So all the gold making bloggers, all the hardy goblins hard at work making gold, heck even all the farmers out there, who are we and what is our role in the economy of World of Warcraft? The answer to this question is a very simple answer, yet so complicated as well. We are the life lines of the whole economy.
What was the reason behind this that made me think about this you might ask, well it's one of the whispers i got when i was trying to help a guy make some gold. The given whisper was that the guy/girl asked me what's the point of hoarding gold.
This made me think, and i came up with a rather weird conclusion. The reason why i, and many others like me were "hoarding" gold is simply because that is what we enjoyed in the game. Some people enjoy PvP, others enjoy raiding while we enjoy raiding the Auction House. But this was already known, so i gave it a further thought as in what effect do we have in the economy, and that is when it actually got interesting. The economy if left unchecked simply dwindles down and goes into a kind of recession. To clarify this i will use a few examples:
As a first example i will use the gathering markets. These markets will have their prices totally decimated to the point of getting to be at 5-10g per stack of herbs or ore, and even then there will be almost no demand because 95% of the raw materials are bought out by people that are gold hoarders, or auction house junkies. Another market that i noticed that requires a constant looking after is the jewelcrafting market. This was the market that i used to make all my gold in, and i was very much into maintaining it and keeping it at a decent level. Well lately i decided to get out of it and see what is going to happen with it. The findings were quite interesting as well. In a matter of a week the prices of the gems went from a 150-195g sales down to 10-20g sales. Now i though that this might be the case due to many people switching over to using epic gems, and that they weren't buying the rares as much, and boy was i wrong. True, the epics have taken a piece of the market for rare gems, but still people use the epics only for their best gear possible and not everyone takes the step to improve to the epic ones, so they look back to the rares. What i do is nothing complicated and everyone can do it, heck i have even posted it here how i keep the prices of gems up and my favorite late night shuffle tactic.
So in a matter of a day i managed to take the prices of gems from 10-20g back up to 195g and sell quite a bit of them. Here's a hint if you choose to do this. Red, Purple and Orange gems have the biggest sale rate while the greens have really went into a deep recession so you can prioritize which gems you want to reset first.
Behold this is what you are! And no, you are not a faucet, but more of a gold sink. What this means is that if it weren't for us hoarders the amount of gold that would be in circulation would totally ruin the economy to the point where gold is worthless. Just stop and think for a second. everyone reading this has anywhere from 50k to a few million gold, because let's face it if you are reading gold making blogs that means that you are interested in making gold, and if you are doing any of the things that are mentioned here you are already in possession of quite a good amount of gold. Now with the amounts of gold that we have gathered, we have effectively taken it out of circulation, of a better part of it because we still use a small amount to fund our raw material purchases. I for one have had a few discussions on the MMO-Champion and Blizzard forums about what needs to be done to make the economy better, in terms of introducing more gold sinks. The reason why the gold sinks are important is because they make it so the players actually need to have gold to be able to buy something, or pay for their repairs or anything else for that matter, and if you loose that you will end up with a crippled economy like Diablo 2 had in it's case where gold was so abundant that it was worthless.
So as a bottom line one could come up with a conclusion that we, as gold makers and hoarders are the life line of the economy, we are the life line of the professions and last we are the life line of the game because we make is so that the economy doesn't crash and drive people away, and in return break apart guilds, PvP groups and the community in general.
So when next time someone asks you what is the point of you having all that gold, you can freely go ahead and tell him that you are doing it just so he can continue to play the game, and enjoy it with his friends.
That is all for today, and like always, keep an eye out for good opportunities out there.
I fail to see how 15-20g per gem is bad for people who just want to raid. You are actually just forcing people to go do mind numbing dailies in order to keep up with the game.
ReplyDeleteThat is the entire idea of the game, to have to actually play to be able to afford the goodies you need to play the game. As it is now with influx of gold coming from the dailies and no gold sinks we get inflation of the worth of the gold. If prices are low while the gold income is high you end up with an economy where gold becomes worthless and the entire economical system crumbles.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to know how that feels take a look at Diablo 2, the same happen there to the level where gold became worthless and the only way to get something was to provide something else that was of equal quality
Great post Vile. Loved reading it, as usual.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I disagree on what would happen. I do agree that if Gold buyers stopped buying ore and herbs that the price would have to fluctuate. However, it seems to me that a large percentage of the ore and herbs that us Goblins buy is actually provided by farmers. Not sure if Farmers are added into the calculation itself, but if the demand for Ore and Herbs suddenly tanked, the farmers would likely leave the market. As such, the demand and supply curve would completely change, but would like end up at a different equalibrium. Would it be lower than it is now, probably?
I can concur with the gold inflation idea, but the question there I would ask is how much gold do we really "take out of the game" (through hoarding). I asked the question on the Consortium and they pointed out that while, yes, we do take money out in a way, there is so much going in that we hardly make a dent. So if we didn't exist, I guess the real question is by what factor would the inflation change.
Awesome post though. Loved reading it.
That's not really how inflation works. If the market was flooded with gold, prices would not go down, they would go up. If gold was devalued, it would take more, not less to buy something. The bigger concern when removing the gold makers is what Ohnekase suggested, the stability of supply and demand.
ReplyDeleteIf the gold makers don't drive the market, and prices go down, then the perceived value of the item is diminished. Some of the people who farm those items will see them as less profitable and attempt a different scheme. This diminishes the supply, and the prices fluxuate.
The biggest gold sink a Gold Maker probably offers is not his own personal hoard but the result directly of his AH trading. The AH taking a cut of every sale, and the gold makers regular posting, buying and reposting ensures a steady stream of 5% leaving the game (not counting the posting fee when the item is not bought).
The real question: Is it better for the players to have an expensive but stable economy, or is it better to have a cheaper but unstable economy?
You write, "In a matter of a week the prices of the gems went from a 150-195g sales down to 10-20g sales". As if this is a problem. The first commenter was right. In fact I'd go further: you are effectively griefing an entire server. Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteSo here's another answer to the question, why do you do it? Maybe because you enjoy feeling like you have the power to make other people miserable? At least you have named yourself honestly.
I would totally agree that i stood and always will stay for a system where you need to work ( quests or craft things ) in order to get the gold so in some time you will be able to buy a certain thing you want. I'm stating this because when you buy something that you actually worked for, you feel good about it. On the other hand if prices are so low that you can afford pretty much anything without having to do anything but a few dailies and be done with it, then the gold is pretty much worthless and the economy crumbles.
ReplyDeleteAs an example i will give you the economy back in Vanilla compared to today's economy. Back in the Vanilla days when you got to level 40 you could train and buy a horse, but the problem was the 100g price tag, so you would see people going up to almost level 55-60 without horses, but when you would finally buy it you felt like the world was yours, not even going to discuss the epic 100% speed horse which was 500G.
So do i think that with the amount of gold going around with people there should be price tags that are higher, YES i do, do i think we need more Blizzard introduced Gold sinks, HELL YES. Anything that they can give us to extract gold from the economy would be a mandatory because if they don't, MoP is going to bring higher item level items which in return would sell for more which will make the gold income even more and the end result would be a personal gold cap increased to 5 million or 10 million.
All i am saying is that if the worth of the gold is non existent you end up with a economy like Diablo 2 which was simply non existent, which eventually just broke the community even though it was primarily a single player game.
Just as a clarification, i really do appreciate everyone for pitching in with their thoughts, even if they don't agree with my views
ReplyDeleteI agree with many of the points made a key component though for me as a Goblin is simply this ... how much affect do you and your resources have or could they have on your servers market? Is there an effect when u leave or enter a market... do you have the ability over a week to increase prices on raw inferno rubies by 100g just because you feel like it...? that is the power of the true goblin. Where it becomes an artform is the ablity to spend as little time making your money as possible with maximum returns! Just some thoughts great article....... now has anyone ever really discussed what drives "botters/farmers" ?....hmmmmm
ReplyDeleteGoblins and gold farmers do make the WoW economy go around, but you picked a horrible example with your gems. Being able to inflate the price of non-red gems profitably is the sign of a dysfunctional market or a cartel, neither of which are good for the server.
ReplyDeleteThe amount of non-red gems produced through the shuffle while supplying the red gems the server wants/needs is enormous compared to the demand; much of the auction house price should reflect the effort it takes to post them, plus risk of losing the deposit, which is nowhere close to 195g.
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