Diary of a Trader
I used to be a trader. I’ve made thousands of deals. Sometimes it was as simple as ‘I’ll buy. Where do you want to meet?’. Usually it wasn’t, though. Usually I had to work for it. It was not just buy low and sell high. It was much, much more complicated than that, if you wanted it to be. I made a lot of friends that way, and I made a lot of enemies too. Some who would defame my name, and those that knew me, or knew of me, would (most of the time) defend my reputation.
Where many would fail to make the deal, I would make it happen. When you have made as many trades as I have, you start to know what people are thinking, what they are about to say. You could always be one step ahead. Unless, of course, you were dealing with another savvy trader. In that case, the pattern deviated from the ‘normal’ deal, and when you figured out what was up, you could both have a quick laugh and move on. We were both there for the same reason, but had no business talking to one another. No trade to be made there. There was a rivalry, but it was a healthy one.
One player was so enterprising that he had set up a high-end escrow service. He was a permanent fixture there. Fat dumb-looking ogre that everyone knew. He played a lot—even more than me. He was so trusted that he had spreadsheets chock full of items that guilds would have him sell for a service charge.
Another player started his own pawn shop, buying goods for about half their value in bulk from players looking to unload weeks worth of farming loot. This was not one-sided, by the way--they had worked out schedules, rates, and everything. He was their go-to guy.
They stole a lot of my potential profits by proxy. Kudos to them, though. Don’t hate the player, hate the game, right?
We were always excited when a guild raid would roll into town, fresh off a big kill. The raiders were all in a great mood, and they made no secret of it. You could hear the teleport spells whish around you while chat went from a trickle to chaos. All of a sudden, there was an explosion of trades. If you knew what time to log in that day, you could make a killing. They would sell their loot cheap—rock bottom prices, and we were like piranhas. They were that other breed of player who had already put their dues into trading and found it trivial. Or perhaps they just hated it altogether, afraid of that icky, uncomfortable feeling in your stomach that comes with haggling. Whatever the case, that was a good thing for me. I was ready to intercept them. To relieve them of their wares with a smile.
But I had to be quick if I wanted to capitalize. You had to react instantly to the chat and send messages lightning fast. For me, it felt very much like taking part in the New York stock exchange, or what I imagined the virtual equivalent to be. I was alt-tabbing like a maniac, training my vision to pick out certain items and players, cross-referencing prices on an external site that some other pioneering trader had built and a host of other dedicated traders uploaded logs to. It was a lot of fun--to feel like a real world trader.
What might have seemed like a quick bargain or hassle to them was something else to me. It was an exercise, an opportunity to better myself. At the end of that tunnel was some sort of victory that I didn’t quite understand. I just knew it was there. Looking back now, it’s clear that the spoils weren’t at the end of the tunnel. They were the tunnel itself.
Before I had committed myself to those barren pixelated walls, I was an adventurer too. The day I decided to leave them, I became an adventurer once more. I was far better prepared than the other players my level, like a hobbit walking out of a vault, laden with priceless treasures and not knowing how to wield them. But damnit if I didn’t feel special. Those were my hard-earned treasures.
When I first started out, I realized that the game had been designed in an ironic, sort of cruel way. In order to advance, I had to group and struggle to defeat monsters that were at my level. There was certainly fun in the challenge, but to top it off, the gear I obtained that way still wasn’t quite enough to feel well-prepared. The only items that would allow me to safely defeat enemies my level alone were dropped from monsters that were 5 to 10 levels higher than me. That was a genius design decision because it forced me to interact with others to make my way, always in search of the next best thing. You couldn’t go it alone, and after a while, you didn’t want to.
And then the high-level players came by, looking so shiny and different, that I had to wonder if my character could ever be like that. What would I have to do to get to that point? I could just work harder, play longer hours, learn a trade-skill, and grind experience. Or…was there another way?
And this is where I share a few of my trading parables. For those of you that got a little sick reading that, you may want to turn back. This is where I lift the layer of grime you associate with the ‘TunnelQuest’ and reveal the hidden, dirty little world below. For my fellow traders, read on:
Filthy Mongrels
At the age of 13, my mind was absorbing everything. I made mistakes. I’m sure we all made mistakes at that age, and probably still do. I remember, in particular, when I did something not so nice. I was just beginning to learn how trading worked, the bare mechanics. After a couple of days, I was ready to hit the road, on to the next dungeon, when something happened to me. I got scammed. I had heard about it, countless players warning not to trust so-and-so because they did X, Y, and Z. For some reason, I was arrogant enough to think it couldn’t happen to me.
I had a good sale with a nice margin about to go down, but it was a big trade at the time, worth about half of my noob portfolio. He talked to me like an old friend—such a nice guy. Told me to just hand the item to his alt, that he would be right back on his main with the payment. He was in a hurry, and he seemed earnest enough, so I obliged. But he never came back. I waited, and waited. I was sure his internet had kicked out (56K dial-up was all the rage back then). But he never showed.
I was decimated. I felt betrayed and angry. There was a sense of loss. The next day I looked around for him and shouted his name again, only to be met with silence. So, what was the natural reaction of 13-year-old me? Two can play at that game.
I made a new character, walked to the trading zone, befriended some unlucky fellow selling some fancy, expensive sword. I scammed him. I switched to a different character and heard his pleas to the zone, shouting my name, looking for me. I was there listening as he met the same fate I had just a day before. It was hard to watch, but I didn’t give in. I kept the sword.
For months, that decision stuck with me. I was unsure if that was who I was as a character, unsure if I was really capable of doing that. And then I realized that I was asking those questions not about my character, but about myself—my real-life self. The reflection that came from that momentary decision was a moral turning point for me. The fact that I had thought about it so often was evidence enough that that was not me. I was never able to return the sword--waited too long and lost track of who it was I had wronged. But I have always carried the regret, even now.
A Dyeing Business
Blacksmithing was definitely hard work, for my index finger that is. By a certain point, I had lost count of moulds and ingots and was just clicking as fast as I could. I had a long way to go before I could make what I really wanted. But I was determined, so I forged on.
My brother was out in the forest hunting for mushrooms. I know that sounds totally unrelated, but bear with me here. Another friend, a potter (yes, that was a real profession—it was a simpler time), made me some clay jars. We found a sneaky rogue to mix things together. The result: a brilliant blue armor dye.
The boring steel breastplates I had been forging one after the other were finally about to get a fresh coat of style. We were experimenting and had stumbled upon a hidden gem. This was long before the vanity movement. Vanity items these days seem to be a dime a dozen, which is a topic for another day. This brilliant blue, when applied to that steel plate, became a shade that no one on the server had seen before. There were plenty of different colored droppable breastplates, but none with a hue this blue. I, for the first time, looked completely unique. There was no waiting--I immediately began to strut my stuff.
I was like a model on the runway, but as a male Barbarian. Everyone who crossed my path stopped dead in their tracks, virtual mouth agape. Even the higher level players didn’t understand how I had obtained such unique-ness. Not one of their guild-mates had anything like this. And that’s when the orders started rolling in. ‘What colors can I choose? Can I mix and match? How much is just a breastplate and legs? How much for the one you’re wearing right here, right now?’ The flood-gates had opened, and we were totally unprepared.
Apparently dyeing armor was a big deal. It was not easy to get the ingredients. Few players knew where to get them, and the players that encountered the ingredients in their travels just assumed they were useless. No less than 4 specialty professions and classes were required to achieve the final product. This made colored pieces rare, and colored full suits even rarer. We soon learned what the rich players were willing to pay for a custom suit of armor, and it was a lot. One suit would net us more than we had earned in our adventures combined. We had found the money tree, so we went into business.
I made a forum post with pictures of every color applied to the armor in-game and was taking orders through PMs. Dyed armor started becoming a new trend, one that we had started. Soon enough, we were wealthy beyond our wildest internet dreams. When we discovered how to make the pure ‘gold’ color, things started getting out of hand. We had made so many suits that we didn’t know how to spend our platinum. We decided that we had achieved what we had set out to do, but that there was an entire game out there we had yet to explore, with many more milestones ahead. We shared our secrets with a few trusted fellow traders and exited the dyeing business for good. We twinked ourselves out and plunged back into the dungeons stronger, and prettier, than ever.
Santa Claus and his Elf
One autumn morning, I logged in, took inventory, and began adjusting my sales pitches. Depending on how you worded your pitch, it could improve your odds of selling something or make you sound desperate. ‘The Eagle Emporium has just opened for business—come one, come all, you’ll be glad you did!’ Doesn’t that sound like something circa 1950? Or, ‘Selling everything on me CHEAP’. That usually got peoples’ attention. All in the psychology. Sometimes sounding desperate was an intentional strategy.
Anyhow, another player had set up shop nearby, but she was doing something different. She was running a casino. ‘Beat the dealer and WIN, just bid and /ran 12!’ At first, it appeared to be like a funny little player-run event. She was providing the entertainment. I found it amusing for a minute and then returned to more important matters. I had a rare item to sell. Rare items were almost always a bad investment, because they weren’t traded often enough for a concrete market price to emerge, and players were afraid to touch them. Sometimes, though, you could make amazing profit margins if you knew what you were doing, and I did.
I watched her spam for a few hours and noticed that her minimum bets had increased 10-fold in that short time. Did that mean that she had become more brazen? Or had she really made enough that 10 times the bet was at the same risk threshold as before? Impossible. I ran the numbers and the dealer wins 55.6% of the time. But who would waste their hard-earned platinum on gambling? I seem to have underestimated the power of addiction. These thoughts were occurring over the background of my mother’s pleas to get off the game. She wanted her son back, but he was far gone, living in another world. The irony was lost on me at the time.
Gambling is like a drug. The highs that come with the feeling of reward are just too much for many to handle. The only thing more addicting than being the gambler is being the house. The house always wins. Once you understand the math at hand, breaking positive becomes child’s play. And when you’re starting at 50 platinum pieces in a market cap of 50 million, exponential returns are your best friend.
I decided to give it a shot. It seemed risky at the time, although it was the least risky venture I have ever been a part of, retrospectively. Set the maximum bid to 1/10th of your net worth and you’ll always be in business. The only thing you needed was enough players, and in a world where everyone was already playing, they never seemed to run out. I would lose a couple of rolls, and then win 3 in a row. Lose once, win twice. Lose 4 times, win five. A few smart gamblers discovered the Martingale strategy. I got burned twice before I wizened up, but once I realized what was happening, I put an end to it. I just restricted them from doubling down more than three times in a row as a surprise after their third time, and the Martingale was no more. They were a little irritated, but I wasn’t forcing them to bet. ‘Next in line, please.’ Looks like it’s time to increase my minimum bet again, and here we go again.
Over the span of a week, I had turned about a thousand platinum into half a million. I had finally reached the ceiling. There were no more bet increases. No one would bet more than 5, 10 thousand at a time. Until he showed up. I’ll just call him the Mysterious Stranger, because that’s the vibe I’m going for. Without hesitation, a 50 thousand bet. He asked me if I could take it. At first, I apologized and said it was too large a bet. Then my brother figuratively smacked me upside the head. Technically, it followed our rule of being 1/10th of our net worth, so we accepted. It was the largest bet we had ever had. He won. Ouch. He wanted to bet again?! We looked at each other. Slightly unorthodox, we were under our 1/10th rule, but how often does a Mysterious Stranger appear like this? Ok, we’ll do it. We won. Whew. Another? We won again. Now we’re up. We kept going back and forth, and after about 15 bets, we were up 300 thousand. Remarkable, we thought. Who is this guy? Who totes around that kind of plat, and just throws it all over the place? Doesn’t he know the house will win? Has he ‘completed’ the un-finishable game and perhaps just doesn’t care anymore? He walked away casually.
We ran the casino for a few more days, unimpressed with the 2 thousand, 5 thousand bets we were getting. And then he returned. This time, with a 100 thousand bet. At this point, we had a net worth around one million, and it fit our 1/10th rule, so we accepted the bet. We won. Twice. Wow. He paused for a few minutes, seemed to be thinking hard, and bet twice more. We won both. We were on top of the world. He again walked away casually.
A week had passed. We did not expect to see the Mysterious Stranger again. Surely we had cleaned him out. But he came back. And this time, with a 500 thousand bet. Definitely not. Beyond the ‘who, why, where, how’ questions was the cold calculated math that told us no. Just no. This time we walk away. Despite how obvious it was to us that this was a bad idea, the Mysterious Stranger brought the gamblers out in us somehow. We accepted the bet. And we won.
We never saw the Mysterious Stranger again, and we hoped we never would. We had a net worth in excess of two million platinum pieces. We were sure that the number of players on the server with that kind of treasure cache could probably be counted on one or two hands. It was time to stop, and to think clearly about what we had achieved. Was it an achievement? Or was it an exploit? What exactly were we exploiting? The game? It wasn’t against the rules (at the time). Or was it the players? They are the ones who chose to play, to put their hard-earned plat on the line. There’s another moral quandary for me to hang on to. I wonder what’s next on my list of economic exploits—Payday loans, hedge funds?
In life, there is always balance. We didn’t really deserve what we had obtained. We worked for it, in a sense, but our work was not proportional to what we gained, not by a long shot. Christmas was around the corner, and that was reason enough for me to feel charitable. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you run into wealth beyond expectation? Give some away? I thought it would make me feel better about the whole thing, so we did.
We created an Ogre named Santa and gave him an expertly crafted suit of red and white armor to fit the part (recall our cosmetic enterprise above). My brother was having trouble coming up with another Christmasy character until I reminded him that we were playing a game filled with elves. We made him a suit of green and began preparing for Christmas.
We bought up loads of armor, weapons, jewelry, spells—you name it. We assembled at the epicenter of the main trading hub on Christmas. Unsurprisingly, the zone was packed. These people must have nothing better to do on Christmas, we thought. Wait, we were there on Christmas too. ****. That thought lasted for half a second—couldn’t allow it to break my immersion. People gathered around to point at our festive costumes, as expected. The thing that surprised them, though, was that this time, Santa was real.
As we spammed the lists upon lists of gifts to the server, nearly every player in the zone came to witness a Christmas miracle. Even the GM’s, who had run an event earlier in the day, showed up late to the party. Although they did not show it, I’m sure they were taken by surprise. Higher level players began to join in and donate their bags full of unwanted gear. Not a single noob went hungry that night. All in all, we gave half away, over one million platinum of our treasure trove. Why didn’t we give it all? Hmph. We’re not that generous.
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If a game developer were to try their hardest to create an NPC merchant that was life-like and immersive, they could never compete with a real person. In-game economies have the potential to produce some of the most engaging emergent gameplay. Gameplay that gives players long-term goals and allows them to fill the roles of the NPC. This is what makes static worlds come alive.
Awesome post! Thank you for sharing.
If a game developer were to try their hardest to create an NPC merchant that was life-like and immersive, they could never compete with a real person. In-game economies have the potential to produce some of the most engaging emergent gameplay. Gameplay that gives players long-term goals and allows them to fill the roles of the NPC. This is what makes static worlds come alive.
My thoughts exactly!
Reading this I just had a thought. What if player Auctions/Vendors had a cash transaction limit that was fairly low? This way the automated buy/sell function is limited to simpler items, commodities and consumables. The high value objects would still be player to player trading. A form of horizontal progression would be some way to raise your personal merchant’s cash on hand and buy/sell cap.
With this a lot of convenience trading can be handled without removing player to player trading all together.
Reading your section about the armor dyes really brought me back to when I was 6 boxing on one of the earlier progression servers. Through sheer incompetence in looting one of my clerics items on the wrong character I discovered that you could infact multi-quest the entire cleric epic.
Not sure of how this would pan out or even if anyone would be willing to pay something that would make it worthwhile (farming Pearl's was the worst part ever) I auctioned it in commonlands.
I received about 40 tells, half of which were people identifying me and a PoS. The other with offers for the Epic. 15 or so of the offers were obvious lowballs...(under 100k pp) but the top 5 really sparked a fire in me. All 5 ranged from 250-400k pp. Obviously choosing the highest, I successfully MQd the epic and awarded some guys level 40 cleric alt with his rez stick. He was happy, I was happy... for now. The next 3 days were a whirlwind of farming for me. Endless begurgle camps and gimblox rings until i had enough to MQ it 3 more times.
I went on to MQ about 10 or 12 cleric epics (and about 6 rogue epics but those were far less lucrative).
It was one of the best times in my game career. I had millions of plat to spare, had 5 alts decked out in all the raid gear I could buy, and had people requesting to be put on a waitlist for my epics.
By the time the next progression server was released there was 6 different people selling cleric epics.. it brought a smile to my face. I had created a market that previously was non existant and thrived because of it during my time. It's like being the first person to invent something and taking in the money before everyone else learns what you did.
Thanks for the story and thanks for sparking that memory in my mind.
Wonderful post :)
To Trasak's suggestion - I think there's a balance to be struck between enabling player merchants in the vein of Omzy's story, and enabling everyone to participate in the economy on their own terms. I don't know that a transaction limit is the right way to go. Instead, I think it should jsut be a limit on how much you can make available for sale at any given time, combined with the consignment tax you pay to the market or the NPC. To illustrate:
- Regional NPC broker: 20 simultaneous sell orders, 5 simultaneous buy orders, 5% fee
- Personal NPC vendor: 50 simultaneous sell orders, 10 simultaneous buy orders, 2.5% fee
- Player trader: How much bag space and time do you have?
Thanks for the kind words, everyone. I'm glad that it helped some of you to remember your own stories. My goal with this was to stimulate some dialogue on the topic of economic regulation within MMOs (and in Pantheon, obviously). It is impossible for a developer to accurately predict the outcome of their economic design before launching a real server. You just have to press 'Play' to see what happens. People are somewhat predictable but the creative ones behave in strange ways and test the boundaries. I do feel, however, that there are some basic principles that provide a foundation for a strong in-game economy.
1) Freedom
Freedom to communicate, freedom to trade (whenever and wherever with whomever), and the freedom to do things that may be frowned upon by some and cheered on by others. Essentially, this only describes the freedom to act as close to a REAL person in the virtual world as possible. Of course, there are always limits and laws to keep civil order (banning RMT, exploits etc). People should have the freedom to behave either as exemplary role models or as complete scoundrels. When players become sad, happy, angry, excited, vengeful, or suspicious because of something another player or group of players has done, this is a good thing. We are reacting as humans the way we should. The 'video game' has evoked real emotions, as any true piece of art should.
2) Social design
This is arguably the most important foundational mechanic of an in-game economy. If players lose the incentive to chat with one another, to meet in person, to advertise publicly, and to communicate freely, the immersive social fabric of the illusory economy begins to dissolve. Auction houses and automated trade handlers are the enemy of this principle. Whether a small automated facilitator of common goods such as building materials or food will perturb this delicate milieu is up for debate, but I still think it is best not to try to disrupt it at all with automation. Even common goods can be a newbie's livelihood. As they say, 'one man's trash is another man's treasure'.
3) Centralization and maximizing trade volume
The system should accomodate transactions of all sizes between players of all levels and 'walks of life'. This is easily achieved with centralization. Centralization provides more social opportunities between players who are different in wealth class (who otherwise may not interact if left to their level-dependent social circles or economic hubs). When you provide a forum for players who are wealthy to 'employ' newbie players to collect common goods for them, you have created an entirely new emergent 'quest' mechanic that is often-times more fun and interesting than the linear quests given by NPCs, while making a real-life acquaintance in the process. Another argument for centralization is preventing marginalization of players dealing in rare goods. Unless there is some form of direct communication between hubs, decentralization risks disconnecting the buyers from the sellers. The strongest economy has maximized trade volume, (which indirectly maximizes the social interconnectedness of its participants).
4) Static item value
This is one of the more obvious principles dealing with the RNG (random number generator). If items have any RNG components, their values are not static--there would be variation in the item price. This is bad, because no one knows the true value of the item. The true value is always in flux and when a consensus cannot be reached as to an item's value, effective trade simply does not happen. See exhibit WoW.
5) High item tradability and usability
Items which are 'no drop' subtract from the overall tradeable item pool. The fraction of items that are no drop should be small relative to total tradeable items, or an economy is not necessary at all to gear your character. Level restricted items have a similar argument--not to mention the feeling of awesome power that a level 1 gets wielding a Rod of Annihilation! Its that 'in your face' taboo that feels so good! A few minor game imbalances here and there are OK and give other players something to excitedly work towards.
6) Trade incentive
If trade is not necessary to advance in the game, then it will not happen. The clever way that EQ handled this was to make it so that a full set of gear obtained from monsters at your own level is not quite good enough by itself to allow you to solo the same monsters your level. You would have to have a full set of gear from monsters a few levels above you to successfully solo (not for every class, of course). This heavily incentivized trading and resulted in a vibrant economy. Players felt it was worth it to spend a bit of time trading between level grinds to give themselves that extra edge before they thrust themselves out into the wild again.
Ok, that's probably enough for now. I love talking about this subject and hearing what you guys have to say about it. Eventually, we will all see some form of economic system in the game. My personal hopes are that it isn't too heavy handed with regulation and aligns with most of the principles above. You can't always make everyone happy and that's just how life is, but hopefully we can all look back one day and fondly recall the experiences that we shared in Pantheon.
Great post.
Too bad you could not join us when we went to X and then Y and poh what happened there! and then stopped at z- where we dinged! and...nice gear~! sorry, you wont get exp if you group with us, we are going to A, but there is someone LFG over there, maybe you can get a PuG with them.
Hey! havent heard form you in.... months! wow really nice gear! look what I got- no I can't sell it its lore, you need faction with the Skar ot get it. yeah we spent , gosh, dont remember how long there. Nice to hear from you! stay in touch.
I believe my Pallywas a recipient of a str earring outside of the EC tunnel. I was on Xev at the time. I remember running around looking at the funny santa suit along with others when my trage window opened and he handed me an earring, and at the time I had no stat items. It was really cool
Great post! Brought back a lot of good memories. I was a trader in EQ too. My main, a ranger named Mark Lonefeather, was a max level smith with all the AA's and a +15% smithing hammer. My alt, a cleric named Taylara, was the same with tailoring. I would face my ranger into a corner in Thurgadin and lock the forward movement key which I had tied to the forage key. I would leave him like that everynight and when I came back the next moring, he would have stacks of Tufts of Dire Wolf Fur. My tailor would turn those into Leatherfoot Haversacks and then I would load them on my vendor alt, Kmahrt, at the bazaar and they would sell out pretty fast. One of the most important lessons I learned about trading is that you'll make a lot more money a lot faster by selling a lot of items at lower prices than you will trying to get top dollar for a few items. When I left EQ, I had amassed a little over 13 million plat. I gave it all away along with my account to my buddy, Joloni.
I will truly come bsack and read this in detail. Just getting caught up after a week away, so my quick answer is this:
I set myself up as a merchant. I made jewelry even RP-ed the store with a clever name. When they opened the first bazaar, I loved haggling and buying/selling.
I made small fortunes. I was specializing in research and spell-crafting and became a "go to" seller for researched spells.
I loved the whole merchant life in Norrath.