An Open Letter To Inscriptionists

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 2:10 AM

Dear Fellow Inscriptionists.

I come to you with a few statements and even more questions.   In the past few days there have been great opportunities in the buying and selling of glyphs and other items.   Many of you have developed new fortunes.  Many of you have beefed up your coffers selling to new players as well as players coming back.   I offer you my congratulations and wish you continued enjoyment.

To those that are finding it frustrating in having to your more expensive glyphs undercut continually,  I offer you my condolences.  You are not the only one that has run into competition in this and other markets.  Keep a stiff upper lip as the British saying goes,  and enjoy the ride.  Your time will come.

My letter is mostly directed to those that have decided to tilt the market for many glyphs to the bare minimum.   The ones that take items and will list them for a small profit if any at all.   Hopefully this will bring you some insight on these choices.

There are four reasons why a player would undercut an item on the Warcraft auction house at an extreme percentage.

1.   Your posting add-on is not working properly.   It's understandable that add-ons such as Trade Skill
      Manager may not be set up appropriately.   My suggestion would be to look to reset your listings
      and verify that everything is set up properly.  You will not be disappointed with your profits raise
      up quickly.

2.   Fingers that are used on the keyboard have gained a life of their own.   I fully understand the
      mentally automated posting of items.  Jewelcrafters and Inscriptionist have the repetitive job of
      pressing the same buttons multiple time to post items.   Perhaps using an alternate finger would
      help prevent future mistakes.  A little training of the fingers again will bring you large amounts
      of profit.  And less ridicule from the masses of players that your fingers have upset.

3.   Your generous nature has driven you to the idea that you must keep glyphs inexpensive for others.
      There is a certain false logic to this.   Yes many times glyphs can be expensive for new players.
      But along with this many Inscriptionists are willing to perform basic glyph services for little or
      no cost.   They only ask that the materials be provided and a small gratuity be included.   The only
      true reason why a player would want to buy a glyph from the AH is out of convenience.   Looking
      for an online Inscriptionist can be time consuming.   But the market can be seen to demand a cost
      for said convenience.  

All three of these reasons are legitimate if not misguided.  Easily corrected and the future of inscription
ends up being a speed bump and not a complete roadblock.  

Unfortunately, my friend the fourth reason is simply misguided.  It is living on the idea that everything should have a monkey wrench thrown into it.   Including a market such as inscription.   We can refer to it in the same vain as an anarchist looks at what he must bring down.   This method of 'enjoyment' where is fun for yourself and other players that have agreed to this.  But the truth is that your main target,  the 'rich and wealthy' of warcraft move on to other pastures.  And the only ones that suffer are the players trying to break into inscription.   They are unable to gain revenue to generate more glyphs.  And players searching for new glyphs find them more and more difficult.  A market economy will settle down depending on supply and demand.  Ultimately an imbalance in an open monetary system will repair itself.  Either by circumventing the imbalance,  or a combined effort to return the system to its balanced state.  Generally the second ends up identifying the problem with the system and eradicating
the cause.

This occurs when a group get together,  call it a cartel, develop a strategy to return a monetary system to its natural state.  At first a lot of money is spent to right the system,  but ultimately the cartel receives their money back and more.   Seeing that many servers have seen this anarchic behavior before,  they are well prepared to combat it,  for the good of themselves and their server economy.

So this is a very polite suggestion.   Look at a balance point for your services and your items on the auction house.   And refrain from tilting the server economies just for personal enjoyment.  In the End you will be out of money,  and warcraft life will continue without you.  

Signed

Mommar

Good Luck and Good Hunting.

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