Toxic Sales

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 9:11 AM

Mommar here.

I've always been a proponent of being honorable in your sales.   Now before everyone gets the pitchforks and torches hear me out.

There is nothing wrong with taking advantage of a supply and demand market.   Raising prices and even obtaining a corner on a market for a short period of time.   When I speak of toxic sales I am talking about encouraging bad behavior.  Gearing up players that are cheating or even causing damage to your guild or group.

A previous guild had a new member that seemed to be wanting to pick up new tanking gear.  This was during burning crusade and they were a Druid so they needed a new set of tanking gear.  This required heavy amounts of Thick Clefthoof Leather from the Negrand area.   I spent a lot of time farming (yes,  I said farming) to provide for my guild.   Then I started to recognize that this player wasn't showing up to guild runs but appearing to be 'busy',  all the while a couple of days later tanking for a new group.

Players in my guild started to put our heads together because this player was asking,  begging and pleading for free items all the time.  To the point that it was becoming obvious they were stockpiling for something bigger.  Ultimately I started to sell this leather for higher and higher prices (I was still doing a decent job of controlling the market on the Auction House so the player in question couldn't just run to the AH and undercut me).   Finally they crafted their set and then decided that they needed to leave for another guild.

This move really didn't surprise me.  They were a good player,  but obviously with a toxic attitude of grab everything you can from where you are at and then ditch the 'cooler' side of the pillow.   This isn't this only time that I've witnessed this type of behavior.  Players grabbing items from the guild bank and then reselling them to 'recoup' the cost of leveling a profession.   This caused one player to be escorted out of the pseudo gilded walls and shown the door.

The idea is that there is a fine line between taking advantage of a situation and becoming a problem in general.  Not every sale has to be made and not every advantage should be taken.   Keeping an eye on how it will effect,  being generous when it's time to be generous and holding onto your reputation as being a good fair trader is much more important than grabbing all the gold you can.

There are plenty of opportunities to make gold in this game.   Keeping your head above the muck will reward you down the road.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

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