Tag Archives: market
Suspended for ‘Abuse of Economy’
Story time! On Thursday night I logged in to discover someone had listed [Reins of the Crimson Deathcharger] in the AH. They were in there for 40k which was an excellent price given they routinely go for much more. I bought them. I woke up the next morning and attempted to login, but discovered my account had been suspended.
I opened up my email and sure enough amidst the other fake blizzard emails was the suspension notice. It stated the following:
Account Action: 72 Hour Suspension
Reason for Action: Terms of Use Violation –
Exploitative Activity: Abuse of the Economy
Since I have an authenticator on my account and my activities in game are only ever legitimate I wasn’t overly concerned. It was obvious that the system had triggered off some recent account activity (such as the 40k AH purchase) and automatically taken action. It felt the action was necessary to potentially protect both myself and the integrity of the game economy.
My main concern was actually that it might take a few days to clear up and that my 5-box shaman alts would miss the rest of brewfest! :p It’s a long weekend here in Australia too so I wasnt looking forward to the prospect of not being able to login.
I’m extremely happy to say that after emailing Blizzard on Friday morning at 8am (Sydney Time) I had a response in my inbox at 9:55am! It advised that after a review the action had been reversed and apologized for any inconvenience. Colour me impressed!
I have a genuine interest in figuring out why their system has inconsistent false positives like this. I’ve posted a similar breakdown to the one above in the Customer Service Forums. You can see the thread here and I would encourage anyone with constructive input to participate in the discussion.
Since all this has occured I’ve also noticed that something unusual appears to be happening with the [Reins of the Crimson Deathcharger] items appearing in great numbers. A blue poster has already commented stating that ‘duping is impossible’ but the data do not lie! Be wary folks, and think carefully before buying these up for resale!
Posted in Gold Making
Tagged abuse, crimson, economy, gold, market, mount, suspended, temporarily
“Controlling the Market”
People often chat to me about their gold making techniques and experiences. From time to time I see the phrase ‘controlling the market’ used and it bothers me. The economically uninitiated throw it around freely and for them it’s all about ego ego ego.
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” -Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride
If you’re the single person on your server with an ultra-rare recipe then you’re definitely entitled to say you ‘control’ the market. Similarly if you’re supplying a large majority (ie 90% plus) of a high demand item you may also be able to make that claim.
In reality, though, how often do you think that’s the case? It’d be a very rare occurrence these days, I can tell you that. I know that even the items I profit from most regularly I don’t have any sort of monopoly on.
There’s a big difference between controlling a market and identifying a market with reasonable demand and low supplier participation rates.
The above is a simple diagram I put together to help demonstrate my point. Unless you can control supply you can’t control the market. At the very best if you’re buying out everything in the Auction House you can temporarily set a higher price. That is until additional suppliers come along of course.
If the resupply rate is sufficiently low and there’s demand then you can make a profit this way. Although, again, most of the time I see people bragging about this it’s been for foolish high-supply materials.
I fondly remember, some years back, getting a hate whisper from someone after I’d posted a bunch of Greater Eternal Essences on the AH. The person abused me and told me I was setting my auctions too low. I responded and said something like “I set them at what I felt was an appropriate price, buy them if you think they’re too low”.
Totally misunderstanding what I’d said, the person assumed that in saying the word “set” I meant I’d “set” the market price. Boy was he hopping mad at that – “YOU SET THE PRICE? I’ve been controlling the market and setting the price for weeks!” he exclaimed. Wrong wrong wrong!
Clearly because he did not control the supply he did not control the market. Some random person was able to come along and unknowingly upset his imaginary little tea party.
So next time before you throw about the term ‘Controlling the market’ maybe have a think about it. Is it really the best way to describe what you’re doing or is perhaps “Minor manipulation through focused and regular intervention” more apt? actually…never mind me :p