12-19-2004, 08:54 PM
Quote:He's very accurate - the economy works very well up until levels 40-50, after which the monies really start piling up for characters who make good use of the auction house.
Keep in mind that the much coveted level 60 mount costs 1000g to train and buy (paladins and warlocks excepted), so there's a huge money sink for upper level players, making the economy work quite well up for a good time into level 60. After one buys one's 1000g mount (keep in mind I never got close to saving up for my 1000g mount in the beta :( ), I'm not so sure what happens afterward. When Blizzard added repair and reagent costs in the beta, my cash-flow actually went negative so that I went from 150g down to 20g in just a couple of weeks. (The repair costs from dying to Onyxia repeatedly were murder!) Now that they've toned down both money sinks, I don't know what the balance is like, so I can't comment on that until I get there.
Quote:This impacts everyone, because once the servers start filling up with level 60 players, the economy will fall badly to inflation. Too many characters will be walking around with hundreds of gold, devaluing everything that isn't a level 55-60 item heavily.
I guess you mean relative devaluation, because you can't have inflation and items being devalued on a strict basis at the same time. As money piles up for the level 60 players with lvl 60 mounts, they'll buy lower level stuff in the auction house for any new characters they or their guildies/friends make, causing the value of all items to rise to varying degrees. The key way an individual can take advantage of this inflation is to participate in it -- i.e. sell stuff on the auction house to make some money. As the game goes along, I predict it'll become easier for newer players to buy their mounts -- both level 40 and level 60 -- earlier in their character's lifecycle, since they will be able to sell items to all the level 60 fat cats.
The key thing to understand about the auction house, however, is that it's primarily a market of second-tier items and of trade goods ingredients and final goods. Most of the best items in the game are bind-on-pickup -- from boss loots, quest rewards, or special tradeskill recipes -- so those won't be able to appear on the auction house (or on E-bay!). The only exceptions are the occational rare random epic item that drops and isn't bind-on-pickup. Those are the things you'll see go for hundreds of gold in the auction house as people with lots of extra cash lying around throw money at the auction. Still, even those epic bind-on-pickup items will likely be overshadowed by the newer high-level raid and instance items that are already in place or will soon be in place. So really, for those level 60's with lots of cash, the auction house is only a minor source of second-tier equipment for themselves or friends or of minor tradeskills items that they can't make themselves -- health and invisibility potions, mithril gyroshot, etc. It's not a place to go get your uber equipment.
Which then brings us to the real crux of problem with the WoW economy. After a lot of people get their level 60 mounts, people are going to finally realize that money doesn't mean anything at all! Then, you get the Diablo II problem where cash was never a commodity in trading, and you instead have to rely on a convoluted trading scheme using the valuation of various bind-on-equip blue and purple items in order to conduct trading business. *Nobody* wants that.
The solution to the problem isn't a strict money sink like taxes, repair costs, etc. The solution is to make purchaseable items that are of value to players -- like the 100g and 1000g mounts. Bolty already hit the nail on the head as far as what Blizzard is eventually planning to do -- player housing. They already have the (non-functioning) instance portals for player housing in place. Unfortunately, we'll probably have to wait until the inevitable expansion pack before we get to see this feature. Having infinitely expandable and customizable player housing would be the perfect way to make sure that level 60's continue to covet cash.
Other than that, though, I'm not quite sure what else can be done. I've seen some stuff that Blizzard already has implemented that shows that Blizzard is thinking about this, though. For example, in the Burning Steppes, there's an elf who gives out these recipe quests (involving some tomes you find in Blackrock Depths). Once you collect all of the items -- involving stuff that's hard to get even for level 60's -- you still have to pay the NPC 50g to get your reward. But the rewards are really good -- like enchantments that give +50 to fire resistance or +300 armor to head or legs (items that are not enchantable by players). There are a couple more level 60 quests that involve paying cold hard cash to get the reward (getting the key to Scholomance is one), too.
Still, there should be more. Any Lurker ideas?