It all comes down to what portion of the player-base is "whales", what portion is "will pay $10-ish a month" and what portion is the happy f2p player. In particular, the second category. If they are small, then it makes sense to price things higher, to squeeze more money out of the whales. If they are large, then it makes more sense to fill the Zen market with cheap but cool items (like cosmetics).
We can speculate all we want, but Cryptic has those numbers. We don't.
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cbrowne0329Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 293Arc User
edited August 2014
I buy Zen to spend on stuff I want... not to trade for in game money. Can't say it enough. F2P people. Nothing in life is free... if you want Zen items... simple... break out that credit card... OR continue to get the other stuff in game for free. Don't expect others to support your bad habit!
It all comes down to what portion of the player-base is "whales", what portion is "will pay $10-ish a month" and what portion is the happy f2p player. In particular, the second category. If they are small, then it makes sense to price things higher, to squeeze more money out of the whales. If they are large, then it makes more sense to fill the Zen market with cheap but cool items (like cosmetics).
We can speculate all we want, but Cryptic has those numbers. We don't.
This is pretty much it. And as far as we all know gamers, they aren't likely to take a break from gaming completely. So basically as long as neverwinter is one of the best free to play out there, people are going to pop in and out. Let's face it, for as much as we all complain about things in this game, look at swtors free to play model. Or DDO. Or any vast number of mmo's that have content locked and classes locked behind paywalls. This game has no paywall for content.
And really, what's available in the zen market that will so anger a person that it would drive them away? My only thoughts would be respecs and coal wards. And I agree, those two items need to be AD based, or at least coal wards need a small small chance to drop from t2's. Maybe even 2.5's. Are you really going to tell me the free to play players are going to quit because they can't AD convert for that mount, or those dyes, or keys, or packs? Most of the items in the zen store only SPEED up the process. Free to grind, pay for speed. EXCEPT respecs and coal wards. Even coal wards people shouldn't have a problem dumping hundreds of AD into the zax and wait for an exchange. That's the price of playing for free. If I needed a respec RIGHT now I'd pay the 5 dollars for 500 zen. Some people would rather wait and play an alt in the meantime, some people don't want to pay OR wait, and would rather whine and complain. For the last 3 weeks, I've probably filled about 2500 zen worth of transfer for my AD. And I have no problem waiting for the rest of my exchanges to go through. Because I realize it's the price of not buying zen.
Right now only Cryptic has those numbers. They know how many people are paying for zen and how many people are leaving the game. They know server peak numbers and averages. So if this backlog is raising the sales of zen, and you're losing 15% of your freebies, than that's a fair trade. If you can convert 5% of your non paying base, into paying base, in exchange for losing some of your non paying base, what's the lose? If they find they're losing to many people and they choose to continue with the game, they'll lower prices, they'll do sales, they'll find a way to draw the crowd back. People are stupid, and will bounce pack for extra zen, free items, etc.
And when they find that the overall churn isn't enough to sustain the game, they'll stop adding new things, they'll draw in new suckers to pump a few dollars into the zen store (Like I did for CO -,-) and they won't add anything new.
I buy Zen to spend on stuff I want... not to trade for in game money. Can't say it enough. F2P people. Nothing in life is free... if you want Zen items... simple... break out that credit card... OR continue to get the other stuff in game for free. Don't expect others to support your bad habit!
Bad habits huh........... This kind of offensive I'm better than you because I pay money is part of why I hate the f2p model. Most people don't pay for everything but will pay for something. Your screw them attitude is offensive.
I htink us free to play people are outraged with the ZAX right now because we think its the result of scammers and phishing sites that have caused the backlog.
If its actually PWE manipulating the ZAX, then whatever, I don't care. Its their game and can make money how they like.
Pay = fast
Free to play = wait.
I'm fine with that. Just as long as I'm not competing with scammers and third party.
If third party are the ones manipulating the Zax, then fix it.
Economics = supply and demand.
I hate it when people toute that 'honesty and morals' HAMSTER.
PWE want the money but expect honesty to keep moochers at bay? that is not how supply and demand works. In fact, PWE has a monoply because its their game and can ban, price fix, etc...
But you have to put the work in to keep your monopoly. Which means good programing - making a game with no exploits, having someone on the dev team that understand the economics of supply and demand.
And I'll tell you, We people who understand economics won't give our knowledge out for free. We learn that very quickly after we acquire the knowledge.
And I'll tell you, We people who understand economics won't give our knowledge out for free. We learn that very quickly after we acquire the knowledge.
And that is why the world hates bankers and their like, they wouldn't give a dying man a glass of water unless they could directly profit from it. Despicable.
I buy Zen to spend on stuff I want... not to trade for in game money. Can't say it enough. F2P people. Nothing in life is free... if you want Zen items... simple... break out that credit card... OR continue to get the other stuff in game for free. Don't expect others to support your bad habit!
This is the second thread where you've demonstrated complete ignorance of how FTP games work. Is this your first such game?
baylen76Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited August 2014
The current situation is a strange compromise, but like most compromises it might still be better than either of the two 'quick and dirty approaches':
a) If Zen items were changed to bind in order to enforce a max of 500 AD/Zen, you'd have 1) less item reach (no passing on of items to friends, significant others etc), 2) a good share of the coupon-incentivised sales would subside (can't resell any more) and 3) Zen buyers (the primary customers, those spending real dollars) would get LESS AD compared to what they can currently (in their case, and their case only: legitimately) get by converting (original) Zen to Zen-goods to AD via the AH. Three good reasons why Cryptic/PWE's sales would lessen if a) was implemented. It would mean less money for actually developing the game. Personally I think we need more tradable items, like a usable item that unlocks character slots, not less. Binding is a boomerang.
b) If the AD/Zen cap was lifted and players could set the Zen price freely, the spiraling of ZAX/500 -> AH/800 -> ZAX/500 ... would stop, cutting out the arbitrage/margin of 300 AD/Zen for middlemen. Stopping this free lunch spiral would directly decrease ZAX backlog as there'd no longer be a no-brainer reason to go "long Zen". Lifting the cap would be an instant no-brainer fix if it wasn't for new players and F2Pers suffering proportionately. Since Neverwinter has a strong up-to-60-game, it would be my personal "lesser of two evils" if I absolutely had to pick one.
The ideal and long term way out is by decreasing total AD in the community, and that can only happen slowly and over time, ideally using new AD drains like housing. As far as mega-rich accounts are concerned, they'll always create distortion for as long as they exist. But given an overall lower ratio of AD:Zen, the exchange rate would simply come down on its own.
In the meantime, it's debatable whether, no offense intended, a) selling Zen to the ZAX is stupid and b) buying Zen from the ZAX is immoral. If all market participants acted ideally, there'd be no alternative to one of the above approaches anyway as not a single person would sell a single Zen to the exchange.
What's needed is more time and patience than people actually have, plus from Dev side thorough watching of all AD influx into the game. Even MUDs used to track this stuff. Track it, draw charts and investigate anomalies. If more AD-generating exploits exist (I wouldn't know), *they* need fixing. What's perceived as economy by some is just a symptom of the underlying mechanics.
The current situation is a strange compromise, but like most compromises it might still be better than either of the two 'quick and dirty approaches':
a) If Zen items were changed to bind in order to enforce a max of 500 AD/Zen, you'd have 1) less item reach (no passing on of items to friends, significant others etc), 2) a good share of the coupon-incentivised sales would subside (can't resell any more) and 3) Zen buyers (the primary customers, those spending real dollars) would get LESS AD compared to what they can currently (in their case, and their case only: legitimately) get by converting (original) Zen to Zen-goods to AD via the AH. Three good reasons why Cryptic/PWE's sales would lessen if a) was implemented. It would mean less money for actually developing the game. Personally I think we need more tradable items, like a usable item that unlocks character slots, not less. Binding is a boomerang.
b) If the AD/Zen cap was lifted and players could set the Zen price freely, the spiraling of ZAX/500 -> AH/800 -> ZAX/500 ... would stop, cutting out the arbitrage/margin of 300 AD/Zen for middlemen. Stopping this free lunch spiral would directly decrease ZAX backlog as there'd no longer be a no-brainer reason to go "long Zen". Lifting the cap would be an instant no-brainer fix if it wasn't for new players and F2Pers suffering proportionately. Since Neverwinter has a strong up-to-60-game, it would be my personal "lesser of two evils" if I absolutely had to pick one.
The ideal and long term way out is by decreasing total AD in the community, and that can only happen slowly and over time, ideally using new AD drains like housing. As far as mega-rich accounts are concerned, they'll always create distortion for as long as they exist. But given an overall lower ratio of AD:Zen, the exchange rate would simply come down on its own.
In the meantime, it's debatable whether, no offense intended, a) selling Zen to the ZAX is stupid and b) buying Zen from the ZAX is immoral. If all market participants acted ideally, there'd be no alternative to one of the above approaches anyway as not a single person would sell a single Zen to the exchange.
What's needed is more time and patience than people actually have, plus from Dev side thorough watching of all AD influx into the game. Even MUDs used to track this stuff. Track it, draw charts and investigate anomalies. If more AD-generating exploits exist (I wouldn't know), *they* need fixing. What's perceived as economy by some is just a symptom of the underlying mechanics.
Your option b wouldn't work for more than 24 hours. After 24 hours if the ZAX had no cap we'd be up into the 10's of thousands if not higher of ad per 1 zen. Then the game might as well shut down.
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baylen76Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Your option b wouldn't work for more than 24 hours. After 24 hours if the ZAX had no cap we'd be up into the 10's of thousands if not higher of ad per 1 zen. Then the game might as well shut down.
a) Mind giving a reason why you think anyone would pay that much per Zen? They's just risk effectively losing value once/when Zen comes down again. Noone likes buying expensive.
b) If you could indeed gain that much AD from selling Zen, more Zen would be bought with hard dollars for selling; the game wouldn't shut down, but have a sales spike.
Doubting both your premise and conclusion. It wouldn't happen, maybe an initial spike and then ZAX would settle in somewhere between 700 to 900 AD/zen. Rough guess.
I think we might have accidentally "solved" the economy problem in the other thread currently running on the topic: twilightwatchman suggested they put price controls on zen-only items being sold on the AH so that a profit could not be made. IE no selling coal wards for more than 500k unless you want an error message. This maintains the 500 AD per zen ratio and does not let people defeat it by making the transaction on the AH where zen sells for considerably more than 500 each. No need to make anything BOP in this case.
Elegant solution, IMO.
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
I think we might have accidentally "solved" the economy problem in the other thread currently running on the topic: twilightwatchman suggested they put price controls on zen-only items being sold on the AH so that a profit could not be made. IE no selling coal wards for more than 500k unless you want an error message. This maintains the 500 AD per zen ratio and does not let people defeat it by making the transaction on the AH where zen sells for considerably more than 500 each. No need to make anything BOP in this case.
Elegant solution, IMO.
The end effect would be the same - people would only buy Zen-store items for their own needs.
I think we might have accidentally "solved" the economy problem in the other thread currently running on the topic: twilightwatchman suggested they put price controls on zen-only items being sold on the AH so that a profit could not be made. IE no selling coal wards for more than 500k unless you want an error message. This maintains the 500 AD per zen ratio and does not let people defeat it by making the transaction on the AH where zen sells for considerably more than 500 each. No need to make anything BOP in this case.
Elegant solution, IMO.
I'd suggest being able to sell coals at 550K or less. This way the seller still makes no profit but won't feel bad about getting rid of any unused coals they have purchased.
Doubting both your premise and conclusion. It wouldn't happen, maybe an initial spike and then ZAX would settle in somewhere between 700 to 900 AD/zen. Rough guess.
Prices are cominh down after the exploit closure so this would be my guess too, although I personally would think it woudl be towards the lower end of the band you suggested.
My money... my ZEN. You no get none. ^_^ Break out your credit card and support the game! [expletive][expletive] free {something}s!!!
I admire that you took the initiative with your poll. I see you're kinda where I was when i first started posting here: shut down the ZAX entirely, forever. (I said this in the other thread)
Pretty much it. People will get tired of waiting for ZAX and be forced to buy the Zen directly. This also takes the power away from AD sellers, since all they can provide is AD and not zen.
Some people want not to pay RL money, some people will leave the game... (not me), but with this course of economy, will be NW game of ghosts in near future...
1) The whale, they spend lots of real cash on the game, more than most people think is sensible. They bring in a lot of profit to the company.
2) The complete freep. They don't bring in any cash but they fill up the world. This fullness keeps paying customer happy.
3) Average Joe. He pays for somethings but won't for others. Most people fall into this catagory in my experience with mmos. They pay maybe 10-20.00 every month or so. Individually they don't bring in much profit but the sure number of them makes them the economic backbone of the game.
That's a very good categorization of the player base. And I agree that the Average Joe is most vital to the long-term financial success of the game.
At least PWE is handing out true perma-bans for exploiters. That's a good start, but still plenty of work left to do . .
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!" pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all." looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
The Zax/AH is currently an infinite AD exploit.
Buy zen for 500AD per on the Zax. Buy item from zen store with it. Sell item on AH for more than 500AD per zen you paid, since the AD/zen exchange seen in item pricing on the AH is much higher than 500 to one. Repeat. It's one of the reasons why the backlog is still increasing.
That's a very good categorization of the player base. And I agree that the Average Joe is most vital to the long-term financial success of the game.
At least PWE is handing out true perma-bans for exploiters. That's a good start, but still plenty of work left to do . .
Remind me why when the other guy in the thread said that people who legitimately used resonators at the time the exploit was peaked got banned too that it restores your faith in Cryptic? I can't say whether it's the truth, but when they've permanently banned people for quest sharing (their fault) and selling items on the ah too low then I could say it's a possibility and does NOT give me faith in them.
Remind me why when the other guy in the thread said that people who legitimately used resonators at the time the exploit was peaked got banned too that it restores your faith in Cryptic? I can't say whether it's the truth, but when they've permanently banned people for quest sharing (their fault) and selling items on the ah too low then I could say it's a possibility and does NOT give me faith in them.
Mistakes happen during the banning process - have seen it before in other MMOs. Those who might have been banned accidentally need to open a ticket. Yes it will take time to get a response/resolution (due to the probably extremely high volume of tickets being submitted now), but most likely the end result will be positive.
And, to be honest, don't automatically trust everything people say about being wrongly banned. I have heard convincing arguments from banned in-game friends on other MMOs that I supported 100%, then found out later from other in-game friends that they were lying to try to save their account. Having worked in Human Resources for 22 years, I have discovered that some people are amazing liars.
Disclaimer: I am not accusing every person who claims being falsey banned as a liar. But I assure you that some of them will be lying about it (convincingly) to save their money-making investment!
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!" pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all." looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
What? I agree that new players have it rougher, but if you use zen you'll get your AD instantly. It's buyying zen with AD that takes time.
You can't play gear catchup with Zen, you have to use the AH to do that, and for that you need AD, and for that the current state of affairs is "pay $20 for a million AD and wait 10 days to 2 weeks for it". That's "what".
You can't play gear catchup with Zen, you have to use the AH to do that, and for that you need AD, and for that the current state of affairs is "pay $20 for a million AD and wait 10 days to 2 weeks for it". That's "what".
You're right except for the bolded part. If I have Zen to sell (paid for by spending $20 for 2000 Zen), I can put that in the exchange and get 1 million AD in no time. That's because last I checked, there was 13 million zen being asked for on the exchange. The exchange is very fast in one direction only
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
You're right except for the bolded part. If I have Zen to sell (paid for by spending $20 for 2000 Zen), I can put that in the exchange and get 1 million AD in no time. That's because last I checked, there was 13 million zen being asked for on the exchange. The exchange is very fast in one direction only
But therein lies the big issue, 20 dollars of zen isnt worth 1 million AD, it should be worth triple that and PEOPLE would pay that.
The high inflation of AH makes Zen less worth selling on the Zax. Until such a time that inflation on the AH gets under control (seems more reasonable this week then last at least) selling Zen for Direct AD isn't warranted.
There are multiple factors and this is part of the issue.
I see no reason not to float the Zen vs AD to get a current value of actual zen, so those of us who would pay and post for actual exchange of value, would do so.
Even if they BoA everything at the Zen store, doesnt solve the basic problem of the above, THERE is no real reason to purchase REAL money to exchange for the limited amount of AD you get.
Your option b wouldn't work for more than 24 hours. After 24 hours if the ZAX had no cap we'd be up into the 10's of thousands if not higher of ad per 1 zen. Then the game might as well shut down.
That's wildly speculative and an amazing example of pulling numbers from thin air. Let's do some math, shall we?
Let's take 10,000, as that's your lowest "it will get 'here' in 24 hours" number:
That means a 1000 zen order (so $10) would be buying 10 million AD, or $1/Million.
That means the current 13,000,000 Zen backlog would now be valued at (assuming the orders were wiped and the exchange re-started) 130,000,000,000 AD
130 BILLION AD
Pulling numbers from orifices only works when you expect no one to do even rudimentary verification.
If Zen is allowed to seek its own level, I would expect it to settle in somewhere around 1200 (maybe slightly higher) since that's the high-middle to high side of offers ingame from AD holders for Zen-items like blueprints purchased by others and resold. I could be wrong but at least my forecast comes from current sales, which sets a non-Zax exchange rate which is quantifiable. If you look at Coal Ward prices, it would actually indicate a lower figure but let's be pessimistic.
3rd party sales are in $5/million range, and 1200 rings in at $8.33/million. Since 3rd party carries some risks, that's probably low enough to seriously dent their business...so I think it's not only reasonable given current sales but that it's a pretty nice place to land from the "hurt 3rd party sales" perspective as well.
Mistakes happen during the banning process - have seen it before in other MMOs. Those who might have been banned accidentally need to open a ticket. Yes it will take time to get a response/resolution (due to the probably extremely high volume of tickets being submitted now), but most likely the end result will be positive.
And, to be honest, don't automatically trust everything people say about being wrongly banned. I have heard convincing arguments from banned in-game friends on other MMOs that I supported 100%, then found out later from other in-game friends that they were lying to try to save their account. Having worked in Human Resources for 22 years, I have discovered that some people are amazing liars.
Disclaimer: I am not accusing every person who claims being falsey banned as a liar. But I assure you that some of them will be lying about it (convincingly) to save their money-making investment!
Well the one that got banned for selling too cheaply was our old guild leader who contancted support and the ones that got banned for quest sharing were old guildies at the time you could share certain sharandar quests. Sharandar was the first module with the campaign system and although I found it obvious to not quest share, others may not have since otherwise why would they allow the sharing of the quests? Even with intent, to permanently ban people for it is too much action when people who actually used more detrimental exploits got off with no action taken.
You can't play gear catchup with Zen, you have to use the AH to do that, and for that you need AD, and for that the current state of affairs is "pay $20 for a million AD and wait 10 days to 2 weeks for it". That's "what".
I'm not sure I'm missing something but the zen exchange is backlogged with too much AD. That means if you have AD and want zen, it's going to take you a long time, however if you put an offer to exchange your zen for AD, you will get it instantly. There's a shortage of people offering zen for AD therefore zen is easily sold at the maximum cap. No waiting needed. Also you can play gear catchup with zen, a lot of top pvpers actually do it (though you still need to earn the profound set) and is something that the majority of free2players will never be able to achieve.
That's wildly speculative and an amazing example of pulling numbers from thin air. Let's do some math, shall we?
Let's take 10,000, as that's your lowest "it will get 'here' in 24 hours" number:
That means a 1000 zen order (so $10) would be buying 10 million AD, or $1/Million.
That means the current 13,000,000 Zen backlog would eat 130,000,000,000 AD
130 BILLION AD
Pulling numbers from orifices only works when you expect no one to do even rudimentary verification.
If Zen is allowed to seek its own level, I would expect it to settle in somewhere around 1200 since that's the high-middle to high side of offers ingame from AD holders for Zen-items like blueprints purchased by others and resold. I could be wrong but at least my forecast comes from current sales, which sets a non-Zax exchange rate which is quantifiable.
Although you're right about it being an insane hike that is probably not realistic. It is 13 million zen requested at 500 AD/z which is 6.5 billion AD. If the theoretical cap went instantly to 10,000 that 6.5 billion would be a 650,000 zen backlog if no-one bought it out.
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!" pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all." looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
I'm not sure I'm missing something but the zen exchange is backlogged with too much AD. That means if you have AD and want zen, it's going to take you a long time, however if you put an offer to exchange your zen for AD, you will get it instantly. There's a shortage of people offering zen for AD therefore zen is easily sold at the maximum cap. No waiting needed. Also you can play gear catchup with zen, a lot of top pvpers actually do it (though you still need to earn the profound set) and is something that the majority of free2players will never be able to achieve.
Although you're right about it being an insane hike that is probably not realistic. It is 13 million zen requested at 500 AD/z which is 6.5 billion AD. If the theoretical cap went instantly to 10,000 that 6.5 billion would be a 650,000 zen backlog if no-one bought it out.
I edited my post to add a basic assumption, that being if Zen were uncapped that the Exchange would be reset. It only makes sense since those 500AD orders would rarely, if ever, get filled and people would be withdrawing their Zen Buy orders to place higher bids.
Yes there's an AD backlog, as most people are simply unwilling to pay $20 for a million AD given the AD prices we have today.
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silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
I edited my post to add a basic assumption, that being if Zen were uncapped that the Exchange would be reset. It only makes sense since those 500AD orders would rarely, if ever, get filled and people would be withdrawing their Zen Buy orders to place higher bids.
Yes there's an AD backlog, as most people are simply unwilling to pay $20 for a million AD given the AD prices we have today.
This times a 1000 percent. To me this is the most fair thing to do, float it. new players can get more bang for their buck for actually spending money with cryptic and its a incentive to spend money that way.
No matter which side of this debate you stand on, surely all can agree that the exploited AD that remain in the economy is a bad thing, right? There is no benefit to the players that play the game legitimately, right? Why is Cryptic/PW not removing these AD? I guarantee you this - if there was a tangible benefit to them they would, immediately. Can't help but wonder why they absolutely refuse to remove the exploited AD...
Comments
We can speculate all we want, but Cryptic has those numbers. We don't.
This is pretty much it. And as far as we all know gamers, they aren't likely to take a break from gaming completely. So basically as long as neverwinter is one of the best free to play out there, people are going to pop in and out. Let's face it, for as much as we all complain about things in this game, look at swtors free to play model. Or DDO. Or any vast number of mmo's that have content locked and classes locked behind paywalls. This game has no paywall for content.
And really, what's available in the zen market that will so anger a person that it would drive them away? My only thoughts would be respecs and coal wards. And I agree, those two items need to be AD based, or at least coal wards need a small small chance to drop from t2's. Maybe even 2.5's. Are you really going to tell me the free to play players are going to quit because they can't AD convert for that mount, or those dyes, or keys, or packs? Most of the items in the zen store only SPEED up the process. Free to grind, pay for speed. EXCEPT respecs and coal wards. Even coal wards people shouldn't have a problem dumping hundreds of AD into the zax and wait for an exchange. That's the price of playing for free. If I needed a respec RIGHT now I'd pay the 5 dollars for 500 zen. Some people would rather wait and play an alt in the meantime, some people don't want to pay OR wait, and would rather whine and complain. For the last 3 weeks, I've probably filled about 2500 zen worth of transfer for my AD. And I have no problem waiting for the rest of my exchanges to go through. Because I realize it's the price of not buying zen.
Right now only Cryptic has those numbers. They know how many people are paying for zen and how many people are leaving the game. They know server peak numbers and averages. So if this backlog is raising the sales of zen, and you're losing 15% of your freebies, than that's a fair trade. If you can convert 5% of your non paying base, into paying base, in exchange for losing some of your non paying base, what's the lose? If they find they're losing to many people and they choose to continue with the game, they'll lower prices, they'll do sales, they'll find a way to draw the crowd back. People are stupid, and will bounce pack for extra zen, free items, etc.
And when they find that the overall churn isn't enough to sustain the game, they'll stop adding new things, they'll draw in new suckers to pump a few dollars into the zen store (Like I did for CO -,-) and they won't add anything new.
Thus is the nature of the beast.
If its actually PWE manipulating the ZAX, then whatever, I don't care. Its their game and can make money how they like.
Pay = fast
Free to play = wait.
I'm fine with that. Just as long as I'm not competing with scammers and third party.
If third party are the ones manipulating the Zax, then fix it.
Economics = supply and demand.
I hate it when people toute that 'honesty and morals' HAMSTER.
PWE want the money but expect honesty to keep moochers at bay? that is not how supply and demand works. In fact, PWE has a monoply because its their game and can ban, price fix, etc...
But you have to put the work in to keep your monopoly. Which means good programing - making a game with no exploits, having someone on the dev team that understand the economics of supply and demand.
And I'll tell you, We people who understand economics won't give our knowledge out for free. We learn that very quickly after we acquire the knowledge.
And that is why the world hates bankers and their like, they wouldn't give a dying man a glass of water unless they could directly profit from it. Despicable.
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
a) If Zen items were changed to bind in order to enforce a max of 500 AD/Zen, you'd have 1) less item reach (no passing on of items to friends, significant others etc), 2) a good share of the coupon-incentivised sales would subside (can't resell any more) and 3) Zen buyers (the primary customers, those spending real dollars) would get LESS AD compared to what they can currently (in their case, and their case only: legitimately) get by converting (original) Zen to Zen-goods to AD via the AH. Three good reasons why Cryptic/PWE's sales would lessen if a) was implemented. It would mean less money for actually developing the game. Personally I think we need more tradable items, like a usable item that unlocks character slots, not less. Binding is a boomerang.
b) If the AD/Zen cap was lifted and players could set the Zen price freely, the spiraling of ZAX/500 -> AH/800 -> ZAX/500 ... would stop, cutting out the arbitrage/margin of 300 AD/Zen for middlemen. Stopping this free lunch spiral would directly decrease ZAX backlog as there'd no longer be a no-brainer reason to go "long Zen". Lifting the cap would be an instant no-brainer fix if it wasn't for new players and F2Pers suffering proportionately. Since Neverwinter has a strong up-to-60-game, it would be my personal "lesser of two evils" if I absolutely had to pick one.
The ideal and long term way out is by decreasing total AD in the community, and that can only happen slowly and over time, ideally using new AD drains like housing. As far as mega-rich accounts are concerned, they'll always create distortion for as long as they exist. But given an overall lower ratio of AD:Zen, the exchange rate would simply come down on its own.
In the meantime, it's debatable whether, no offense intended, a) selling Zen to the ZAX is stupid and b) buying Zen from the ZAX is immoral. If all market participants acted ideally, there'd be no alternative to one of the above approaches anyway as not a single person would sell a single Zen to the exchange.
What's needed is more time and patience than people actually have, plus from Dev side thorough watching of all AD influx into the game. Even MUDs used to track this stuff. Track it, draw charts and investigate anomalies. If more AD-generating exploits exist (I wouldn't know), *they* need fixing. What's perceived as economy by some is just a symptom of the underlying mechanics.
Your option b wouldn't work for more than 24 hours. After 24 hours if the ZAX had no cap we'd be up into the 10's of thousands if not higher of ad per 1 zen. Then the game might as well shut down.
a) Mind giving a reason why you think anyone would pay that much per Zen? They's just risk effectively losing value once/when Zen comes down again. Noone likes buying expensive.
b) If you could indeed gain that much AD from selling Zen, more Zen would be bought with hard dollars for selling; the game wouldn't shut down, but have a sales spike.
Doubting both your premise and conclusion. It wouldn't happen, maybe an initial spike and then ZAX would settle in somewhere between 700 to 900 AD/zen. Rough guess.
Elegant solution, IMO.
The end effect would be the same - people would only buy Zen-store items for their own needs.
I'd suggest being able to sell coals at 550K or less. This way the seller still makes no profit but won't feel bad about getting rid of any unused coals they have purchased.
Prices are cominh down after the exploit closure so this would be my guess too, although I personally would think it woudl be towards the lower end of the band you suggested.
True... with the added utility of being able to transfer to alts or friends thru the mail, though. I doubt that would be much of an issue.
I admire that you took the initiative with your poll. I see you're kinda where I was when i first started posting here: shut down the ZAX entirely, forever. (I said this in the other thread)
Some people want not to pay RL money, some people will leave the game... (not me), but with this course of economy, will be NW game of ghosts in near future...
That's a very good categorization of the player base. And I agree that the Average Joe is most vital to the long-term financial success of the game.
At least PWE is handing out true perma-bans for exploiters. That's a good start, but still plenty of work left to do . .
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
Buy zen for 500AD per on the Zax. Buy item from zen store with it. Sell item on AH for more than 500AD per zen you paid, since the AD/zen exchange seen in item pricing on the AH is much higher than 500 to one. Repeat. It's one of the reasons why the backlog is still increasing.
Remind me why when the other guy in the thread said that people who legitimately used resonators at the time the exploit was peaked got banned too that it restores your faith in Cryptic? I can't say whether it's the truth, but when they've permanently banned people for quest sharing (their fault) and selling items on the ah too low then I could say it's a possibility and does NOT give me faith in them.
Mistakes happen during the banning process - have seen it before in other MMOs. Those who might have been banned accidentally need to open a ticket. Yes it will take time to get a response/resolution (due to the probably extremely high volume of tickets being submitted now), but most likely the end result will be positive.
And, to be honest, don't automatically trust everything people say about being wrongly banned. I have heard convincing arguments from banned in-game friends on other MMOs that I supported 100%, then found out later from other in-game friends that they were lying to try to save their account. Having worked in Human Resources for 22 years, I have discovered that some people are amazing liars.
Disclaimer: I am not accusing every person who claims being falsey banned as a liar. But I assure you that some of them will be lying about it (convincingly) to save their money-making investment!
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
You can't play gear catchup with Zen, you have to use the AH to do that, and for that you need AD, and for that the current state of affairs is "pay $20 for a million AD and wait 10 days to 2 weeks for it". That's "what".
You're right except for the bolded part. If I have Zen to sell (paid for by spending $20 for 2000 Zen), I can put that in the exchange and get 1 million AD in no time. That's because last I checked, there was 13 million zen being asked for on the exchange. The exchange is very fast in one direction only
But therein lies the big issue, 20 dollars of zen isnt worth 1 million AD, it should be worth triple that and PEOPLE would pay that.
The high inflation of AH makes Zen less worth selling on the Zax. Until such a time that inflation on the AH gets under control (seems more reasonable this week then last at least) selling Zen for Direct AD isn't warranted.
There are multiple factors and this is part of the issue.
I see no reason not to float the Zen vs AD to get a current value of actual zen, so those of us who would pay and post for actual exchange of value, would do so.
Even if they BoA everything at the Zen store, doesnt solve the basic problem of the above, THERE is no real reason to purchase REAL money to exchange for the limited amount of AD you get.
That's wildly speculative and an amazing example of pulling numbers from thin air. Let's do some math, shall we?
Let's take 10,000, as that's your lowest "it will get 'here' in 24 hours" number:
That means a 1000 zen order (so $10) would be buying 10 million AD, or $1/Million.
That means the current 13,000,000 Zen backlog would now be valued at (assuming the orders were wiped and the exchange re-started) 130,000,000,000 AD
130 BILLION AD
Pulling numbers from orifices only works when you expect no one to do even rudimentary verification.
If Zen is allowed to seek its own level, I would expect it to settle in somewhere around 1200 (maybe slightly higher) since that's the high-middle to high side of offers ingame from AD holders for Zen-items like blueprints purchased by others and resold. I could be wrong but at least my forecast comes from current sales, which sets a non-Zax exchange rate which is quantifiable. If you look at Coal Ward prices, it would actually indicate a lower figure but let's be pessimistic.
3rd party sales are in $5/million range, and 1200 rings in at $8.33/million. Since 3rd party carries some risks, that's probably low enough to seriously dent their business...so I think it's not only reasonable given current sales but that it's a pretty nice place to land from the "hurt 3rd party sales" perspective as well.
Well the one that got banned for selling too cheaply was our old guild leader who contancted support and the ones that got banned for quest sharing were old guildies at the time you could share certain sharandar quests. Sharandar was the first module with the campaign system and although I found it obvious to not quest share, others may not have since otherwise why would they allow the sharing of the quests? Even with intent, to permanently ban people for it is too much action when people who actually used more detrimental exploits got off with no action taken.
I'm not sure I'm missing something but the zen exchange is backlogged with too much AD. That means if you have AD and want zen, it's going to take you a long time, however if you put an offer to exchange your zen for AD, you will get it instantly. There's a shortage of people offering zen for AD therefore zen is easily sold at the maximum cap. No waiting needed. Also you can play gear catchup with zen, a lot of top pvpers actually do it (though you still need to earn the profound set) and is something that the majority of free2players will never be able to achieve.
Although you're right about it being an insane hike that is probably not realistic. It is 13 million zen requested at 500 AD/z which is 6.5 billion AD. If the theoretical cap went instantly to 10,000 that 6.5 billion would be a 650,000 zen backlog if no-one bought it out.
Success!!
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
I edited my post to add a basic assumption, that being if Zen were uncapped that the Exchange would be reset. It only makes sense since those 500AD orders would rarely, if ever, get filled and people would be withdrawing their Zen Buy orders to place higher bids.
Yes there's an AD backlog, as most people are simply unwilling to pay $20 for a million AD given the AD prices we have today.
This times a 1000 percent. To me this is the most fair thing to do, float it. new players can get more bang for their buck for actually spending money with cryptic and its a incentive to spend money that way.