Gkr (atys)
Lets make this clear once and for all... people dont use forum to trade OP mats, they use IG /tell - this is not a big world where we need to use forums.. we all know each other... and things dont change so often in this game to need a forum to reach people that have OP mats...
Let me make this even more easier: Dont use forum trade for any kind of statistics.
Well, this simply means: There is no abundance of OP mat. I lived in a world where there was, extreme abundance for some classes, though not for all. The world, by population, was even smaller than ours today, people knew one another even better, spoke the same language, and the vast majority logged in the same timezone.
So, normally, there should not have been trade of OP mats over forums, especially as it was really easy, then, to get OP mats by asking, and there was an additional channel (a special event guild) distributing OP mat to guildless players and guilds without OP and faction/alliance.
Indeed, there was trade over forums, to some extent. Moreover, it was easy to obtain the more abundant classes of OP mat that way, while widely unlikely to get those in short offer.
The question is: Why placing a WTB in forums? I read people asking for OP mat in universe channel. Beneath that they were much mocked and derided by some, they only reached readers of unverse at that time. A forum post may be found for a longer period, in any timezone, and is easily translated in different languages. Even Goo translate suffices most times if needed at all.
And a trade offer is communication among peers, without personal, roleplay, or allegiance matters interfering too much. Trade is a link even between enemies, for mutual advantage. And it is not that the trade forums do not work at all, though they are not working well, lamentably. The reasons for are manifold, and exceed the scope of this discussion.
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Daomei die Streunerin - religionsneutral, zivilisationsneutral, gildenneutral