Question about Zen price in ADs

valeriob80 · September 2013

I started playing few weeks ago and the price of 1 Zen was 379AD (Dragon), today is 335AD and constantly lowering. I'm not complaining at all, it's a good thing, just wondering (to better understand game's economy)... why is it falling? :-)

runebane · September 2013

Just before Fury of the Feywild, they started selling optional Feywild themed packs for $60. These packs included several things, a mount, a companion, and 600k AD. When Fury launched they all got their AD.

All that extra AD pushed into the game lowered its value. So it took more of it to buy Zen. But now the exchange rate is back to slowly dropping again.

darthpotater · September 2013

It went up because of the expansion, fury of the feywild, new lockbox, new things to buy, etc. 2 weeks gone, and people calmed down. Thats it. People have already bought their stuff

tang56 · September 2013

Feywild will probably be the high point for the Zen/AD rate. I can't see there being as many people around for the next module.

nwntalon · September 2013

The zen/AD exchange is like the stock market. It will go up when there is a big sale in the zen store or a new module is released. Prices will drop again as people stop buying zen. I sold all of my zen a little earlier than I should have at 370, but am waiting for 330 or below to buy again.

valeriob80 · September 2013

Thanks, so the "normal" price is 330?

I mean, when there are no new expansions out and so...

frishter · September 2013

valeriob80 wrote: »

Thanks, so the "normal" price is 330?

I mean, when there are no new expansions out and so...

Well there isn't really a normal price. I've seen it around 350 before the expansion. As time goes by the value may go down further.

degraafination · September 2013

I bought Zen during month one when it sold for 280 on Mindflayer. What a lovely time! Haven't seen it sub 300 since.

nwntalon · September 2013

The lowest i've seen since launch is around 325 on mindflayer and 335 on Dragon. My listing is a hopeful pricing that i'm willing to wait for but may never happen.

gek1956 · September 2013

nwntalon wrote: »

The zen/AD exchange is like the stock market. It will go up when there is a big sale in the zen store or a new module is released. Prices will drop again as people stop buying zen. I sold all of my zen a little earlier than I should have at 370, but am waiting for 330 or below to buy again.

And to a limited extent, if necessary PWE/Cryptic can, if needed, act much as the federal reserve. For example, if they saw it was falling really, really fast they could just, as the feds do, "print more money' by buying Zen off the exchange and keeping it. This zen can be held in reserve for a later time, to stop, lets say, a run on the market by a group of wealthy players who decide to buy all the zen at 300 and put it up for sale at 400. They could defeat this plan by dumping all the zen they had bought at the original price and running the speculators out of cash. Serious offenders will probably get banned. The practical limit of this strategy is simple. The company will never 'print zen', that is introduce unpaid for zen into the market as it would impact their own revenue. They would be giving away stuff that they have to sell to pay the bills.

I was in Eve Online for three years, and it is just about the only game out there that can afford to let its markets be completely free. This is due to the fact that If you get too big and try to take something over in Eve, other player corps, often representing thousands of players, will war dec you and hunt you down all over the cluster till you stop. Eve is a sandbox... space capitalism with guns. The Devs provide a modicum of safety in empire space, but war declarations can be bought by the week, and if somebody wants to pay the price you've got trouble. Mommy can't save you in this sandbox

So I wouldn't worry too much. when I bought my Founder's pack zen was trading at 250. It fluctuates. If you watch, and most careful business style players do, you will see tucked in at the limits of the price range, from + or - between 5 and ten ADs per zen, Large blocks for sale. 50 to 80 k zen all at the same price. I don't know if its players storing zen there... since its free to post, and can be accessed by all the characters in one account, or the company hedging against sudden moves, but their very presence tends to gentle the fluctuations in price. If you have 2 accounts, you can keep your bank saved as zen in one of them and AD in the other, as I do.This protects you from losing no matter which way the market goes.

valeriob80 · September 2013

PWE can actually CREATE AD with a mouse click, so to keep the AD price of the Zen up it just needs to create AD and buy back its own Zen for actually nothing. I hope they'll never do something like this as it would be very unfair for the players (both free and paying ones)

gek1956 · September 2013

valeriob80 wrote: »

PWE can actually CREATE AD with a mouse click, so to keep the AD price of the Zen up it just needs to create AD and buy back its own Zen for actually nothing. I hope they'll never do something like this as it would be very unfair for the players (both free and paying ones)

Well, on the one hand, I don't see devaluing ADs like that as an issue, since AH prices will soon adjust to compensate. On the other, I don't see making it harder to get zen as that big of a loss. There are only 3 or 4 items on the zen market that I view as essential. Extra character slots, greater bags of holding and the allure stone augmenter have comprised 90 % of my zen buys. Bank slots and profession packs, and keys are over priced to the point of rip off. Most of the rest I view as luxury items, the pretty pets, costumery, PE teleport scrolls etc. I have spent something over 15k zen so far in the zen store.. a bit over 5 mill ad's. I have made several mill AD's in game plus spent rl $$ for the packs and been given some gift cards. I've spent three times more in the AH then the zen store. My bank looks VERY nice right now because I've held back on spending. Be patient. As the population falls off I expect to see changes in pricing to bring the game's revenue back up. Since my 60$ US for the FOFW knight's pack brought me such a poor return I don't feel I owe them any more of my money at the present time.

Relax, farm what still works, keep your crafting and invoking up and WAIT. I see this as a very good time NOT to spend any money in game. Don't feed the T2 gear scalpers, rather than flame, use you economic vote to express any disapproval of the PWE/Cryptic management, and spend your time not playing out here in the forum blogging. Its good for you

melodywhr · September 2013

tang56 wrote: »

Feywild will probably be the high point for the Zen/AD rate. I can't see there being as many people around for the next module.

you might want to check out this forbes article with jack emmert, cryptic's ceo, where he talks about free-to-play and the different type of players f2p games attract compared to other business models.

Question about Zen price in ADs

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