The problem with having AH as the only resource for the going rate of items

[Kerrlahg]

Often times 2 people that are trying to make a transaction don't know the most appropriate price for an item or for a resource. I believe this causes a bit more instability in the markets then there really should be. Prices can fluctuate wildly and I think a part of this is the inherent problem with having the AH as the only go-to resource for values in nearly everything. Mainly that auctions listed are things that have not sold. If I were to compare it to something in real life it would be pricing items based on there buy-it-now price on Ebay as opposed to completed auctions.

As anyone who deals with resources may have noticed, resource values are somewhat tied to TC prices, and when TCs change, everything changes. This has come up in conversation several times recently as I'm making small talk with people I buy resources from and with people who buy crafted items from me. One interesting idea that came up today was a log of completed Auction House purchases (personal transactions wouldn't really hold value, it would just have to be AH purchases between non-linked characters), or perhaps an average price over "x" amount of time of such qualifying purchases. Yes it could be manipulated on a small game like this, BUT it still would be valuable to merchants and buyers alike. It would not have to be a complex implementation (maybe a right-click, as opposed to a left click on the auction category would bring up a list of transactions under the category over X amount of time).

I just feel there is a ton of information on the server that could be put to much better use for the player-base and that would help settle-down the variety of prices from one day to the next. With the current implementation of many LG items that must be crafted to be obtained, everyone must deal with the open-markets at some point or another. The wild variety I see in just plant and dye prices from day to day is quite crazy. It is apparent you have logs of every transaction (try visiting your player log to see the detail that is logged and saved on the server for each character), why not put the data to good use for everyone's benefit?

While you could do very awesome things with the data, I don't feel spending a hundred hours is the best use of your time, but I have a feeling you could whip up something pretty intuitive that would be a huge help to literally everyone at some point or another. Also, think of all the pretty graphs you could make someday! I just see all this amazing data and I don't want it to go to waste! Help us make Nodiatis a more pleasant experience for everyone!

I apologize for the rambling (I know, I know, I'm terrible at it, but at least you know it's still the same ol' Kerr!). Thanks for you consideration.

[Akilthedestroyer]

<3 this idea! Awesome

[Jvance]

The only use I could see for this is to give people a tool to haggle mat prices.

We have a very fluid supply and demand economy that is very much tied to the most valuable resource of TC's. And even with this haggle tool I don't think it would change anything except for maybe people being even more upset when they don't get mats and a price they are happy with, for the things I sell I wouldn't give a single F if the average price of completed transactions was 100k under what I was selling at if I'm the only one with them it doesn't matter what the last guy did.

It's just classic supply and demand, it really reminds me of OPEC and gas prices. Someone got upset because he was the only one with tc's for sale and put them at a mill per to take advantage of the lack of demand, and people kept bugging him and complaining about the prices so he put them at 1.5 mil per then as people logged on they looked at tc prices and said OMG tc's went up. They did but not for any other reason than ppl bugging the crap out of one guy. And that is why our tc prices are where they are I watch them go from 850k on average to 1.2 mil over night while I was on a nod o thon. People price according to speculation,

hows that for a rant kerr