I'll be nekkid with one or more girlfriends, and whenever I do hop on to sell stuff make a little extra useless virtual cash while helping someone out of the bind that E-greed puts nonhardcore players looking for a boost in. Have fun being a lonely baron of nothing. :)

Your name is very fitting, lordtrollingsworth. It seems to be something you're very good at. Going to a website dedicated to an online video game, then going to an article about how one makes money in said game, only to brag about your multiple girlfriends?

Classy.

Have fun being an obnoxious asshat. :)

"Lonely baron of nothing" was pretty good though.

I doubt seriously anyone could control the market for gems, ores and enchants. You may have a lot, but because those resources are not strictly scarce, somebody can make a lot of gold by constantly undercutting you.

On the other hand, there are a few resources which truly are scarce, and in that case although it's doubtful that one person could control the market, a cartel would work. Let's take truegold for example. If we assume that there is a good use for truegold and no easy substitutes (such as the weapons in the last patch), somebody could make a cartel and say "ok the price of truegold is 1000 gold." You would invite anyone into the cartel by simply paying them 1000 gold minus the AH cut for their truegold, and listing it. Yes, somebody could come in and undercut you, but because the resource is scarce (you can only make one per day) a powerful cartel could either (1) buy out all the undercutters and relist them at the cartel price, or (2) just let the undercutters be bought out - there would still be more buyers who need to pay the cartel price. The undercutters would eventually see that they are throwing away gold by selling for less instead of selling through the cartel.

Cartels (or individual attempts to control a market) only work when there is a significant scarcity to the resource. Where there is no scarcity, others can make more than you by selling for less at higher volume.

I hope to hell you are on my server Ki.

I'll undercut you, and someone (your or not, I don't care) will buy all my crap.

Cheers,

Nick

I like the cut of your jib, Nick. Good on you for not being interested in accumulating the most imaginary nothing but finding the accumulation an enjoyable byproduct. I bet he, or someone, will angrily whisper you about how undercutting "ruins" the market and no one makes money....even though the gold is in your hands.

if you had ever catered for more than 2 girls at the same time, you'd know that it's a very stressful and dangerous road to travel on.

I'd rather join Ensidia and do some relaxing raiding with'em...