Professional Farmers

[fractaled]

I had a quest that should have taken me 10 minutes round trip extended to a minimum of 20 minutes/round and usually closer to 1/2 hour a quest because I had to fight off two farmers for limited spawns for kills. They were camped in the sole place I could be 24/7 for 3 months before they finally got banned.  While my personal droprates suck, I shudder to think of what they found/moved in that zone while they were there.
[right][snapback]95923[/snapback][/right]

Bummer. Sounds like the green dragon whelps (dropping dream dust?) in the Swamp of Sorrows. Any quest that can be monopolized by a few farmers is broken in my opinion. You'd think that Blizzard would find it more profitable to increase the locations and adjust drop tables for quests like that than ban farmers. They'd have to deal with 100x as many farmers (across all their servers), and having them banned by a human takes time (and money).

[fractaled]

Items do make a HUGE difference.  Take it from somebody who's been on the wrong end of Thunderfury a few times.

Hrm, I didn't intend it that way. The acquisition of items is not that skill dependant. Most important is having lots of time. Belonging to a large guild helps too.

Items bought with real money throw off the balance of the game in both PVP and PVE.

Correction: Items throw off the balance of the game in both PVP and PVE. If anything, money might LEVEL the playing field. I quit when I realized that I would have to play the parts of the game I don't like in order to play those I do. Imagine playing a game of CTF in Quake where one side has 20%+ more health points and access to better guns merely because they've been playing longer.

These are practical reasons.  The bigger reason is it breaks down the fourth wall of the game.  It does make it less fun to know people are out there not playing by the rules.

If you consider the rules as those defined by the virtual "world", they aren't breaking any. They are doing nothing in the game that you yourself wouldn't do at various times.

What's your policy on CS aimbots, fractaled?

That's an exploit :) Anything that takes advantage of information that the server shouldn't be sending you (but often does due to technical issues/poor design) is an exploit. As is anything that manipulates the information you send back to the server that it doesn't handle properly (even though it should). And anything that automates what should be a human process is an exploit (this is a lot grayer though).

The loosest definition I've seen used is one that the protocol is the definition of the rules. If it allows you to TELL the server what your Z coordinate is, then flying is allowed. I don't subscribe to that though :)

[Ruvanal]

Correction: Items throw off the balance of the game in both PVP and PVE. If anything, money might LEVEL the playing field. I quit when I realized that I would have to play the parts of the game I don't like in order to play those I do. Imagine playing a game of CTF in Quake where one side has 20%+ more health points and access to better guns merely because they've been playing longer.

[right][snapback]95980[/snapback][/right]

I am not familar with this type of shoot-em-up game, but consider this. How would you like to play a game like that when you went against players that had poor skills, but paid 30% more U.S. dollars than your budget to have uber equipment even though you had been playing longer? They did not earn that in-game like the game was set up to be played, they aquired it outside of the game so they could be "hot stuff" in the game.

[Mirajj]

Bummer. Sounds like the green dragon whelps (dropping dream dust?) in the Swamp of Sorrows. Any quest that can be monopolized by a few farmers is broken in my opinion. You'd think that Blizzard would find it more profitable to increase the locations and adjust drop tables for quests like that than ban farmers. They'd have to deal with 100x as many farmers (across all their servers), and having them banned by a human takes time (and money).
[right][snapback]95976[/snapback][/right]

It was the reputation quest for the Winterspring Frostsaber, and the farmers were in Winterfall Village, the only place the two mobs you need to kill for the "best" quest in the three you get that you can do.

The mobs there have a high chance to drop an epic item (1/1000), as well as a lot of blues, very good greens, both Major Health and Mana pots and Winterfall Firewater. In addition, there is an RTV that has 5 possible spawn points (all in the village, though I think that there is more than one vein) and a Solid Chest that can spawn in one of four places. They also drop between 2-15s each. That adds up.

The mobs are 55-58 normals, and thus easy pickings for anyone with even a little bit of skill. Though it was amusing to see the farmers when they first arrived. One was even wearing grey pants for 3-4 days. By the time they were banned, they were a very stiff fight for the kills.

I'm not sorry that they are gone. I hope they never come back. While I have beyond terrible dropluck, I imagine that they found a pretty decent sum in that area, as they only ever left to hearth to Everlook...

[Guest]

You should see DAoC.
MYthic was rather clever - they get the mony themselves.

If you buy a spare "bot" account you can buff yourself and be over 2.5 times as good in combat. And you dont even have to group with the bot; it can stand sefely behind lines in a friendly fort.

[fractaled]

I am not familar with this type of shoot-em-up game, but consider this.  How would you like to play a game like that when you went against players that had poor skills, but paid 30% more U.S. dollars than your budget to have uber equipment even though you had been playing longer?  They did not earn that in-game like the game was set up to be played, they aquired it outside of the game so they could be "hot stuff" in the game.
[right][snapback]95981[/snapback][/right]

That doesn't translate too well to Quake since it is fundamentally a skill based game, whereas MMOs aren't. If somebody buys lessons for Quake (I've heard of it being done), or brings their skills from another FPS, without having put in the time at Quake, I didn't begrudge them that. (Although maybe the "LPB vs HPB" (low ping bastard) argument is the same. Having a better connection gives you a leg up.)

Although the PvP aspect in WoW is supposed to be skill based (IMO), but it's skewed by the equipment factor. I think if you're going to have a skill based game, there needs to be a level playing field. I.e., when entering the BGs, you got to choose your equipment.

Also, your argument is basically the same as mine: "How would like to play against players that have poor skills, but played 200% more hours than your allotment to have uber equipment". The "hot stuff' argument doesn't work for me, I'm not looking to show off virtual armament nor do I get jealous over other's gear :) We may both be arguing against the itemization-as-advancement approach that Blizzard is taking (I know I am). As long as it's in place, there will be channels available for those with more time or more money to gain an advantage.

[kandrathe]

*oops. removed double post*

[kandrathe]

...
Boycotting the AH is boycotting the medium, not the materials. Come up with a way to only buy from non-professional farmers if you want to hurt them.
...

[right][snapback]95913[/snapback][/right]

Well, I refuse to bite on your straw man. The internet, and e-mail is a tool misused. The parallel to what I was saying would be that I do not buy things from spammers, or internet porn purveyors. Both are true and in fact, in another parallel, I use legal means to identify and report TOS violators to ISP's who unknowingly house them. (see Spamhaus Project)

Back to WOW. I do buy from non-professionals, person to person or from people I know or who belong to a guild I know has integrity. Players tend to be guilded, they tend to have understandable character names rather than gibberish and they tend to sell a reasonable amount of materials at a time. If I see one account selling more items than a reasonable person would have at a time, I suspect them. I also look at the persons entire AH offerings. You can tell alot about where the person spent their time by looking at what they are selling. My suspicion is that many professional farmers are like the type Mirajj encountered. They stay non-stop in an area and return to the nearest mailbox once in awhile to funnel gold and goods to other accounts that manage the AH sales. And, the professional is willing to drop 20-30% off the normal price because they are dumping 10x more quantity onto the market. So, those AH deals that are too good to be true are probably making the professionals richer, screwing over the non-professionals who are offering a few items at the normal price, contribute to the inflation of unfarmed goods, and deflation of farmed goods.

[chippydip]

WOW! So many posts in this thread I'd like to respond to, but instead I'll just post some generic thoughts:

First of all, I need to state where I'm coming from since this is argument is very much about how the game *should* be played at not at all about how it is *allowed* to be played.

I'm a die-hard min-maxer. Not because I want to dominate the game, but rather because I enjoy the challenge of trying to find the "best" solution to any number of in-game problems. What build would allow the maximum healing/time for an indefinite amount of time? What build provides the best dps/aggro ratio? Is there a solo AOE build that can kill faster than the best single-target dps build (including corpse runs if the build is too fragile)? etc. This is actually why I wrote my Diablo 2 skill calculator in the first place... I got tired of planning out skill trees for charcters using pencil and paper. I considered doing an equipment planner at one point for similar reasons, but never got around to it.

I've never paid real money for virtual items, character, or money, though I do pay a monthly fee for the oportunity to create said characters and search for said money and items myself. I don't object to use real money to purchase virtual goods, however. In fact, I think its a facinating demonstration of free-market forces at work (I was an Economics minor in college, so I'm a bit biased in this regard).

With introductions out of the way, I'll get on with the points I wanted to make:

1) I'm certainly not a professional farmer, but I feel personally attacked when people attack their behavior since they are playing by the same min-max strategy that I would likely employ if I had both the time and inclination to play 12-hours a day, 6-days a week. I see people saying essentially, "its evil and unethical and blah blah blah to see out the aspects of the game with offer the greatest reward for their risk and concentrate on those aspects of the game" since this is how I like to play. The reward can be different things for different people, but the concept is still the same.

2) Similarly, while I understand that it is frustrating to watch another player kill mobs or gather resources that you need for a quest or other objective (I've certainly experienced plenty of this myself), I think this is a very egocentric argument. I fail to see how one player has any more right to kill a mob or collect an item than any other player in the game world. This sort of problem happens in the real world all the time--I can wait in line an buy the last two Xboxes so that I can sell one on eBay. Is this fair to the guy in line behind me that didn't get one because I bought "his"? Maybe (and some places use "one-per-customer" limits to prevent this), but then again, maybe not (I *was* in line before the guy, so presumably I can buy whatever is available when its by turn and he is stuck with whatever is left). In both the real world and the virtual world, the decision of what is "right" is really a moral judgement that is left up to each individual user. That's one of the things that makes MMORPGs unique is that a player may choose any set of morals they want to play their character by. Do something that pissed off other characters? You're perfectly allowed to do that, but watch out if you ever need help with anything down the line. The "Golden Rule" is often a good moral framework in a game where cooperation is essential (especially for the end-game raids) but these ethics certainly aren't required.

3) Macro-Economics: I argue that a "professional" players killing the same monsters in a single location for 12 hours straight has a nearly identical impact on the macro-economy as would 12 separate "casual" players, each killing those same mobs for 1 hour each. In both cases, roughly the same amount of gold is being "created" from monser drops and trash loot sales. In addition, about the same number of useful items are "created" as well. I assume that the number of "professionals" is very small in comparison to the general server population. I would also expect that the sum of the /played times for all professionals is vanishingly small when compared to the total /played times for all other casualy played characters. Even if professionals' mob kills accounted for 1/1000 of total kills on a server (which I think is probably an over-estimate by several orders of magnitute), then the mobs they kill would have to drop 10 times better loot than the average mobs to even have a 1% impact on the overall economy. Overall, I'm extremely skeptical that professionals have *any* measurable effect on the *aggregate* economy.

4) More Econ: Prices are simply an exchange rate between two different "goods". In most modern economic systems, one of these goods is almost always currency, but currency is simply a good that is universally acceptable in trades, easily portable, and easily divisable (among a few other things). All prices in a free market economy are set by the relative supply and demand of the two goods being exchanged. Supply is generally fairly easy to quantify, but demand is based on the aggregate desires of the population at large. If more of an item is introduced into the economy, then its price will tend to fall relative to other goods. If some of an item is destroyed, then the value of the remaining items of that type will tend to rise. If fashions change and people suddenly find a specific item more or less desirable, then the price with tend to increase or decrease respectively. (Sorry for the long econ 101 lesson, but its important for those who haven't had it).

5) Inflation/Deflation: These are just fancy words for relative price changes. This is either driven by a relative increase or decrease in the amount of money in the economy, or by a relative decrease or increase in the number and desireability of available goods. There is a potentially dangerous feedback loop in this system, however. In an inflationary economy (money is becoming less valuable over time relative to other good) it is better to spend all of your money on physical goods which can later be re-sold at their inflated prices. This leads to an increase in the money supply (thus, fueling the inflation) since savings are places into general circulation. Similarly, in a deflationary economy where money is becoming more valuable, it is better to sell any other items for money and save that money as it appreciates in value and buy goods again later at their reduces prices. This leads to a contraction in the money supply which puts further downward pressure on prices as people attempt to dump goods at any price they can get for them.

6) Micro-Econ: I've already argued that professionals should not have a noticable impact on the economy at the macro level. On the micro level, however, I can see them causing noticeable changes, especially for certain rare items that can only be obtained in a few specific locations. In general, no matter who is doing the item farming, any behavior which makes relatively more or less of a specific item available on the open market will have an impact on the prices for those items. If professionals can Krol Blades 1000 times more often than the average player (per mob killed), then the price of Krol Blades will go down. At the same time, if they are getting Copper Ore at only 1000th the rate of the average player (or maybe even none at all), then the price of Copper Ore will increase. This leads to the obvious conclusion that has already been pointed out: things that are farmed a lot (by anyone) will drop in price, while stuff that isn't will increase in price. This alone should be enough to equalize the desirablitly to farm many different places over the long run. If an area was farmed enough to impact the prices of any good (including gold) obtained from that location, then it would become less valuable to farm that particular location.

7) The Real Problem: Overall, I think Blizzard has done a decent job with the economy in WoW as compared to other games. Money is actually still worth something in the game in comparison to Diablo 2 where inflation was so bad that gold was virtually worthless and a secondary currency (SoJs) developed to fill the void. In fact, I think they have done an *excellent* job balancing the economy for levels 1-59. I've found that while leveling, most of the items that I find are sold to a vendor or otherwise destroyed in some way. A few are sold at the AH and remain in circulation, but most of the loot drops end up being converted into money at the vendors. This money, plus most of the money that is looted from mobs end up in various money sinks--most notably for skills and mounts. As a net effect, few items actually remain in circulation and a small amount of gold also remains to balance this out. The problem occurs when a character hits the level cap and starts to equip his or her end-game gear. A Krol Blade is never going to be DEed or sold to a vendor, so the demand for epic items remains relatively fixed while the supply continues to increase over time. In addition, players no longer need to buy new skills or new mounts. There are still money sinks, but not nearly as many as during the level-up process. This leads to an increase in the money supply of level 60 characters (which can also trickle down to alts via twinking). With decreasing demand for epics and high-end crafting ingredients and an increasing supply of money, inflation is inevitable on these prices over the long run. Due to twinking, this will also lead to inflation in lower-tiered items as well.

In summary: I challenge the idea that "professional" farmers have a noticable impact on the overall economy. I agree that it can be annoying to fight over spawns for quests, but I fail to see what is inherently *wrong* about this behavior (though it is certainly anti-social). Finally, WoW is based on a flawed economic system (like nearly every other MMORPG) since money is not conserved and there is no corollation between vendor buy/sell prices and the availability of items as drops from mobs. This is generally countered with additional money sinks until you hit the level cap at which point many of them disappear, causing inflation to rear its ugly head.

If you've read this far, congratulation! You deserve a cookie or something :) Thanks for at least taking the time. I know this is a sensitive issue for many people, so I hope I haven't offended anyone too badly. I do think, though, that many of the arguments I've heard about why farming is "bad" aren't addressing the whole issue and/or aren't looking at the bigger picture. If you still think I'm wrong, though, just let me know ;-)

[oldmandennis]

If you consider the rules as those defined by the virtual "world", they aren't breaking any. They are doing nothing in the game that you yourself wouldn't do at various times.

Bzztt!! The TOU are part of the rules of the game. Anybody who exchanges in game items or accounts for cash are violating them. It would be like an NFL team paying players on the side to get around the salary cap. It's still against the rules and they still will be punished if caught, even if there is no ingame mechanic for it.

[Walkiry]

Bzztt!!  The TOU are part of the rules of the game.  Anybody who exchanges in game items or accounts for cash are violating them.  It would be like an NFL team paying players on the side to get around the salary cap.  It's still against the rules and they still will be punished if caught, even if there is no ingame mechanic for it.
[right][snapback]96001[/snapback][/right]

I belive he was referring to the "virtual world" rules (you know, like gravity and the speed of light in our "meatspace world"). When I give someone 100g there's no difference in-game if I did it because he said "pretty please" or because I got some colourful paper in exchange.

Your NFL analogy would be better if the protection the players wear could only be obtained through ripping it off the dead bodies of your opposing team's players or acquiring it in NFL-authorized shops via some ficticious currency players would get when they enter a playing field, and were authorized to exchange "as long as it didn't involve real dollars."

... I hope EA execs are not reading this post, I can see them making such a game *shudder*.

[Mirajj]

2) Similarly, while I understand that it is frustrating to watch another player kill mobs or gather resources that you need for a quest or other objective (I've certainly experienced plenty of this myself), I think this is a very egocentric argument. I fail to see how one player has any more right to kill a mob or collect an item than any other player in the game world. This sort of problem happens in the real world all the time--I can wait in line an buy the last two Xboxes so that I can sell one on eBay. Is this fair to the guy in line behind me that didn't get one because I bought "his"? Maybe (and some places use "one-per-customer" limits to prevent this), but then again, maybe not (I *was* in line before the guy, so presumably I can buy whatever  is available when its by turn and he is stuck with whatever is left). In both the real world and the virtual world, the decision of what is "right" is really a moral judgement that is left up to each individual user. That's one of the things that makes MMORPGs unique is that a player may choose any set of morals they want to play their character by. Do something that pissed off other characters? You're perfectly allowed to do that, but watch out if you ever need help with anything down the line. The "Golden Rule" is often a good moral framework in a game where cooperation is essential (especially for the end-game raids) but these ethics certainly aren't required.
[right][snapback]95997[/snapback][/right]

Ok, I read through that whole thing, but this is the only real point I feel moved to respond to.

One of the big main problems with farmers is that they have no manners or show any in-game courtesy. In my situation, there was a total of 20 possible tappable mobs. I needed 10 of them for my quest. With some luck (as one type shared a spawn point with the other two types, so it was possible to not see any of them until you cleared some others away and got a repop) I could get all 10 in one trip, if no farmers were around.

So, there I am, trying to kill for a quest on a very limited spawn, and in addition to that have to deal with people who never leave the area racing for mobs too. I could deal with that, but these folk also trained mobs onto me. They'd steal kills (How, after I'd tapped it, I have no freaking clue). They would generally make themselves extraordinarily irksome.

That is the problem. I have no problem with other PLAYERS in the area. People on the same quest (I'd usually group up with them), or other Alliance people in the area looking for faction (Usually group with them, too), or Alliance/Horde people looking for these mobs for the Major Pots/Firewater. I felt that THOSE players had every right to the mob if they beat me to it. They operated the same way with me. If I'd put my Hunter's Mark on a target, they didn't swoop in and attack it, they moved to the next one. If by some fluke a chest spawned while I was fighting the pair guarding the area, they let me get the chest instead of running in and stealing it.

Where most people (that I've talked to) have problems with farmers is their beyond rude behaviour, especially to those playing the game for fun, instead of a job. These farmers are not players. They are not there to have fun. They are working, there to make money, and they don't care who they step on while the do.

That is why they don't belong in a 'fun' environment. They ruin where they are for everyone else, and I don't mean by adding gold/items into the 'economy'.

[Guest]

The flaws in your reasoning.

1 The issue with farming to sell fror RL money is not with the Min/max play style.( I play that way myself.)
The problem is in a game world, gold to dollar sales warp the game and tie it to real life - the whole point of a fantasy game is to escape real life.




2 You claim it has no macro economic effects. But on close examination you provide no evidense at all to support your position.

But I can lay out a decent case to refute you.

The farmers on most servers are probably few enough that they dont much effect money supply(but in truth if they add even 2 or 3 % due to their diligence it could have a noticable effect over time).
But the nature in which they trade can have a signifigant effect on markets.
-They tend to flood the market with large numbers of high level fairly good but not great items. This is a deflationary force. Normal players stay in 1 area for only a limited time so they keep or use temperorily a large portion of what they find. "Chinese farmers" tend sell everything that is modestly useful.
-This effect is compounded by theses farmers buying almost nothing.

-Also people buying gold for real money tend to inflate the value of the best items. Buying gold artificially expands the wealthy class. This creates more compition for the best items.


So as you see "chinese farmers" accelerate the process I explained above.

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

[kandrathe]

My reply to your points;

1&2) I have no problem with someone "farming" for items for hours if needed. There is nothing inherently against the rules of game to be selfish, or even annoyingly so, although not the best character trait. I have a long memory of people who have screwed me over in the game, and someday karma may catch up with them. There are many times when I'm farming that a person will say, "I need to kill X, or I need to collect Y for a quest" and I will help them.

3) Theorycraft sounds good, however since the objectives of the professional farmer are the rare spawns or chests, etc. they know how often and where they spawn and the next time they will, they create an advantage over the person who wanders into the area for an hour. The parallel to your example would be knowing when the shipment of Xbox's arrive at 40 stores, and knowing when the stock person is going put them out such that you can buy them all and drive to the next store in time to prevent anyone from getting one except on E-bay at your inflated price. They also being min/max driven seek the greatest gold return for the least effort and farm those areas.

4) Yes, but in the real world people are allowed to improve items, or create new ones. The real worlders are allowed to manipulate their reality, or create new trends. In this virtual WOW reality we are limited by what the game provides. For example, the Crusader enchant. There are only a handful of Scarlet Spellbinders in the game which are farmed for this enchant. I'm not free to invent my own enchant similiar to the Crusader.

5) Once the server population cap is reached, inflation is the result. As more toons reach cap, satisfy their mount, training, reputation goals, etc, the need for gold decreases to a maintenance level. The only deflation seen is when the game world changes making a commodity more available, such as when more gem stones were included in small thorium veins.

6) Yup, I agree. It's the micro that sucks, not the macro.

7) The Real Problem: I think the only *real* problem is in how long it takes the Blizzard to identify and stop those people who are violating the TOS. As Mirajj indicated, the 2 people who camped Winterfall village 24/7 for 3 months. Blizzard should have acted maybe after 1 month, but it must be hard to establish a money trail that leads to IGE.

I don't disagree with your summary, however that does not mean professional farmers should be ignored, or that they don't have a real impact on game play.

[oldmandennis]

I belive he was referring to the "virtual world" rules (you know, like gravity and the speed of light in our "meatspace world"). When I give someone 100g there's no difference in-game if I did it because he said "pretty please" or because I got some colourful paper in exchange.

Your NFL analogy would be better if the protection the players wear could only be obtained through ripping it off the dead bodies of your opposing team's players or acquiring it in NFL-authorized shops via some ficticious currency players would get when they enter a playing field, and were authorized to exchange "as long as it didn't involve real dollars."
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Actually, I think the NFL analogy is pretty apt. There is a set of in game rules, enforced by referees. These would correspond to you in game Warcraft rules, enforced by software. If you violate those rules, you lose the game.

Then there is a set of out of game rules. In the NFL, they are rules against roids and the salary cap. In warcraft, it is rules against exchanging cash for gold. In both cases you have a reasonable chance of getting away with it. In both cases you are using resources you are not supposed to have to increase your chances of on field sucess. And in both cases it is wrong.

Chippydip,

1) Even if you could play 72 hours a week, you would quickly run out of stuff to buy. You would ride your epic pony into the sunset after a week or two and look for something else to Min/Max. The professional farmer doesn't. And there are a lot of them compared to actual players who farm 72 hours a week.

2) Mirajj got it. Also, they have limited to no English skills. In a MMORPG, interaction with other player is part of the game. If you can't speak the language, it's tough to interact. PS Mirajj, if you tap with a DOT, it's not tapped until the DOT ticks. Or lag.

3) Distortion. I've said it, and Ghostiger repeated it.

Conclusion: Where's my cookie?

My Conclusion: This ruffles people feathers because it is deeply offensive to people who spend a fair amount of time in this fantasy world. The fact that most good items are BOP AND most players would not buy gold means that its not really that big of a problem at the moment from a practical point of view. If the lasse-faire attitude becomes more prevelant AND more "casual player" items are introduced, then the situation will get worse.

There can be a technical solution to this. Blizzard could get on the ball, and start data mining their logs for suspecious patterns of behavior, the accumulation of gold which is passed to another account, and then passed to another in nice round sums, and start banning accounts. At 50$ a pop, plus 5 or so days /played to bring up another 60, they could make farming unprofitable in a hurry.

Well, I'm pretty much spent on this thread. Some people woln't ever think this is cheating, just like some people don't think stereroids are cheating.

[vor_lord]

On my server 10 copper ore sells for about 1g in AH, so you'd be better off making an alt and mining in the canyons around Orgrimmar and making 5g/hr that way.  Iron or another metal might be even better; haven't checked.
[right][snapback]95960[/snapback][/right]

You can't do this ad infinitum. A single person can flood the copper market, driving its value down. I can't say "Oh look, blindweed is selling for 7g a stack, cha-ching!" because I can pick 4 stacks of blindweed in an hour. That would be 28g/hr! Unfortunately, you can only sell one or two stacks at that price per day. So farming it more than once every two days leads to diminishing returns.

The problem is that darn thing called the supply and demand curve... ;)

[Guest]

My reply to your points;



5) Once the server population cap is reached, inflation is the result.  As more toons reach cap, satisfy their mount, training, reputation goals, etc, the need for gold decreases to a maintenance level.  The only deflation seen is when the game world changes making a commodity more available, such as when more gem stones were included in small thorium veins.



[right][snapback]96024[/snapback][/right]

You are wrong on point 5. Once most everyone gets to cap level and has been there a whole everything that isnt rare or a comodity begins to deflate. Most people have lots of money sure - but if almost no one wants an item it begins to deflate.

The rare stuff that people want inflates just as you descibed though.

Commodity items are a bit more fluid and less easy to generlize about as you alluded too.

[kandrathe]

You are wrong on point 5. Once most everyone gets to cap level and has been there a whole everything that isnt rare or a comodity begins to deflate. Most people have lots of money sure - but if almost no one wants an item it begins to deflate.

The rare stuff that people want inflates just as you descibed though.

Commodity items are a bit more fluid and less easy to generlize about as you alluded too.
[right][snapback]96036[/snapback][/right]

No, quite the opposite I think. As we acquire more and more gold the more reasonable the inflated prices seem. When my highest toon was under 40 and I saw a stack of wool selling for 1g, I would rather head out and get the stack of wool myself. But, now it's only 1g and why trouble myself to go out and farm wool when I could just spend the 1g to grab the stack, and spend that time farming up items worth far more? Money is therefore devalued amongst a player base filled with capped toons, and items are priced at the value a capped toon places on it.

[Guest]

No thats a consumable.

As I said they are hard to generalize about. Low end consumables like that function oddly because they are mostly only used by high levels switching trades.
They end up being more related to the time it take to gather rather than the level of the item on old servers.

There is also the "problem" in that the market ceases to function as a real market for lowbie gear. Because so few people want most people dont waste the deposit from putting it on the auction. This means that when someone does sell lowbie gear the prices are some what random.

[kandrathe]

No thats a consumable.

As I said they are hard to generalize about.  Low end consumables like that function oddly because they are mostly only used by high levels switching trades.
They end up being more  related to the time it take to gather rather than the level of the item on old servers.

There is also the "problem" in that the market ceases to function as a real market for lowbie gear. Because so few people want most people dont waste the deposit from putting it on the auction. This means that when someone does sell lowbie gear the prices are some what random.
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That's not my point. It doesn't matter if I'm talking about a Krol Blade or a stack of wool. My point was that a capped toon accumulates gold and at some point 500 or 1000 gold is downright affordable, whereas six months ago it was ludicrous. As gold becomes more and more available (and since prices are set at capped toon level), inflation will run out of control on consumables and rare goods.