WoW: Let's talk about the economy

OK, I'm not sure how much of this diatribe is ego-stroking BS, an insightful piece on the endgame economy or something in between.

I don't consider myself in the endgame yet but money isn't the problem it used to be (But if I'm saving for a horse I've got to get Scroogey).

That said here is the article link.

Has anyone invested much time in the endgame (even in beta) to have input on the economy? I'm pretty sure Hoochie has so maybe she'll grace us with a comment.

My feelings are thus, if some moron wants to buy gold that isn't that hard to find in the first place then power to him. That said I can understand that a CSR/Helpdesk having to put up with calls about getting screwed on a 'business' transaction that involved real money and was organized on a third party site could be a bit of a pain in the ass.

My more pointed question is this I guess. What is currently in the end game in terms of money sinks?

Maybe we should set up some sort of escrow service for MMORPG newbies. Make sure the deal goes thru or we turn the offender into a sheep...

The only thing that runs through my mind when I read these articles is ''who are these losers anyway?'' Although the article was well written I just find it hard to believe that somebody would dedicate their life (which is what this guy is doing) to selling items from a video game. Is it even possible to find a way to be a less productive member of society?

More on topic, I do thing the article makes sense. At lvl 34, my character no longer worries where the next silver piece will come from. The money sinks are getting to be a much smaller percent of my income. So far this hasn''t impacted me or, as far as I can tell, others. Once more and more people reach the end game, it may not bode well for the overall economy.

It''s hard not to believe that Blizzard isn''t smart enough to recognize this and correct it. Call me a fanboy if you must.

"Copingsaw" wrote:

The only thing that runs through my mind when I read these articles is ''who are these losers anyway?'' Although the article was well written I just find it hard to believe that somebody would dedicate their life (which is what this guy is doing) to selling items from a video game. Is it even possible to find a way to be a less productive member of society?

More on topic, I do thing the article makes sense. At lvl 34, my character no longer worries where the next silver piece will come from. The money sinks are getting to be a much smaller percent of my income. So far this hasn''t impacted me or, as far as I can tell, others. Once more and more people reach the end game, it may not bode well for the overall economy.

It''s hard not to believe that Blizzard isn''t smart enough to recognize this and correct it. Call me a fanboy if you must.

I don''t know. Money basically became pointless in Diablo, and the game centered around item drops.

At the same time, Diablo was a hell of a lot of fun, so it''s not like it destroyed the game.

I''d say that it is quite possible that the same thing will happen in WoW. Items will become everything; getting the rare drops will be all important, and trade will be in items and not currency, which will be effectively worthless to anyone at any type of mid-upper level.

"SlyFrog" wrote:

I don''t know. Money basically became pointless in Diablo, and the game centered around item drops.

At the same time, Diablo was a hell of a lot of fun, so it''s not like it destroyed the game.

I think, while it may not affect the way we purchase items from a vendor, it would affect other aspects of the game such as the auction house and crafting. It is currently still pretty difficult for low-level crafters to find their niche and make enough money to recoup their losses. WoW has some tremendous drops and quest rewards at even the lowest levels that make it difficult for armor crafters to market their wares.

When I hit level 30 I thought I''d take some time off from questing to catch up on some of my professions. After only a couple days I''m finding myself having to quest again to make up for the costs I''ve incurred from just trying to skill up. The few sales I''ve ever made of my delicious potions or unique materials I''ve caught while fishing has not even come close to covering the expenses for recipes and supplies.

I''m not really complaining, because I happen to enjoy the questing and killing. However, I know some people would really just be content developing a business around their crafting or running their own armor thrift store at the auction house.

I am almost 200 in blacksmithing and I have yet to make a penny from selling to people except for the stuff I sold back to the merchant and the generous donations made by the GWJ Alliance guild. This morning I decided to blow through 50 iron bars to get some skill ups, clear out some bag space, and make a little back in return. I was able to make 9 green iron bracers and sell them back to the merchant at 12s each. Not great but something.

"SlyFrog" wrote:
"Copingsaw" wrote:

The only thing that runs through my mind when I read these articles is ''who are these losers anyway?'' Although the article was well written I just find it hard to believe that somebody would dedicate their life (which is what this guy is doing) to selling items from a video game. Is it even possible to find a way to be a less productive member of society?

More on topic, I do thing the article makes sense. At lvl 34, my character no longer worries where the next silver piece will come from. The money sinks are getting to be a much smaller percent of my income. So far this hasn''t impacted me or, as far as I can tell, others. Once more and more people reach the end game, it may not bode well for the overall economy.

It''s hard not to believe that Blizzard isn''t smart enough to recognize this and correct it. Call me a fanboy if you must.

I don''t know. Money basically became pointless in Diablo, and the game centered around item drops.

At the same time, Diablo was a hell of a lot of fun, so it''s not like it destroyed the game.

I''d say that it is quite possible that the same thing will happen in WoW. Items will become everything; getting the rare drops will be all important, and trade will be in items and not currency, which will be effectively worthless to anyone at any type of mid-upper level.

This is most likely what will happen... no one will sell hard to make or get items for money but rather seek to trade them for equally sought after items.

The only hope is that the high end crafting items become a pain in the ass for the crafter to gather materials and thus that person would be willing to spend gold on certain raw materials.

The highest items will still get traded for..but then at least there will be some need for gold by those people to acquire ""parts""

Time will tell...certainly Blizzard can simply continue to put in ""high"" end items and mounts that can only be purchased for ridiculous amounts of gold and can no way be traded for.

The only hope is that the high end crafting items become a pain in the ass for the crafter to gather materials and thus that person would be willing to spend gold on certain raw materials.

This happened, is happening, in AC2. The burden of sinking money out of the economy fell squarely on the crafters. The problem is that there are a few truths between WoW and AC2 that make this less than optimal.

First, people tend to take on their own gathering skills, so they will avoid buying anything they can get themselves.

Second, the cost of materials will, most of the time, be reflected in the final cost of the product.

Third, there are plenty of Quest, and eventually Raid, items that will compete with crafted items.

Fourth, a majority of the population wants to become rich while getting loot drops. History has shown that they will save their money if a crafted item isn''t significantly more powerful.

In AC2 incredibly rich people were unwilling to buy the then expensive crafted items, even if it was a fraction of their income, since they could get items from loot. Crafters, many of whom dream of making gold at it, slowly became disgrunteled and quit crafting in droves. The result, an irrelavent crafting market and a somewhat dorment crafting proffession.

I could easily foresee a bartering system of ""great drop"" for ""great drop only"" happening eventually. However...

Time will tell...certainly Blizzard can simply continue to put in ""high"" end items and mounts that can only be purchased for ridiculous amounts of gold and can no way be traded for.

This would be the easy and fun way to keep inflation, and then eventual currency irrelavance, from occuring. If one can keep crafted items as a cheap alternative, and saving actually becomes a good idea, then crafting can flourish as a ""custom equipment alternative"".

Considering Blizzards batting average on always taking the fun/good idea, I''m betting that is what will happen.

Will we be buying the siege weapons? Possibly.
Housing? Could happen.
Faster and faster mounts? Sure.
Super fashionable clothing? Dye jobs for armor? There are plenty of options.

All of which would be great.

Up until recently I''ve always had enough money to train, but lately I''ve been passing a lot of my old gear to my warlock friend for disenchanting instead of selling it. This combined with skills costing like 47sp and up when I''ve never had more than 2gp to rub together... I''m starting to have to count my pennies. Could just be a bit of a squeeze stage though.

One thing I noticed, as an alchemist the sale price of my regents is worth more than the result of combining them for a recipe. Example, minor healing is silverweed (10cp), 1 peacebloom(10cp) and 1 glass vile(1cp) = 21cp; and it sells for 5cp.

"Somazx" wrote:

One thing I noticed, as an alchemist the sale price of my regents is worth more than the result of combining them for a recipe. Example, minor healing is silverweed (10cp), 1 peacebloom(10cp) and 1 glass vile(1cp) = 21cp; and it sells for 5cp.

Much of leather working is like this, barely getting back the money in thread spent but profit is profit even if only a few copper. I only really ''lose'' when I buy my skins if I''ve been lazy collecting.

I''ve sold 1 item to another player in the AH as a result of my leatherworking skill. Everything has become vendor bait (or should a certain enchanter be willing to pay me a nominal fee on the green items (basically at or a tad more than I would get for said items at the vendor))/ ''chanter bait.

"Nosferatu" wrote:

I''ve sold 1 item to another player in the AH as a result of my leatherworking skill.

I''ve sold several Hillman''s Shoulders and Hillman''s Leather Gloves in Ironforge; before I could make those, nothing sold. Are you making sure to list your items with a buyout that''s as low or lower than anyone else selling those items?

Yup I know how to get things sold, its just I see a ton of auctions up for the hillmans line and none of it seems to get bids.
I''ve had BO prices cheaper than the starting prices I see on stuff lited there and have a 24 hour auction on them and still they get returned to me.
the only thing I''ve actually managed to sell off in the AO was a Murloc scale breastplate.

how about:

For sale: 6,000-acre, lush tropical island, complete with castle, a mine full of valuable resources, and exotic game to hunt: $26,500 or best offer.

An ad like that would seem like a dream to just about anyone looking to invest in some property, but throw in the word ""virtual"" and it''s a different story. That didn''t bother 22-year-old David Storey, an Australian gamer playing the PC game Project Entropia, who bought the island in an auction for cyber assets equivalent to $26,500 real-word cash.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/12...

Actually I can''t claim that I saw a lot of end game content. I nearly hit 60, that is true, but I avoided many of the end dungeons and so I honestly didn''t have that great of gear. I think my thottbot beta char info is still there, if anyone cares...

Once I''d bought my mount, at about lvl 43, as I recall, I hovered around 40 - 60 gold in my pocket usually. Repairing gear took some cash out, griffon rides a little bit here and there, helping lower guildies out with their mounts, buying new stuff on the AH, luxuries like fireworks, alcohol, clothes for the sake of how they looked... there are some money sinks out there, although they would do well to make more.

My main source of income was selling herbs on the AH - goldthorn and khadgar''s whisker always sold well.

I''m no expert on economic theory, so....take my anedotal evidence how you will

Having never seen the high end of the game, I can''t really speak to it, but I find the premise of the article to be flawed. He discusses inflation, but there seem to be game mechanisms that would alieviate some of the inflation that one saw say in EQ.

The fact that armor is level specific, or soulbound decreases the likelyhood of a low level character strutting around in end-game gear.

For instance, say we had a guildy with thousands of gold. If that guildy then gave everyone 100 gold pieces...it''s still not going to make that much difference. You might be able to buy stuff to work on your crafting, you might be able to bribe a group to go with you into the deadmines, you might be able to throw it over your head and pretend that Zeus is having his way with you...in any case, it doesn''t have that much impact on the ""economy"" of the game.

I suppose it''s possible that some things in the AH may end up at prices that put them out of the reach of non-rich guilds or players...but the vast majority of things at the AH are things that characters can either get themselves, or find someone to make for less.

My point is; from my perspective, even if the highest level players have hordes of gold that would make dragons jealous...so what?

"Somazx" wrote:

how about:

For sale: 6,000-acre, lush tropical island, complete with castle, a mine full of valuable resources, and exotic game to hunt: $26,500 or best offer.

An ad like that would seem like a dream to just about anyone looking to invest in some property, but throw in the word ""virtual"" and it''s a different story. That didn''t bother 22-year-old David Storey, an Australian gamer playing the PC game Project Entropia, who bought the island in an auction for cyber assets equivalent to $26,500 real-word cash.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/12...

26 grand is one thing for a good game, but 26 grand for Project Entropia? I wouldn''t pay that much for the source code and the ability to give myself anything. The game totally bites!

When I first read the headline - thats what I thought they meant, that they''d sold the game for 26K - which seemed shockingly cheep. I played Project Entropia during their beta at some point. I think. Thats the one where there was no monthly fees, you transferred real world money into game credits at like 10:1 or something? I blew $5 on it.

Third, there are plenty of Quest, and eventually Raid, items that will compete with crafted items.

This, I think, is the main area that should be addressed in an MMOG. Crafters should always be able to produce the ""best"" items for a given level and should always be able to add value to uber quest items. That''s my opinion, anyway. Want a vibrant player economy? Make it so that the crafters are an integral part of it, not an add-on for those that want to sit and chat a while. It can still be good for that, yes, but when it''s not needed by the Killers, Adventureres and Explorers, then it''s just a minor bit of flavor, like Las Vegas casinos are to the US GDP.

Duckilama,
I disagree to a certain point, if the quest is insane and difficult, I can see that item being better than crafter made items. However just slapping around some random mob should get you far worse gear (or far more costly if bought from a vendor) than crafter made items.

EQ and the banded/bronze armour were a great example, banded armour was roughly the same armour as the bronze, but a ton lighter (literally!!!), and could be bought at a substantial discount over the vendor sold Bronze.
bags are like this currently, if you buy a bag you are a blatent fool. (admited I bought a bag as a noob), the player made ones can be bought for much cheaper, and probably hold more.