Marketplace Flaw or What?

My ID#6153803. Player SapphireLotus09 ID#8793245. I live in a large home and there are several computers here (we run a paralegal business out of the home), and several Rising Cities players reside here. At approximately 6:30-6:45 am USA CST time, I made several attempts to purchase at the Marketplace two sets of 10 beams priced at 750 per unit which the above (other) player had posted for sale, to help her out. I spent over 100K CCs, and several times supposedly bought every offer of ten beams at that price, NEVER getting the ones that I was trying to buy. Keep in mind I could see both computer screens, both players were refreshing the marketplace page repeatedly, and I completely cleaned out the marketplace several times of this specific offer. In fact, I did several times end up buying multiple sets of ten from the same player as they posted them for sale, seconds after buying a set from them.

I do realize there is some lag in postings. I also realize there are many players out there posting to the marketplace. But when the marketplace tells me (Player A) there are no offers of 10 beams @ 750/unit even though (Player B) is being told her offers of 10 beams @ 750/unit are up for sale and unsold while I watch (Players C-Z) post offer after offer after offer of 10 beams @ 750/unit because I keep buying them....well, I can't say I was ripped off because I was in fact making the purchases; however, I find the flagrant dishonesty in the marketplace to be problematical. It should not be favoring players, it should not be lying about whether or not there are offers available to purchase, and it should not be allowing newly posted offers to be sold in favor of ones that were previously posted as if they were not there.

I know your logs of my account and SapphireLotus09's will show exactly what happened. I was only trying to buy these beams to help her purchase the plot of land with the Chateau on it, and she really didn't even have beams she could afford to sell. I know I can make purchases from other players here in the house, because I've done so. In fact, immediately preceeding this I bought two sets of bricks sold by SapphireLotus09 with no problem.

What bugs me the most here is that this sort of thing has happened before. It seems to happen the most often when I am low on CCs and the person I am trying to buy from really needs the CCs. It's almost as if the game is intentionally trying to prevent me from making the intended purchase, or at least making me spend every possible CC buying the wrong offers first. Granted, if I am trying to find a needle in a haystack (one offer among many identical ones) then I am assuming that risk. But when your system tells me there are NO offers at that exact combination when I know there is, AND then shows me a new offer when I refresh AND again tells me there are no more offers at that exact combination after I buy the new one, when I know there is AND again lets someone else post one all while NOT allowing the offer I know was there all along to be bought....the word I think of is fraud.

I know I would like an explanation of this, which is why I posted it as a Technical Question. Because if it is not being done intentionally, then it is a flaw in the marketplace that needs to be addressed, a glitch of some sort or a conflicting bit of coding. I am asking one of the mods to take a look at the referenced purchases and explain how this occurs and how it can be honest business. Can't really ask for compensation, because I got the beams I bought. But the player I was trying to help got left high and dry because I couldn't afford to keep buying forever.

P.S. Just had her withdraw her offers and repost them at 19 beams for 750/unit to make her offer stand out, and bought it seconds after she posted it. Of course she lost the original fees, but she at least has some needed CCs now. Honestly, I really don't get the how or why of the marketplace doing this.

 

maybe it is because you are on the same network. had the same issue when my friend was at my house on mine.

 

I am intrigued to know (besides unusual pricing) how you know "who" you are purchasing from ?

 

Ok, that might explain the lag, perhaps. But it is still odd that it never lags if I do it with an odd number and price (say 7 beams at 732 CC for example...or 3 bricks at 4,987, etc.). It ONLY does this when it is a standard unit and price compared to others (10 at 750, 100 at 5,000, etc.). Not to mention if I sold both types at the same time, the system will post and sell the off priced set but not the normal one, instead allowing other players to get the jump. I suspect it is some kind of glitch, and maybe even deliberate. For example, maybe they are trying to interfere with players on the same network doing this? But why? A market is a market, and a fair offer is a fair offer. Granted, I am taking my chances buying an offer; not, however, complaining about that. Complaining it seems to be holding back a legitimate offer intentionally preventing it from being sold. The mods can find out, and I am truly hoping they will look into this matter and explain it. Was responding to sams when my computer restarted..not trying to double post here but wanted to answer sams and then saw Andrewjf's comment so answered that.

 

It tells you who you bought from once you complete the purchase, and also the other player's screen will show their offer is sold. The best way to make sure you get the right one is use odd numbers for units and price, because until you complete the purchase you don't know who you are buying from (unless using an odd number that stands out).

Sometimes (as with the beams) you'll find only a few offers of that many units and just buy them all, which is easy when you have enough CCs. But I have then noticed that (what I described above) seems to happen, not every time, but when I really don't want to expend 500K CCs buying sets of ten beams until I get the right one...which I should not have to do when the marketplace is telling me there are only three offers of ten beams at the moment, but then keeps posting additional offers while refusing to sell that other player's to me; either there was only three offers or there were more...not three and buy two, then there are a hundred being posted a few at a time but not the one you know was still there of the original three.

A good comparative example: right now, because of events, there are very few offers for lumber. So if you posted ten lumber for sale, and I went to the marketplace to buy them from you...and it shows only three offers are there for lumber...if I buy all three yours should be in that. But what is happening is I buy all three, and the next dozen to be posted, and you are still being told your lumber never sold even though I bought ALL the available offers. That seems just a wee but wrong, doesn't it? Especially if you then withdrew your offer and posted nine lumber and I was able to buy it fifteen seconds after you posted it.

 

It sounds as though the flash coding is possibly isolating the IP addresses of the sellers packages (given there would be thousands of users placing sales), although that doesn't make too much sense given you are all in the same building and presumably using one ISP - Although again (maybe) it is set up that way to avoid this very scenario. Perhaps given some people are using real money to purchase CC's, that the marketplace needs to be a little more transparent and put the names/ID# of the sellers into the software. Your mention of "Fraud" is doubtful given that BP gives away freebies in the form of MM using the lottery wheel. It would be nice to see a reply on this as it's very intriguing

 

I was just being jokingly sarcastic when I said "fraud", kinda ribbing at "market" (quick, call the SEC!) After all, fraud requires intent, and if you see a glitch that has intent, you name it Skynet and run for cover, right? If it's not a glitch it would be some kind of limit on buying from players you know and that doesn't make sense because it's within the allowed minimum/maximum pricing. Mostly I was not complaining; like you, I am intrigued, and want to hear the mods/techs explanation (because what I am seeing happen just makes no sense). Thank you for the input on the IP thing...is good food for thought.

 

I can think of one reason for the limiting of the purchase ability. Follow this scenario please. A player wants to grow his city rapidly he sets up multiple cities and accounts, selects one to grow, city A, the other, city B, to supply materials at a discount to city A. The sole purpose and function of city B is to produce products at the highest volume possible to sell in the market place. While city A purpose is to earn CC's and grow. Even if City B occasionally lost a sale to an outside buyer the player would still be ahead of others. This is of course a hypothetical scenario. Waiting for an official response.

 

this scenario is against the rules and is called cross trading, any player caught cross trading will be locked out of their account.
is there anything else that we can help you with on this topic

 

I do hope you mean the scenario of City A and City B. I was talking of buying products sold by other actual human players with their own cities...even if we all happen to live in the same house. Not talking trying to control production or the market either, just buying some materials because another player is short on CCs and wants to say purchase a land plot. Is that still cross trading? And of course I understand that if you buy an offer and it's not them, that's the risk you assume in making the purchase. Still don't have an answer to my original question by the way, Tassie Devil. Please clarify who you were addressing regarding cross trading because I don't want to break the rules. And please explain why what I explained in the original thread post is happening? Thank you

 

I was referring specifically to billy jims scenario

 

Thank you. Now, do you have any idea why the marketplace is doing what I described?

 

No, Pirate lee will have to have a look for you

 

Ok, cool...thanks for letting me know. And thanks for all you do Tassie Devil. You are appreciated every bit as much as Pirate Lee and all the others. It's a hard job you do, and you do it well.

 

The point I was trying to make (very badly obviously) They had to set up safe guards against cross trading and maybe you stumbled into the safe guards. Again a theory. I will stay out of this discussion. Now entering lurker mode.

PS Thanks Tassie for giving me the term I needed.

 

Ok to sum things up we do have an auto system that cross checks accounts and tries to prevent inter account trading.

By that I mean cheating, I am not suggesting this is happening here but the game is trying to prevent "pushing" which is why you see the problems.
The best way around this is to use different IP addresses but that is not always possible, I will get some advice from our devs to try and help here.

 

Thank you, that indeed does clarify and explain what was happening. Just for your guys' information (so when you talk to the devs they understand what is happening on my end in "reality" rather than cyberspace)...I am a contract paralegal and a live in babysitter, living with a few of my business partners in a large house. The business is based at the house until we can afford office space large enough. So there are several computers here, and several distinct players. My significant other is the player you know as Kiriana (ain't she a gem). I and one other here have had our cities the longest and they are fairly large. So every now and then we try to buy something from one of the others if they get stuck short on CCs...say for buying a needed plot of land, or building costs, etc. It's a case of having an abundance of CCs to spend, not any attempt at cheating or playing the game wrong. I suspect, were I to get a phone call from a friend who lived elsewhere asking me to make such a purchase I'd have no such problems since they would be at a different IP address. So, question asked and answered (TY Pirate Lee). I know you're not suggesting cheating was happening, just giving information in case it comes up; better you know the answer than the devs guess at it Not a big issue anyways, because such need only comes up once in awhile...mostly I was just intrigued by what I was seeing and curious as to why.

 

I did check and for the record my answer was surprisingly accurate .