...what you're talking about only hurts those who take part in the player-to-player Astral Diamond economy. People like me, who have never done anything of the sort, are not affected...
I hate to break this to you, but everyone is affected, AH or Zen Exchange aside. Everyone's AD is worth less than it should be, because of the mass amounts being illegally created by exploiters. Just because someone may not have used the AH or exchange service, the bottom line is you can only earn so much AD per day. So someone with a lot more (due to an exploit) has much more buying power than someone with a standard or average amount. Meaning a casual may never be able to earn sufficient AD to buy Bags, character slots, mounts, etc. So yes, it affects you and everyone else. If you've decided to be "above AD" well then, you don't CARE how it affects you...but it still does.
All I've ever done is play the game and sell my lockboxes for 100 AD on the market. Think I've had perhaps a dozen drop so far since opening day.
To me, there IS no economy. I use gold to buy pots and my daily prays to buy ID scrolls. Whatever "damage" has been done certainly doesn't affect me in any way, shape or form.
I am effectively out of the exploiter's range. They cannot touch my game play, and I certainly want no part in theirs.
OP's post is fallacious and made with panic logic.
So you're the awesome guy who sells me LB's so cheap
A few players having millions of AD doesn't change a thing in the game economy.
Why?
Because no one controls the input of goods. No one has control over the "production" of items and such. For the Rich to get Richer while the Poor gets Poorer, the Rich would need to have the means to control the "farm nodes." Meaning they would have control to the Instances access and such. Which is not the case. And thus, all they can do to try and control the economy is create inflation by buying anything cheap and selling them for more. However, that is, once again, fairly difficult to achieve since people also have free access to the AH. Thus, since anybody in this game can be both Producer and Seller, they can keep on flooding the market faster than the Exploiter can take control. Making it so the "poor" actually make money off of the "rich" trying to screw everybody over by buying all of their items and, ultimately, simply redistributing their AD. (By trying to sell them at a higher price while the poors simply keep undercutting because that's what we do... We undercut like crazy just to sell faster.)
That's why it's completely silly to try and take control of a game economy since everybody and their mom is a competitor. That's also why it's quite silly to consider a game economy the same as real world economy.
Also, from my understanding, the AD exploit did not even have to affect the AH prices since the exploiters did not need to buy the item. In fact, they did NOT WANT to buy the item. They'd bid negative amounts so that the game give them money instead of taking it away. In this situation, to generate more AD, it was not necessary for these people to screw the AH and buy anything from it.
The ones who would really be hurt by this are the players who did not want to buy zen with cash since the Exploiters most likely bought it all away or would buy it all away. (Which could, incidentally, be a good thing for Cryptic since they could get to sell more zen to counter the massive drop in availability.) But then again, you could argue that the overflow of AD on the market would make the sudden increase of the zen value pointless since it does cap at 500 AD for 1 Zen while the AD circulating around would be so high that the real value should be something around 1 Zen for 1000 or 1500 AD.
Also this game has so many AD Sinks (Mounts, Enchanting, Companions, Bag Space, Bank Space, Character Slots, Companion Slots, Prof Assets, Wards, Alteration and renaming of yourself and companions, etc), an overflow of AD would most likely disappear within one or two weeks and even out across the board. And some of those sink holes are not even implemented yet. (Companion upgrades?)
So sure, maybe it would create inflation at first but overall, it would even out pretty quickly if the exploit was to be fixed fast.
Why? Because everyone is both a producer and a consumer. (Unlike real life where you have some producers and many many many consumers/Exploited. You might think of yourself as a Producer and not an Exploited if you think you "produce" services (Lawyers, Psychologists, Doctors, Mechanics and so on for example.), but the reality of things is that the salary your receive for such services is rarely worth what you truly offer. This is why I use the term Exploited here. Very few people actually are real producers, receiving full revenue from their production. Most are Exploited who loan their services in exchange for a monetary compensation.)
Anyways, I am by no mean an economist but that's how I think it ends up working so... Correct me if I'm wrong.
Edit : Also, Money doesn't VANISH in the real world. When you buy something for money, it doesn't disappear in a black hole account. The money keeps flowing, that's why there is inflation. Because more money is created while the pre-existing money doesn't actually disappear. Once again, another reason why you can't quite compare a video game economy to real life.
I apologize if I'm sounding ignorant. I'm very new to the game, so my history of its goings-ons is limited.
I see a lot of references in this forum of the game having already been released. Isn't it still supposed to be in Open Beta? That's what I've read, at least. I may have missed something, though.
I can see them saying no more wipes during the beta because maybe they are trying to test out high-level content and don't want to start back at scratch, killing their timelines for testing and release. But it's rare that the progress made in a beta carries over to the release of the game (I haven't heard of any instances where it has, so maybe this is the exception).
Did they state somewhere that they won't do any wipes after the beta has ended? I know they said no complete wipes during the beta, but I'm curious if they explicitly said anything about the official release of the game?
There is a debate between posters as to whether or not the game has crossed over to a soft release as opposed to being open beta due to the company accepting money from customers.
The company did declare that there would be no more wipes, from the early access days onward... no more character wipes period. I don't see them going back on that, as many I'm sure purchased packs based on the promise there would be no character wipes.
Oh ffs. Do people honestly not understand what a rollback is? My head is going to explode from all the stupid.
Two weeks ago, Coalescent wards sold for 150k. Two days ago, Coalescent wards sold for 150k. Sunday morning, they were going for 5million and higher. When people say that the rollback did nothing because it existed beforehand, they are lying, because virtually all of the inflation occurred on Sunday. When people say that the rollback did nothing because they transfered the AD to other toons, they are lying, because the rollback was across all toons.
If you want to rage against the game, you are hereby required to make actual arguments that are based on facts. Facts are things that actually happened. The fact is, the in-game economy was functional before this weekend. On Sunday, it was not. Pretending that the economy is ruined because it's back to what it was before makes you a liar. It's great that you want to justify your rage, but that doesn't make you any less dishonest.
Oh ffs. Do people honestly not understand what a rollback is? My head is going to explode from all the stupid.
Two weeks ago, Coalescent wards sold for 150k. Two days ago, Coalescent wards sold for 150k. Sunday morning, they were going for 5million and higher. When people say that the rollback did nothing because it existed beforehand, they are lying, because virtually all of the inflation occurred on Sunday. When people say that the rollback did nothing because they transfered the AD to other toons, they are lying, because the rollback was across all toons.
If you want to rage against the game, you are hereby required to make actual arguments that are based on facts. Facts are things that actually happened. The fact is, the in-game economy was functional before this weekend. On Sunday, it was not. Pretending that the economy is ruined because it's back to what it was before makes you a liar. It's great that you want to justify your rage, but that doesn't make you any less dishonest.
being dishonest .. showing how a game economy works???? I will post what i posted to someone else:
how many games have you played from an opening that have auction houses or some sort of market? It is a known fact about how game economies work.. as the game goes on people make more in game currency and prices rise...
I simply stated that if the game pretty much starts with a certain amount of people having a very very very large sum (weather it be exploits or whatever) the economy is ruined, as those are the people that run the economy
While any incident like this will be bad for the economy it is also worth keeping in mind that how much this economy can be impacted is limited. It is not exactly a player driven economy. It is so artificial with multiple currencies and no way to make direct trades of those currencies. I am just not convinced that you can really wreck an economy that is this simplistic and controlled.
We will all see how it turned out,as soon as the AH and the ZEN market goes online.If there's really millions of ill-gained AD's left in the system we will going to see immediately.It will flood the market and item prices will go insane again.I saw similar thing happend in other games when only a selected few (in this case the exploiters) controlled the market and played with the prices as they want.Buyout everything erasing any competition and rule the market,forcing everyone to buy from them only.
About the ZEN prices: i'm planned to use the exchange market to buy some ZEN.If there's still insane amount of AD's in the economy it will be impossible for me to buy because my short amount of AD couldn't competite with those crazy exchange ratios.I hope that's not the case and that 7 hours rollback was enough to suck out every ill-gained money from the system.Wish everyone good luck .
No Hyperbole here, look at how the actually world works, as more money comes into the picture prices rise.... its the same in all games
Are they tracking down all the exploiters from all forms of AD exploiting from day 1? ....
Actually not how the real world works. The real world works more like this. Country is running out of money so they print more money to cover expenses and therefore the value of their money goes down. As the value of their money goes down the prices for items using their currency goes up. What you are describing is the people of the country are getting more money in their pockets and prices go up, that is false. Prices go up as money devalues because the country is printing too much, or because demand goes up or supply goes down.
This is a virtual game economy there are things that will take AD out of circulation permanently, and therefore in time the economy will right itself without need for drastic measures. You guys act like you can't get the items on the AH yourself, but you can that also lowers the value of what is being sold. Stop being Chicken Littles and play the game.
The only ADs I've spent, I spent through the "spend ADs" button on my inventory, & then only to buy some ID scrolls. So far as I can see, the price of ID scrolls does not change, regardless of fluctuations in the player-to-player AD market, because it's a fixed price.
Meaning a casual may never be able to earn sufficient AD to buy Bags, character slots, mounts, etc.
This is only true if prices in the Zen store fluctuate to match the player-to-player AD economy; so far, I've seen no evidence of that being true. If I'm buying Zen through my credit card or a PW card from Target, I'm not spending ADs on it at all, & thus the value of Astral Diamonds is irrelevant.
I'm not seeing a single iota of evidence that AD exploitation affects me at all.
Fare you well
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine ...
The only ADs I've spent, I spent through the "spend ADs" button on my inventory, & then only to buy some ID scrolls. So far as I can see, the price of ID scrolls does not change, regardless of fluctuations in the player-to-player AD market, because it's a fixed price.
This is only true if prices in the Zen store fluctuate to match the player-to-player AD economy; so far, I've seen no evidence of that being true. If I'm buying Zen through my credit card or a PW card from Target, I'm not spending ADs on it at all, & thus the value of Astral Diamonds is irrelevant.
I'm not seeing a single iota of evidence that AD exploitation affects me at all.
That's an Half truth there. It's the equivalent of saying "I don't drink water unless it's from a sealed bottle I bought so water pollution doesn't affect me!" If you do not use something, of course changes to it are never going to affect you. But it doesn't mean it cannot affect others.
As for the zen shop. It's also half true. Fluctuation of the amount of AD in the game will affect the Zen Exchange rate but it's not as dramatic as some players might make it to be since Zen to AD exchange is capped to 1 Zen for 500 AD and cannot go beyond that. Meaning that even if Zen should be at 1 Zen for 10,000 AD, it will still be 1 for 500 at its highest. Thus the fluctuation in the Value of AD is not that relevant when it comes to buy Zen.
And this is what they mean by AD being worth less than it should be. What people fail to grasp, however, is that ultimately, the value of AD is bound by hard caps at 1 for 500 at its lowest value and 1 for 50 at its highest value. So even if the price goes up on certain items, like epic BoE, Bags, wards and so on, it cannot or should not excel certain values and a lot of the "good" ones. If they do go beyond those values, it's not because of inflation but because people are dumb and cannot do simple math for themselves. (Wards and bags at 1000 zen should be worth 500k AD at their highest and 50k AD at their lowest for example, anything beyond that on the AH is a stupid bargain for either the buyer or sellers since you can always buy cheaper in the zen shop through zen exchange and cannot make your AD back if you sell lower.. This doesn't' take in consideration the AH cut but you get the gist of it..)
In some ways this may actually repair the economy somewhat. Due to banning millions and millions of AD are going to be removed all together. Including some founders. because of abusing exploits and the like. various high end items will probably be nerfed and some vendor items will be changed most likely.
But saying its not fair because someone got a profession head start is a silly in a mmo where people are constantly quitting and restarting. going on vacations playing other games. By that logic all the people who start a mmo a year after launch are at a disadvantage and shouldn't even try.
MMO economies are always going out of whack every time a new item hits the market or the lockboxes change or they do a double AD weekend. What is important to observe is how self correcting they are. this is the perfect test for if the economy can self stabilize or if it needs help. Its a great excuse to ..tweak things without being unfair to people.
My argument has NEVER been that AD exploitation doesn't affect ANYONE. I'm only speaking for myself. It's obvious it will affect the game economy, but an oddity of in-game economies is that it's perfectly possible to avoid ever actually taking part in them. What I'm striking against is the claim that AD devaluation inherently affects EVERYONE, whether they know it or not, & I've not yet seen a single good argument for that claim.
Fluctuation of the amount of AD in the game will affect the Zen Exchange rate
AD fluctuation will affect the Zen EXCHANGE. It will not, to my knowledge, have any affect on the amount of Zen I can purchase through the Zen store using my credit card, & it will not affect the prices in the Zen store.
I totally get the whole concept of AD devaluation. What I'm saying is that such devaluation does not affect ME. It may well affect you, or a whole lot of other people, but I can't see any way in the world it affects someone who doesn't spend ADs on the player-to-player market.
Fare you well
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine ...
There is a debate between posters as to whether or not the game has crossed over to a soft release as opposed to being open beta due to the company accepting money from customers.
The company did declare that there would be no more wipes, from the early access days onward... no more character wipes period. I don't see them going back on that, as many I'm sure purchased packs based on the promise there would be no character wipes.
Ah, thank you for that. While I disagree with allowing people to spend "real world" zen during a beta (due to the more volatile nature of a "beta" game), it's not my call to make. I would have preferred they keep any founders packs (and by extension the "real" zen market) out of the beta so they could do wipes occasionally without worrying about lawsuits and significant /ragequits.
I bought a "founders pack" in another game that I'm beta testing now, and I can't make use of it until the game officially releases, nor can I purchase any of their in-game currency. They do, however, occasionally give an amount of the currency to check pricing, watch purchasing patterns, etc. This way, when they do wipe after the beta ends, there won't be any complaints beyond "now I have to start all over."
So, I now have a better understanding of the issues involved. I imagine people that bought packs would still get all of their stuff on opening day, though. Still, thank you for the response .
My argument has NEVER been that AD exploitation doesn't affect ANYONE. I'm only speaking for myself. It's obvious it will affect the game economy, but an oddity of in-game economies is that it's perfectly possible to avoid ever actually taking part in them. What I'm striking against is the claim that AD devaluation inherently affects EVERYONE, whether they know it or not, & I've not yet seen a single good argument for that claim.
AD fluctuation will affect the Zen EXCHANGE. It will not, to my knowledge, have any affect on the amount of Zen I can purchase through the Zen store using my credit card, & it will not affect the prices in the Zen store.
I totally get the whole concept of AD devaluation. What I'm saying is that such devaluation does not affect ME. It may well affect you, or a whole lot of other people, but I can't see any way in the world it affects someone who doesn't spend ADs on the player-to-player market.
Well I guess I missed the point then.
Sure, it CAN be avoided. I guess that's it for that argument...
You are assuming that Cryptic isn't tracking down and banning the perpetrators and their mules...which they are.
If you believe that (given how they let the exploits go on for weeks with no consequences), I have some oceanfront property in TN you might be interested in.
I am a Lawyer in real life, but I try to roleplay an honorable character
My argument has NEVER been that AD exploitation doesn't affect ANYONE. I'm only speaking for myself. It's obvious it will affect the game economy, but an oddity of in-game economies is that it's perfectly possible to avoid ever actually taking part in them. What I'm striking against is the claim that AD devaluation inherently affects EVERYONE, whether they know it or not, & I've not yet seen a single good argument for that claim.
AD fluctuation will affect the Zen EXCHANGE. It will not, to my knowledge, have any affect on the amount of Zen I can purchase through the Zen store using my credit card, & it will not affect the prices in the Zen store.
I totally get the whole concept of AD devaluation. What I'm saying is that such devaluation does not affect ME. It may well affect you, or a whole lot of other people, but I can't see any way in the world it affects someone who doesn't spend ADs on the player-to-player market.
It will affect you if they put in bigger and bigger money sinks in to try and draw out all that excess AD.
I am a Lawyer in real life, but I try to roleplay an honorable character
I seriously doubt it. Go look at some that were on youtube broadcasting their exploits and they are still posting this morning. I call bull**** on Cryptic banning them all or even hunting them down.
Sure, it CAN be avoided. I guess that's it for that argument...
Honestly? I think everything to do with Astral Diamonds should be boycotted entirely. They were the single worst idea implemented in this game. But unfortunately, ID scrolls don't drop quickly enough, so I find myself "forced" to buy a couple AD scrolls now & then. But I think we'd all be a lot better off if ADs had never been put in, & I think we'll all be a lot better off if they're removed from the game.
Fare you well
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine ...
People will always attempt to price gouge and guess what the only way to stop it, is stop being lazy and farm the very item you're trying to buy.
Otherwise people that complain about the pukes that charge 1mil ad for some 30k item have no right to complain as you are helping them to control the market, welcome to 2013, welcome to an mmorpg
You earn ZEN in-game, from doing various things like completing quests, the way Turbine allows you to grind for Turbine Points.
You use in-game currency, like gold, silver, & copper, for buying things from the AH.
You DON'T confuse those things, unless you want to royally screw your game.
You DON'T allow "end game epics" to be sold on the AH for ANY amount.
You DON'T put in a totally wonky separate currency called "Astral Diamonds" which can be earned in-game, converted to Zen, & used as the sole currency for purchasing from the AH.
I have no idea who came up with this silly, hideously convoluted scheme, but whoever did needs to go look at much better, much more successful F2P models (like EQ2 & LOTRO & DDO) & copy from them. Of course, it's probably too late to reinvent the wheel, but why in the world did Cryptic do so in the first place?????
Fare you well
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine ...
Most MMOs put in time/money sinks to keep people playing. When the economy is plagued by too much currency and inflation, they find ways to force people to spend more money address the situation. For example, consumables may get more and more expensive, transportation becomes more expensive, etc.
I am a Lawyer in real life, but I try to roleplay an honorable character
Most MMOs put in time/money sinks to keep people playing. When the economy is plagued by too much currency and inflation, they find ways to force people to spend more money address the situation. For example, consumables may get more and more expensive, transportation becomes more expensive, etc.
Well, the thing is there aren't many more sinks they can put in to require people to spend Astral Diamonds, without either invalidating some other currency, or sticking players with a cost for something that was previously uncosted. For example, currently there is no travel cost. If they charged you ADs every time you go from Prot Enclave to some other zone, I think that would be a very highly unpopular move that would backfire on them.
So what else could they do that might affect me? Change the price of tradeskill resources from gold to ADs? Fine ... I'll simply stop doing any tradeskill tasks that require resources other than people, which I've already got. Not only would that change not affect me -- since I don't do such tradeskilling now -- it would largely devalue gold, since that's one of the only things left people have to buy with gold. I guess they could charge you ADs for potions & such, but again, that smacks of a counter-productive move that would likely anger more players than it's worth.
This is why most MMOS use time sinks to keep people playing, instead of money ... which is all the more reason why allowing ADs to be used on the AH to buy "end game epics" was a disastrously bad idea, because now, instead of the time sink of playing RNG to get your gear, you just churn out easily controllable amounts of ADs.
The bottom line? There's almost nothing they could do that would affect me, without hurting themselves & angering a lot of other players. Even then, we're talking about potential future changes, as opposed to what's going on right now, & it's highly possible that by the time they implement such features, I'm no longer playing anyway & thus not affected. In short, those of us who are not playing the AD economy are not being affected, & there's scarcely any good reason to think we ever will be.
Fare you well
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine ...
We will all see how it turned out,as soon as the AH and the ZEN market goes online.If there's really millions of ill-gained AD's left in the system we will going to see immediately.It will flood the market and item prices will go insane again.I saw similar thing happend in other games when only a selected few (in this case the exploiters) controlled the market and played with the prices as they want.Buyout everything erasing any competition and rule the market,forcing everyone to buy from them only.
About the ZEN prices: i'm planned to use the exchange market to buy some ZEN.If there's still insane amount of AD's in the economy it will be impossible for me to buy because my short amount of AD couldn't competite with those crazy exchange ratios.I hope that's not the case and that 7 hours rollback was enough to suck out every ill-gained money from the system.Wish everyone good luck .
The thing is, this started happening last night at like midnight PST.
I was watching the exchange explode over like 3 hours while I leveled then went to bed.
The rollback didn't de-level me. So it didn't affect all of those people that duped AD and were buying massive amounts of Zen.
It was jumping to like 80k zen at 500 over and over, every 20-30 minutes.
So I don't think this 7 hour rollback really did that much. Cryptic has a ton of work to do.
My argument has NEVER been that AD exploitation doesn't affect ANYONE. I'm only speaking for myself. It's obvious it will affect the game economy, but an oddity of in-game economies is that it's perfectly possible to avoid ever actually taking part in them. What I'm striking against is the claim that AD devaluation inherently affects EVERYONE, whether they know it or not, & I've not yet seen a single good argument for that claim.
AD fluctuation will affect the Zen EXCHANGE. It will not, to my knowledge, have any affect on the amount of Zen I can purchase through the Zen store using my credit card, & it will not affect the prices in the Zen store.
I totally get the whole concept of AD devaluation. What I'm saying is that such devaluation does not affect ME. It may well affect you, or a whole lot of other people, but I can't see any way in the world it affects someone who doesn't spend ADs on the player-to-player market.
^^^^^
This right here. You really want to mess with all the exploiters and their ill-gotten gains?
Stop using the exchange altogether. Use AD to purchase things ingame from merchants. Scrolls, etc.
Use mommy's or daddy's card to buy zen, then purchases in the zen store. (Or your own card, if you've got one. :] )
Stop using the market, where those people with large amounts of AD can, and will, inflate prices based on what's sitting in their inventory.
When the "rich" can no longer use their main resource to influence things....how "rich" are they really?
That's when the "economy" will balance itself.
Well, the thing is there aren't many more sinks they can put in to require people to spend Astral Diamonds, without either invalidating some other currency, or sticking players with a cost for something that was previously uncosted. For example, currently there is no travel cost. If they charged you ADs every time you go from Prot Enclave to some other zone, I think that would be a very highly unpopular move that would backfire on them.
So what else could they do that might affect me? Change the price of tradeskill resources from gold to ADs? Fine ... I'll simply stop doing any tradeskill tasks that require resources other than people, which I've already got. Not only would that change not affect me -- since I don't do such tradeskilling now -- it would largely devalue gold, since that's one of the only things left people have to buy with gold. I guess they could charge you ADs for potions & such, but again, that smacks of a counter-productive move that would likely anger more players than it's worth.
This is why most MMOS use time sinks to keep people playing, instead of money ... which is all the more reason why allowing ADs to be used on the AH to buy "end game epics" was a disastrously bad idea, because now, instead of the time sink of playing RNG to get your gear, you just churn out easily controllable amounts of ADs.
The bottom line? There's almost nothing they could do that would affect me, without hurting themselves & angering a lot of other players. Even then, we're talking about potential future changes, as opposed to what's going on right now, & it's highly possible that by the time they implement such features, I'm no longer playing anyway & thus not affected. In short, those of us who are not playing the AD economy are not being affected, & there's scarcely any good reason to think we ever will be.
One place they could inflate AD money sink is attaching and detaching enchantments to gear. (not to give them the idea mind you but is one place that everyone has to use to improve their characters).
Comments
I hate to break this to you, but everyone is affected, AH or Zen Exchange aside. Everyone's AD is worth less than it should be, because of the mass amounts being illegally created by exploiters. Just because someone may not have used the AH or exchange service, the bottom line is you can only earn so much AD per day. So someone with a lot more (due to an exploit) has much more buying power than someone with a standard or average amount. Meaning a casual may never be able to earn sufficient AD to buy Bags, character slots, mounts, etc. So yes, it affects you and everyone else. If you've decided to be "above AD" well then, you don't CARE how it affects you...but it still does.
So you're the awesome guy who sells me LB's so cheap
Why?
Because no one controls the input of goods. No one has control over the "production" of items and such. For the Rich to get Richer while the Poor gets Poorer, the Rich would need to have the means to control the "farm nodes." Meaning they would have control to the Instances access and such. Which is not the case. And thus, all they can do to try and control the economy is create inflation by buying anything cheap and selling them for more. However, that is, once again, fairly difficult to achieve since people also have free access to the AH. Thus, since anybody in this game can be both Producer and Seller, they can keep on flooding the market faster than the Exploiter can take control. Making it so the "poor" actually make money off of the "rich" trying to screw everybody over by buying all of their items and, ultimately, simply redistributing their AD. (By trying to sell them at a higher price while the poors simply keep undercutting because that's what we do... We undercut like crazy just to sell faster.)
That's why it's completely silly to try and take control of a game economy since everybody and their mom is a competitor. That's also why it's quite silly to consider a game economy the same as real world economy.
Also, from my understanding, the AD exploit did not even have to affect the AH prices since the exploiters did not need to buy the item. In fact, they did NOT WANT to buy the item. They'd bid negative amounts so that the game give them money instead of taking it away. In this situation, to generate more AD, it was not necessary for these people to screw the AH and buy anything from it.
The ones who would really be hurt by this are the players who did not want to buy zen with cash since the Exploiters most likely bought it all away or would buy it all away. (Which could, incidentally, be a good thing for Cryptic since they could get to sell more zen to counter the massive drop in availability.) But then again, you could argue that the overflow of AD on the market would make the sudden increase of the zen value pointless since it does cap at 500 AD for 1 Zen while the AD circulating around would be so high that the real value should be something around 1 Zen for 1000 or 1500 AD.
Also this game has so many AD Sinks (Mounts, Enchanting, Companions, Bag Space, Bank Space, Character Slots, Companion Slots, Prof Assets, Wards, Alteration and renaming of yourself and companions, etc), an overflow of AD would most likely disappear within one or two weeks and even out across the board. And some of those sink holes are not even implemented yet. (Companion upgrades?)
So sure, maybe it would create inflation at first but overall, it would even out pretty quickly if the exploit was to be fixed fast.
Why? Because everyone is both a producer and a consumer. (Unlike real life where you have some producers and many many many consumers/Exploited. You might think of yourself as a Producer and not an Exploited if you think you "produce" services (Lawyers, Psychologists, Doctors, Mechanics and so on for example.), but the reality of things is that the salary your receive for such services is rarely worth what you truly offer. This is why I use the term Exploited here. Very few people actually are real producers, receiving full revenue from their production. Most are Exploited who loan their services in exchange for a monetary compensation.)
Anyways, I am by no mean an economist but that's how I think it ends up working so... Correct me if I'm wrong.
Edit : Also, Money doesn't VANISH in the real world. When you buy something for money, it doesn't disappear in a black hole account. The money keeps flowing, that's why there is inflation. Because more money is created while the pre-existing money doesn't actually disappear. Once again, another reason why you can't quite compare a video game economy to real life.
The company did declare that there would be no more wipes, from the early access days onward... no more character wipes period. I don't see them going back on that, as many I'm sure purchased packs based on the promise there would be no character wipes.
Two weeks ago, Coalescent wards sold for 150k. Two days ago, Coalescent wards sold for 150k. Sunday morning, they were going for 5million and higher. When people say that the rollback did nothing because it existed beforehand, they are lying, because virtually all of the inflation occurred on Sunday. When people say that the rollback did nothing because they transfered the AD to other toons, they are lying, because the rollback was across all toons.
If you want to rage against the game, you are hereby required to make actual arguments that are based on facts. Facts are things that actually happened. The fact is, the in-game economy was functional before this weekend. On Sunday, it was not. Pretending that the economy is ruined because it's back to what it was before makes you a liar. It's great that you want to justify your rage, but that doesn't make you any less dishonest.
being dishonest .. showing how a game economy works???? I will post what i posted to someone else:
how many games have you played from an opening that have auction houses or some sort of market? It is a known fact about how game economies work.. as the game goes on people make more in game currency and prices rise...
I simply stated that if the game pretty much starts with a certain amount of people having a very very very large sum (weather it be exploits or whatever) the economy is ruined, as those are the people that run the economy
All die, so die well.
About the ZEN prices: i'm planned to use the exchange market to buy some ZEN.If there's still insane amount of AD's in the economy it will be impossible for me to buy because my short amount of AD couldn't competite with those crazy exchange ratios.I hope that's not the case and that 7 hours rollback was enough to suck out every ill-gained money from the system.Wish everyone good luck
Actually not how the real world works. The real world works more like this. Country is running out of money so they print more money to cover expenses and therefore the value of their money goes down. As the value of their money goes down the prices for items using their currency goes up. What you are describing is the people of the country are getting more money in their pockets and prices go up, that is false. Prices go up as money devalues because the country is printing too much, or because demand goes up or supply goes down.
This is a virtual game economy there are things that will take AD out of circulation permanently, and therefore in time the economy will right itself without need for drastic measures. You guys act like you can't get the items on the AH yourself, but you can that also lowers the value of what is being sold. Stop being Chicken Littles and play the game.
The only ADs I've spent, I spent through the "spend ADs" button on my inventory, & then only to buy some ID scrolls. So far as I can see, the price of ID scrolls does not change, regardless of fluctuations in the player-to-player AD market, because it's a fixed price.
This is only true if prices in the Zen store fluctuate to match the player-to-player AD economy; so far, I've seen no evidence of that being true. If I'm buying Zen through my credit card or a PW card from Target, I'm not spending ADs on it at all, & thus the value of Astral Diamonds is irrelevant.
I'm not seeing a single iota of evidence that AD exploitation affects me at all.
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine ...
That's an Half truth there. It's the equivalent of saying "I don't drink water unless it's from a sealed bottle I bought so water pollution doesn't affect me!" If you do not use something, of course changes to it are never going to affect you. But it doesn't mean it cannot affect others.
As for the zen shop. It's also half true. Fluctuation of the amount of AD in the game will affect the Zen Exchange rate but it's not as dramatic as some players might make it to be since Zen to AD exchange is capped to 1 Zen for 500 AD and cannot go beyond that. Meaning that even if Zen should be at 1 Zen for 10,000 AD, it will still be 1 for 500 at its highest. Thus the fluctuation in the Value of AD is not that relevant when it comes to buy Zen.
And this is what they mean by AD being worth less than it should be. What people fail to grasp, however, is that ultimately, the value of AD is bound by hard caps at 1 for 500 at its lowest value and 1 for 50 at its highest value. So even if the price goes up on certain items, like epic BoE, Bags, wards and so on, it cannot or should not excel certain values and a lot of the "good" ones. If they do go beyond those values, it's not because of inflation but because people are dumb and cannot do simple math for themselves. (Wards and bags at 1000 zen should be worth 500k AD at their highest and 50k AD at their lowest for example, anything beyond that on the AH is a stupid bargain for either the buyer or sellers since you can always buy cheaper in the zen shop through zen exchange and cannot make your AD back if you sell lower.. This doesn't' take in consideration the AH cut but you get the gist of it..)
But saying its not fair because someone got a profession head start is a silly in a mmo where people are constantly quitting and restarting. going on vacations playing other games. By that logic all the people who start a mmo a year after launch are at a disadvantage and shouldn't even try.
MMO economies are always going out of whack every time a new item hits the market or the lockboxes change or they do a double AD weekend. What is important to observe is how self correcting they are. this is the perfect test for if the economy can self stabilize or if it needs help. Its a great excuse to ..tweak things without being unfair to people.
My argument has NEVER been that AD exploitation doesn't affect ANYONE. I'm only speaking for myself. It's obvious it will affect the game economy, but an oddity of in-game economies is that it's perfectly possible to avoid ever actually taking part in them. What I'm striking against is the claim that AD devaluation inherently affects EVERYONE, whether they know it or not, & I've not yet seen a single good argument for that claim.
AD fluctuation will affect the Zen EXCHANGE. It will not, to my knowledge, have any affect on the amount of Zen I can purchase through the Zen store using my credit card, & it will not affect the prices in the Zen store.
I totally get the whole concept of AD devaluation. What I'm saying is that such devaluation does not affect ME. It may well affect you, or a whole lot of other people, but I can't see any way in the world it affects someone who doesn't spend ADs on the player-to-player market.
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine ...
Ah, thank you for that. While I disagree with allowing people to spend "real world" zen during a beta (due to the more volatile nature of a "beta" game), it's not my call to make. I would have preferred they keep any founders packs (and by extension the "real" zen market) out of the beta so they could do wipes occasionally without worrying about lawsuits and significant /ragequits.
I bought a "founders pack" in another game that I'm beta testing now, and I can't make use of it until the game officially releases, nor can I purchase any of their in-game currency. They do, however, occasionally give an amount of the currency to check pricing, watch purchasing patterns, etc. This way, when they do wipe after the beta ends, there won't be any complaints beyond "now I have to start all over."
So, I now have a better understanding of the issues involved. I imagine people that bought packs would still get all of their stuff on opening day, though. Still, thank you for the response
Well I guess I missed the point then.
Sure, it CAN be avoided. I guess that's it for that argument...
If you believe that (given how they let the exploits go on for weeks with no consequences), I have some oceanfront property in TN you might be interested in.
It will affect you if they put in bigger and bigger money sinks in to try and draw out all that excess AD.
I seriously doubt it. Go look at some that were on youtube broadcasting their exploits and they are still posting this morning. I call bull**** on Cryptic banning them all or even hunting them down.
Honestly? I think everything to do with Astral Diamonds should be boycotted entirely. They were the single worst idea implemented in this game. But unfortunately, ID scrolls don't drop quickly enough, so I find myself "forced" to buy a couple AD scrolls now & then. But I think we'd all be a lot better off if ADs had never been put in, & I think we'll all be a lot better off if they're removed from the game.
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine ...
Otherwise people that complain about the pukes that charge 1mil ad for some 30k item have no right to complain as you are helping them to control the market, welcome to 2013, welcome to an mmorpg
How? Please, be specific.
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine ...
You earn ZEN in-game, from doing various things like completing quests, the way Turbine allows you to grind for Turbine Points.
You use in-game currency, like gold, silver, & copper, for buying things from the AH.
You DON'T confuse those things, unless you want to royally screw your game.
You DON'T allow "end game epics" to be sold on the AH for ANY amount.
You DON'T put in a totally wonky separate currency called "Astral Diamonds" which can be earned in-game, converted to Zen, & used as the sole currency for purchasing from the AH.
I have no idea who came up with this silly, hideously convoluted scheme, but whoever did needs to go look at much better, much more successful F2P models (like EQ2 & LOTRO & DDO) & copy from them. Of course, it's probably too late to reinvent the wheel, but why in the world did Cryptic do so in the first place?????
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine ...
Most MMOs put in time/money sinks to keep people playing. When the economy is plagued by too much currency and inflation, they find ways to force people to spend more money address the situation. For example, consumables may get more and more expensive, transportation becomes more expensive, etc.
Well, the thing is there aren't many more sinks they can put in to require people to spend Astral Diamonds, without either invalidating some other currency, or sticking players with a cost for something that was previously uncosted. For example, currently there is no travel cost. If they charged you ADs every time you go from Prot Enclave to some other zone, I think that would be a very highly unpopular move that would backfire on them.
So what else could they do that might affect me? Change the price of tradeskill resources from gold to ADs? Fine ... I'll simply stop doing any tradeskill tasks that require resources other than people, which I've already got. Not only would that change not affect me -- since I don't do such tradeskilling now -- it would largely devalue gold, since that's one of the only things left people have to buy with gold. I guess they could charge you ADs for potions & such, but again, that smacks of a counter-productive move that would likely anger more players than it's worth.
This is why most MMOS use time sinks to keep people playing, instead of money ... which is all the more reason why allowing ADs to be used on the AH to buy "end game epics" was a disastrously bad idea, because now, instead of the time sink of playing RNG to get your gear, you just churn out easily controllable amounts of ADs.
The bottom line? There's almost nothing they could do that would affect me, without hurting themselves & angering a lot of other players. Even then, we're talking about potential future changes, as opposed to what's going on right now, & it's highly possible that by the time they implement such features, I'm no longer playing anyway & thus not affected. In short, those of us who are not playing the AD economy are not being affected, & there's scarcely any good reason to think we ever will be.
Let your life proceed by its own designs
Nothing to tell
Let the words be yours, I'm done with mine ...
lol nice one, except they're not
The thing is, this started happening last night at like midnight PST.
I was watching the exchange explode over like 3 hours while I leveled then went to bed.
The rollback didn't de-level me. So it didn't affect all of those people that duped AD and were buying massive amounts of Zen.
It was jumping to like 80k zen at 500 over and over, every 20-30 minutes.
So I don't think this 7 hour rollback really did that much. Cryptic has a ton of work to do.
^^^^^
This right here. You really want to mess with all the exploiters and their ill-gotten gains?
Stop using the exchange altogether. Use AD to purchase things ingame from merchants. Scrolls, etc.
Use mommy's or daddy's card to buy zen, then purchases in the zen store. (Or your own card, if you've got one. :] )
Stop using the market, where those people with large amounts of AD can, and will, inflate prices based on what's sitting in their inventory.
When the "rich" can no longer use their main resource to influence things....how "rich" are they really?
That's when the "economy" will balance itself.
Occam's Razor makes the cutting clean.
Devaluation of AD helps if you have no AD but really want something that costs fixed AD. e.g. a cat.
One place they could inflate AD money sink is attaching and detaching enchantments to gear. (not to give them the idea mind you but is one place that everyone has to use to improve their characters).