Offline SellingFollow

Main reason Severed Fir went down is because it is no longer used for the tomahawk heritage quest. Same with the High Quality Pelts, they went from 2pp down to about worthless (I have not been able to get 25gold out of mine, and I am usually alot cheaper then other players). The glowing flowers was never worth more then 1 or 2 gold. People when the uncommons first came out tried to get crazy amounts out of them, but people just didn't buy them till they got down to 1 and 2 gold. Before off-line selling I was buying them for 50 to 60 silver on Grobb, now they are between 10 and 20 silver.

I agree I don't like the off-line selling. I was just starting to make a few gold a night selling tailored armor, but now the only way I can turn any amount of profit is if I make every single sub-component myself. Right now my t3 tailored armor is listed at 50 silver and I have sold 1 item in the past 2 days. Of course by now probably somebody undercutting me by 5 silver now. Before off-line selling I could actually get 1 gold, which was at least making it worth my time.

I guess eventually it will even out since we will be buying stuff cheaper as well, but like any change it has alot of negative changes at first. I would have just assumed they left it the way it was. If it wasn't for Dolls tailoring would be a waste of my time now. By the time I make the patterns, sub combines, etc it takes me 2 hours to make up about 4 gold worth of tailored armor, and even then I might take a week to sell it. In 2 hours of adventureing I could loot merchant fodder worth that, and I would have the money as soon as I got back to town.

If I can find some opals at 45 gold I might actually afford some t4 adept 3 spells.

I don't understand why a person with 50 plat has to go and keep other players from making money. If they enjoy crafting for fun, then they should either match there prices with other players, give it to guild members (although if he is that rich he probably is in a lvl 40 to 50 guild), or if nothing else just sell the stuff back to a merchant. Yes yes I know its a free game they can do what they want, but that doesn't make it right.

I know people say "Well once you get into tier 4 and 5 tailoring you can make some money." WEll that is probably true, but how much time and money is it going to cost me to get to that point? Past 20 tradeskilling takes absolutely forever. I am at lvl 24 and even con combines give about 1% per combine. And anybody that does any type of tradeskill probably knows that the middle recipes in any tier require a bunch of green con sub combines that give pitiful exp.

So prices are going down...isn't this a good thing, or would we all rather be paying an arm and a leg for anything (Like in EQ1)in about 3 months

I think it's still too early to judge offline selling.. the expected price drop has happened.. since you're now competing with everyone to sell things you pick up..

the price of marketable goods is dropping as the number of people selling item "X" increases and they work to beat each other out.

mind you this fact applies to the low end... raws, rares, mob-dropped loot...etc.. however the high end remains relatively untouched - Adept III spells, imbued crafted items, etc.. these items are still 20 gold and up.. because there's less competition in that area.

anyone can run out and snag a stack of tuber and pop it on the market for 2 copper, however only a sage can make an Adept III.. and since there are not all that many sages flooding the market with adept III's the prices are, and until competition increases, will remain high.

so the initial effect is that *easy to get* things will see a marked price drop..

add to that they increased the likelyhood of a "rare" item being harvested so they're not nearly as rare as they were.. combined with the fact that now *everyone* can sell no matter their online status.. and it's a recipe for the cost of cheaper, easy to get items dropping like a DC-10. those of you who don't know what a DC-10 is.. ask someone over 30..:-P

now the *real* money can only be made by specialists.. or the insanely patient.

specialists are your Sages, Alchemists, Carpenters, Weaponsmiths, etc.. people who can produce a finished product.. the more *special* the class (i.e. less people playing it).. the less competition they have so they can charge more.. over time more people will come to realize this and work on becoming specialist too.. flooding the market, and lowering the value of the very items they wanted to charge more for.. because there will be more people producing them which creates competition.

the insanely patient is the adventurer who doesn't want to craft and is quite content to slaughter a ton of mobs, get item drops, and offload them to the nearest NPC.. it's certainly not effective, efficient, nor quick.. however as the saying goes:

"With enough thrust.. even a brick can fly."

Well, imo, I'd like to have low prices on things. This may not seem good while looking to buy items with cash from sold items, but then again, quests pay money. There seems to be a reason that they pay certain amounts if you ask me. I see it as a general 'guide' as to how much things should cost and how much money you should be 'using on a daily basis'. So if things cost roughly the same or less than quests pay out, everyone should have enough money for their particular needs.

I may just be wrong and drunk, I'm not very sure anymore.

Edited, Wed Apr 13 17:37:39 2005 by NewGuyxi

It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out...just wondering though, if more people get disgusted with the lower prices they can get for crafting and they stop doing it, won't that eventually shift the economy again...making things crafted more sought after and thus more valuable for the ones who stick w/ crafting and selling? I'm thinking, the people selling harvests for cheap will make things much easier for the people who tradeskill that need these items. What point am I missing here?

To borrow Newguyxi's closing statement, "I may be just wrong and drunk, I'm not very sure anymore"

At any rate, I'll continue to craft things and see where this ride takes me.

I cannot honestly understand the complaints, but I try. The only people, that I can logically conclude, who would complain about the price drop of items, would be those who had a niche market before, where they were making a lot of money by selling high priced goods. To everyone else, this is a great boon.

The average tradeskiller can now afford more components and can make more items, cheaper and faster, ulitmately leveling faster, and be able to make the higher end stuff.

I completely disagree with Iaini in regards to her implication that making money by adventuring is slower than tradeskilling and requires more patience. I had a 2 room apartment and 25gp in my pocket after upgrades, by level 18, almost all of it from selling loot off of mobs and chests.

I make so much money from adventuring I wouldn't even consider tradeskilling as a primary means of income. In regards to fronglo, I really don't understand your predicament either. I can make stacks of Tier 2 8 slot backpacks with little effort and time and despite the market being flooded with backpacks for sale, this high demand items still is the quickest selling item I usually put on the market, averaging between 40 and 50 silver (half a gold). I just got an order yesterday as well, for 10 Tier 2 backpacks and I don't advertise as an Outfitter or LFW. I wasn't even that enthused about it, because I'd rather out being adventuring, but I told her that I would if she provided all the components and subcomponents and the only thing I had to do was click combine.

The only reason I do tradeskilling is so I can make my own backpacks and later weapons, for myself, cheaper. If I can make some money on the side, on occasion, that's fine, but I'd rather be out adventuring any day.

In fact, the only people who I could see that have a valid complaint, are those relatively few people, who play EQ2 to tradeskill only (which is fine if that's why they pay to play) and don't want to do any adventuring at all.

Here's my money making guide for those who may be having troubles with cash. It's not a quick fix, but a way to play, that over time will net you a sizeable bank account. This applies specifically to levels 1-20, with more emphasis on the teen levels, but holds true for upper levels as well, though more factors become involved (and better loot too).

HARVEST! Almost anywhere you go in the overlands will be nodes to harvest AND enemies nearby. Fight until you need to rest, then harvest while resting. This breaks the monotony of straight harvesting or just standing around waiting for health and power. Most stuff you harvest is not worth much, but over time it adds up. The big benefit is keeping your skill up so you can harvest the more profitable nodes in higher Tier zones. The jackpot is finding even one rare item. In the three months that I have been playing, I have found maybe 4 or 5. The first one I sold for 50 silver, not knowing what it was, it literally sold in seconds from my inventory, which got me curious about the item and how I discovered that it was a rare... The point: each of the other are items I got sold for 8 - 15 gp EACH. ALL of the three months of harvesting was worth it for those 4 or 5 rares.

NAMED MOBS! I'm not talking so much about quest named mobs, but the named mobs for every group of monsters, like the Advisor in Antonica who pops with the Caltoris Knights. Most area's have one. Every one of them that I have fought, has been completely soloable (for a Paladin at least) when they are green. I even duoed Capt Graek in Commonlands (a x2 group Raid encounter) with a Fury, green to me, blue to her. Almost all of these heroic type mobs, drop chests, almost all of the time, and the loot inside is wonderful! I got my first Master I spell and a Rough Coral off a level 18 named mob (soloed) in Antonica. The point: Find a named that drops good loot or pops quickly (they're out there) and hang around the area killing other things until they pop, it's worth it!

Note: Please be curteous of other players in regards to named mobs that are a part of a quest. Do a quick /ooc and see if anyone is hunting them, before killing them. Even if they are, you might be able to join them and still get a chance at some good loot.

ADEPT I SPELLS! I made most of my money early on from selling these. There are so many spells for so many classes that it is hard to flood the market with everything. Normally, most Adept I spells average 1gp, with more common ones as low as 15 silver, but uncommon ones will sell for more. Last night I sold a Pierce Adept 1 spell for 8gp. I average about one Adept I spell an hour, when I am actively killing. You won't find them tradeskilling.

BE FRUGAL! Don't waste money on minor upgrades, save for big upgrades. Don't try to upgrade all of your spells to Adept I, just the ones that are most important. Which also brings me to the next money saving/making strategy...

QUEST! I log book is usually full of quests. I get double the XP and extra loot, by killing enemies I would have killed anyways. There are lots of Gnoll killing quests in Antonica, for example. I got a great 2 handed hammer Dwarven Warhammer of Cleansing for completing the Firemyst Gully quest, that beats anything in my level range on the market currently (mid 20s), though a 2handed sword someone crafted is very tempting, except for the price at 30gp.

Combine all of these strategies into your playstyle and you should never have a problem with money. This is all done, by the way, on a schedule of about 3 hours a night during the weekday, and 12 plus hours on the weekend (it varies), going to school part time and working full time. Which is to say, if I can do it, you can too.

I might also add, I have fun, am rarely bored, and never feel like I am grinding XP for the next level.

All of your information is solid and very realistic, not to mention very helpful to a newbie, so thank you for that. My problem is this. Pierce is a level 15 spell, and you sell it for 8gp, that is just wrong, adept ones should never go for that much, maybe level 45+ but even then that is pretty ridiculous. I see it all the time, level 18 spell for over a plat. anything 20 and under should be for 1gp and under, all the people that are doing this are price gouging, and in the long run, it only hurts you. you are marking it up so high that only a few can buy them, so then the majority of the people you group with have lesser versions of their important spells which in the long run hurts the groups, buffs aren’t as good, debuffs aren’t as good, and damage isn’t as high, all because people need to be greedy.

This thread is about the price of stuff going down, I keep seeing it go up, food and drink is ridiculous, I cant even afford to buy that stuff, crafter weapons and armor for 75gp+ give me a break, even if the rare cost you 45gp the rest of the stuff didn’t. The changes made to crafting have been great, but they have just given crafters an easy way to price gouge the entire player community.

I'm all for a stable market, and all for getting a fair price for your hard earned loot, and for the good people that do take the time to craft, but the point is a "fair price" not a bank account emptying price for level 15 adept.

To Banter

An interesting post. To be quite frank, I have no idea what level Pierce is or even what class uses it. It could be a level 50 spell for all I know. I don't even have my own class spells memorized. I am currently holding onto an Adept 1 Hold the Line spell, because I "think" a Paladin might use it later on, but I'm not sure. You can be sure, with the few hours I get to play, and long hours of work and school, I will not be researchig and memorizing other class spells any time soon.

As far as pricing goes, I price according to the market. I don't have the first clue what ANY item is worth. I have severely underpriced items before and overpriced them in my attempt to learn the game, the items, their value, their rarity, and their demand. These days, the first thing I do, is go to Browse Market and see what the items are priced for. I saw Pierce Adept IV selling for 5 or 6 gold and an Adept I selling for 8 gold (if I recall). If I would have priced it at 1 gold, like most other Adept I spells I usually sell, I can guarantee that instead of YOU posting, their would be another poster, probably a Sage, beratting me for undercutting and driving down the market and his profits. It's a lose - lose situation because I can't please everybody. It's just like that Aesop's Fable with the old man, the youth, and the donkey. Every person they meet has a different opinion and they try to please that person, only to meet another person with a different opinion.

I am a strong supporter of free trade and a competitive market. Supply and Demand will stabilize the economy over time. A perfect example is a Master 1 spell I have for sell. Many of those spells are being sold over 1 and 2 platinum. When I first started selling it a few weeks ago, I thought 1 plat, towards the middle-low end of the market, was reasonable. It hasn't sold. This means tha either there is no demand for the spell or that the demand is not strong enough to support the high price. So what do I do? I lower the price. I don't want to be sitting there for all of eternity, never selling the spell, especially since I am continuously adventuring and building up more stock than needs to sell. I do what any common sense merchant would do, I lower the price. It is now down to 70 gold, approaching the low end of the market for Master 1 spells in general, and I am about to drop the price again. Eventually, after dropping it enough, it will reach a price that the buyer will think is reasonable, and he will purchase it. Simple economics.

As far as being the Mother Teresa of EQII, friendships and guilds should be the first resource of players looking for freebies and substantially underpriced loot. I'm not going to give away my hard earned loot. However, before you (anybody) are too quick to judge, I have done just that, for complete strangers, at times. I'm not saying that I am going to make it my business practice, because it would be a poor business practice, but on occasion, when I am selling somthing in /ooc or /auction and somebody who needs it shows interest, but doesn't have quite what I'm asking, sometimes no where near, I will sell it to them for considerably less than what it's worth.

But for the record, I will continue to sell and price the items that I earned for anything I choose, even 99pp if I so desire. I have ZERO obligation to even put the items on the market and I will not let any man or woman on this or any forum or in game, tell me how I am supposed to play. So long as I obey SOEs rules, as long as I am paying to play, I can play as I will.

To Old Blue

I sincerely apologize in your loss of income. Like any good entrepeneur, I would recommend adapting to the changes of the enviorment and market, and consider alternate means of increasing your income. I have previously stated that I have never considered tradeskilling as a single, decent source of income, both before and after Offline selling was implemented. I have previously made my arguments for adventuring as the best source of income and I stand by them. It is my personal opinion that you waste your time trying to make money by tradeskilling, however I recognize you right to play the game any which way you choose.

If you choose to continue tradeskilling as your primary source of income, I can strongly recommend stopping to make your own subcomponents and find a friend or guild member who will make them for you and sell them to you at a reduced price. This will increase you production rate. Consider this analogy:

If you start a franchise, no matter how much money you will save by running around and doing everything yourself, eventually you will reach your production limit and if you wish to expand your business and sell more product, you will have to hire an employee, then two, then three and so on... matching productivity with demand. Your sales will more than compensate for whatever meager amount you have to pay your employees, or in this case a "contractor" who makes your subcomponents for you.

You said that you have more than enough harested resources, this indicates to me that you spend some time, wether small or considerable, out in the lands, harvesting, rather than inside tradeskilling and selling more items. Stop this! Have guild members and friends harvest the resources for you and offer them a reasonable price where both parties win. Eventually, you could have a small operation going where friends and guildmembers will mail you resources they gather, you send them payment back, friends and guild members making sub components for you, again mailing them to you, and you mailing them payment back... and all you have to do, from the moment you log on to the moment you log off (with the exception of a mail run) is make final product, over, and over, and over.

History is full of people who said that something could not be done and it only took one person to prove them wrong. Focus on a creative solution and adapt to the changing enviroment with an open mind and you can find a measure of sucess in almost any enviroment.

Good Luck.

Kali, let me first apologize, i quoted you because you were the one who had done the post, but i was not trying to flame you, which it looks like, but it was not my intention. just it brought up a subject that has been on my mind for a bit. I was more just going for an all around rant, so for that i am sorry.



Warrior spell, i think about lvl 16. just fyi. and i only know the two spells you named because i happen to play both of the classes that use them.




yes supply and demand does dictate the market, you are correct. But just because one has the supply doesnt mean one should rip off the people who need it. I understand pricing according to the whats on the market, but there is something that is common sense too. And yes friends and guilds is where you should look first for deals and what not, but part of keeping the economy reasonable on this server has to come from every player, either you keep things reasonable or you end up with an economy that was like EQ1.

I do think one should be able to make some coin for their adventuring and TSing time, im not against that at all. I just dont think people should abuse the market the way i see it happening.



you pay to play, play the way you want, go for it. blah blah blah....so tired of this answer. this was not the point of my post, and its a pretty weak cop out. yes you have the right to sell what ever you want for as much or as little as you want. you have the right to adventure or TS, you have the right to sell or not to sell. your rights where never in question, i was making a statement on the economy of the game. I am not a market expert either, and i do the same as you for pricing most things, check out what its going for, but i always mark it way down from the lowest price i see, for the simple reason that it is probably priced too high already. Granted this is my choice, and yes im sure to get, as you mentioned before, flamed for pricing stuff too low, but i would rather see lower prices then higher ones, lower prices means a strong economy, higher ones means the value of the coin is decreasing. as a suggestion (just a suggestion),a decent idea for pricing adepts is the skill required to use them = SP. so if the skill required for an adept is 145 then that would be 145sp or 1gp and 45 sp. that is a pretty reasonable way for pricing, but thats just me and i would never say it is the only way to do it. And im sure there are as many ways as there are people.

Again Kalli, im not flamming you or trying to start an on board rivalry, just having some friendly........Banter.

Okay bud.. I guess we should just stop posting since we are irking you.


Listen.. All these changes in the game are beginning to actually irk me. Like somebody else said, I wished SOE would stop beta testing so I could actually know what game I'm playing here. Its starting to **** me off, that they are changing major aspects the economy and game play every month.

I've defended EQ 2 in the past but this is getting ridiculous here. Its not just the off line selling which is was a very, very stupid idea and contrary to everything that an MMO game is about. I can adapt to that and have alreay. But in just a few weeks they have changed the outdoor zones and the prevalence of heroic mobs, begun the implementation Sony Exchange which is a change that violates their own EULA, implemented a global quest which screws up every freaking avatar in the game, seemingly arbitrarily tweeking and untweeking critical spells and abilities with each new patch, and there is much more but I'm much to apathetic to list it all...

I'm just sick of all the changes. Just let me know that this game is still in phucking beta mode so I can stop wasting my time and I'll come back in a year when Sony actually figures out what the ***** they want to do.

At first I loved this game but they are steadily ruining the experience with this constant micromanagement of game content. Just leave it alone and let the game grow on its own. There was nothing wrong the game as it was 2 months ago but with all the changes its practically not even the same game in many ways.



Edited, Thu Apr 21 05:46:18 2005 by Datheenker

Who's we? You make an assumption in error, friend, if you include yourself or anyone else on this thread and the last thing I would do, would be to infringe upon your right to post in a public forum; I am not so crass.

This is actually one of the things that confounds me. There are people, in real life, in the game, and sometimes on forums such as this, who will go to the extent of telling others to shut up, because they do not agree with what is being said.

I was telling some jokes in /OOC the other day, nothing crude or offensive and I wasn't spamming the chat log, it was an occasional joke every few minutes, most of them being game related. Most of the players in the zone thought the jokes were either humorous or just didn't care. One of the players in the zone sent me a tell, though and expressed his displeasure, not at the content of any of my (purposefully) neutral jokes, but at the mere fact that I was telling jokes in /OOC. I was not rude, but courteous in my response and I recommended that he seemeed to be the only person in the zone who had a problem with it and I recommended that he put me on his /ignore list, which would instantly filter out anything I said. He wouldn't even know I was there.

Far be it from doing the easy or sensible thing, he continued to harangue me on how I must be a childish person who only plays EQ2 to socialize and not to play the game. He went on to explain that he was a very mature person at 18 years old, was marrying his high school sweetheart, and was going to be a Physics student when he went to college (apparently in the near future). I don't know why he told me this, perhaps to validate his position of authority on immaturity. Nevertheless, I wished him a nice day and promptly put him on /ignore and yet to be bothered by him again.

I can only guess, that there are certain people who enjoy conflict and even actively seek it out. I hope the alternative is less true, that there exist people in this world who believe that if others disagree with them, then they do not have a right to voice their opinion. While I do enjoy a healthy debate on occasion in the proper place, please do not associate me with the latter.

As far as the concerns that you have addressed, I can certainly relate. While I encourage growth in the game, I would prefer it more in the context of game content, rather than actual changes to the game mechanics. Fortunately, I believe most of the changes were for the better. Things like nerfing the Paladin horse, even though I play a Paladin as my main, I am in agreeance with those who say that it is unfair to the rest of the players who have to save up over a platinum to buy a horse of their own. While offline selling is debatable in my mind, I wholeheartedly agree with being able to sell while adventuring. I don't want to log on to sit in my apartment all day and I don't want to leave my computer running all night.

As far as the most recent change (impending), with the Station Exchange, I can understand from a business perspective that in the short term at least, Sony stands to make a sizeable profit from all the transactions that are sure to take place. I am more skeptical for their long term prospects, however. Will this cause me to leave the game? Most certainly not.

They'd have to drag me from my computer kicking and screaming