Gaia marketplace: my shit ain't free

[Android Kaeli]

I've been on Gaia for a number of years now, with a main and a couple of mules -- all of which have a min. of at LEAST 6 million in each MP shop. Yet I still would not fathom asking someone, anyone, to give me something for free or even a fraction of what it's worth.

I sell odds and ends here and there on the Market, sometimes I'll get a PM or two asking for said items. Yes the majority of items I sell are easy to get, but I'm not giving anyone anything for free unless I know them for a long time AND it's their birthday/Christmas/whatever.

The best excuse I've gotten for giving someone something for free? 'But you have the Winged Anklets AND the Angelic Sash, you don't NEED that 700 gold!'

[RootedPhoenix]

.........they don't need that shiny either. The mind boggles, it truly does.

I figure this: You have the shiny as a reward for doing what was required of you. If they did the same or something comparable, they could have it too.

Yet they want the shiny just for no work, and figure they deserve it...somehow.

............O_o Humans.

[Zellie Crescent]

I still would not fathom asking someone, anyone, to give me something for free or even a fraction of what it's worth.

There is a wanted section of the fourums on there for items in case what your looking for isn't available in the marketplace. There is an item that I really want but I'm nowhere near the market price (not that it matters cause there's none up there), but I offered all the gold I have plus whatever items (minus what I have on) that they want in exchange for that item. However with my luck lately one of the people that has it is the lady I pissed off this morning.

[SongsOfDragons]

Oh sweet lord...Gaia Online...two worlds kinda crossing here XD

I use a mule to sell stuff, stemming from back when one had to pay 1000 gold for a trading licence. I don't know why I don't use my main to sell, I just never have... So my mule only has a few cheap items that I dress him up in, so unlike my main where I use some rather pricey items in my outfits. He still gets begging PMs for almost everything I try to sell, either that or the item (like that dratted BFK hat!) never shifts. I'm an oldbie, been hanging around since August 03, so I snapped up some items for pennies. I understand their desire for rare pixels, but they're so going the wrong way around it.

[Zellie Crescent]

How do you have 2 accounts, is it easy to do? I've never tried it before.

[Lace Neil Singer]

It's very easy; I have a mule account which originally existed solely for storage. You just register another account with Gaia; very easy to do cuz all you need is another email account. ^^ My mule now sells all the crap I garner from DC, Towns and Dumpster Dive and also has an aquarium with different fishies in it from the one on my main. I also like to play zOMG! on both accounts.

You can trade items with your mule, but not gold; for example, you can't use the mule to play zOMG! and divert all the gold earned to your main. I use any gold earned on my mule account to sub her aquarium. I dressed her up as Juri for a while; right now, she's a blood wolf. I know people who just stick their mule in starter clothes, but I love to dress my mule smartly and it doesn't cost all that much; the wolf item was free after all. XD

A lot of people I know on Gaia will refuse to give away items to beggars on principle; it's just so rude to go about Towns and zOMG! begging for gold and items. Especially since you can go play Booty Grab and make at least 5k. More if you only play top end tanks.

[SongsOfDragons]

I gave away a letter containing Elemental Wings to a mate of mine who'd only just started. She was so happy. ^^ She gave me an Angelic Camisole for my birthday, several months after. I'd forgotten about my wishlist XD

If I came across a polite request for a small item I had that I didn't want or had surplus of I might say sod it and give, but thus far they've all been rude and demanding little shits who want my Kiki. Not that I go in the Wanted forum; I don't go in Gaia forums at all much any more. I used to lurk Extended Discussion before the trolls took over...it was always a wannabe Fratching with not enough mods. Sometimes I go have a look in Community Discussion, but rarely post.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I mainly post in Guilds, zOMG! and Aquarium Discussion; I get so tired of all the little thirteen year old brats in the other forums. -.-

[Zellie Crescent]

I keep getting PMs asking me to lower my prices now too, so to (hopefully) stop that from happening I had to put this as my shop description:

Im only going to say this once: do NOT PM me asking for anything I have for free, I will not just give it to you so you can go elsewhere if youre gonna do that crap I dont hand out freebies! Another thing to take note of is that my prices are what they are, I intentionally put them lower than anyone elses so please don't PM me to lower them any more.

[SongsOfDragons]

Good luck. I hope the message works - it might deter the smarter ones who sense you're not worth bothering...

[AccountingDrone]

Damn, reminds me of standing in the auction house in Everquest. [you could go afk, but your account had to stay online and logged in to auction originally. I think that a few years after I stopped playing they changed that policy and made it so your auction house character could be logged out and offline.]

I was selling spare drops and craft goods that I didn't need, and found wandering around hitting merchants [stuff you sold to an NPC vendor could be bought by someone else as long as they were in the top 36 or however many items in vendor inventory] and always would get people trying to get whatever you were selling for cheaper, or as a gift and people would go around begging for money. Very annoying.

Actually I have never played a MMORPG that didn't have people begging for stuff.

[Amanita]

Luckily I don't see it often in City of Heroes. Once, I saw a player asking for a very low amount, just enough to buy his first set of training enhancements. As he wasn't spamming, was asking for a reasonable amount, and was polite, I gave him what he asked for, plus a little extra.

On the other hand, I remember one annoying beggar during the Halloween event years ago. Funk in da trunk, or something she called herself. And in zone chat (which people were using to put event teams together), she kept spamming "Could anyone spare a little inf to help a poor girl out? giggle giggle"
(Yes, the dumb broad actually typed out the giggles. And she kept spamming this in Broadcast chat, which anyone else in zone could hear. I responded, asking her nicely to chill with the repeats. Here's how the following PM conversation went, something along these lines:
Dumb Bitch- "I wasn't talking to U"
Me- "When you speak in Broadcast, you're talking to everyone in the zone, actually"

Finally, after sending me several tells, she threatened me:
DB- "I'm gonna report U for harrassment!"
Me- "Since you're the one who started sending ME private tells, good luck with that. Welcome to my ignore list."
And promptly global-ignored her.
BTW, currency in City of Heroes is called inf- short for influence, infamy, or information.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I had some plonker follow me round in Towns, begging me to give them my demon cat. Eventually, I switched servers to get rid of them, but they still found me again. -.- This time, I just told them that if they didn't bugger off and leave me alone, I'd report them. They then got the message.

Also had an abusive PM from some stupid noob saying that as I was rich, it was my duty to "help out a new person" cuz I was new once. Yes, but when I started on Gaia, I never begged; I just buckled down and started earning gold.

I keep getting PMs asking me to lower my prices now too, so to (hopefully) stop that from happening I had to put this as my shop description:

Im only going to say this once: do NOT PM me asking for anything I have for free, I will not just give it to you so you can go elsewhere if youre gonna do that crap I dont hand out freebies! Another thing to take note of is that my prices are what they are, I intentionally put them lower than anyone elses so please don't PM me to lower them any more.

I've got something similar as my shop description on both accounts; it doesn't stop the real morons. -.-

[MystyGlyttyr]

I've had a...opposite problem? I save up my gold to buy art on that forum (I love getting pictures drawn, I'm just no good at it!), and usually I have quite a bit of gold saved up for it. However, I always ask when dealing with an art dealer, "I'd like to see a sample before I agree to buy." Why? Because there are a ton of scammers who steal people's artwork and claim that it's their's when they can't draw for crap. And upon running into one of those folks (had a DA account full of pretty drawings, but the requested art she gave me looked like she'd stuck a crayon up her butt and scooted around on the paper), she dared to flip out when I refused to pay her for it. She even called in the mods, who took one look at her "gallery" and the proffered "art" and banned her for stealing.

Of course one person ruins it for everyone now, so I ask people to just show me the art before I agree to pay for it...I even specify they can watermark it all to hell if they're worried about my just copying it, I don't mind that...but I want to see that I'm not getting handed another piece of paper with literal crap on it. And I get SO MUCH BITCHING about that. "Do you think I'm a scammer??" ...YES. If you have to ask, the answer is now more yes than it was before!

[PepperElf]

Am I understanding this correctly ... there isn't any real money involved, and she still wants something for nothing??

Wow ... that takes SC/EW to a whole new level.

Unless it's like Second Life where you can turn your $Lindens into real money.