The ratio after the game goes live (after the head start), might not actually start at 500/1, but the way I understand it...you don't directly trade with another player. That player puts his or her AD up for auction (on the auction house) and the price it sells at is determined by the demand. I am not sure how they are going to determine what the correct ratio is, but while a few very lucky people may get a lower ratio initially...it probably won't be for large amounts of AD (but only a small amount), eventually the high number of people with AD to spend, vs the small number of people who want to purchase AD with zen...should max out the ratio at 500/1.
If you can sell your AD for anything under 200/1 initially....your probably going to make a big profit later on, especially if the auction house does not take a percentage off each sale.
Say you could initially sell your AD at a ratio of 100/1, and then a day or two later you can buy it at 500/1....you would multiply your total AD by 5 almost instantly that way.
I think you're conflating the Auction House, which uses AD for items, with the AD Exchange, which is a direct trade of AD/Zen. The AD Exchange works like this:
You list how much AD you wish to sell/buy, and at what price. You go into a pool with everybody else who has already listed for that price. If somebody wants to pay your price, they get AD from that pool for that amount of Zen. There's no guesswork how much you're going to get for your AD, there's only the question of what price you want to list it at. List it for going price, and you'll sell instantly; go a little higher, and you may have to wait. May have to wait a long time, if prices are stable; but generally there are fluctuations throughout the day in CO and STO, which have identical Q/Dil/AD exchanges.
The Auction House is something completely different. In that, it's a lot like eBay; you list an item, list the minimum bid in AD for it, the number of days it lasts, and optionally a "buy it now" price. At any time, anybody can pay that "buy it now" price and get the item; otherwise, they can bid, and hope they have the highest bid when time runs out.
What I don't know, because I didn't try it during beta, is what happens when people start bidding against each other; does it ramp up like eBay where you only spend what's necessary to beat the next guy, or does it put in your bid amount, period?
In regards to mounts; I would be absolutely FLABBERGASTED if they sell for less than $20-$25 after launch, and possibly more. You're talking about an account unlock, in a pure F2P game. They could easily list premium mounts like the spider for $50 and get thousands of takers.
This is something they'll expect most people will buy once, not over and over again. It'll be a substantial cost.
I don't get how they can charge "inflation" on digital money. How can consumer demand drive up the price of zen other than the "greed" factor of "they're buying it, let's charge more"
I don't get how they can charge "inflation" on digital money. How can consumer demand drive up the price of zen other than the "greed" factor of "they're buying it, let's charge more"
When you buy Zen for real life money the price is fixed. The variable price is in the Astral Diamond to Zen rate. That rate is driven solely by the players and what rate they are willing to trade Zen to AD or AD to Zen at with each other. It has nothing to do with Cryptic/PWE charging inflation costs.
When you buy Zen for real life money the price is fixed. The variable price is in the Astral Diamond to Zen rate. That rate is driven solely by the players and what rate they are willing to trade Zen to AD or AD to Zen at with each other. It has nothing to do with Cryptic/PWE charging inflation costs.
k... now I'm utterly confused. So we buy zen. We don't buy astral diamonds. We need to trade zen to OTHER players for their astral diamonds? And astral diamonds are necessary for the store, not zen... where the hell do the diamonds come from than?
k... now I'm utterly confused. So we buy zen. We don't buy astral diamonds. We need to trade zen to OTHER players for their astral diamonds? And astral diamonds are necessary for the store, not zen... where the hell do the diamonds come from than?
Normally you get diamonds in game through things like invoking your god (can do it once an hour) and some quests etc. You then have to refine the astral diamonds...which is free to do, but you are limited to refining only so many per day.
Everyone who plays can earn astral diamonds, but it takes time...so normally astral diamonds would be a valuable commodity. In this case though a large # of the initial players are going to have a large amount of astral diamonds to start with. If you max out at say 8k astral diamonds a day you can process, then even guardians are going to have 15+ days worth of astral diamonds to start (and heroes will have a few months worth or so).
We are not sure yet how the whole buying/selling astral diamonds are going to work. Will the seller just set a price and first person who is willing to buy ALL the astral diamonds they are selling gets to purchase them....will astral diamonds all go into a pool and get sold at whatever the current rate is or, will players be able to send an offer to someone selling astral diamonds that they can accept or reject etc.
It's quite likely at first even without outside reasons (such as founders packs still being sold with large amounts of astral diamonds being directly purchasable still) that there will be far more people with astral diamonds trying to sell them, then people with zen to spend looking to buy them.
We'll just have to wait and see what happens, but I would be very surprised if we got a good rate initially at least on astral diamond to zen conversion.
This could of course be easily fixed by allowing a direct sale of astral diamonds for zen without any need for another player to pay for the zen. If you could turn in astral diamonds at a rate of 50 astral diamonds per zen (which the game then sells back at the same rate to players), you would bypass all the problems of supply and demand. The problem is that means eventually everyone could open up all content etc and never spend a dime, so the game would not make much of a profit.
It's worked in other games though like Dungeons and dragons online (you can make TP in game over time....it's just much faster to purchase it).
Yeah, if they're going to make it complicated for me to buy items from the cash shop, I'm definitely going to spend less money. If I have to camp the AD AH and wait for prices to go down and study marketing trends, than I'm just not going to buy things... But I digress until I get to see how it all actually works out
Edit: I mean, even if they just locked in a straight AD to Zen conversion to buy from other players, that would make them money and stop the supply and demand bumps and falls.
Normally you get diamonds in game through things like invoking your god (can do it once an hour) and some quests etc. You then have to refine the astral diamonds...which is free to do, but you are limited to refining only so many per day.
Everyone who plays can earn astral diamonds, but it takes time...so normally astral diamonds would be a valuable commodity. In this case though a large # of the initial players are going to have a large amount of astral diamonds to start with. If you max out at say 8k astral diamonds a day you can process, then even guardians are going to have 15+ days worth of astral diamonds to start (and heroes will have a few months worth or so).
We are not sure yet how the whole buying/selling astral diamonds are going to work. Will the seller just set a price and first person who is willing to buy ALL the astral diamonds they are selling gets to purchase them....will astral diamonds all go into a pool and get sold at whatever the current rate is or, will players be able to send an offer to someone selling astral diamonds that they can accept or reject etc.
It's quite likely at first even without outside reasons (such as founders packs still being sold with large amounts of astral diamonds being directly purchasable still) that there will be far more people with astral diamonds trying to sell them, then people with zen to spend looking to buy them.
We'll just have to wait and see what happens, but I would be very surprised if we got a good rate initially at least on astral diamond to zen conversion.
This could of course be easily fixed by allowing a direct sale of astral diamonds for zen without any need for another player to pay for the zen. If you could turn in astral diamonds at a rate of 50 astral diamonds per zen (which the game then sells back at the same rate to players), you would bypass all the problems of supply and demand. The problem is that means eventually everyone could open up all content etc and never spend a dime, so the game would not make much of a profit.
It's worked in other games though like Dungeons and dragons online (you can make TP in game over time....it's just much faster to purchase it).
Yeah, if they're going to make it complicated for me to buy items from the cash shop, I'm definitely going to spend less money. If I have to camp the AD AH and wait for prices to go down and study marketing trends, than I'm just not going to buy things... But I digress until I get to see how it all actually works out
Edit: I mean, even if they just locked in a straight AD to Zen conversion to buy from other players, that would make them money and stop the supply and demand bumps and falls.
It seems you're still left with some confusion. The cash shop doesn't use AD; it uses Zen. You can straight up buy stuff there; one Zen equals one US penny. If the item costs 500 Zen, that's $5 US.
The only way AD enters into it is you don't want to spend money; then you can buy Zen from other players for your Astral Diamonds, that you got from playing the game. If that being a player-driven market bothers you, don't participate in it; buy Zen the old fashioned way. Grind for it at work instead of in game; it's absolutely predictable that way. It's not even difficult; Perfect World has more ways you can pay for Zen than I've seen anybody else have ever for anything. Heck, your average 7-11 has half a dozen products on the shelf that you can use to pay for Zen, not counting cell phones.
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desyumiMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 5Arc User
edited February 2013
You get glowy armor. that's worth 200 dollars alone.
It seems you're still left with some confusion. The cash shop doesn't use AD; it uses Zen. You can straight up buy stuff there; one Zen equals one US penny. If the item costs 500 Zen, that's $5 US.
The only way AD enters into it is you don't want to spend money; then you can buy Zen from other players for your Astral Diamonds, that you got from playing the game. If that being a player-driven market bothers you, don't participate in it; buy Zen the old fashioned way. Grind for it at work instead of in game; it's absolutely predictable that way. It's not even difficult; Perfect World has more ways you can pay for Zen than I've seen anybody else have ever for anything. Heck, your average 7-11 has half a dozen products on the shelf that you can use to pay for Zen, not counting cell phones.
Ahhh I see. That makes much more sense. I thought the cash shop used AD. Thank you for clearing that up!
K but Lets see it this way, the packs gives mounts/pets. I think it might even give that mount/pet to each of your character and even if it doesnt there are items (like the lvl 60 chest) that is for each character.
So the more characters ya got the more the pack is worth
Comments
I think you're conflating the Auction House, which uses AD for items, with the AD Exchange, which is a direct trade of AD/Zen. The AD Exchange works like this:
You list how much AD you wish to sell/buy, and at what price. You go into a pool with everybody else who has already listed for that price. If somebody wants to pay your price, they get AD from that pool for that amount of Zen. There's no guesswork how much you're going to get for your AD, there's only the question of what price you want to list it at. List it for going price, and you'll sell instantly; go a little higher, and you may have to wait. May have to wait a long time, if prices are stable; but generally there are fluctuations throughout the day in CO and STO, which have identical Q/Dil/AD exchanges.
The Auction House is something completely different. In that, it's a lot like eBay; you list an item, list the minimum bid in AD for it, the number of days it lasts, and optionally a "buy it now" price. At any time, anybody can pay that "buy it now" price and get the item; otherwise, they can bid, and hope they have the highest bid when time runs out.
What I don't know, because I didn't try it during beta, is what happens when people start bidding against each other; does it ramp up like eBay where you only spend what's necessary to beat the next guy, or does it put in your bid amount, period?
This is something they'll expect most people will buy once, not over and over again. It'll be a substantial cost.
When you buy Zen for real life money the price is fixed. The variable price is in the Astral Diamond to Zen rate. That rate is driven solely by the players and what rate they are willing to trade Zen to AD or AD to Zen at with each other. It has nothing to do with Cryptic/PWE charging inflation costs.
k... now I'm utterly confused. So we buy zen. We don't buy astral diamonds. We need to trade zen to OTHER players for their astral diamonds? And astral diamonds are necessary for the store, not zen... where the hell do the diamonds come from than?
Normally you get diamonds in game through things like invoking your god (can do it once an hour) and some quests etc. You then have to refine the astral diamonds...which is free to do, but you are limited to refining only so many per day.
Everyone who plays can earn astral diamonds, but it takes time...so normally astral diamonds would be a valuable commodity. In this case though a large # of the initial players are going to have a large amount of astral diamonds to start with. If you max out at say 8k astral diamonds a day you can process, then even guardians are going to have 15+ days worth of astral diamonds to start (and heroes will have a few months worth or so).
We are not sure yet how the whole buying/selling astral diamonds are going to work. Will the seller just set a price and first person who is willing to buy ALL the astral diamonds they are selling gets to purchase them....will astral diamonds all go into a pool and get sold at whatever the current rate is or, will players be able to send an offer to someone selling astral diamonds that they can accept or reject etc.
It's quite likely at first even without outside reasons (such as founders packs still being sold with large amounts of astral diamonds being directly purchasable still) that there will be far more people with astral diamonds trying to sell them, then people with zen to spend looking to buy them.
We'll just have to wait and see what happens, but I would be very surprised if we got a good rate initially at least on astral diamond to zen conversion.
This could of course be easily fixed by allowing a direct sale of astral diamonds for zen without any need for another player to pay for the zen. If you could turn in astral diamonds at a rate of 50 astral diamonds per zen (which the game then sells back at the same rate to players), you would bypass all the problems of supply and demand. The problem is that means eventually everyone could open up all content etc and never spend a dime, so the game would not make much of a profit.
It's worked in other games though like Dungeons and dragons online (you can make TP in game over time....it's just much faster to purchase it).
Edit: I mean, even if they just locked in a straight AD to Zen conversion to buy from other players, that would make them money and stop the supply and demand bumps and falls.
24,000 a day right now in the beta.
It is going to work exactly like CO and STO.
It seems you're still left with some confusion. The cash shop doesn't use AD; it uses Zen. You can straight up buy stuff there; one Zen equals one US penny. If the item costs 500 Zen, that's $5 US.
The only way AD enters into it is you don't want to spend money; then you can buy Zen from other players for your Astral Diamonds, that you got from playing the game. If that being a player-driven market bothers you, don't participate in it; buy Zen the old fashioned way. Grind for it at work instead of in game; it's absolutely predictable that way. It's not even difficult; Perfect World has more ways you can pay for Zen than I've seen anybody else have ever for anything. Heck, your average 7-11 has half a dozen products on the shelf that you can use to pay for Zen, not counting cell phones.
Ahhh I see. That makes much more sense. I thought the cash shop used AD. Thank you for clearing that up!
So the more characters ya got the more the pack is worth