have a low degree of variability in their stats.

They will also have a smaller volume though, meaning their price may be less stable, so any tracked price will have some degree of variability in what it can actually be bought/sold for.

Or maybe not. Depends on what the final AH looks like. My experience says that those sorts of things get listed at ridiculous amounts, a more reasonably priced one will sell and be observed less in the data.

[Drrwho]

They will also have a smaller volume though, meaning their price may be less stable, so any tracked price will have some degree of variability in what it can actually be bought/sold for.

Or maybe not. Depends on what the final AH looks like. My experience says that those sorts of things get listed at ridiculous amounts, a more reasonably priced one will sell and be observed less in the data.

This is not all that different from World of Warcraft though. The TUJ (Undermine Journal) site tracks prices on virtually anything in the WoW auction houses. The more rare items do have more variability in their pricing, but that's going to happen. The difference in D3 vs. WoW is that the server size is much larger for D3. One U.S. server versus say like 150 WoW U.S. servers. So that chances of seeing a rare item in the D3 U.S. server auction house is probably still going to be a good bit higher. This alone will help with price stability to some extent.

At the very least, tracking the prices here for rare items will provide a basis for what to roughly expect as a price for X rare item.

The biggest thing that I'm curious to see how it plays out is the Arbitrage game. Buying an item on one AH and selling it on the other at a profit. This will primarily be based on the gold to real currency ratio, but it should be very interesting to watch it unfold and who is successful at it. The only kicker is the 24 hour cooldown period between buying an item on the AH and relisting it on either AH again.

Arbitrage can work for virtually any item in the game, but the more rare items are likely going to be the true catches, as the potential for big profit in gold or real currency is more promising. There will always be players who have no idea what an item is worth, are not informed in any way (they don't come here for market pricing) and price something way too low because there aren't any others like it on the AH at that time. Those players that get to know the rare items very well and understand market pricing to a strong enough degree could come out big winners in the end.

[Bigfish]

There's a 24 hour cooldown? Hadn't heard that yet. Makes sense I suppose if they're trying to avoid relisting.

[Verity]

Isn't it 72 hours? Unless they have changed that down from last I saw a video of it.

[Drrwho]

Isn't it 72 hours? Unless they have changed that down from last I saw a video of it.

The 24 hour number was the last I had heard. If I remember right, I read it on the Blizzard site itself. Unless they've changed that since then (it was probably two weeks ago or so that I read this).

[MilkmanAl]

There's a 24 hour cooldown? Hadn't heard that yet. Makes sense I suppose if they're trying to avoid relisting. Yeah, it's going to make turning a profit a much slower endeavor, but oh well. Hopefully we'll all have such high volume that it won't matter. :alright:

[Verity]

Yeah, it's going to make turning a profit a much slower endeavor, but oh well. Hopefully we'll all have such high volume that it won't matter. :alright:

Yeah, it may prove troublesome in some cases. Prevents any quick-flipping and makes it more important to plan ahead when you need to buy items for resale. Knowing the AH activity and price cycles will be more important.

[Drrwho]

The cooldown will make it tougher to flip commodities/consumables, due to the higher volitility in pricing on those. However, as you said Verity, knowing the pricing cycles (time of day, day of the week, etc.) will be key to being able to flip those kinds of items effectively and at a profit.

The items where the cooldown won't affect as much will be the more rare items in the game. Rare items from closer to end game, especially Inferno items, won't be quite as much an issue. With limited stock, prices will still fluctuate, but they will more likely stay a bit higher. If you get an item on one AH at a pretty good bargain, it's a pretty safe bet that you can turn around a re-sell it on either AH for a profit 24 hours later.

In WoW, this is where I put more focus. While there was no cooldown for relisting an item I just bought, I preferred to target the more rare items. It was a fun aspect to dabble in. The commodity items could still turn a profit, but the margins were much smaller and sometimes not worth the hassle. The rare items (Recipes, weapons, pets, etc.) had much lower AH volume and prices were consistently higher. Yes, it might take a little longer to sell, but with much less competition, you could control the pricing more easily.

In D3, rare items will still see some volume, due to the sheer number of players on a server. But that volume will be much less than commodities and other gear that is, well, not rare. Controlling prices will be a bit easier. For those players that can build a very large gold stock could conceivably buyout a lot of the more rare items and basically set their own prices. This will be quite tough to do with high volume commodities, and honestly I wouldn't recommend it in D3. It was hard enough to do in WoW (believe me, I tried... I succeeded here and there, but it took alot of work to keep buying out auctions from other players, keeping mine the only ones up).

Anyway, a little off topic there, sorry. Basically, the cooldown will serve multiple purposes and will help to deter some sellers from bothering with what could be a lucrative part of the D3 market.

[Naviaras]

Following the rules of Supply and Demand buying items during the week will have a low amount of both buyers and sellers since the majority of players will be at work/school for most of the day. On the weekend the number of Buyers and Seller will go up greatly. If their is a cool down period for re-listing an item (24~72 hours) buying on a weekend and selling on a Weekday might net you a better profit (More seller = lower prices) vs. buying on a weekday and selling on the weekend (more people to under cut your listing.)

[Drrwho]

Naviaras... exactly!! Weekends are the best time to buy. Weekdays are the best time to sell. In WoW, Tuesday & Wednesday were, in most cases, the two best days to sell being primary raiding nights (and raid resets on Tuesday).

While there won't be raids to help with prime selling times, there will be other factors that come into play, creating prime selling times. Weekends will likely still be the prime buying times.

We could see a bit of prime selling time on weekends too, though, due in part to the higher number of players on those two days. Will be interesting to see what trends develop.

[Verity]

Naviaras... exactly!! Weekends are the best time to buy. Weekdays are the best time to sell. In WoW, Tuesday & Wednesday were, in most cases, the two best days to sell being primary raiding nights (and raid resets on Tuesday).

While there won't be raids to help with prime selling times, there will be other factors that come into play, creating prime selling times. Weekends will likely still be the prime buying times.

We could see a bit of prime selling time on weekends too, though, due in part to the higher number of players on those two days. Will be interesting to see what trends develop.

Yea, as both supply and demand will rise during weekends there is certainly place for both buying and selling. Generally the more available items such as materials, gems and other commonly found items will be worth buying since the supply rise should push the prices down.

Rarer items that you want many bids on may be worth putting up on weekends since competition will likely not rise noticeably, but demand will.

[Drrwho]

Ultimately, the name of the game will come down to this... Let others work for you!

There are 2 pieces to this:

1.) Don't farm stuff yourself. Farming will NOT be the best GPH (gold per hour). Buying off the AH and re-selling will likely be the best. There are 2 primary aspects to this... including buying cheap item to re-list as is (at a profit of course) and buying materials to turn into something else and selling that.

2.) "Hire" others to farm for you. Make deals with people who are willing to farm, paying them a set amount of gold for various items (I would target salvage materials, gems, runes primarily, as those will likely be the quickest and easiest to sell). There undoubtedly will be players who are willing to do this for you. Might need to build up a decent bank roll before going this route, depending on how many players you hire.

[Neinball]

Unless Blizzard catches on and adds coding to prevent it you could buy items, salvage them and then relist the mats immediately. It's the only example I can think of that circumvents the cooldown on relisting items. You would most likely either need to buy a lot of common scraps or put up a lot for a legendary to actually make noticeable gains though.

[Drrwho]

The lower profit margin, the larger the volume of sales needed to make big profits. But it can be done. And sometimes those are good areas to target, because other players won't bother with it due to the lower margins. Profit is profit, however it is made. It all adds up.

[MilkmanAl]

Farming will NOT be the best GPH (gold per hour) I'm reserving judgment on that one. It's entirely possible that there'll be an area similar to the Council that'll drop an insane amount of gold. You'll also likely need to have a pretty large inventory going before the AH is consistently making you money.

Hiring farmers is an interesting concept, but I honestly don't trust internet strangers with my resources. If it was someone I'd played with for awhile that could farm with me, that'd be awesome. In fact, I think that's exactly what I'm going to try to do. The extra resources and man power could end up making a huge difference in a rich-get-richer economy like this one is going to be.

[Concupisco Quaestus]

I'm reserving judgment on that one.

Good call, it's way to early to start making blanket statements and one thing people aren't considering is that with a web API pretty much everyone is going to try to play the AH to some extent (what else are they supposed to do at work?) while due to time constraints and real life obligations not everyone is going to have the time for real hefty loot sessions... My point being you are going to potentially have 10x as much competition trying to manipulate the AH than you will farming/selling loot.

Sometimes it is much more efficient just to farm and sell rather than gamble on the AH, for one thing there's no risk, anything you farm and sell is money paid for time spent, AH manipulation is money paid by time AND money spent.

Like anything else the investment with the higher return has a loss risk associated with it, farming has absolutely 0 loss risk... Plus with farming you can manipulate markets in a way that other people can't, for example...

I have 10 Trousers of Old Bologna, you are trying to play the market by buying and reselling these same smelly pants because nerds love Bologna and everyone wants a pair so while you are buying and selling I can essentially "screw" you out of your market with my farmed items by listing let's say 4 armor for a price I know you will buy it at, you then try to resell them but as soon as you do I list another that's cheaper, you buy that one, I list another, you buy that one, I list another, eventually you're going to be "stuck" with a lot more than you bargained for, while my "cost" is solely bound to time, yours is bound to investment and time, my antics will eventually get other people posting their trousers for "my" price as I have basically devalued the item provided the "plan" is executed properly, to me the little loss in currency isn't a big deal, sure I "could" get more money by engaging you in your AH shenanigans, or I can sell for a little less, make you buy everything I have, spend enough time listing objects that eventually other people adopt my price as the "standard" and while you've tried to make money you ended up with a best case scenario of breaking even while I got full profit off each one of those trousers you bought with the plan to resell.

Think of the RMAH as a PvP Arena... Things aren't always going to be working in your favor and that static text based UI you're looking at that seems so simplistic actually has a lot of very makavelian plotting going on, most of which the average gamer wouldn't even be aware of, even the above example
can be done without the "target" ever knowing something like that was done to them, they'll just shrug it off as a plan that didn't work and either give up on RMAH or try it again with another item... At which point because the market was "manipulated" to do what it did to you I manipulate it again by buying up all those pants and marking them up once you are out of the picture and on to something else... Just some food for thought into some of the things that will likely be going on... The manipulators can be manipulated too if they aren't careful.

[Slabshaft]

Think of the RMAH as a PvP Arena...

Bingo!


The manipulators can be manipulated too if they aren't careful.

2x Bingo!