Central Bank Thread (in General)

Shame on Central Bank with buying in item with over 70% NW rate, which artificially value item NW at 70% rate. 8*(

My current example: base CML is value at 200K by Central Bank (check recent CML auction). The most recent CML with 400K NW, with 3 month naming left is bided by Central Bank at 480K. That means Central Bank value NW on rare items = (480K-200K)/400K = 70% NW (I round number to make it easy read).

Why does Central Bank value NW so high? I can see that Central Bank wants to keep the price of base CML > 200K, but competing bidding with 70% NW fixed rate against the market is kinda lame.

In layman term, if you want to own a CML and value CML based = 200K and NW at 60%, you are Simply out of Luck.

However, if you are a forger and buying 200K CML based. Forge it yourself at 20% NW cost and auction it, you are guarantee with 50% NW return (70% Central Bank - 20% cost).

Who said you cannot make money from the system beside fighting?

[Disclaimer: This assumes Central Bank does not value naming with a % of remaining time. Otherwise, the above argument is invalid since I don't have any empirical data on how much Central Bank value naming item].
[Edited by shade - try to prevent certain abbreviations that could lead to unPG]

Was Central Bank the only bidder on those CMLs or were there more people bidding on them?

And besides, there are forgers who forge for 70% also, so either bid 71% in auctions or pay a forger 70% to forge ;)

I had the same thing happen to me, but worse. I was bidding on a MCM. It was a base MCM that spawned from the Blackmarket. My bid was about 650K or so I forget what it was exactly. And in the last few minutes before it closed, I had logged off when it was down to 8 mins left or something to that affect, Central Bank swooped in and bought it and I lost out on getting a nice price on a MCM that I voted for twice!. Lame!

Shade, yes other people did bid on those cml's, one of them was me. I think if Jon is going to use an autobid feature, it should automatically bid after a person puts a bid on the item and not at the last minute. This way the person would KNOW that they need to bid more to win instead of thinking they are going to get a good item for a somewhat cheap price.

Let me be clearer on the subject.

1. Forger is forging at 70% rate. Market fluxtuate between 60%-80%. However, Central Bank values CML NW at fixed 70% (based on above calculation).

2. Jon explicitely states that the only way money enter the system is through fighting. This is no longer true if Central Bank values CML NW at 70% while you can forge it at 20% cost. Unless Central Bank money is deem "already" in the system (and a lot of it).

3. Why can't Jon let the free market work? Why do Central Bank bid on CML with high NW rate?

70% NW is more than market rate for some of the rare items. It's not like a 400K CML is being sold for 200K. It was bid at 440K and still Central Bank outbid it. I could have buy it for 450-460K. But NO, Central Bank has to forge me to auction it at ~75% NW minimum in order to win that CML auction, while I consider CML NW at 60-70% MAX.

so to say: bid on this Mithril Cuirass before jonathan gets it? :p

Glad I'm not alone. Last week I had high bid on an Elven Cloak, and it was beaten within the last 18 minutes by Central Bank, when I wasn't around to up it again. I have to agree, could we please have Central Bank bid at the start of auctions, or the middle, instead of having it auction snipe?

I concur. Let central bank bid in the beginning to set the minimum an item should go for at the beginning, as a lot of us are not on when the auctions are about to end and lose out of some good deals the current way.

Central Bank bidding does not affect me any.

Just this morning I was winning an auction for EBs, and with 8 minutes remaining, Central Bank bid on it. I was still online, so I was able to bid again and win the item, but still, it cost about 100k more than if the bank hadn't bid.

But I'm sure Jon knows what he's doing...

Guess he wants to keep some kind of market alive.

It seems strange when there are so many nubs making lots of cash.

I suppose the lions share of this cash is ending up going to people that have already got their items.

all you have to do is what I've always advised: bid what you think the item is worth, instead of trying out-snipe other players.

then if you do get sniped, so what, someone else paid more than you thought it was worth.

Well, suppose that it keeps people from getting screwed .. though, I'm about to complain about it myself, I'm sure.

I fully agree with Central Bank helping make sure players get their money's worth, but the auctioneer and blackmarket auctioneer do not need to make a certain quota. It smells too much like price fixing. Let the supply and demand determine the value of items...

I think it is sound practice though it does smack of the command economy whilst I thought CB was supposed to be a model of capitalism ;)

from wiki:


Shills in auctions
Shills, or "potted plants", are frequently employed in auctions. Driving prices up with phony bids, they seek to provoke a bidding war among other participants. Often they are told by the seller precisely how high to bid, as the seller actually pays the price (to himself, of course) if the item does not sell, losing only the auction fees.

Shilling is an even larger problem in online auctions, where any user with multiple accounts (and IP addresses) can shill without aid of participants. Many online auction sites employ sophisticated (and usually secret) methods to detect collusion, and a number of people have been sent to jail for online auction fraud in the past decade. See more at: The Hazards of Online Auctions

A common shilling tactic is to have two shills. The first is a young child who offers a low bid for a moderately-priced item. Other auction participants will be reluctant to outbid him. The second shill is an ill-mannered and usually overweight man who does just that—he outbids the kid, who starts crying. In theory, this should provoke other auction participants to outbid the man solely for the sake of beating him; by bidding well beyond the item's value, he can artificially increase prices.

This practice is illegal in virtually all jurisdictions.

That would be a correct definition of shilling, except this is not shilling.

The seller and the person making the prices higher are not connected in a scheme, the money is paid by central bank and the item poofs.

I hear people complain about rares not being rare enough, yet others complain when an attempt is made to push the price up on items, thus making them more rare.

Bid what you think the item is worth and move on.

"an attempt is made to push the price up on items," as YOU say, is the definition of shilling. If we used Sealed bids with exposed cover bids as used in securities underwriting then you could bid your perceived value, rejoice with a win, regret the loss, and congratulate the seller. Instead, we use an Open bidding system. Bidding progresses until all but one bidder falls to the wayside, even if well below OR above a mythical Fair Value. I've never heard of a seller that was remorseful and returning money paid OVER the fair value, it's just the way it goes.


It doesnt take two to shill!

Ok,

Who cares if it's shilling?

Who cares if it's unfair?

Who cares if it's blah blah blah?

Jon thinks it's best for the game and therefore it is in the game.

There are plenty of things that most of us believe is bad for the game, or things that should be in the game that would make it better. However, it is Jon's game and his rules.

The first few posts were quite informative about what is going on, however as most of these posts get, they degenerate into useless spam. Such is this post.

lol I actually like this feature a lot

That's the kind of shameless audacity you just don't see every day.

Why not just make rares worth having again?

You should measure "rare" as "Number in the game compared to number of other items" not measured by price. If a rare item is not desired, its price should fall.

@ Sukotto....exactly, let the market forces dictate prices, the market is always more efficient than intervention


@ Ranger...that's crapola. The game advertises, invites play, takes "donations" for a service provided, and therefore is subject to the rules of the Uniform Commercial Code. Property has little to do with it. He takes money for a service. Ask your Atty General!
As for fairness, the game (admins) are constantly vigilant for multis under the pretense of "fair play"right. It sure is hypocritical to defend an "unfairness" in shilling auctions after banning or resetting a multi. Or how about the NUB unfairness, or the the resulting NCB? Who cares if its shilling? You do, and I do, and everyone who pays a makebelieve dollar higher for a purchase because of it.

@Bast...young lady, you use audacity like it was a dirty word. what is the price of freedom of speech? what happened to your generations skepticism of authority? are you drinking the Kool-Aid, too? By the way, I got the young cutie but I cant figure out the Errol Flynn lookalike in your picture. Who is it?

Hammer you have got to be joking, you are starting to look quite silly quoting laws in a game where they have no place. You are not a lawyer, stop acting like one.

However silly Hammer may sound he does make a valid point about fairness on CB. Half of the rules are made to guarantee fairness in the game. It would seem that unless we moved to a silent bidding for auctions that having an unseen hand swoop in and snag items is unfair. Their is nothing wrong with inflation of the price by the Central Bank, but it should be in a manner that is fair and accurate to all players, so that they know that their bids are valid before it is too late to make a change.

You act as if the development of the auto bid system is stealing EVERY auction. Which is further from the truth that hammer's legal advice.

The only service Jonathan provides is a game with certain rules.

Jonathan is perfectly authorised to bid on what ever item he may choose, for what ever price he wants.

So if you go sleep just before the auction ends, bad luck for you. If Jonathan didn't bid on it, perhaps someone else did. Are you going to 'whine' to that other person about it? Of course not because that other player 'won the auction fair'...


come on get some other topic to cry wolf about!