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The delay on ZAX
mentinmindmaker
Member Posts: 1,490 Arc User
I just received my latest purchase off the ZAX. Posted October 7th. 3 months and 2 days wait.
The ZAX really has no value for new people now. With this kind of wait the average player usually has left the game before his transaction goes through
The ZAX really has no value for new people now. With this kind of wait the average player usually has left the game before his transaction goes through
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IMHO ZAX is not meant for new player, they are meant for mostly Free-to-Play players that stick around after trying neverwinter.
3 months is long but it is what it is. and it will only get longer. so spend zen wisely maybe.
Coming here was a bit of a shock on that front. All I can say is that it really doesn't have to be like this.
Possible methods:
FIFO - First In First Out is the most likely method for the ZAX. It is like being in a line at a single teller window at the bank. When you are waiting in line the person at the front of the line must conclude their business and walk away. The issue stems from the bank having no Zen, it is waiting on players to deposit Zen for AD.
HILO - Highest In Last Out would allow look "X deep" into the line and fill the lowest amount first. If the X variable is 5, and the 4th player in line is the lowest they would be filled as soon as the Zen arrived. I doubt this method is used as players requesting 5000 Zen would never see the light of day.
I won't bother to talk about the methods such as, LIFO, that would make no sense at all. The only way to know for sure would be for a Cryptic developer to just tell us what method is used.
Just killing time...
And more then enough feedback was given on the ZAX and how to improve the situation without affecting the ZEN shop itself, this far not much has changed... sure, there're the Astral Lockboxes, but their design is not good enough to encourage a large amount of players to really spend millions of AD they've banked on them.
Not to mention all those fudged up ZEN Charge Promotions, and how all (?) the account-wide in game rewards were removed from them - i don't think that's a good way to bring more players to spend real money on big chunks of ZEN, from which then at least something would probably have found it's way into the ZAX.
Besides, the Bonding Runestones for AD exchange going along with the next module will only make it worse, unless they create a whole lot for account-wide epic companions for the Wondrous Bazaar, that extra AD is also being added into the ZAX, and will increase the waiting time probably towards 6 months or even longer...
Just killing time...
Many of the people who by Zen no longer have a reason to sell it for AD and if they do need AD they simply sell items on the AH like wards/scrolls and make more AD than they would on the ZAX.
Unless something hits the Wondrous Bazaar that is a must have or you simply can't get anywhere else (for less) I don't see the ZAX changing any time soon.
And something similar seems to be true for NWO, before more players are going to buy more ZEN here, they would have to actually fix those ZEN Charge Promotions - i mean, why would someone even want to spend real money on ZEN, when they can't even be sure to get it without any problems?
Anyway, posted a listing on October 20th, have to wait and see when that one will be done. I'll just hope that 5k ZEN will be enough for the next "Reforgers Blessings" option...
It is actually true, you can get 90% of the popular items in AH if not 95%.
Yes they buy items in zen market and sell AH, but same logic they now need less zen to get the same amount of AD/values, which means they do not need to spend more real money to get zen, thanks to the zen value inflation because of the high zax.
I could see BtA wards and/or coals being a good replacement item, we get those from the free Celestial Chests.
Just killing time...
If the items in the Astral lockbox are worth too little it will not work as an AD sink since people just won't buy it.
If the items in the Astral lockbox are 'too' nice it will have a very solid AD sink effect, but the items in the lockbox likely will fall in value on AH to compensate for the increased demand.
Actually making the Astral lockbox very nice could both push down the ZAX backlog(much desired) and push down AH prices on selected items(probably also desired to give lower thresholds for new players), But since everything in the end end up with Zen, it could affect Zen sales negatively.
High AH price is a kind of 10% AD sink.
Zax backlog and high AH price for Zen item selling in AH are good for Zen sale ($).
Unfortunately, like many whales, I don't really like the changes MOD 20 bought and most are not planning on spending real money anymore. Personally I stopped playing the day mod 20 hit preview and have not logged in until today, when i decided to exchange all my radiant's, empowered's and bonding's just to future proof myself in case I ever do decide to return to the game.
I have a lot of characters, all of which had three rank 15 bonding runestones. I've ended up with well over £100m in AD from exchanging them. I then immediately placed 5 max orders of zen on the ZAX increasing the backlog by £18,750,000. Sorry about that, but given i currently have no intention of playing the game, I don't really have an alternative to future proof against a potential return. I'll now log in every month or so, and if any of my orders have been filled I'll push another load of AD through until i've converted it all.
Upshot is i've moved from being someone who took 100m AD out of the ZAX over a year to someone who's going to put 100m into it. It wont take many former whales to follow that pattern before the ZAX becomes unusable for players needing it for VIP etc. Again i'm sorry but its not my job to fix it.
I would estimate it to be 40m, meaning it currently moves at 0.4m/day.
This means, with the ZAX at 65m it would take ~160 days, e.g. 5-6 months ...
Only the new and inexperienced will sell pure Zen on the ZAX today.
Also, since the pward prices on AH are so extremely insane high, it indicates the balance between paying and nonpaying players has moved towards less paying players. It is the paying players that sets the level of pward supply on AH, either by selling raw Zen or by selling Zen-purchased pwards on AH. The nonpaying players set the level of demand - and there obviously is an imbalance now that was not there before.
Less paying players is not a good thing for Cryptic. Should we start to worry about NW lifetime? Is so drastic changes in the pro-new-player direction as the Combat Rework a sign of desperation from Cryptic?
Dang, I really would like to see NWs numbers
And i also doubt that flooding the ZAX with so much AD is going to work out for Cryptic in the long run - players that see/read how long it will take to get some ZEN will just cough up cash? Yeah, right...
I think a far more realistic outcome here will be players simply leaving the game behind, and may be checking back in after a few months to see if their order went through. If it did, they might continue playing, if not, they'll probably leave again.
Which might also lead to less and less paying players, because why would they spend more money on the game, when there aren't enough players left playing overall?
But may be that's not the case, and the players and money numbers are all looking good from the Cryptic side - i mean, i see players running around with those new mounts and enchantments in game, so somebody is still buying something here...
I have a solution for Cryptic, I will put this behind a spoiler so the players won't see it.
Since you plan to delete Sharandar module 1, replace it, just delete the Zax along with it, and make it look like an unpaid intern made a mistake. "Oops! We are so sorry, Intern Fumble Fingers pressed the wrong button, but all the AD went back into your accounts. Just post your bids again."
Now don't you peek at that players! That would be like peeking at Christmas gifts, I think?
Just killing time...