There are a number of things that annoy me about the broker in EverQuest II.
My #1 pet peeve is when a seller with a ton of stock feels so threatened by any competitor, no matter how little they have up for sale, that they need to drop their price way down to make sure their stuff sells first. Last weekend I saw a seller with 4000 tier 7 arrows cut his price in half to get himself ahead of five other sellers with a total combined stock of less than 400 arrows.
400 arrows sell in a heartbeat. But rather than wait a bit on a busy weekend, he dropped his price and gave away a chunk of cash in the bargain.
I see this happen all the time with harvested commodities on the broker as well. Furthermore, since harvested raws have no value to a vendor, there is no floor on the pricing. This leads to my #2 pet peeve, which is selling items on the broker for 1 copper.
Personally, I cannot imagine why anybody would sell below 1 silver, but you see things up on the broker for 2 copper all the time. 1 copper goes for the brokers fee and 1 copper goes to the seller. (100% brokerage fee!)
In watching the market last weekend, I decided to pick a commodity and see if I could influence its price.
I decided to go after soaring coffee, a tier 7 provisioners harvestable. There were three reasons behind my choice.
First, the broker showed that most sellers had soaring coffee priced under 1 silver.
Second, the total number of sellers was small, only extending into three pages on the broker.
Third, I have a provisioner who can now make soaring espresso lattes, a five hour drink that sells quite well and for a healthy margin, so if I found that I could not manipulate the market, at least I could turn my experiment into something I knew I could sell.
Friday night and Saturday I scooped up all of the stock on the market at or below 1 silver. There was a gap between 1 silver and the next lowest seller, who listed at 6 silver. So I took what I purchased and relisted it all in my own store for 5 silver. By Sunday morning, my supply had sold out.
Sunday I continued my purchasing, though I noticed that the market changed at least a little. Some people still listed under 1 silver, and I scooped up their stock at once. Others, however, began listing higher than that, but below my 5 silver price point. I decided I would buy out everybody up to half of my 5 silver price.
As of this morning, 5 silver is now the low price on the market. I have quite a bit of coffee up for sale now and am selling some. However, we are now in the mid-week doldrums for market activity, plus it is a holiday week. Next weekend may tell a different story.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
I have a friend that has always been able to work the market just like that. Buy out everyone that lists below you and relist it as higher. This seems like a great idea, but you have to be careful of the commodity. If you choose poorly then you’ll end up losing your chain-mail shirt.
I have invested heavy in items before, buying up what was on the market only to get shorted again and again and still not selling my original stock of items. So, choosing the right item to manipulate is very important.
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What you’ve done isn’t really a “manipulation” of the market at all — what you’ve engaged in is called arbitrage and is one of the most common ways to make large sums of money very quickly without doing very much work.
You’re exploiting the known fact that, when a commodity or any good is listed below it’s market-clearing price, there is excess demand and all of the goods listed at that price will sell guaranteed. Knowing this, you can buy the commodities at this price, and list them at the market-clearing price, or even a price nearer the market-clearing price and still sell all of the commodities without worry.
People undercutting doesn’t hurt the market at all — it’s annoying, yes, but it’s not really detrimental to anyone in the long run. Only two things can really come of it: some people get a screamin’ deal in the short run (like you, making a 400% return on your investment), or the price goes down to the level that it’s supposed to be at anyway. The price for most goods, especially in games, should be close to the sum of all of it’s parts, plus some value that’s added by having them combined (which can be calculated by the rarity of the pattern or the usefulness thereof). That means if you’re crafting Bigman Leather Pants and the parts only cost 5g in total, you shouldn’t really be expecting to make much more than 5g in the long haul unless the pattern is extremely rare.
So, undercutting can create short term deals for those watching closely in the short run, but more generally it brings prices back down the levels they’re supposed to be at.
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I don’t want to quibble about terms, but when you buy up more than half the stock in a market and change the average price of said market by a factor of more than four, I think you can safely use the term “manipulated.” My direct and conscious action made that change.
As for my pet peeves, they are not directed against the market, which is self-correcting in the long term, but against people acting against their own self interest. Selling items for less than a vendor will pay? Selling items for a copper when the market will support a silver as the price? I suppose it just means more opportunity for others.
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I dont really think when I put my stuff up, I just want it out of my inventory so like WoW I undercut stuff by one or two points, whatever the currency may be. That also probably explains why I have no money in real life….or so my wife says
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Well, one of the imperfections of the EQ2 market is that you can put, essentially, a sell order out for items that everybody can view, but you have to buy in real time.
If EQ2 had EVE Online’s mechanic of being able to also place a buy order that would persist off-line through time, an order sellers could see, the market would self-correct more effectively. You would, for example, never put soaring coffee up for a couple of copper if you could see a big buy order that would pick up all your coffee and more for 2 silver each.
That would probably need some work to implement, as EQ2 drops stuff right in your inventory when you buy at the broker, not in your mailbox or some distant space station.
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