Another Central Bank Whine (in General)

Ok, I am seriously upset about what just happened. A Player had put a MCM on the auction market with a min bid of 1 mil cb2. I bid yesterday and what do you know, today in the last few minutes before it closed, Central Bank bid on it and myself being busy with work could not babysit it missed the outbid notification before the close. There were NO OTHER BIDDERS but me and Central Bank. If a player puts an auction in AND puts a MIN BID, I should be able to buy it for the MIN BID!!!

Come on Jonathan, that is seriously messed up!

From my experience with Ebay, that is never fun.

I was always the sniper on Ebay. I love doing that, in fact. ;)

Yeah it's fun to do it, but not fun when you get it done to you, and here the latter seems to be occurring 100% more often. :P

But sniping on eBay still has a human behind it who is making a decision on the market value of an item. The sniping here by central bank is based on an arithmetic value of bidding to 70% of NW (if the other thread on this topic is to be believed). Therefore the game has moved the market valuation of items in auctions from the control of the community.

The usual sycophants will pipe in that it is Jon's game and he can do what he likes. I concur with that assertion.

bidding for any purpose other than a sincere desire to own and employ the auctioned item is shilling

Why don't you stop with your shilling...

Shilling is two or more people working collaboratively together to dupe an unwitting individual into participating in a scam (which might include placing higher bids in an auction)

if you'd seen HK in the other thread, you'd think twice about starting that argument again...

How is a mil not enough for an MCM?

I don't mind what happens here, autobidding is good. If you consider that shilling, enjoy yourself at your pity party, but it is Jon's game....however, it would be much nicer if it had a system where it increased the bids, rather than bidding near the end. If it did this, people who desired the item would have a chance to buy it at a more proper price. Having Central Bank buy the items last minute *does* remove the opportunity to buy it for the price Jon thinks is appropriate- here's an example.

I want a MC. This one is a mil NW, and Jon thinks 70% of that is appropriate. However, The min bid is set at 500k, and of course I bid the minimum start of 500k. I wait to see if I am beaten, and when I haven't been and there's an hour left, I sign off. Last minute, Central Bank bids *its* appropriate price, and I lose the item. I might be willing to bid the 70%, or even beyond...but why would I place a bid so much higher than the minimum? This doesn't just apply to items with a minimum bid, but items spawned....if the price has only reached 500k, and nobody else bid past me, Central gets it. However, if Central overbid me and I saw what I needed to get it for myself, I might could have it.....Just seems like I should have a chance to see if I'd like to pay that amount.


There's the end of my rant.

I guess minbids aren't enough. "You need to post what you think the item is worth." But what SHOULD an MCM be worth? 1.5 mil? 2?

A MIN BID is a min bid. If there is going to be a MIN PRICE imposed, then the MIN BID should not be allowed to be set below the MIN PRICE. Otherwise, there is no point putting a MIN BID on your items.

I don't think it's 70%. My 2.7 mil VB should be valued at 2.4 mil if meta-stats are to be believed, and Central Bank took it for the 1.25 mil min bid - 50% of value from meta stats.

Why can't Central Bank just bid as soon as the item is listed if its bid would be higher than the min?

Is Jon trying to control things being sold below a certain % of NW?
That's a little more grusome than just trying to the up the base price of a rare by reducing an over abundance. Is this some attempt at repairing whatever has been off with economy?

<Insert another random comment against Central Bank auction sniping.>

Seriously though, is this the third post on this issue? Looks like I'm not the only one hating having a bot auction snipe us. And come on, if Central Bank doesn't think a bid is high enough, why not have it bid 24 hours before the end of the sale with what it considers the necessary value? Having it intentionally snipe auctions from players that are trying only to buy an item that seems like a good deal only causes unneeded resentment (and more of these posts). But that's just my opinion, I would love to hear why it is the way it is.

I think that if there will be artificial bids (in this case I am using the word to mean "not done by an actual, live person"), it should instead be implemented by changing people's and the store's ability to set minimum bids in the first place. If the system will impose a certain price, so be it - but "sniping" the auctions to make it happen seems quite hacky.

yes, hacky.

The following are some questions I would like answered:

Are we calling this an evil regime? Are we calling this a dictatorship? Are we calling Jon an evil dictator? Are we calling this a socialistic economy? Are we questioning why the chicken crossed the road? Are we questioning why my ex-girlfriend thinks she is the centre of the universe?

Jon rarely does things he later wishes he didn't do. Meaning that he usually thinks thinks through before he acts. So is this Central Bank/Auction thing the right thing? I dunno. Do we deserve an explaination of why Jon came to the conclusion to do this? No, I don't think so. He most probably knows what he is doing. The only other explaination I can think of if all this is against his wishes is, his kids have tied him up in the basement and given him only corn chips and diet coke as sustainance while they run riot with his little game.

If I can add another example, I recently bought a Mgs worth 2,407. In the last 5 minutes the central bank added a bid at 1,276 (53% nw) and just after that, I added a bid of 1,340 (56% nw) !! wonderful!!

So the central bank is doing its job I guess, if you really want an item, then pay attention.

"A MIN BID is a min bid. If there is going to be a MIN PRICE imposed, then the MIN BID should not be allowed to be set below the MIN PRICE. Otherwise, there is no point putting a MIN BID on your items."

I made this exact point in my own thread.

Why do items from the auctioneer start so low (is 1 CB2 or zero?) when there is no point to bid below the price Central Bank is going to bid for it at the end? At least for system auctions, start the min bid from Central Banks price....

Perhaps there is a filter behind the bids of the central bank.

In this case, min bids cannot be defined according to the central bank levels, otherwise prices could only increase and never decrease.

If sometimes you lose versus the central bank, then the filter will decrease the prices according to your bids. Be patient or be more careful.

"Are we questioning why my ex-girlfriend thinks she is the centre of the universe?"

Nah, no questions there mate, it's not just your ex, all women think they are the centre of the universe! ;)

And in the cases of wives, it's correct...

Matrim, you should pay more attention to how CB do auto-bid.
From my experience CB only bid one time on an item. And it does not place a 70% NW bid or anything like this, what you all seem to believe. Central Bank just bid the next possible amount.
All you have to do is have an eye on the auction. Its just the same like if someone else places a bid close before the end, no reason to whine.

This could just be another form of Jon's ploy to stop the market being flooded with rares rather than just a simple stunt to keep prices up.
Maybe the reason Central Bank bids on it last minute is so that it has a better chance of having bought it so it can be destroyed/kept for tournaments(if they happen) and so forth.

I don't know about an auto bidding function (I must have missed some post where Jon wrote about it), but isn't it possible that Jon is placing these bids in the name of central bank?

Shadowsparkle: Not true. I lost a MCM a few days back from having Central Bank bid more than once and last minute. I keep losing auctions for 50K or less. Sometimes Central Bank only has to bid once because I have been the only bidder, other times it has bid multiple times on the same item.

Burn Central Bank!

Restore order and a true free-market economy.

Why don't we just hang our Allen Greenspan. Or better yet, hang and burn afterward.

Well I have to say, as someone who sold an item that central bank bid on, it is a great thing.

On a TSA I had for sale, Central bank made me an extra 50k on it.

So I guess the autobidding works both ways, just depends on whether your selling or buying.

If I can add a point to Qbranger, I was eager to buy a HoD 9+19 worth 1,3 million. No one proposed a bid a 0,8, and I was ready to CM the seller to propose to buy it at 0,7 million. That's damned central bank proposed in the last 10 minutes a bid a 0,8, and I had to propose 0,84 million.

As I said, it works both ways. I am sure the seller of the HOD was happy to get a bit more money.

But I will agree completely that the bids in the last 10 min are in utter poor taste as they do not give you enough time (especially if your not on CB during the last 10 min of the auction) to rebid.

If Central Bank is going to bid on an item, at least do it with time for others to react and decide if they really want to spend more money on the item. I would say at least with 6 hours left to go in the auction. That would at least be fair to everyone.

I wonder what would happen if the 'Buy Now' was under the price the Bank would bid? In the last 5 (10?) minutes of the auction would it pay the Buy Now?

GL,

That is exactly what happened with the TSA I sold yesterday. The BIN was 600k and the highest bid at the time was 550k. During the last 10 min, Central Bank bid the BIN.

Qbranger, many players place a bid in the last minutes, in the auction section, or in the FS forum. My mentor trigun for example, proposed more than me in a thread by placing a bid in the last seconds( the thread was closed at the same time his message was posted).

Why the central bank could not place bids in the last 10 minutes?

Since Central Bank does not use the items and is not an active player in cb2, would it not be best to let active players have a shot at buying items and keeping them in the game?

Central Bank destroys all the items it wins in auctions.

Matrim, I never saw an auction with more than one bid from CB, I don't check every auction though.
IMHO I see nothing wrong if CB bids close to the end of an auction once, but its just wrong if CB keeps bidding.

Jon's trying to fix something, aparently he'd rather eliminate the extra rares rather than trying to encourage the now rare fearful populace he's fixed the sillier parts of NW-PR. I think it would be better to try and find a way to get people to start using them again instead, but what do I know. I will say I put a high NW piece of mage gear on a low level char, and found that the pr jump was more than tolerable, so maybe it is time to welcome back rares into our lives.

"Jon's trying to fix something, aparently he'd rather eliminate the extra rares rather than trying to encourage the now rare fearful populace he's fixed the sillier parts of NW-PR."


He told you this? What were his exact words?

yeah PK, as I awoke this morning, an angel named Mushu alighted on the end of my bed and lo, he told me the words of Jon...of course not.
I'm taking my guess like everyone else...

No... the others are guessing. You are putting forth some grand "Jon is trying to hose everyone" conspiracy theory.

I don't think my statement about jon's fixing of things was all that prophetic...I sure hope this is an attempt at fixing something, cause otherwise he's just on a destructive tear that's been going since before new years...

Thanks for proving my point....

When did you join the thought police PK?
Do I have to be upbeat and positive about everything
done here? I'm not the only one talking about this as a bad thing,
so what besides the fact I mentioned I think that there could
be a better way to solve the problem did I do wrong?

Never said you could not speak what you want. You can spout all the buffoonery you want. I will, however, ridicule such nonsense when I see it.

Is Jon "fixing" something: check
is he eliminating rares: check
is PK a little touchy: check

*sigh*

It's clear you think Jon is out to get you and anyone who does not agree with your supposition is "a little touchy".

I suppose you will play the "I've been part of CB2 since the beginning" card next...

As usual, people are concentrating on whining instead of taking advantage of the situation.

Intelligent sellers *Shouldn't* post a minimum bid on high-NW items because someone will try to bid $1 and then the seller will recoup 70% of NW. Naturally, if they want more than 70% NW then this doesn't apply.

Where is my statement did I imply Jon was out to get me?
Sure my tone isn't that of a party line towing admin, but is the witch hunt getting so bad a dude can't be a little grumpy in the morning...

Yes, and also one also not want to put a BIN in auction, as-in Central Bank will happy to pay more than what you really thought is appropriate BIN.

The player market value is always different than Central Bank market value. The problem arises when Central Bank is implemented a floor price on the player market value based on Central Bank market value.

I didn't think your tone was out of line, novice...just spoken a little too "factually" for some (who are absolutely entitled to their own opinion too). I tend to speak the same way, believing there is always an understood "In my opinion..." or "Allow me to speculate..." at the beginning of my posts...

Or, just only buy from FS/WTB...

But, isn't it for sellers much more interesting to do auctions, knowing that at least 1 buyer with a fat wallet is out there?

I would also like to say I'm very against this. I had it happen to me with a MCM, that I almost got for 600k, but the thing is it was near base, and no one else bid on the item for over 5 hours after my bid. Obviously I was not just getting a great deal, it was a good deal at the time, but not outstanding or anything. Central banks bid though was in the middle of the night, so I was sleeping, and could not compete with it. Also with the removal of camping does that now mean the removal of ever getting an item at below market price unless you shop the FS/WTB forums (which I thought were basicly discouraged by Jon?)

Key question is: does CB bid a fair market price, or does it bid much higher than that?
If its bids are at (or near) a healthy market price for the item, then you are simply bidding too low. Just bid what you consider a fair price, so you can laugh at those that outbid you ;)

Note that a market depends on buyers and sellers. What you think (as a buyer) of as a good market price will be entirely different than if you were selling the item...

It's just going to take some time for us to get used to being told what fair market value is.

At least in my case Central Bank was almost a mil below the value of the item based on meta stats (my 2.7 mil NW VB), coming in around 50% of its value.

And it just occured to me that this might be a way for a player to get CB2 from USD via Jon - buy undervalued items in FS for USD and auction them in auctions so central bank takes them. It would likely be expensive on CB to USD terms, but it does put CB in the seller's pocket.

My guess, and it is just a guess.

Jon has decided how much certain items should sell for. He likely has part of the program set up to buy an item that falls below that number he decided on. This will remove those items and likely raise the price of the remaining ones since they become rarer.

For ungraded items, perhaps it is 70% of the NW over base that is added.

But, we may never know.

Not only that, Quark. As I pointed out in the first Central Bank post, you can now make money from the game without fighting, as opposed to money enter the game only through fighting.

Here is the new way money can enter the system: buy base-rare from auction spawn, forge rare at 20% NW cost, sell in auction to Central Bank above the base+forge cost = new money.

Buy a rare base item at Central Bank price or above a little. Forge at 20% cost NW. Sell back in auction to Central Bank at 50-70% NW, deem fair bid by Central Bank. You make 30-50% NW forging. Whoa-la.

Some items you can do it. These items so far as I know: MCM, CML. VB may be but the supplied is limited (supporter item).

I take my comment on VB back. Central Bank is not bidding on VB. Just recheck the past auctions.

If you check the past auction, you can see the min bid Central Bank is willing to pay. From there, you can deduct to see if forging or buying from Forum worth your effort.

Matrim I just looked back through the expired MCM Auctions back until early December and I can't see a case of Central Bank bidding more than once on an item. I think Shadowsparkle is right - Central Bank will only bid once on an item.

Why does this happen? I have no idea - only bidding once on an item won't drive the prices of rares up too much, since if a price is still low with ten minutes remaining in an Auction and Central Bank bids up the minimum increment and a player outbids the minimum increment the rare will still be quite cheap. I also see that bids are only being made on selected items. Possibly Jon is trying to take some of the excess rares out of the game as an indirect method of raising the price of that rare?

A simple script (only awk, sort and uniq used. Probably could have done it entirely in awk) shows that no duplicate bids were made for the entire period shown in Jonathan's transfer log.

If Central Bank won the auction, the item gets deleted and the expired auction is no more because the item doesn't exist anymore. That is why you do not see my cases.

I seem to remember Jon bidding on stuff on cb1 just to nuke it, it stopped after a while...

Matrim auctions won by central bank can still be viewed. I agree with you I'm sure I have seen it bid more than once on an item though I can't be bothered to look for one now. In any case why shouldn't it? Jon decides the price he wants to pay for an item, the bank will bid up to that price, I don't see any logic in restricting it to one bid.
Yes novice I would expect this to be a temporary measure which will only be needed until the number of rares in circulation is brought into line with the player base. Of course increasing the player base and reducing the number playing solely for usd is a better solution but I don't see this happening without drastic nub changes.

Matrim, I did not look at the expired auctions, but at the transfer log. Each and every bid and outbid is logged there. My script failed to find 2 bids made by Jonathan for the same item during the past month.
Anyway, expired auctions are always stored (until they are 6 months old). If it wasn't for those 6 months, you still would be able to view Cloak of Balrog Flame auctions for example...

Well I guess it makes sense to sell your high NW items in auction now. Shades 9M NW Enforcers Xbow sold for almost 6.5M in auction to Central Bank. Its doubtful that this xbow would have even sold for 50% NW in auction if Jon hadnt been involved. So it looks like there is an upside to things, you'll always get 70% NW of what youre selling no matter what...

To clear up some misconceptions,

- bart is correct; CB never bids more than once on an item.

- derek is also correct that CB always bids the next minimum increment.

- corollary that GL doesn't seem to get even though it's been explained to him: CB does not have a pre-set minimum price that will always be bid.

- CB does have a max price in mind, based on historical auction values; it will not bid if the min bid would be more than that.

- novice doesn't know what he is talking about; price is a function of supply and demand here as in any market-based economy. If supply continues to increase via spawns and demand does not, prices will go down. CB removes the oversupply from the economy in a much nicer way than simply eliminating spawns. "just make rares even more uber" is not the answer; even the uberest item will be low-priced given enough supply.

what I was suggesting was that folks were still rare shy from NW-PR, and that maybe finding a way to point out that rares are now useful again (from what I've seen) might help the market... It's a great day for CB when you can actually use the rare items again with out having them nuke your rewards.

(BTW it's my opinion that making statments about me not knowing what I'm talking about, are redundant. Come on Jon it's me!)

"- corollary that GL doesn't seem to get even though it's been explained to him: CB does not have a pre-set minimum price that will always be bid."

LOL! I really did miss that explanation. It's nice to know though. :)

"- CB does have a max price in mind, based on historical auction values; it will not bid if the min bid would be more than that."

So as long as the bid is less than this total, CB will always bid on an item, once, at the end of the auction.

What's the bid increment of auctioneer auctions?

So, it's very easy to avoid any CB bids: add the value shown for the item in the Item meta-stats to the NW of the item and bid that amount.

No idea what people are complaining about ;)

"No idea what people are complaining about"


They complain for the sake of complaining. Happens all the time. ;)

And God bless it.

You all had to go torment me with more economic talk didn't you?

3 hours of continuous economics examinations in one morning and now I'll never be able to look at the words supply and demand again, curse you all!!!!