Greedy Goblin

Friday, November 20, 2009

Orbs, tankards and CDS-es

Look at these sales! Aren't they beautiful?
No, they are not! I bought the damn things for 2500G. I had 8 of them! Yep, there goes 12000G. Almost the price of the stupid Mammoth. Way to make some profit!

The plan was to buy them on reset day (of week 4 ToC), and resell them for profit in the same weekend to the non-raiding but "I want BiS" kids. Well, too many people had the same idea. It was months ago but still hurts.

Why did this investment went down? Several factors contributed to this unlucky event:
  1. Random bullshit excuse #1
  2. Random bullshit excuse #2
  3. Random bullshit excuse #3
  4. Random bullshit excuse #4
  5. I was careless, unprepared and greedy
With tankard of terrors I have better results. I bought them for 800-900G mostly by bids below 1000-1200 buyouts and now selling them for 1100-1200G. 6 sold, 8 to go.

Why am I telling it only now? You can no longer buy tankards, this information cannot get you gold. Well, that's the point! I officially stopped giving investment advices, exactly because they are unpredictable. I mean:
  • "you farm herbs and sell them for profit": fact without any doubt
  • "you check material prices, product price and if the product cost more, you craft it for profit": speculation with very-very little chance of loss (maybe someone is flooding the AH with the same thing as we speak, losing 100G for every skillpoint)
  • "you go deep undercutter, competitors will give up": speculation with enough economy science and personal experience behind it to place my word (=credibility) there and also put my own gold where my mouth is
  • "you buy abyss crystal since it can be shattered after patch": speculation with good chance but also good chance to fail. Huge factors can cause it to fail, like PuGging emblemfarmers produce more than needed or every living body on your server are stockpiling.
There is absolutely no way to prove a speculative investment (or it wouldn't be speculation by definition). If you learn enough economy and study your market for a long time, you'll get enough empirical data to have good guesses. You can get rich by these guesses. However there is absolutely no way to not fall with them time to time. You shall continue on your own risk. I won't give you directions here as this is not a safe field for making money. If you want safe money, go craft herbs, gems, belt buckles or farm elementals. I can guarantee profit there for more or less time investment. I cannot and no one can gurantee profit with investment. Anyone who does is a liar or an idiot.

On my yesterday post commenter found various ways how was it not their fault that they (or some imaginary "unlucky victim") lost money over the financial crisis. They are exactly the same reasons why I lost on the orbs: random bullshit excuses.

If you craft no item, farm nowhere nor transport any goods, you invest. Therefore you do something on your own risk. Yes, even putting money to the bank for 3% interest is a risky investment. You do no work for your 3%. Someone else must do it. If he fails to do it, or was a sneaky dog running away, you won't have your 3%, strike that, you won't have your capital back.

When you take a loan, you also make a risky investment: you hope that you get more profit/interest on the loaned money than you must pay to the bank. If you pay 10% interest but make 20% profit, you just made 10% using the bank's money. Of course, since no one can see into the future, no one can guarantee that you'll be making 20% for years.

If you want sure money, go farm 40 hours a week or start a small business crafting something useful to the people! If you make an investment, you do it on your own risk. You may get rich without work, or you may get bankrupt. That's the general rule. Now let's see some bullshit excuses:
  • The US government forced the banks to give loans to ninjas (no income, no job or assets): oh, really? And did the government forced them to not close business in the next day? Did it forced you to not sell all your bank stocks and liquidate all your bank deposits the next day?
  • My country's currency went down: and they put a gun to your head to keep this currency? You could buy other currencies, gold or real estate. I bought Euros for all my Hungarian forints at 240 and watched it smiling as it went well above 300 (It's 280 now, but I hold my Euros as I guess (risky investment) that the current government is imbecile and will ruin the forint once more).
  • The greedy and evil businessmen packed the risky papers into obscure packages so no one knew what they contain: and they also forced you to buy obscure packages? Lehman papers were agressively marketed in Hungary and my "personal banker" (the bank guy who bugged me with offers) wanted me too to buy some. I asked him information, he flooded me with papers. I read them all. I'd love to say that I figured out that Lehman will go down, but I didn't. I couldn't figure out anything. So I asked for more information, but he couldn't/didn't want to give me. Since I didn't know what's inside the box, I didn't buy it, despite the high percentages he told me.
  • It's the fault of the US and my country suffers for it: and they also forced you to work for a company that sold on US markets? Did the USMC forced you to not learn Russian or Chinease to be able to work on those markets?
All bullshit! If your investment went down, it's your fault. You were incapable to comprehend the risk and still took it or hoped you'll get lucky. Too bad.

PS: some came up with the "I made no investment just lost my job". Well, in any economic system except no-unemployment-communism there is unemployment. It's like the ugly icy rain in November. Nobody likes it but it won't go away. You are not a moron or a loser if you are unemployed. However if unemployment make you unable to pay your rent or loans, you are a moron, just like the guy who has no roof on his home as "there is no need for that in the summer". If you have not prepared for your inevitable unemployment (it's inevitable as everyone loses his job sometimes) it's your fault.

PS2: people are very innovative making up excuses. My new favorite is that "I'm forced to pay taxes since the government is helping losers out". At first: everyone pay them, so your place in your society does not change. Secondly: how much political activity you did to replace your politicians for better ones? None? Than QQ moar!

49 comments:

debussy said...

When you bought the orbs and server transfered I warned you in a comment that you better sell the orbs fast.

On a second note,
"start a small business crafting something useful to the people!"
Starting a business in RL is very different than some stupid online game.
In a game, everyone has the same information available to them, crafting the item takes the same hardcoded ammount of time for everyone. It's almost impossible to screw up a investment in WOW, provided you're not retarded and your risk assessment is where it should be.
IRL there are so many variables to consider. There are things such as logistics, renting space, research, equipment. A RL start-up company is very likely to fail because the list of variables for success is just so incredibly big.

Anonymous said...

debussy: You heard of the internet? You can sell services like webdesign, or you can sell goods you don't even own. Wait for the payment and then order from some place they sell it cheaper directly to the customer.
Thats low risk with very little investment.

Hell, some clever guy in my country buys vitamines for 2$ pr. 100 piece jar and relabel them and sell them on a monthly subscription basis for 20$ pr. 30 pieces (one for each day).

Don't say there is no opportunities, because people ARE morons.

debussy said...

@anonymous, offering a service is no different than getting paid a salary for a day job. Quite different from a startup/business.

Also, I didn't say there are no opportunities to make money. I said that the risk factors for legitimate entrepreneurship is very big and impossible to predict.
Of course I'm talking about things like starting an electric car company, or development of a new drug, or something like that.
Your example of relabeling vitamin jars is more like selling gold guides on the internet.

Anonymous said...

I think the big problem with the orbs is that everyone now knows that a new type of orb will come out with the next patch. In TBC, the nether vortexes were only gettable in one tier of raid and made the best BoE gear in the game.

In Wrath, it's like *yawn, wonder what they'll call the next orbs.* Plus everyone knows you'll be able to buy T10 with badges.

Zeran said...

Wow Gevlon, I almost totally agree... this is an odd feeling. However, almost isn't going to cut it. What I disagree with is the premise that it is the workers fault for loosing their job because the company can't borrow the money to pay salaries because their investors were retarded. True you didn't say that exactly,but it is implied.
I mean the crisis meant very little to me, the housing market tanked so I saved ~20k buying my house. Why, because I don't deal well working for people my kids can out smart. However, there were questions about my friend being able to keep his job as a server ($2.13/hr way below minimum wage) because the corporate morons bought into the wrong bank which bought into the wrong boxes. Now, should he have had a backup plan? peobably, but is it expected? No, a server should keep his job if he's good at it, and he shouldn't loose it because a sleazy businessman 2000 miles away decided this was a good quick-exit strategy.

debussy said...

@Zeran
What Gevlon actually said is that people lose jobs, shit happens. That's not the point. The point is that if you lose your job and you have a 0 ballance in your bank, you're pretty fucking stupid because you always have to have a reserve for the future/unforseen circumstances.

ZachPruckowski said...

Sounds like it was around the time Orbs became purchasable for badges, which meant every M&S grinding the Heroic Daily could afford 1 per week, and you could buy one with a full clear of ToC10, ToC25, ToGC10, or ToGC25. Because hardcore raiders working on ToGC don't need emblems for the best Tier stuff, and because there were a lot of emblems available per week, the market crashed because of the easy EoT->Orb conversion.

Further, once people realized just how easy ToC is for even decent guilds, the crafted gear suddenly looked less attractive. 10k gold for Merlin's Robes, when Skyweaver Vestments are just as good and drop from a boss everyone had on farm two weeks after it opened?

Anonymous said...

I would have to say that your start a small bussiness is not risk free...

Lets say i decide i want to start a business crafting Frostweave bags and selling them so i buy the mats (prob 120-150g) then craft the bags, and post at the going price of 90g whoops! i could always farm the frostweave and make the dust myself but if i then turn that into frostweave bags, hum i just lost 60 gold again, bad bussiness plan. if i want risk free way to make sure time=money then i need a Job (aka Grind the cloth and sell the cloth) But if i make a good bussiness instead (Netherweave bags 5-6gold mats sell bag for 9) i make more money.

debussy said...

@Anonymous,
The question then becomes "why the fuck were you stupid and sold bags below mats cost?"
Game-wise, crafting is very risk free because you know the facts, demand and supply is relatively constant between patches, and everyone is limited to the same set of tools.
RL is obviously a whole different stroy, but I'm repeating myself.

victor said...

@Zachary, the post was made on Sep23.
http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2009/09/hit-road-again.html
I wrote:
"I hope you sell those orbs right away. Price is dropping by the second".
to which gevlon replied:
"I'll obviously will sell them fast."

Anonymous said...

no i dont sell them for that beacuse i do know the facts, it drives me nuts, its not even worth crafting them for myself :)

Gevlon said:
"If you want sure money, go farm 40 hours a week or start a small business crafting something useful to the people!"

Kyff said...

The RL economic bits in here are getteing more and more bizarre every day.

No one forced me to live in the country i'm currently living in. It just happened that I was born here. However my government forces me to pay taxes to make up for mistakes or rather crimes commited by "greedy and evil businessmen". I know you will suggest emigration. But since this is a global financial crisis there is hardly a place not affected to emigrate to. Cuba might be an exception but you get my point.

Thing is: Even people who did not not invest in banks do suffer. How this makes them moronic goes still unexplained.

Kyff said...

The RL economic bits in here are getteing more and more bizarre every day.

No one forced me to live in the country i'm currently living in. It just happened that I was born here. However my government forces me to pay taxes to make up for mistakes or rather crimes commited by "greedy and evil businessmen". I know you will suggest emigration. But since this is a global financial crisis there is hardly a place not affected to emigrate to. Cuba might be an exception but you get my point.

Thing is: Even people who did not not invest in banks do suffer. How this makes them moronic goes still unexplained.

debussy said...

@kyff
Glen Beck got nothing on Gevlon :-D

Kevan Smith said...

Gevlon, just one correction:

1) The U.S. government did NOT force loans to ninjas. The speculators did that on their own.

If you have about an hour to listen to a radio show, here is a good one that explains what happened: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355 .

debussy said...

@KevanSmith
You think Gevlon is going to listen to This Americn Life? That's a socialist radio show! (/sarcasm)

Ian said...

I'm going to toss out there that gold only really goes up in value when there's worldwide loss of faith in currency, which is ironic since the intrinsic value of gold is based on faith in the de facto "gold standard." It's not terrifically useful to most people - it's just really rare, with only ~160,000 tons having ever been mined. Telling someone that a good way to avoid currency woes is to invest it in gold, while technically correct, is still banking on faith in a (much older) system. Of course, it sounds a lot less crazy than saying "The only sure bet is food with a long shelf life, water purification supplies, and firearms/ammunition," and sounding not crazy is always a plus.

Also I'm going to toss out there that you probably SHOULD have bought the Lehman paper. It would have made you money... IF you sold at the right time. There was a very, very strong correlation between package values tanking and the owning bank being forced to "write down" their assets, which is more or less exactly what it sounds like. Banks get to use fuzzy accounting rules about when and how they value their assets, and the forced write downs were the beginning of the end. From that point, things fell apart in slow motion (while the market continued to spike upwards). I'd argue it was pretty easy to realize that there was *some point* where you needed to get out. Hell, the whole thing is just a hobby for me, and I was laughing on the 10% down days - or as I liked to call them, "reality checks." Long story short, there's a reason why everyone was buying the crap, and it's because it was an explosive orgy of profit. The fact that it was stupid and not based on reality didn't change the massive amounts of cash coming in, and it's a pretty accurate statement on the state of the modern finance industry.

Back to the topic of *gasp* WoW money (oh snap I went there), I've been getting decent modest returns by watching orbs seesaw violently between 550 and 800 gold on my server. Every weekday prophet seems to think the patch is nigh (hence the 550s) and the weekend wastrels still don't know who the Lurch King is, but they're totally putting together leet 245 purples to show off to their friends (800+). It's not a great profit margin and the risk is moderately ugly, but since I actively buy cheap alliance raw gems and the horde side sells the cheaper orbs, it's a great way for me to stock up for the epic gem explosion that 3.3 will bring.

Anonymous said...

@debussy

you said: " ... offering a service is no different than getting paid a salary for a day job. Quite different from a startup/business..."

This is incorrect. I have various means of income, of of them is offering a service. Up until last year I did this same service as a paid job, making €20 per hour. I decided to work for myself doing the same job and now make €60 per hour. No costs involved.

I also own and run a small business that I built from scratch. It was challenging but not hard. All you have to do is look at the situation honestly, do your homework, work hard and not be a moron.

Unknown said...

To every "person of subnormal intelligence", including Gevlon who think that savings should be made by anyone with a brain and a job regardless of circumstances so that in case of unemployment shit doesn't happen: you are wrong! I, personally earn twice as much as the average salary in my country, my wife is at home with two kids (1,5y and 3y), kindergartens "sponsored" by the state are full, she earns some family allowance for a few months, and we spend almost 100% of the money we get. No way to save unless I would let my standard of living fall to the level of animals (eating junk food every day and wearing chinese lowest budget crap of a clothing). And we don't live in black Africa or inner Asia, we're in fucking EU!

Quicksilver said...

I'm torn about this post. In the end, yea, Gevlon is right, but he is also very naive. I mean of course, for every decision that you have been a part of its your fault if it fails.

Also, its your fault if you haven't covered your ass in case something goes wrong, but taking this to the extreme is a whole different matter.

Let's examine for a second this caricature situation: you want to cross the street, you wait for the green light, you look both sides you see a guy in a car slowing down so you pass... the moment you put your foot onto the street the guy starts accelerating, hits you, puts you in a hospital etc etc etc.

Is it your fault you got hit by a car? Of course its your damn fault. You should have been more careful, prepared to dodge that car etc etc.

Another example is what we all know as conspiracy theories. Are we supposed to trust what we read on newspapers or see on TV? If they are all consistant? We havent seen them with our eyes so we cant be sure they are true and thus its a RISK making decisions based on those facts. How do you know your Reuters or Bloombers streams are accurate and they are not feeding you bullshit in order for you to make bad deals so that they can fill their pockets.

You can't really know for sure. You have to take risks.

So my point is that in a market, even a "free" one, a certain amount of TRUST is needed. If everyone went by a risk-adverse strategy the markets would soon freeze and fail all together.

Risk-taking is a part of this kind of market and must be reinforced in order to keep the flow going. In this type of market, risk is not eliminated nor ignored, but always calculated and limited. And certainly in order to limit a risk factor one must take things for granted to a certain point. Like we trust Reuters information or that the government will reimburse our bank deposits, up to a certain point, if the bank goes default.

In a world where risks are unmanageable, and unlimited by some factors we take for granted, a market such as ours will have a hard time existing...Imagine, in my first example, that nobody would cross the street anymore...

debussy said...

@theonysirogue
entrepreneurship is good and I haven't said that having a small business etc is bad.
All I said is that for a RL business risk is very unpredictable.
What happens if your competitor develops new technology that allows him to do what you do 7-10 times faster but with the same QOS as you? You most likely close shop.
Or let's say that 5 additional businesses open up just around the corner doing exactly what you do. Now your costs for the business stay the same, but your profitability drops significant.


@Peter
I've seen that with many people and it is indeed very unfortunate. But if I were you, I'd consider lowering my standard of living because what happens if let's say you break a leg and can no longer go to your job for the next 3 month, or you develop cancer and die. How does your family survive then?

Both things I said prove one thing and one thing only, Gevlon is wrong. Pure free market without involvement from the state simply do not work. Too many people become victims because of high risks and unforseen circumstances.

Quicksilver said...

@Peter

You do know what Gevlon would answer you in this situation right?

Who, on earth, put you to have two kids in this period of your like when you can't support them?

The smarter thing to do: wait a while, wife gets job too, gather some cash, get a couple of promotions for a better pay and then start the menagerie...

And I agree to 90% of this point... as I said, I am torn about this topic.

Anonymous said...

Had a little better result than you on the tankards. Managed to pick them up for 300-500g during Brewfest (amazing how little people will settle for for cash now), and they are now selling for ~1300 on my server. Just sold off my last 4 because I believe patch 3.3 will be very soon and make them less desirable than possible heroics weapons from the new instance. After costs, made around 18000 off tankards thanks to people who cannot plan ahead for their character.

Anonymous said...

I used to make great profit buying orbs for 800-900g on weekends reselling through the week for 1100g. I did this for about a month until one day they crashed 700g now, and I had Bout 20 invested. But easy profit from the weeks that I was able to resell.

Gevlon said...

@Okrane S: we have a system against it, we have states, we have laws. If someone hits you at green line, you can sue him for medical costs and lost income.

Also you can sue someone who try to conspirate prices between "competitors", bribe politicians or produce hazardous products. You are also free to point out on the snake oil seller, suggesting other people not to buy it.

Anonymous said...

I don't understand who would pay 2500g for a crusader orb. It takes 8 heroic dailys to get enough emblems of triumph to purchase a crusader orb. Far less days if you also run ony or other dungeons. I accumulated a little over 30 emblems on 4 of my level 80's. I realized the patch is coming out soon, and I realize I'll have less use for the emblems once it hits so Iturned the emblems into 8 crusader orbs and sold them.

I expected to make 1k gold from each as that was the AH price at the time. Unfortunately when I posted 8 crusader orbs at 950g each someone went and posted at 850g each. I managed to sell 3 of these orbs before the price sank down to 400g on my server.

I still made a ton of gold for trading in an emblem that was near useless too me (I didn't have enough to purchase gear that was a slight upgrade). I made only half as much as I expected, and I realize why. Had I posted one orb, and not 8 I probably wouldn't have scared the other orb sells into lowering the price. THey would of saw the one orb at 950g and let it sell. Then I could post another. Then again it could be "random bs", and someone would have gone down to 850g regardless of my posting.

Tonus said...

"The US government forced the banks to give loans to ninjas (no income, no job or assets)"

This is disingenuous, as are the follow-ups. And it has nothing to do with situations such as mine. I own the property I live on, and paid if off a few years ago. I lost no bank assets due to this, and thus it's not an excuse. It is one of the factors that led to a financial problem that affects me in the long run.

"The greedy and evil businessmen packed the risky papers into obscure packages so no one knew what they contain: and they also forced you to buy obscure packages?"

Again, it has nothing to do with active investments. I didn't invest in risky schemes, and lost no money from those schemes. This is not an excuse, it's another factor in the economic problems plaguing the US and much of the world.

"It's the fault of the US and my country suffers for it: and they also forced you to work for a company that sold on US markets?"

The company I work for isn't an investment firm or financial house. They've weathered the economic downturn relatively well, using the opportunity to cut some deadwood and are currently planning to raise staff levels to slightly higher than before. Again, no excuse, just the reality that government intervention has exacerbated a problem that would likely have run its course by now if left on its own.

There was only one immediately direct effect on me of the financial meltdown, and that was that my 401K lost about a third of its value. That *was* my fault, and instead of making excuses, I rectified it and it has recovered the lost value and gained a bit more.

There are other effects that have nothing to do with my own actions, that indeed are due to actions by others that I have no control over. The "you can vote" bit doesn't help there either, as I did not vote for the people who created this mess. I've said before that you have a habit of trying to narrow things down too much to fit your argument, and this is a good example. You assume very specific behaviors and attack them as if they could be the only possible explanation for a person's opinions. That's a lazy way to analyze a situation. It's the kind of thinking that creates these kinds of messes in the first place, IMO.

Anonymous said...

here in switzerland there is a basic safety of 10k on every bank account. which means: even if the bank goes down, you get 10k (by the state i assume).
and even better, there are some banks (Kantonalbank) that are fully covered by the state, but have much stricter rules about 'risky' investments.
how is it in the us? aren't there similar possibilities?

Anonymous said...

Please give us investment / speculation ideas. When you think of them, I love to hear them!

Of course there's risk. Many of these ideas are ones I don't like or won't do-- but I still want to hear about them.

The tankard of terror, for instance, is something I wouldn't do.

But the things you think of help me find my own things that work in my own economy.... so while the idea often doesn't work, something similar, or whatever will.

It helps illuminate the various areas of arbitrage in the game.

These are some of your best posts. (Lets face it, I agree with you about the M&S but there's only so much to say about them.)

I was waffling on the crusader orbs but realize that the price of triumphs is only going to get lower, so better to convert them to gold now, right?

Anonymous said...

Gevlon said...

@Okrane S: we have a system against it, we have states, we have laws. If someone hits you at green line, you can sue him for medical costs and lost income.

Also you can sue someone who try to conspirate prices between "competitors", bribe politicians or produce hazardous products. You are also free to point out on the snake oil seller, suggesting other people not to buy it.

Suing someone is your answer? Better hope he has the asets to make it worth your while..
Perhaps having medical and disablity insurance might be a wiser move.

Suing and or exposing criminal acts? Morally - great idea. Money making/recovering losses venture.. lol

Wildhorn said...

I did the same with tankards. Bought them for 600g and now I resell them for 1500g+ :D

Unknown said...

Wow, I just discovered that Gevlon is Hungarian. I didn't know it. I always thought he was from the UK.

tyra said...

"Also you can sue someone who try to conspirate prices between "competitors", bribe politicians or produce hazardous products."

Only if you can catch them at it. (which would probably be pretty hard). Although every once in awhile someone gets caught, one of the more recent being someone like raj rajaratnam. they haven't caught every single person breaking the rules.
Even getting hit by a car. If no one catches that license plate, he's got fake plates, or a it's a stolen car... whatever. You're Shit out of luck, unless he stops for you. It's not a given that safety nets will work.

Anonymous said...

Crusader Orbs go for around 300-400g on my server.

I think this calls for a "play on a real server" statement.

Anonymous said...

To all who don't believe our government was at least partially responsible for the financial crisis...

Wikipedia "Fannie Mae". Read about what it does and who started it.

Information = power; rhetoric is NOT information

Ian said...

I'm really surprised that Gevlon held onto the orbs this long - I can only assume it was an emotional desire to not lose money on the deal. Yup, I accused you of being emotional ;)

In real life I use the 30% rule - if you make 30% it's usually time to take the money and run, and if you lose 30% it's time to cash out and stop wishing it'd go back up - and I suspect something similar would have helped you in this situation. Surely you knew there was no way in heck it was going all the way back up to 2400?

Ian said...

@anonymous directly above me - of course they were partly responsible. The reckless and irresponsible rate actions of the Federal Reserve (a quasi-governmental agency) helped spur and inflate the actions being taken by investment banks. Knee-jerk cutting of the reserve's rate - to push up the stock market every time it starts to correct downwards - is stupid policy and I think it shows.

Government-backed institutions like Fannie Mae had their fingers in the same damn pie everyone else did, giving the government further reason to engage in their idiotic policy decisions (and, even after an administration swap, giving the current administration further reason to lie through their teeth about everything from GDP to unemployment figures).

Rob Dejournett said...

This kinda hits home for me. I think most people don't hit age 18 and think "now i'm in charge of my future", no its pretty much you do what you're told by your parents and so forth. Well, I didn't do enough research into my chosen profession, and after 12 years of school and 3 years of postdoc I got out, and am going back to school for IT cert. So, that was a huge time investment that I more or less wasted, whereas now I would be filthy rich and with a good job if I dropped out of school and went directly into IT. I took a gamble that this job market in this particular profession was good, I didn't really research it, and was assured by all my professors (=morons) that there were good jobs to be had and so forth. So many people are in my situation that maybe 1 in 10 in this field in America are actually American, the rest is just cheap overseas labor.

So I guess what i'm saying is I blame nobody but myself for wasting 15 years of my life. It's not a complete waste, but mostly. Really research your investments of time, energy, money, etc. My genius retirement fund guy recommended I dump everything in to internet stocks in the mid 90s (which was a good strat at the time; young ppl can afford to make risky investments for retirement), and guess how that turned out.

Regarding crusader orbs, I got extremely lucky, I invested all that I had and doubled my profit, but like Gev said, it could easily go the other way. Anything that is demand limited but supply only increases just continues to decrease in price as more and more supply hits the market. Now alot of ppl are selling them on trade for 1/3 of the price I sold mine at, but for me personally that is still too expensive, I am hoping they plunge to about 200g before I buy some for my own crafting needs.

Anonymous said...

"Crusader Orbs go for around 300-400g on my server. I think this calls for a "play on a real server" statement."


Until about two weeks ago, Crusader Orbs were still selling for over 1500g on my server (which is a low-med population server), so I'm not certain a "play on a real server" statement is even close to called for. In fact, I'll be lucky to find them for 900g, even today.

debussy said...

PS2 is a gaming console.
PPS is a second post scriptum.

Anonymous said...

If you were unprepared for unemployment you are a moron. Even if you just had to burn a fortune paying for unexpected medical bills. Or legal costs. Or had to financially support a loved one who was incapacitated. Or are a new entry into the job market who has had no opportunity to accumulate resources. Or any other of a thousand possible legitimate reasons for being unprepared that are frankly unrelated to your ability to plan. If you want a valid analysis, you need to cut the sweeping generalizations.

Ann said...

This is a question that will most probably be left in the air... but still. Goblin, you are from Central Europe as I am, I'm from Romania. We have a less-than-perfect transparency system to let us know what the actual status of a bank is. I have lost a fortune once because a bank failed, and the state did not guarantee nothing (no super-enrichment scheme, I had a deposit). How is that my fault?

Now I made that small fortune again, 80k USD can be considered as such in my country. I have it in a bank, but how to choose the "right" bank, so I don't get screwed again? And how is it my fault, considering I did not have the information required to take decisions, that a bank failed?

On a separate note: I am trying to understand how these people that are young today think and how they see these matters, so I can better understand how to protect myself from such egoist bitches that think stealing or raping is ok, "cuz you weren't protected or you asked for it hahah".

An ugly world we live in.

Gevlon said...

@anonymous:
* unexpected medical bills: live healthy, have insurance
* legal costs: don't brake the law
* loved one who was incapacitated: instead of supporting, find someone else to love
* a new entry into the job market: repeat after me "do you wish fries with that" aka take any jobs

@ann: you can put it to government guaranteed banks. As an EU member, you can even go to Vienna if you have to. Or you can just keep the $ in a box under your pillow (or rather a more clever hiding place)

JT said...

@Gevlon. My friends and I can not discern if you went to a University or owned a business. We have a small wager on what your response could be. I'm just curious as hell.

Satori said...

Funny, these (Orbs) go for 250g a piece on my server (Warsong - US). Makes you wonder if server transfering is a good market to explore.

Daergel said...

A small note on the investing in a bank. Invest £50,000 in any UK bank and your capital is 100% protected under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme :)

If you have the funds you can invest in quite a few different UK banks with this 100% guarantee

Anonymous said...

Just so you know, not breaking the law is absolutely no guarnatee you won't incur unexpected legal costs. Every year around 10-15% of criminal charges are dismissed, usually because the wrong person was charged. Often this doesn't end until after a long and expensive criminal trial. That doesn't mean those innocent people get any form of costs order or compensation. They're just out of pocket.

Anonymous said...

Anti-socials don't blog.

Ann said...

Gevlon, what I was trying to say, and maybe my English was faulty, was this:

1. I put my money in a government-guaranteed bank

2. Bank went bankrupt

3. govt said oh damn we wont be able to guarantee those deposits, even if we said we would.

Do you consider this to be a random bullshit excuse for losing money? (as for deposits in Austrian banks, if i'm not mistaken, every country guarantees deposits made by its citizens, so nothing would guarantee my money there).

What I'm trying to say: there are people, even if few, who lost money and it was not their fault, real life is not a game where you bet every day. Unless you consider "being alive" a bet and then your advice to such morons like me is to commit suicide. Unless you consider it being my fault that I risk breathing, because thats a risk too, or getting out of the house. Investment in govt-guaranteed stuff should be safe, or else "owning property" loses its meaning. What else is the substance of "owning", if not having a guarantee ?

I'll give you two other short examples:

1. my family lost a lot of buildings in the capital of my country, as well as their businesses, because communists came and confiscated them. How was that anyone's fault? Unless you think that one risks by simply being a citizen, by living and breathing. (and yes we fought for them legally and got them back, but still the question remains: if i am robbed by the govt, how can you consider it is my fault?)


2. I now own a few kg of gold. What if govt comes and confiscates it, will it be MY fault? (Roosevelt did smth similar in USA, making it illegal to own gold, when that would've been the ultimate investment, as prices doubled after the "confiscation"; however in my country confiscation happened, historically speaking, differently...) My fault that I didnt anticipate being stealed by the govt? Then there is no point working for money or even owning property and we end up in anarchy. You cannot anticipate EVERYTHING.

You cannot protect against every risk, this is why we have governments, so that they do a part of this "protecting against some of the risks" (for ex. making regulations for how cars should drive in a city).

I do understand selfishness and I do understand that greedy means risky (as Benjamin Graham says, you can just ignore Mr. Market), what I'm trying to say is: sometimes when you fail, part of this fault belongs to the governments, not to the people.


Some of us work a lot and dont make credits and want to protect their assets and government is or should be considered (and should accept this role) a protector against some of the risks, just as it is a warrant of the fact that these pieces of paper we call money are worth something.