Professional Farmers

[Concillian]

There is a bit bit of sematics issue with simply using the word "farmer'.
A guy earning gold every day to resell is a very different animal than a guy spending his afternoons for a week killing easy stuff so he can buy a new sword or a horse.
Both could be called a farmer but one is impacting the the game world in a persistant manner directed by out of game forces(money) while the other is simply playing the game - but both could be called a farmer.
[right][snapback]95755[/snapback][/right]

Both could be considered exploiting a loophole, but the point I was trying to make was that Blizzard fixes these problems in a way that benefits most those who 'exploited' the most.

To me that indicates a significant issue with the way they approach these problems.

[Gort]

I probably agree with the rest of the Numbered Points, but I've always wondered about the effect on the economy.

Gold farmers should introduce both gold AND items into the economy, thus leaving it pretty much as before.  Consider Noob Ebayer.  Noob buys a bunch of gold (from farming company) and then SPENDS a bunch of gold on items that gold farmers have found.  This gold is then sold (for real world money) to Othernoob Ebayer -- and so on.

This misses the crucial element of money SUPPLY. The biggest influx of gold produced by the farmer is that dropped by NPCs. Simple example:

NPC X - spawns in Tyr's Hand, remains untouched for 3 hours then drops 12s.

NPC Y - spawns in Tyr's Hand, dies within 2 minutes and each respawn for the next 3 hours, dropping 12s each time.

X's death brings 12s into the economy.

Y's (repeated) deaths bring 90 x 12s into the economy, or 1080s = 108g.

Difference is 107g 88s over the course of those 3 hours.

Now obviously the respawn rate in Tyr's Hand has been changed, the above was artificial number to illustrate a point. The constant farming of high cash value NPCs was pushing the gold supply to insane levels and continues, albeit at a slightly abated pace. Sales on the AH etc may circulate the money but each NPC killed brings fresh cash into circulation and the relative value of items calculated against the overall supply (known as M0 in the UK treasury for example) is pushed down, resulting in the trend Kandrathe identified so eloquently.

[Raven Vale]

Y's (repeated) deaths bring 90 x 12s into the economy, or 1080s = 108g.

I think you mean 10g 80s :P

[ima_nerd]

The problem with WoW and all MMO's is that there isn't enough money leaving the market. Buying skills, mounts, repairs and flying all take money out but it isn't enough. While WoW has done better than most games, the influx of money is simply too great. I don't plan on spending 900g on a mount to get me to Black Rock Mountain 40% faster when I could spend it instead on enchants (keeping the money within the economy) for my gear. Gold will someday become valueless and a bartering system will emerge.

WTS Krol Blade - 4 290s!!!

:P

[Gort]

Y's (repeated) deaths bring 90 x 12s into the economy, or 1080s = 108g.

I think you mean 10g 80s :P
[right][snapback]95791[/snapback][/right]

D'oh.

No really, d'oh.

:rolleyes:

[Guest]

I don't plan on spending 900g on a mount to get me to Black Rock Mountain 40% faster when I could spend it instead on enchants (keeping the money within the economy) for my gear. Gold will someday become valueless and a bartering system will emerge.


:P
[right][snapback]95812[/snapback][/right]

2 problems with your reasoning.

1 It doesnt matter that you dont want a horse - many players do. When Blizz feels most players that want a horse have - they will add a new toy to buy.

2 Enchants tend to take money effectively out of the system just like horses do. It doesnt matter if a small percentage of players become fabulously rich - DEFLATION and INFLATION only happens when the average player has more money than he needs.(Not MMOS as they age develope huge inflation only on the truely rare items[or thus percieved] and everything else deflates.)


The low end items deflate not because their is too much money but trather because there are too many items.

[oldmandennis]

IANAE (I am not an economist), but I don't think the farmers contribute that much to inflation or deflation. They create gold, they create item, they sell the items to the people who bought their gold.

The problem is that they distort the economy. Stuff that is relativly easily farmed solo(essences, Arcane Crystals) becomes artificially cheep because of them. This hurts players that want to get togeather some cash for a mount or a BOE purple. Stuff that is relativly hard to grind solo (RWD's, ZG loot) becomes more expensive because all the bought gold is chasing it. This hurts anybody who wants those items but doesn't cheat.

[fractaled]

Both could be considered exploiting a loophole, but the point I was trying to make was that Blizzard fixes these problems in a way that benefits most those who 'exploited' the most.

To me that indicates a significant issue with the way they approach these problems.
[right][snapback]95779[/snapback][/right]

I don't think electrolanterns are a good example of hurting those that didn't exploit them. How did changing the price of electrolanterns hurt anyone? What could they have done to help those that didn't exploit them? Give them a free horse? I agree that their fix was a little over the top: the sell price went from something like 16s to 66c; i.e. probably not even worth picking up.

The best example of the draconian nerfs that I recall is the fishing nerf. Fishing went from being reasonably profitable (for a real player) to just a time sink (i.e. tough to break even on the cost of lures). This change made fishing something you couldn't do at all for profit, and pretty much stripped it of any "fun" value for me. I understand that Blizzard wanted to prevent bots from doing this 24/7; but it sure didn't seem like they spent any effort at all at keeping fishing a viable profession.

[ima_nerd]

It doesnt matter if a small percentage of players become fabulously rich

I don't see why it doesn't. They will spend the money - possibly to other players - which keeps the money in the economy. Whether it's buying shards off the AH or buying crafted items, it's not taking money out of the market and instead is spreading it among the population.

[Guest]

They will only buy the rarest most exspensive gear.

The situation is remarkable analogous to real life - seems to me thats good.

This happens in all games.


Money drives inflation on the rarest items.
Availability drive deflation on the majority of items.

[TheWesson]

IANAE (I am not an economist), but I don't think the farmers contribute that much to inflation or deflation.  They create gold, they create item, they sell the items to the people who bought their gold.

The problem is that they distort the economy.  Stuff that is relativly easily farmed solo(essences, Arcane Crystals) becomes artificially cheep because of them.  This hurts players that want to get togeather some cash for a mount or a BOE purple.  Stuff that is relativly hard to grind solo (RWD's, ZG loot) becomes more expensive because all the bought gold is chasing it.  This hurts anybody who wants those items but doesn't cheat.
[right][snapback]95818[/snapback][/right]

after reading the thread that's my take on it too. Farmers should not cause overall inflation or deflation, but would be expected to distort the economy, making farmed items cheaper and non-farmed items more expensive.

Farmers chasing profitability should result (given a sensible Blizzard) in a situation where all profitable courses of action result in about the same wage per time spent, since high-wage actions will be nerfed down.

Unfortunately, as the electro lanterns demonstrate, Blizzard cant be counted on to act sensibly.

It would be interesting if market forces could be introduced to automatically balance vendor sale prices.

Here's a sketch of such a system:
Vendors offer for sale (at a large markup) everything sold to them.
Vendors adjust their sale prices (and, accordingly, their buy prices) for X depending on how much X they have in stock, and how much they expect to be able to sell it for. (They could also snoop on AH sales to some extent.)
Vendors could also buy from other vendors at a price marked up by transportation distance. This would produce interesting effects like iridescent pearls being more expensive in the Barrens and cheaper in STV.

of course this would be irrelevant to truly useless (grey) items. It's an interesting thought experiment though. Players would always be discovering areas where inefficiencies existed (say that the price of pearls was too high) and balancing those out (by, for example, farming pearls.)

[fractaled]

It would be interesting if market forces could be introduced to automatically balance vendor sale prices.

Here's a sketch of such a system:
Vendors offer for sale (at a large markup) everything sold to them.
Vendors adjust their sale prices (and, accordingly, their buy prices) for X depending on how much X they have in stock, and how much they expect to be able to sell it for.  (They could also snoop on AH sales to some extent.)
Vendors could also buy from other vendors at a price marked up by transportation distance.  This would produce interesting effects like iridescent pearls being more expensive in the Barrens and cheaper in STV.

of course this would be irrelevant to truly useless (grey) items.  It's an interesting thought experiment though.  Players would always be discovering areas where inefficiencies existed (say that the price of pearls was too high) and balancing those out (by, for example, farming pearls.)
[right][snapback]95847[/snapback][/right]

I think such a system would be a good first step for the economy of the game. As you point out, gray items, being worthless, should have no value (and should be taken out in my opinion). This would require them to make a lot more items with uses, or drop more existing useful items, or change non-useful drop to gold drops (which doesn't make a lot of sense for non-humanoids).

Right now there aren't enough perishable items to create a demand for drops. Basically just potions, enchants and kits, and crafted items. And the volume of all but alchemy (and maybe enchanting) is probably too low to sustain those professions and the economy as a whole.

[Brista]

The problem is that they distort the economy.  Stuff that is relativly easily farmed solo(essences, Arcane Crystals) becomes artificially cheep because of them.  This hurts players that want to get togeather some cash for a mount or a BOE purple.  Stuff that is relativly hard to grind solo (RWD's, ZG loot) becomes more expensive because all the bought gold is chasing it.  This hurts anybody who wants those items but doesn't cheat.
[right][snapback]95818[/snapback][/right]

This is true to an extent but the business model for these ventures is still evolving. There is no reason why a company employing a number of staff to farm gold MUST make them all play alone

I think that we are likely to see an increase in farmer groups running places for valuable items. Imagine a group of druids/rogues/hunters rushing straight for the phat lewt and resetting the instance. Righteous orbs are a likely candidate for this type of farming

Unfortunately this will tend to force Blizzard to make more stuff BoP and keep crafted items uninspired. The more that crafted items are worth having, the more their components will be farmed regardless of whether it can be farmed solo. Put it this way if Righteous Orbs hit 100g and arcane crystals 20g for the commercial farmers it's a simple equation of whether a group of 5 generates a Righteous Orb in the time a solo would find an Arcane Crystal

Still as long as farmers tend to be solo and Blizzard remains committed to discouraging them then solo content and rewards are likely to be underwhelming. This is because if you could get top stuff solo farmers would get it

Ghostiger
2 Enchants tend to take money effectively out of the system just like horses do. It doesnt matter if a small percentage of players become fabulously rich - DEFLATION and INFLATION only happens when the average player has more money than he needs.(Not MMOS as they age develope huge inflation only on the truely rare items[or thus percieved] and everything else deflates.)

Most players spend their money, no matter how rich. The real player might spend money on engineering resources and potions to dominate in pvp. The farmer/enchanter will sell it.

Generally speaking the very rich won't sit on their cash. It's pointless, who wants to have 1000 gold in the bank when you quit? (Sure, being rich may be an end in itself but for most people having a better main weapon will be more fun than having a fat bank account)

[Guest]

That is a good example. They werent fixing a mistake with fishing - they changed fun play so power gamers and money farmers wouldnt do it.

[Concillian]

What could they have done to help those that didn't exploit them? Give them a free horse? I agree that their fix was a little over the top: the sell price went from something like 16s to 66c; i.e. probably not even worth picking up.
[right][snapback]95821[/snapback][/right]

They could have warned that electrolanterns were improperly priced and that repeated farming of them would be considered an exploit. Then when the patch is put in place to fix the prices, they look at people who continued to sell hundreds of lanterns a day and reset the gold value for all the characters tied to that account to zero.

You ahve to use pretty lenient criteria like this so that you only catch the real problem exploiters. Only professional farmers and stupid people would sell electrolanterns every day for two weeks after being warned that excessive selling of lanterns is considered exploiting. Fair warning for the legit players and stiff penalties for the exploiters.

There is not enough punishment going out to people who exploit. They are essentially rewarded for finding a loophole and exploiting it as much as possible before it's patched out.

[oldmandennis]

Imagine a group of druids/rogues/hunters rushing straight for the phat lewt and resetting the instance.

I was thinking of ZG/MC/a little bit BWL. There portion of BoP/BoE definatly does not favor farmers. Also the artical points out the danger of your coplayer vendoring any epics that you might get to improve your farming rate

Righteous orbs are a likely candidate for this type of farming

Excellent point.

Generally speaking the very rich won't sit on their cash. It's pointless, who wants to have 1000 gold in the bank when you quit? (Sure, being rich may be an end in itself but for most people having a better main weapon will be more fun than having a fat bank account)
[right][snapback]95854[/snapback][/right]

Thats not the problem. The problem is do the farmers make it unreasonably tough for legit players to obtain items they need and do gold buyers skew the difficulty curve of the game.

[fractaled]

They could have warned that electrolanterns were improperly priced and that repeated farming of them would be considered an exploit.  Then when the patch is put in place to fix the prices, they look at people who continued to sell hundreds of lanterns a day and reset the gold value for all the characters tied to that account to zero.

You ahve to use pretty lenient criteria like this so that you only catch the real problem exploiters.  Only professional farmers and stupid people would sell electrolanterns every day for two weeks after being warned that excessive selling of lanterns is considered exploiting.  Fair warning for the legit players and stiff penalties for the exploiters.

There is not enough punishment going out to people who exploit.  They are essentially rewarded for finding a loophole and exploiting it as much as possible before it's patched out.
[right][snapback]95862[/snapback][/right]

I've seen people draw the line at "exploit" at different spots, but you draw yours pretty far to the "right". This was a mistake by Blizzard, and it wasn't *that* extreme; and you would punish anyone trying to maximize their profit while not really hurting anyone else? Why is an "exploiter" of this "exploit" any worse than the thousands of other min-maxers?

How is a farmer or even just a someone looking to pay for a mount to know that drops like these aren't there for the people to do just that? I.e. rewarding those that have an eye to gold over time.

It seems like a "more fair" course of action would be for Blizzard to announce that electrolanterns are overpriced and say they will be reduced in price in the next patch. Thus giving everyone the opportunity to "exploit" them. Although a silent fix in this case doesn't really seem that out of line to me.

(Aside: your suggested punishment of the "exploiters" wouldn't work obviously, they'd just have to "launder" their gold in any number of ways before the patch date).

[Descended]

I find myself in general disagreement with most of the responses in this tread. I don't feel my play experience is significantly worse due to the existence of professional farmers.

I just hit 60 with my rogue on Durotan. I'm splitting my time between Silithus (glowing scorpid blood and twilight texts, at the moment), Timbermaw reputation, Cauldron runs, Arathi Basin, and instances. I am not finding that there are characters I can identify as behaving like farmers that are making my gameplay experience in those zones worse. I have occasional competition for spawns in Winterspring, but considering the crap drops the Winterfall give, I doubt they are professional farmers, just other suckers trying to gain reputation like me.

I managed my money well while leveling, and used Auctioneer to suppliment it. I planned my character's purchasable equipment out ahead of time, and I'm already suited out in most of the best non-epic, AH-purchasable equipment available (still missing Spaulders of the Unseen unless I can get the shoulders from BRD or Strat). Any amount of farming that someone else was doing during that time was a help to me, not a hurt, since it would be increasing the supply of the items I wanted to buy and so lowering the prices.

I'm at 277 Enchanting; 8 more points and I'll be able to learn the Icy enchant recipe I have sitting in the bank. I'll need a couple of Essences to use it. I could go farm for them -- check Thottbot out, find the best places to farm, blow a few hours or more -- or I could do something else, hit one of the zones I'm having fun in, do the things I'm having fun doing, and just buy the Essences on the AH. If I think I would have fun farming, well, I'll do that. If there is a group of farmers out there, farming the things I might want every day for hours a day, when I do want the items but don't want to spend the time to get them myself, the farmers make it easier to for me to get those items. I don't see this as a problem.

Now, if you (the generic, not-pointing-at-any-specific-poster-earlier-in-this-thread you) feel that getting all of your own materials is an important part of having fun, that's fine -- you've defined a gameplay experience for yourself in which there are rules that you are imposing on yourself, rather than just the ones that the game provides you, and that is something I can understand. Just don't complain when you run into the fact that sometimes the materials you want happen to be materials most everyone else wants, too. There will always be some resources for which there is high demand and for which the cost to benefit (generally the primary cost in MMORPGS will be time) ratio is better than the rest.

To cry that people shouldn't be allowed to farm high demand, valuable resources means you've decided you don't want people to be able to choose to buy or trade for those items; there is no other way to prevent high demand, valuable resources from being farmed, other than making them less valuable or reducing the demand. No, you feel that since you want to have the option to effectively (read -- with no serious competition) gather those resources yourself, it would be better if everyone else had the rules you are imposing on yourself be imposed on them as well.

I have no interest in playing a game where players are entitled to advancement simply as a function of time invested; strategic choices are a must for me, and those strategic choices tend to go away if there is no reward for farming. There will be farmers where some items have a greater demand than supply compared the average and those items can be found with less investment under some circumstances compared others. The only way I can think of designing an MMORPG with no variation in the rates of demand and supply for items is to make all items BoP and have all items drop from a univeral loot table from mobs, which would also all have to be exactly the same. Any lack of BoP allows for differing degrees of usefulness to produce differing degress of value, and multiple drop tables will always result in any two different mobs with different drop tables having unequal rewards. Any difference in value produced per time unit spent will lead to farming.

Oh, and I see the opportunity to purchase in-game items with real money to be a problem entirely different that that of farming (if it was professional farmers in the lead when it comes to filling the auction houses, it would be some other group, like college students). I don't like the idea of players paying money for in game benefits without those items/players being flagged clearly. I want to be able to compare how well my choices and skill have paid off during the time I have played compared to other people [this is why I think you should be able to see timed /played for other characters, so you can compare how well you are doing to them post 60]. I am a competative person, what can I say.

[Concillian]

I've seen people draw the line at "exploit" at different spots, but you draw yours pretty far to the "right". This was a mistake by Blizzard, and it wasn't *that* extreme; and you would punish anyone trying to maximize their profit while not really hurting anyone else? Why is an "exploiter" of this "exploit" any worse than the thousands of other min-maxers?

It has been demonstrated by others earlier in the thread how farmers hurt normal players. I don't think I need to re-iterate the same points that have already been hashed and re-hashed elsewhere in this very thread do I?

How is a farmer or even just a someone looking to pay for a mount to know that drops like these aren't there for the people to do just that? I.e. rewarding those that have an eye to gold over time.

Because Blizzard continually nerfs the easiest farming spots. Hippo feathers, SM drops, and more recently Tyr's hand drops and extreme reduction in the amount of silver dropped by mobs in the SM Graveyard. It's very clear that Blizzard doesn't want this happening, I mean if they wanted to 'reward' people with an "eye for gold over time" would they continually nerf the best 'gold over time' spots?

And in the meantime, it's the farmers and exploiters who benefit most.

[fractaled]

I find myself in general disagreement with most of the responses in this tread.  I don't feel my play experience is significantly worse due to the existence of professional farmers.
[right][snapback]95879[/snapback][/right]

Ditto. If "farming" is someone's definition of fun, then who am I to say they shouldn't be doing it?