Messing With Heads

It can be very easy to mess with people who deserve it.

The "Before"

Amber has become a "hot" commodity of late. Several people using it for leveling Engineering (high level), use for invances, and as well the every-10-days global request requiring 1200 of this not so easily gotten commodity.

All three are valid uses, of course. For a while, there were a few people, myself included, looking to buy and stock it for Engineering. In the end, one player ended up dominating that thanks to bought gc, and well, I regularly took myself off the market during periods before globals and such when there was a major lack of it for it and the invancers. I wasn't trying as hard as I could have to get it bought.

The "Moment"

For the last global, amber was one of the big reasons it wasn't getting done. Of course, the blame went to those evil power-leveling engineers who were using amber themselves for a perfectly valid different reason.

That didn't stop a small group from jumping on their high horses though. High horses are things I like to knock people off of... because it's funny.

Now, there were only 2 engineers at that particular moment who had been recently buying up amber. Myself of course, though as I said I'd been off the market a lot, and was even off of it prior to the global getting done, waiting until it was done to get back to buying.

Meanwhile, the gc buyer who had been buying up all the amber with serious overpricing was even bragging on the forums about the 7k of it he had in storage.

He "just happened" to stop buying the day before. But he wasn't offering up any of that stash for the global either. Not one of the people I messed with complained about him.

I actually had no amber at that time, as I'd used up my last stash several days before, and as I said was off the market until the global was done. I have No Personal Interest in the global, but I stayed off the market to help allow for others to get it done.

Now, I know the complainers had been reading the forum threads, and saw this person had enough for almost 7 globals just by himself, but never did anyone say a peep about him.

I found that fascinating.

The "Messing With of Heads"

When the global was over, I went back to purchasing on my bot, always offering a few gc more than the highest offer on any other bot. This is because my bot's a longer walk from storage than the others, and I have to offer a little extra for people to be willing to haul it to me. If I same-price, there's 3-4 other bots just steps from storage that I wouldn't be able to compete with. My bot is much better at buying things like bones and FEs in its location.

I got villainized for that. "Oh, he's buying amber, and it's not for the global!!!" as if that is the only reason anyone should be allowed to. I already stop buying before the global, now I'm apparently supposed to stop completely, never buy any again, because a handful of holier-than-thou dimwits think "only the global" is a valid use for it?

Yeah, bite me, kids. I'm not putting an end to my valid use of it just because you want it for your own purposes. And I do mean your own purposes, as again I have No Personal Interest in the global since I get very little if anything out of it.

Anyway, I didn't respond to their whining and crying. I just went back to what I do, buying amber on my bot, offering a few extra gc for the extra travel, as I always do.

Still, noone saying anything about the person with 7k hoarded, even after this situation led to these people re-reading the forum thread where he brags about it. Just me, and how evil I am for daring to buy amber.

But hey, wanna fuck with me, I'll screw you over. PK isn't the only means to mess with people.

The Phony Price War

Two of them started upping their buy price. Not by a few gc, but 50 and 100gc at a time. I met their offer, with the standard extra couple gc to again compensate for the distance from storage of my bot.

That led to them hiking the price another 50 to 100gc. And so on. When they hit 500gc each, I'd fuck with them in a different way... I took myself off the market.

They'd eventually catch this, and drop their prices back down to the 310gc or so level it originally was.

And I'd be right back on market at that, again a couple gc higher than them.

That went on ad nauseum for hours. I was just harv stocking and watching a movie and such at the time, so I had the time to mess with them.

Finally, I tried something different. I wanted to see just how stupid they were. I wasn't even caring about buying amber at this point, as I had an alternate plan (get into later), but it was too much of a laugh watching them get all whiny over a couple gc and how someone wasn't respecting their High Horse Mentalities.

So yeah, let's see how stupid they were.

Instead of adding a couple gc with the next price war wave, I took a different tactic.

I added 0.01 gc to their high price. 1/100th of a gc.

Nobody in their right mind would have walked all the way to my bot to sell for just 1/100 of a gc more than those bots a few steps from storage.

But wow, the High Horse Mentality continued on overdrive. You could watch in 6 (where I remained silent) how "OMG, I JUST HAD TO INCREASE THE PRICE AGAIN!!!!"

Their price: 310.00 gc
My price 310.01 gc

Yes, the High Horses had to raise the price over that. Not a few gc. But 50gc. 100gc at time.
Over 0.01gc.

Truly stupid. But I was laughing my ass off at just how whiny they were getting over it.

But I let that continue a while, as that day I had nothing else to really do.

The End of the High Horses

Apparently they finally gave up, High Horses knocked out from under them. I kept a modestly higher price up for a while, but eventually took that off as my actual goal (alternate plan) for this project was accomplished.

They went through all that bitching and whining and drama, for no reason. I egged it on just because, simply put, people on high horses deserve it.

The Alternate Plan

You see, the amber market was pretty dry at that point. One having a hoard of it (that noone once demanded he help with the global with, too busy whining that I was daring to buy it for my own valid use), and others having donated it or have it stocked for invance use.

I bought very little. A couple hundred. But I was never expecting to buy much.

After all, my alternate plan turned out to be much simpler than I'd expected.

That being, get ings for Action Point potions for all the amber I needed.

The ings?
1- Pears - I'm one of the top pear hunters. Not a problem.
2- Oranges - Easily enough bought.
3- Grapes - Much harder to buy, though I did buy a couple in the 2 days my bot was offering the highest price for them.

I did something others forget to do... I got off my back end and hunted them myself. In 2 days of occasional critter kicking, I found 4 grapes.

Now I'm back off the market for amber and grapes as I need neither for the time being.

As a hunter, I easily obtained the pears and grapes, the hardest parts of action point pots.

As a high-level mixer, I can easily mix the potions myself.

As a high-level harvester, I can easily harvest the amber myself.

That didn't stop me from trying to buy it before, simply because I could, and it was simpler for a while.

But the price raisers were just getting so dumb-dumb-stupid that I wouldn't actually keep my price that high.

You see, the cost of all the potion ings at current market value would leave an amber price of 375gc each. And these dimwits were going up to 500gc. I only put mine up that high when I was fucking with the High Horse Patrol.

Add to that I find the most expensive ingredient myself (pear), meaning a big savings there. And I got off my rear and kicked animal for periods over two days and found almost all the grapes I needed.

Again, massive savings. The amber I harvest myself because of this will probably cost me about 100gc each.

And yes, it's all gonna get used for Engineering.

I should insert a picture of that "Ha Ha!" kid on the Simpsons here, really. All that time they were High Horse messing with me, they actually weren't. I had other plans the whole time.

Other Things They Did Wrong

1- "One power leveler is trying to grab all the amber for himself instead of letting people give it to us for the global, even though he benefits from it too!" - stated on 6 by a High Horser

A: No, I benefit essentially not at all from the global.

And with this sudden new mentality of collecting it all day, every day, you were essentially saying noone and nothing else mattered other than this thing that I have no use for. I was supposedly supposed to just "stop" ever working on my Engineering leveling just because of that.

Yeah, fuck that. And the High Horse it was ridden in on.

High Horsers do not dictate how others can and cannot play.

2- A link to an incredibly old post I made in a thread discussing why oranges were becoming a global problem way-back-then, when I actually was willing to participate in the global, was posted in 6 as if it were of any relevance to the current amber situation.

A: No, it wasn't relevant. I was encouraging the removal of oranges from daily because new uses had been implemented and they were incredibly rare on the market at that time, with those that were costing over 20kgc each.

Instead of asking for the removal of amber from the global, as any half-intelligent person would do, you got on your High Horses instead and whined like little babies that people were daring to use amber instead for other perfectly valid reasons.

For the oranges, I thought of the game. For the amber, you wanted to play "high and mighty".

  Yeah, that's exactly why I fucked with you, kids.



A Small Bit of Irony to End On

While the High Horsers were busy thinking they were outpricing me on amber I never expected to buy, a pear hunt ended in the most ironic of places... I found it in the EVTR amber. The timing was just beautiful.

(And oh yeah, you can see a grape I found randomly kicking a skeleton in there along the way.)