Originally Posted by
rachel
1) Do you think the inclusion of sale information would be beneficial to the actual values of some items?
This is gonna be long; sorry in advance. From the way your question is worded, I'm understanding that your guide would have a lowered value listed for BBoBF just because it doesn't sell for $300 off-site, so these thoughts are in response to that. Sorrrrryyyyyy if I'm misunderstanding how you intend to incorporate sale information into the value.
I might be the only person, but this one actually makes me hesitate. It's common knowledge that ANY higher-value item typically sells for a discounted rate, here or otherwise, even if it trades easily on-site for the listed value; most sellers offer a "large item discount" or a "buying in bulk discount" OR are more likely to discount items that they have 230498234023 of from old inactive accounts.
HOWEVER, that does not change the trading value of those items; it just caters to the fact that people are less likely to spend real money on one high-value item, and therefore more likely to buy if that price is discounted. If legitimate traders in the past have traded BBoBF at the listed value of 300 and that value was agreed upon by both people involved in the trade, that IS the trading value of BBoBF, regardless of how impossible it is to sell off-site for that price.
My fear/hesitation is that legitimate NCers will use sale information as a means to take advantage of values that ARE legitimate trading values. Just because a BBoBF doesn't sell unless it's discounted to $75 (and even then it's hard as hell) doesn't mean it's only worth 75 cap value - it just means that it's not very likely that someone will drop $300 on one set of pixels. However, it IS still possible that someone will trade 250-300 cap value worth of their own pixels on-site toward it.
We also need to consider the fact that a lot of NCers will flat out refuse to use an off-site guide from a "cheating website" (lol), and our guide has to maintain SOME consistency with what those traders are referencing on-site. If person A sees on our guide that BBoBF is 100 value because it's a bitch to sell, but person B sees on /~waka that BBoBF is 300... it's going to cause more confusion over values than it will help.
My suggestion would be to keep the two separate somehow. Maybe separate columns, "trade value" vs "sale value", instead of a single listed value that is shaped by both? Sellers are allowed to sell items based on "sale value," but it won't give NC traders who reference the guide reason to believe that it's a reflection of the on-site trade value of that item. For example, BBoBF would have a "trade value" listed of 250-300 but a sale value listed of $100. For another example, Wish on a Star BG and Sugar Icing Holiday Cookies Garland are both listed at 12-15. WoaS floats around easily, could have a sale value of $10, while Cookies GL is a bitch to find and could easily have a sale value of $15; however, both still easily trade on-site for 12-15 and have listed trade values as such.
Just thoughts. As long as they're kept separate, I think it can be valuable (moreso for sellers than for NCers, though), but I don't necessarily think we should have a guide that says BBoBF is ~ 100 just because it doesn't sell for more than that.