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How Does Too Much AD Break the Game?
jesterdavidx
Member Posts: 17 Arc User
Honest question.
For the majority of players, how does having too many Astral Diamonds in circulation hurt the economy? How does it impact the average player?
Aside from the exchange rate of AD to Zen going up, if you don't use the Auction House you shouldn't notice the problem, right?
For the majority of players, how does having too many Astral Diamonds in circulation hurt the economy? How does it impact the average player?
Aside from the exchange rate of AD to Zen going up, if you don't use the Auction House you shouldn't notice the problem, right?
Post edited by jesterdavidx on
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It is the same as hyper-inflation, pumping the market with so much money that the money itself literally becomes worthless.
Example: Germany Pre-WWII
Google Zimbabwe economic collapse.
Character is what a man is in the dark
As for exactly how a virtual economy can be broken by too much of a currency, here, have an explanation from a gal who's Editor-in-Chief of this website called Massively, you may have heard of it:
http://skycandy.org/2011/04/inflation-the-long-death-of-mmos/
Value of AD plummets. AH prices skyrocket. Those whom did not cheat are screwed over. They either buy from gold sellers or quit. That simple. It's not like people cheated to get AD for a few 100k or a few million. People were getting HUNDRED of millions of AD. That's critical to the destruction of the game because of the inflation of the AD.
Perhaps one of the worse effects is a kind of snowballing one. If things become really expensive because people are stealing money and pumping it into the economy, then many of the people who do enjoy trading will begin to feel that they have to steal also just to keep up. And then instead of criminal acts being unusual and criticized, they become the norm. Players will want to hoard exploits instead of reporting them. Legitimate players with integrity leave because it's not their kind of place. And the game and the system breaks more and more and more.
Not really something that any of us should want even if we don't participate in those systems. We want a generally law-abiding populace because a society of criminals is really no society at all. My two cents.
All the best gear at the AH will be bought out by the millionaire exploiters. What will they do with that item? Well, if they wanted too, they could double, triple and quadruple their profits by reselling the items for even more ridiculous prices on the AH! If someone tries to undercut'em, since the exploiters are so rich, they can buy those items too and resell it at their desired price too! The exploiters will own the AH market!!!!! They will become richer and richer, most players won't be able to afford much at the AH anymore and may have to live without it or buy Zen to convert into AD!
That's just one example of the chaos that could happen!
If the exploiters own the AH, and you (a legit player) so happens to find an epic item, you could actually sell it for ridiculous prices at the AH too and an exploiter will buy it, making you rich in the process!
Bit by bit, lucky players will just become rich cause people have so much AD to spend, while all the players who are less fortunate will never be able to afford the best items in the game.
This will also encourage 3rd Party "Gold" selling sites because there will come a point where it will be cheaper to buy AD from a webpage rather than converting Zen to AD ingame!!! Like I dunno, you pay someone money, then they ask you to sell an item at the AH for 1 million AD and they will buy it. (BTW Cryptic, if you wanna prevent this, I suggest you make all AH's anonymous! Never display the seller's name!)
- Last night I was rich.
- Today I'm poor.
Really think about that for a moment.
Here's another example:
Dragon Eggs were selling for around 70k-100k for the last few days. That meant crafters could comfortably sell socketed purple shirts/pants for around 400k-500k to people. While expensive the price seemed reasonable to the general population. They could get that much money for a BiS item.
This morning the only Dragon Eggs on the AH were posted for 2,000,000+ AD. That means crafters would be selling socketed purple shirts/pants for around 6,000,000+ AD. That price doesn't seem so reasonable to the average player who makes 24k AD a day.
Again, really think about that for a moment.
Runes/enchants will follow a similar trend. If you know someone will but a shard for 2,000,000 AD why would you sell it for 70k (average shard price last night).
It also destroys the AD exchange. $50 at 500 AD per Zen (max price) is 2.5 million AD. Last night 2.5 million AD was a decent chunk of change. Today it's pennies. Who is going to buy Zen to convert to AD when they need 10,000,000 AD for one item? That's $200 for a single item.