Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The real world's economy is not without its checks and balances enforced by a set of rules and regulations. I believe that EVE's economy would benefit from a certain rule to put things into check....

Just going with 35% (subject to be a different value)

No buy order should be greater than 35% below regional average.
No sell order should be greater than 35% above regional average.

This would smooth out the flow of average market values, preventing large swings or spikes in pricing from occuring.

Too often you see rediculous buy and sell order prices. Sell orders that are a couple hundred (sometimes a couple thousand) times greater than the regional average. In contrast, you often see sell order that are 90% or more below. Often to the point where selling an item would actually cost you money instead of making you money.

With the above two rules put into place, you still have full competition. People selling try to undercut the next guy so their stuff sells. This undercutting brings the price down toward and even below regional average without limit. The two rules above would NOT restrict this.

Likewise, people placing buy orders put up a price higher than the next person so they get what it is that they are wanting to buy. Again, the two rules would NOT restrict this.

So the two rules above would only prevent people from putting up rediculously priced buy/sell orders but it would still leave people the full ability to place competatively priced buy/sell orders.

In addition to this, there would have to be a slight change to how you buy and sell from other people's buy/sell orders directly. Currently when you buy someone's sell order, you generate a buy order first. Same goes for selling to someone's buy order. This would have to stop. This means you wouldn't need to keep a buy/sell order slot open just to make an instant market transaction (which would be a good thing IMO). The reason this would have to be changed is because if the pricing of sell orders, through competition, drops to be 35.01% below regional average, you wouldn't be able to buy from those sell orders directly since you create a buy order first because the buy order you create would be greater than 35% below regional average. And vice versa for selling to buy orders directly.

Echoing what the person above said. Why?

The reason RL markets restrict commodity trading and pricing to within a range of the average is to prevent market manipulation and price gouging... both of which are perfectly acceptable things to do in EVE.

Just imagine EVE as what the world was like back during the "Robber-Baron" period... except WAY larger and with WAY less limitations.

Nope. The only market slip up that I was involved in had something to do with forgetting the decimal and buying something that I had for sale for 500K for 50mil. I asked them if they wanted the money back (minus the 500k) but they said just to keep it.