Rising Gold Prices

icenightwind

This seems like an obvious ploy to make money to me. How would countless sales and Jolly Jones stablise/decrease gold prices? By all logical, it would make it worse. The last Jolly Jones saw the price of gold increase form 105k to 135k. It stayed that way because gold sellers got smart and realised people would still buy at this price, because there will always be demand. The same will happen again! I agree the only way to stablise is gold prices is to force sellers to sell lower, by the game offering infinite gold at a base price. This would probably lose them money. But players will start leaving soon because gold is going up and the value of in-game items is decreasing which can only mean poorer players and a harder game!.

Ladydeadlock - Heavens Tear

Atm it's really easy to gain profits by buying few angles for 55-57k, open the packs and re-sell the items.. Oracles and scarlet fruits have went down in price, but still.... I see that you gain more money than you spend..

truekossy

Ladydeadlock - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Atm it's really easy to gain profits by buying few angles for 55-57k, open the packs and re-sell the items.. Oracles and scarlet fruits have went down in price, but still.... I see that you gain more money than you spend..

Or wait about two weeks after it and then sell for just a bit below the "normal" prices.

Either way you're making a profit, just one way means you get a bit more and have to wait while the other gets it to you immediately.

Desiree - Harshlands

Aoe - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Lol why would do people think everything is a conspiracy. Lol i may not have worded my thread well enough but PWI is still a business and they market like one. When company is doing well sales are frequent it's to encourage more spending. There isn't much wrong about it, it's actually good business.

While ethically distasteful, there is nothing wrong with PWE's business model. Add new sales, generate new revenue. Add new events, generate new revenue. Return old, previously "this-weekend-only" sales, generate new revenue. There IS, however, a huge problem with intentionally trying to mislead the community with false justification of such sales/events. "We made these changes and added these events because we are concerned about current auction-house gold prices and want to help lower it" is nothing but BS and, as another person put it, a "blatant lie". Profiting from paying players is acceptable, but attempting to deceive and mislead players is absolutely not. The issue at hand here isn't so much the sales/events themselves but rather how the GMs are currently "justifying" them.

Rumble - Harshlands

I would have to agree with Desiree. PWI is a corporation and while I don't agree with their approach they are in the business of making money. My prior post was a statement of how the GMs DO effect the economy to educate the few who still don't understand and to suggest a more tempered approach for them to fix things.

However Desiree's post sums up my feelings a bit more precisely. My problem isn't with PWI making money, that's their want and if they go about it poorly the gaming community will react. The issue is with them making the statement they did. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad to hear them comment at all about it. It shows they are listening, but seriously, one or two of them must have stood before a House Senate Committee Hearing Board before because all I heard was "Appease the masses, bs, bs, appease the masses, etc." You should have said "We hear your complaints, we didn't expect it to have this effect and we are monitoring it. We're going to try and change our approach in the future to make sure this doesn't happen again" then actually change your approach and fix it. Don't try and tell us you didn't know what you were doing would have the exact OPPOSITE effect. We all knew it would. Look at prior trends and events. Doesn't take a Jack Welch to see what would happen.

Q to the mutha F'n Q

Of course as a gold buyer I'll sit back and reap in a tidy profit, but hey I'm just going with the flow. Thanks GMs!!!!

MildlyFruity - Heavens Tear

@ in respects to the comments above.

You may not believe Xarfox's original comments, but what evidence do you need to prove that they are trying to keep the gold-coin ratio down? Even with the inflation recently, all servers gold->coin ration is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than any other version of PW out there, even servers that have been out less than the oldest servers here.

So if they were blatantly lying about it, wouldn't this ratio be the worst, or even the same, as other versions of PW?

Or did I miss something?

Rumble - Harshlands

@ the post above......You did in fact miss something. Perhaps economics 101 class.

If the gold to coin ratio is low that means there is less gold out there then coin, which means the supply of gold is low. When they introduce new items every week it creates a fervor that spikes demand for gold. Demand for gold, with gold in short supply creates a situation of inflation, i.e. the price of gold rises. This is because more people want gold then can be supplied so gold sellers can demand higher prices for it. Now in a virtual world it's a bit different then in RL. In a virtual world there is no intrinsic value to the property you are buying and also unlike a nations economy the GMs don't have total control like the Federal Reserve on how much gold hits the streets. This creates variances from a real world situation for sure, but the principal is still the same. Low supply and high demand = high prices.

Now unless the GMs have never taken an economics class, and I highly doubt that, either they are outright lying or they truly believe their course is the best. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say they are not knowingly lying, but they have convinced themselves that their course is the best course because the lure of profit has shaded their vision. One sees what they want to see.

Now of course the community has reacted and hopefully they will look at it from a different point of view and slow down on the "sales", limited time offers and tons of new releases. Truthfully though why should they I guess? I mean it's bringing in good money to them. When ever they do it people go purchase zhen and players in turn buy gold in game. The demand is high, the price goes up and PWI wins. If I were them I'd be hard pressed to tone down these actions while it still makes money in this economy. Imagine how much money they'd make with this tactic in a boom economy? My issue is again with them trying to assuage our concerns with a statement that is fundamentally false.

Mothergoose - Sanctuary

Rumble - Harshlands wrote: »

@ the post above......You did in fact miss something. Perhaps economics 101 class.

If the gold to coin ratio is low that means there is less gold out there then coin, which means the supply of gold is low. When they introduce new items every week it creates a fervor that spikes demand for gold. Demand for gold, with gold in short supply creates a situation of inflation, i.e. the price of gold rises. This is because more people want gold then can be supplied so gold sellers can demand higher prices for it. Now in a virtual world it's a bit different then in RL. In a virtual world there is no intrinsic value to the property you are buying and also unlike a nations economy the GMs don't have total control like the Federal Reserve on how much gold hits the streets. This creates variances from a real world situation for sure, but the principal is still the same. Low supply and high demand = high prices.

Now unless the GMs have never taken an economics class, and I highly doubt that, either they are outright lying or they truly believe their course is the best. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say they are not knowingly lying, but they have convinced themselves that their course is the best course because the lure of profit has shaded their vision. One sees what they want to see.

Now of course the community has reacted and hopefully they will look at it from a different point of view and slow down on the "sales", limited time offers and tons of new releases. Truthfully though why should they I guess? I mean it's bringing in good money to them. When ever they do it people go purchase zhen and players in turn buy gold in game. The demand is high, the price goes up and PWI wins. If I were them I'd be hard pressed to tone down these actions while it still makes money in this economy. Imagine how much money they'd make with this tactic in a boom economy? My issue is again with them trying to assuage our concerns with a statement that is fundamentally false.

You're failing to see the difference between PWI and real economy. Gold in PWI is a luxury, and in a larger sense, the game itself is a luxury. The fundamental differences of luxuries and necessities in affect market behavior is among the first things taught in eco 101.

Gaming population in free-to-play games are divided between 2 groups, those who are willing to pay significant sums to get ahead, and those who won't spend no matter what. Swing players are few in number. By making gold prices higher and item prices lower, paying players can get more per gold, and thus don't have to charge as much zhen to change into gold to get the same gears.

Then, there is the issue of quitting. You cannot quit the real world, but you can quit a game.

Isala - Sanctuary

Mothergoose - Sanctuary wrote: »

Then, there is the issue of quitting. You cannot quit the real world, but you can quit a game.

Hate to be morbid, but people quit the real world all the time.

koukou

Rumble - Harshlands wrote: »

When ever they do it people go purchase zhen and players in turn buy gold in game. The demand is high, the price goes up and PWI wins. If I were them I'd be hard pressed to tone down these actions while it still makes money in this economy. Imagine how much money they'd make with this tactic in a boom economy? My issue is again with them trying to assuage our concerns with a statement that is fundamentally false.

True, and if it continue, they'll hit a wall : there wont be any buyers of AH gold left.

The only profit they'll make will be from players buying zhen for their own use.

If the price of gold is too high, you reduce the number of potential buyers.

If the price of gold is too low, you reduce the number of potential sellers.

In both cases, PWI will be the looser, with less zhen beign bought.

There is a need to find a equilibrum point between the two.

The main problem in a virtual game economy, is that you cannot control the quantity of money (coins) that is created. Everything that a monster drop increase the total coins available. And as time pass, there is more and more coins available ingame. And the more coins the players have, the more they can pay for stuff. And then we have inflation. Those who suffer the most from thath are the new players.

To control that, you have gold sinks. In PWI, you have equipment repairs, teleport fees, skills training, AH fees, etc... Now, is there enough gold sinks into the game? Probably not. At some points, you gather more money than you need to spend. And much of that extra money is injected into the player-to-player economy, that don't reduce the quantity of coins present in the game.

If PWI were to sell gold themselves into the AH, it could be a way to control the economy so gold will remain at a more stable price.

Another solution could be to have NPCs selling cash shop items for a fixed price. The hardest part would be to find the best price so it would remove enough coins from the economy, without making them too easy to acquire so that people would not buy zhen anymore, and not selling them too high so that people could not afford to buy them.

Or, we could have NPC that buy items from players and resell them. For exemple, one NPC could buy a DQ81 item for xxx coins, and resell it for xxxx coins. Providing the item is sold, it would remove more coins from the game world than it put in.

Olba - Sanctuary

koukou wrote: »

True, and if it continue, they'll hit a wall : there wont be any buyers of AH gold left.

The only profit they'll make will be from players buying zhen for their own use.

If the price of gold is too high, you reduce the number of potential buyers.

If the price of gold is too low, you reduce the number of potential sellers.

In both cases, PWI will be the looser, with less zhen beign bought.

There is a need to find a equilibrum point between the two.

The main problem in a virtual game economy, is that you cannot control the quantity of money (coins) that is created. Everything that a monster drop increase the total coins available. And as time pass, there is more and more coins available ingame. And the more coins the players have, the more they can pay for stuff. And then we have inflation. Those who suffer the most from thath are the new players.

To control that, you have gold sinks. In PWI, you have equipment repairs, teleport fees, skills training, AH fees, etc... Now, is there enough gold sinks into the game? Probably not. At some points, you gather more money than you need to spend. And much of that extra money is injected into the player-to-player economy, that don't reduce the quantity of coins present in the game.

I once played an F2P golf game. The game had been ridden with "dirty" currency from abuse of what was called "hacking", it was up to the point where the rarest items cost more than what you could pay in a single transaction. After it moved from an external owner to an American branch of the developing company, they also wiped all players clean of the in-game currency, effectively resetting the market.

If PWI were to sell gold themselves into the AH, it could be a way to control the economy so gold will remain at a more stable price.

Not a good idea, as this would diminish the edge of buying gold with real money, thus making the option only seem good when bonus zhen sales occur.

Another solution could be to have NPCs selling cash shop items for a fixed price. The hardest part would be to find the best price so it would remove enough coins from the economy, without making them too easy to acquire so that people would not buy zhen anymore, and not selling them too high so that people could not afford to buy them.

Not only that, but you would also, yet again, diminish the edge people would get by buying stuff with real money.

The thing is, people won't buy things that are clearly a losing market, not without major complaining at least, such as with the eggs. This means that it won't be possibly for them to create an event that is guaranteed to remove coins from the economy.

A good way I see would be for them to make an event where you receive good prices, such as charms, shards and so forth, just that you couldn't trade them. That is, you could mail them, NPC them or keep them, just not sell them to other players. Of course, since you could mail them, some people would try to trade them by that, but the insecurity of such trades would easily make it not plausible, therefore effectively creating an event that gives players items that they want without the option for them to turn around and make coin profits from them. The only problems would be the coding of such an event, and the fact that if people would buy in masses, they would eventually have to store them on other characters or buy extensions, and of course some of the items could possibly be useless.

As long as people can make any kind of profit via trading, they will do it. And as long as they can make that profit, the amount of coins in the game won't be "stabilized" for too long. And even if you reduce the amount of coins, e.g. the buying capabilities of the demand part of the equation, that won't necessarily stabilize the economy for too long, as the new coins will eventually be gotten and the amount of coin in circulation will be the same and the gold sellers can again sell for high prices.

RedAngel - Dreamweaver

This system relys solely on the people who dont or cannot pay real money. They are forced to do long grinds to cough up their hard earned cash to buy boutique items from catshops. this simple fact cannot be denied and people with the cash will always be on top. Their rl cash converted into game coin is taking up all the in game money.

Now when PWI goes and puts out 4 mounts and puts in 2 permanently , Rainbow Eggs, 3 cases, and then in the same weekend puts in a zhen sale, battle pet packs, 3 new outfits. then following that weekend decided that it would be awesome to introduce the dragon orbs, keeps the battle pet packs on sale, then you got the new million gp boxes in rb that require a gold hammer and you get 2 on completion and then throws jolly old jones into the mix? you just killed you just killed the economy. heres how. you are super inflating the economy just cause you are very greedy pwi. just take the new 1mil chest in rb now. the gold hammer now costs nearly a mil to buy to get a million coin?

the only way to fix the economy is to up the gold drop rates and lower the cost on the boutique items and not throw out like 20 sales in a week and a half period of time. you need to give the server time to use up the items from the boutique. Right now your just gearing out the top player who have cash with the best gear availible. making it very unblalanced in return.

eatwithspoons

There is no sure fire way to "fix" the economy. All you need to do is look at real world examples to see that. I think a lot of this inflation is coming from the stuff that just got put in. There's no way to get a clear view of the current economic state until you wait a while for things to calm down.

/brokenrecord

Rumble - Harshlands

@Mothergoose - I'm not sure if you meant it as such, but you do realize we are in agreement. b:chuckle. If that was your intent then I misread the tone and apologize.

For the rest of you playing along in this fun filled game show her point further drives home the issue. In a lean economy Cash Shop use is seen as a luxury so as times get worse the usage goes down. Also with players leaving that income goes away. It could be argued though that for every CS player that leaves a new one comes on board. This may be true. Neither point, reduction in zhen charging or loss of CS using players can be confirmed without data, but in this economy it is a logical step.

Regardless this only further lowers the supply of gold and with heightened demand the cost continues to go up. I got a chuckle out of seeing someone sell the rb gold box in arch for 400k, with hammers going for 1 million. That would be a nice purchase. -600k. Where do I sign up for an investment like that. In the catshop owners defense I think it was Bernie Madoff so it makes sense.

I don't think offering CS items in a boutique for non-CS players would work. Sure it would likely reduce the cost of gold because players wouldn't be as dependent on it, but then less people would buy gold. This would make the supply drop further and the price rise so the boutique items not offered for in game coins would be ridiculous. It would also have the effect of much lower revenue for PWI. Not really something anyone wants, even the players believe it or not. (To include me)

It is evident though that the GMs are not listening to us despite the fact we gave them so much credit for paying us lip/ear service. It cracks me up that as I went to read the forums I saw a new SALE SALE SALE!!! "Hey we didn't get enough of your money last week or drive up the need and demand for gold last weekend so we're going to swing on through again and see if we can clean you out some more". I mean it's outrageous. Plus they try and claim it's because it's what we want and they're doing a favor for us. Here we are all complaining that the price of gold has risen due to too much demand and they go and offer more stuff. It shameful in my opinion.

But hey what do I know. Personally I'm gonna go charge up some zhen and see if I can get the Gold Charm prices on HL up to 800k each. Now THAT would be sweet. Money, money, money, money.

Rumble - Harshlands

Eatswithspoons - To be honest and not trying to be offensive here, but if you just made a statement like inflation is caused "from the stuff just put in" Then why go and put more stuff in again this weekend? (Another Blowout Sale) Isn't that contrary to logic and good judgment? You yourself see the link between the two yet you continue to exasperate the issue?

"Look at the real world examples" is a smart way to look at it, but if we do that and look at the fundamentals we get high demand (limited and new items + new demand for CS items in game) + low (or even steady) supply (gold) = inflation. It happens the world over. No magic here. So looking at the real world what should be done to fix it. Changing any of the figures on the left will have an effect on the right. Increasing demand will increase inflation, lowering supply will increase inflation, decreasing demand will lower inflation or increasing supply would lower inflation. Now the bonus zhen sales is a way of increasing supply. Good on ya for sure. I am not in favor of you guys capping gold price or selling it in game yourself as it will lower your revenue. No revenue for PWI = no free to play and no new dev and no one wants that. We all want you to get your share of the pie. Let's just take a step back and slow down the CS intensive needs in the game and slow down the blowout sales. That's all I'm saying. How about once a month? Or every 2 months? Who knows.

I do applaud the approach of not making a knee jerk reaction. We also wouldn't want a recession here. But adding fuel (blow out sales) to the fire is not a good idea either.

eatwithspoons

Rumble - Harshlands wrote: »

Eatswithspoons - To be honest and not trying to be offensive here, but if you just made a statement like inflation is caused "from the stuff just put in" Then why go and put more stuff in again this weekend? (Another Blowout Sale) Isn't that contrary to logic and good judgment? You yourself see the link between the two yet you continue to exasperate the issue?

"Look at the real world examples" is a smart way to look at it, but if we do that and look at the fundamentals we get high demand (limited and new items + new demand for CS items in game) + low (or even steady) supply (gold) = inflation. It happens the world over. No magic here. So looking at the real world what should be done to fix it. Changing any of the figures on the left will have an effect on the right. Increasing demand will increase inflation, lowering supply will increase inflation, decreasing demand will lower inflation or increasing supply would lower inflation. Now the bonus zhen sales is a way of increasing supply. Good on ya for sure. I am not in favor of you guys capping gold price or selling it in game yourself as it will lower your revenue. No revenue for PWI = no free to play and no new dev and no one wants that. We all want you to get your share of the pie. Let's just take a step back and slow down the CS intensive needs in the game and slow down the blowout sales. That's all I'm saying. How about once a month? Or every 2 months? Who knows.

I do applaud the approach of not making a knee jerk reaction. We also wouldn't want a recession here. But adding fuel (blow out sales) to the fire is not a good idea either.

I understand that, but please note that sales are not in my job description. It's the same blowout sale that ended early and got us yelled at last weekend. We brought it back because it seemed like the players wanted us to. We can't please everyone, and that's a fact that we must accept.

Rumble - Harshlands

Fair enough. As always I appreciate your candor and your willingness to speak up and not shy away from a potential conflict or issue. It speaks volumes in that regard for the PWI Staff and Team.

Best regards

eatwithspoons

Rumble - Harshlands wrote: »

Fair enough. As always I appreciate your candor and your willingness to speak up and not shy away from a potential conflict or issue. It speaks volumes in that regard for the PWI Staff and Team.

Best regards

I know I sound like a broken record, but we are really all in the same boat. I play PWI legit too so I empathize with most of the concerns stated in these forums. b:victory Thanks for hearing me out

ButtHurt - Lost City

say hello to the weekend blow out sale #2

eatwithspoons

I hope these post removals get my point across. Do not make threats or implications regarding other games. Posting release dates and prices is just as bad as openly promoting it. There are definitely better ways to elaborate on your points.

Venomeow - Sanctuary

I think I feel more sorry for the previous boa owners than the people who think gold prices are too high. lol.

Venomeow - Sanctuary wrote: »

Oh no! Gold prices are through the roof! I can't buy anything!

Q_Q

b:sweat

So now you have the following options:

-Wait it out.
-Suck it and buy gold anyway.
-Spend real life money.


Take your pick~ b:victory

RedsRose - Lost City

I just think people need to stop crying about this.

As mentioned before, this is simple (kinda....and yes, I know it is a game) Economics.

Gold Demand ^ = Gold Prices ^

^ Costs of items with sale and flooding of market with them = V Prices

After the sale -->

V Prices because of the influx of items in the market

Gold Prices V

(this is in general of course...but we will see this)

This is not thefirst nor will it ever be the last....b:surrender

darkjagans

eatwithspoons wrote: »

I understand that, but please note that sales are not in my job description. It's the same blowout sale that ended early and got us yelled at last weekend. We brought it back because it seemed like the players wanted us to. We can't please everyone, and that's a fact that we must accept.

well... it didn't have to be so soon, especially when you guys do acknowledge that at the moment gold prices are at such high extremes

and was it really necessary considering the game currently has so much other sales and the Jolly Old Jones' events going along with it

Jolly Old Jones + Dragon Orbs + Charm Packs + 3 Limited Edition Mounts + Battle Pet Pack Sale + Rainbow Eggs

damn...
bit too much if you ask me...

that being said though... How long is this 2nd mount sale going to last? just for 1 day?

Venomeow - Sanctuary

Refer to: http://pwi.perfectworld.com/news/newsubpage/weekend-blow-out-sale-2-5251

Friday - Monday

RedsRose - Lost City

darkjagans wrote: »

that being said though... How long is this 2nd mount sale going to last? just for 1 day?

It is in the Annoucements:

This sale will run from Friday at 1:00am Server Time until Monday at 1:00am Server Time!

All weekend!!

darkjagans

Venomeow - Sanctuary wrote: »

Refer to: http://pwi.perfectworld.com/news/newsubpage/weekend-blow-out-sale-2-5251

Friday - Monday

oh right...

thought that was still old info from the previous weekb:chuckle

Brael - Dreamweaver

darkjagans wrote: »

well... it didn't have to be so soon, especially when you guys do acknowledge that at the moment gold prices are at such high extremes

I have to disagree, I think in this case the sooner it is, the better. People bought gold already to take advantage of it and people (myself included) get impatient if having to wait for a long time. Not to mention, it was public knowledge the sale would come back, I would say having the anticipation of the sale there has almost as much of a market impact as having the sale itself does.

This is why sales don't get announced in advance, but in this case it was in advance, just a specific date wasn't given.

bloblette

I'm also unconvinced by OP's explanation. Other than the few fools that rush out and pay 100k to jolly before the GA catshops are set up next to him, I don't see how such reportedly vast amounts of coin can go.

However if constant sales mean faster content and fixes then bring 'em on. PWI needs to pay those devs somehow.

jcrondo

Wouldn't a valid option to lower the gold price be to lower the amount of coins coming from the cube? Wouldn't that mean the players can't profit from them and the demand of gold would drop and thus leading to a decrease in gold price?

Olba - Sanctuary

jcrondo wrote: »

Wouldn't a valid option to lower the gold price be to lower the amount of coins coming from the cube? Wouldn't that mean the players can't profit from them and the demand of gold would drop and thus leading to a decrease in gold price?

Well, for people to open those boxes, the prize has to be more than the cost to open it. Even if you lower those boxes to, say, 500,000, that won't do much, as people will only open them when the Gold would go below 100,000 each. Of course, Cube already has a few rooms where you can get millions out of, but those are hardly an issue. I would say that the biggest issues are the land-owning factions that get hundreds of millions in short amounts of time. That automatically qualifies them for not only being able to afford anything, but also able to overpay by a huge margin if they are in a hurry, thus adding the huge amounts of coin to circulation. Also, the amounts of coin that you get for owning land are ridiculous, as it pumps hundreds of millions to the game, out of which most is stored away while portions are used in bidding wars and funding TWs via salaries and faction-sponsored stuff.