Gold discussion... again

Asterelle - Sanctuary_1381265973

Zoe - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Not at all. The ones selling have the ability to NOT sell for a higher price. Raising the price just because they can is simply being greedy.

There is no "supply and demand" there is simply greedy people raising prices. It does not matter if you have the only item on a server that the rest of the server wants, does that force you to sell it for an obscene price? No. You, as the seller, have the unique ability to NOT sell for a high price. To not use this ability, only reveals your greed.

Buyers are greedy. They want what everyone wants all for themselves while giving as little coin as possible. If you want lower prices that is the same thing as saying you want more and more gold for the same amount of coin.


Sellers try to maximize the coin they can get.
Buyers try to maximize the gold they can get.
Both are trying to get as much as they can with what resources they have. The price they meet at is the market price and is naturally fair for both sides.

Solandri - Heavens Tear

Darksylph - Heavens Tear wrote: »

The prices are not the fault of the sellers, NOR are they the fault of the buyers. The fault lies entirely with PWE. Now hold on, dont balk, let me walk you through it.
[...]
Now we head over to PWE, lets face it, they WANT more gold bought. They couldnt care less what the actual price of gold is, as long as it encourages people to charge zen. They dont have many ways to actually effect the supply side of of the equation, other then zen sales, but that reaches relatively equal profits as they make less per transaction but sell more. It doesnt help their bottom line.

However, what they CAN effect is the demand side of the equation. If they can increase demand, the price goes up. If the price goes up, the number of people wanting to supply increases. If the number of people wanting to supply goes up, PWE makes more money.

Actually, PWE does affect the supply side of gold too - by making change which frustrate players who are paying a lot of RL money to sell for coin so they don't have to farm it. If these players get frustrated enough to quit, the amount of gold for sale decreases, and the price of gold goes up.

Zoe - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Not at all. The ones selling have the ability to NOT sell for a higher price. Raising the price just because they can is simply being greedy.

The flip side of this is that the ones buying have the ability to NOT buy for a lower price. Demanding the lowest price just because they can is simply being greedy. (And yes they can demand it because just as the seller has the gold, the buyer has the coin and can refuse to buy unless they're happy with the price.)

The two sides are completely reversible. On the auctioneer, a gold seller can place gold at a certain price, which a gold buyer (coin seller) can agree to. A coin seller can place coin at a certain price, which a coin buyer (gold seller) can agree to. The difference between these two is the spread price of gold. And the average is the market price.

So you can't pin the blame on the seller because both sides are sellers. One side is selling gold, the other side is selling coin.

There is no "supply and demand" there is simply greedy people raising prices.

When the price of gold goes up, the price of coin is going down.
When the price of coin goes up, the price of gold is going down.
A rise in the price of gold is a drop in the price of the other. There is no unilateral raising of prices.

Both are the result of greedy people raising prices, and greedy people refusing to buy unless the price is low enough. There is no difference between the people selling gold and the people selling coin.

The fluctuations in the price of gold ultimately stem from the desirability of each:

• Add desirable coin sinks (e.g. the 600k fee some people are paying to try to get capes from trophy mode) and the value of coin will go up, meaning the price of gold will go down.
• Add desirable gold sinks (e.g. packs) and the value of gold will go up, meaning the price of coin will go down.

The root cause of the rise of the price of gold is that PWE has been adding a lot more desirable gold sinks than coin sinks.

Tinaaaaaa - Lost City

Zoe - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Not at all. The ones selling have the ability to NOT sell for a higher price. Raising the price just because they can is simply being greedy.

There is no "supply and demand" there is simply greedy people raising prices. It does not matter if you have the only item on a server that the rest of the server wants, does that force you to sell it for an obscene price? No. You, as the seller, have the unique ability to NOT sell for a high price. To not use this ability, only reveals your greed.

LOLucrazy:? If I am the only person on the server with 1 item everyone wants, im gonna over price the hell out of it LOL b:byeb:dirty


you are just to stupid if u dont overprice it.

SashaGray - Heavens Tear

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary wrote: »

Hmmm... I think maybe you've misread me, because I completely agree with you.

My point was that many people got it backwards and insisted that Chest of Coins were holding Gold prices below 200k, when the exact opposite was true.

i figured it was a miscommunication, you know the market manipulations at least as well as anyone else playing.

Okeano - Harshlands

Zoe - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Not at all. The ones selling have the ability to NOT sell for a higher price. Raising the price just because they can is simply being greedy.

There is no "supply and demand" there is simply greedy people raising prices. It does not matter if you have the only item on a server that the rest of the server wants, does that force you to sell it for an obscene price? No. You, as the seller, have the unique ability to NOT sell for a high price. To not use this ability, only reveals your greed.

Zoe, what are you, 10, or have you been using rocks as currency? Aren't you greedy for trying to sell your coins for as many gold as possible? If not then sell your coins for less gold, so instead of selling your 1 mil coins for 2 gold, stop being greedy and selling it for one gold. And yes, there is a coin selling section in gold trading, it's the lower half.

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary

I think it might be a bit unfair for everybody to jump on Zoe. Zoe's beliefs represent a way of thinking that's very common.

"Supply and Demand" assumes everybody is acting the same. Buyers are greedy and want to pay as little as possible, while sellers are greedy and want to charge as much as possible, and somewhere in the middle they meet.

But Zoe is coming from a perspective of "the Haves vs. the Have-Nots"

The Have-Nots look at rich people who have lots of stuff (be it Gold, coins, items, etc...) and feel that they should have equal access to that wealth. It's not fair, they feel, for the Haves to keep getting more and more.

Now, it's all well-and-good to start pointing out that the reasons the Haves have so much and the Have-Nots have so little is because of the choices each has made, but that's only going to appeal to people who are thinking rationally, ie. the Haves. The Have-Nots would much rather hear that the reasons are because of some sort of moralistic offense the Haves have committed, and that therefor the Have-Nots are innocent victims who have been wronged.

Rationally, Zoe's logic may make no sense, but people aren't rational. I've watched perfectly decent people become jealous, bitter, resentful, and in some cases abusive because I've managed to accumulate a bunch of pixel-wealth that I'm reluctant to just start giving away for free. Or even in some cases I've watched as they've gotten furiously jealous because I gave somebody else a slightly bigger hand-out than I gave them.

Emotionally, Zoe's argument is very persuasive.

FiDollaYou - Sanctuary

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary wrote: »

I think it might be a bit unfair for everybody to jump on Zoe. Zoe's beliefs represent a way of thinking that's very common.

"Supply and Demand" assumes everybody is acting the same. Buyers are greedy and want to pay as little as possible, while sellers are greedy and want to charge as much as possible, and somewhere in the middle they meet.

But Zoe is coming from a perspective of "the Haves vs. the Have-Nots"

The Have-Nots look at rich people who have lots of stuff (be it Gold, coins, items, etc...) and feel that they should have equal access to that wealth. It's not fair, they feel, for the Haves to keep getting more and more.

Now, it's all well-and-good to start pointing out that the reasons the Haves have so much and the Have-Nots have so little is because of the choices each has made, but that's only going to appeal to people who are thinking rationally, ie. the Haves. The Have-Nots would much rather hear that the reasons are because of some sort of moralistic offense the Haves have committed, and that therefor the Have-Nots are innocent victims who have been wronged.

Rationally, Zoe's logic may make no sense, but people aren't rational. I've watched perfectly decent people become jealous, bitter, resentful, and in some cases abusive because I've managed to accumulate a bunch of pixel-wealth that I'm reluctant to just start giving away for free. Or even in some cases I've watched as they've gotten furiously jealous because I gave somebody else a slightly bigger hand-out than I gave them.

Emotionally, Zoe's argument is very persuasive.

Very persuasive and very common. Hmmm... where have I seen this kind of thinking before... Oh yeah, here.

NightRage - Raging Tide

For anyone new to these forums, Zoe is a troll. And I don't mean troll like my kind of troll. I mean the Yulk version, where they say asinine things and totally believe them. Just ignore those posts.

Borsuc - Raging Tide

Zoe - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Not at all. The ones selling have the ability to NOT sell for a higher price. Raising the price just because they can is simply being greedy.

There is no "supply and demand" there is simply greedy people raising prices. It does not matter if you have the only item on a server that the rest of the server wants, does that force you to sell it for an obscene price? No. You, as the seller, have the unique ability to NOT sell for a high price. To not use this ability, only reveals your greed.

Consider this: the monopoly holder simply puts the item in an auction.

Who do you think will get it in the end? The one who bids the most. Also known as BUYER, not seller. Yes, this creates a rank in the market, it doesn't matter how much "wealth" you have, it only matters your wealth in comparison to others (less or more) so you can bid higher.

This arises because of the finite amount of resources, in this case only ONE item that MANY people want, that exist in the game. However, we all know, that a game is supposed to be a GAME, not have the faults of the real world. The resources should be limitless as long as you keep playing the game (farming or whatever other terms they call it).

Only problem is that people want to buy gold so they can use cash shop items, usually exclusive to the cash shop. THAT is the problem. For example, you cannot farm a scroll of tome through playing the game -- and I doubt there's enough scrolls of tomes for everyone who wants one!

This creates a "top X richest people who want it get it" since, how else would you distribute a LESSER amount of resources than people who need?

So if you want to fix this, look at it from a different side.

NightRage - Raging Tide

Borsuc - Raging Tide wrote: »

Everybody should be able to get anything they want with enough effort.

They can.

Borsuc - Raging Tide

Not really. If there's only X amount of items on the server, and you can't acquire it through farming or playing the game (otherwise known as effort, as charging that credit card is not considered "effort" as far as I know at least), then naturally, that would go to the X highest bidders.

You can farm and play all you want: as long as they are above you and they also keep farming, they will get it (inflating the price of it).

Your effort here doesn't mean anything. Your effort/profit in comparison to others is what matters. Some sort of ranking system. And that is not good.

Kupuntu - Sanctuary

Borsuc - Raging Tide wrote: »

Only problem is that people want to buy gold so they can use cash shop items, usually exclusive to the cash shop. THAT is the problem. For example, you cannot farm a scroll of tome through playing the game -- and I doubt there's enough scrolls of tomes for everyone who wants one!

If the item was something common, I see it why it would be a problem. But all of the items you get from the packs are luxuries. In my opinion it's more of a "necessary evil" than a problem since it brings in cash.

Borsuc - Raging Tide

Not just packs, think of D.Orbs as well. You know gameplay-altering stuff that costs a crapton of money.

Thelas_Carr - Sanctuary

Borsuc - Raging Tide wrote: »

Not really. If there's only X amount of items on the server, and you can't acquire it through farming or playing the game...

While your statement is true, the example you gave for Scroll of Tome does not fit the assertion. There are few of them in the game, but under the assumption that they'll never remove packs because they are so profitable, then there is an unbounded source of Scroll of Tome over time. If there's only "X" items in the game, then yeah, they're likely not even going to be buyable (for example a GM event that provides 10 full-blown Warsong Weapons per server by some contest of skill and/or luck when the equivalent price to farm those weapons is $40,000 USD... then there's only X items ever pretty much where X = 10 in the case conjectured above for the sake of argument).

Borsuc - Raging Tide wrote:

You can farm and play all you want: as long as they are above you and they also keep farming, they will get it (inflating the price of it).

Why buy it (e.g., a Scroll of Tome) from someone else when you can simply farm coin, buy gold, and buy the packs yourself? A Year of the Tiger Pack has a 0.002% chance to give a Tome of Scroll... On sale right now they cost $33.75 USD for a pack of 50. You'd have to buy 792 packs to have an 80% confidence of getting a Scroll of Tome with that probability rate in a binomial distribution, so that's about $535 USD and STILL a 20% chance that you won't get one... Let's assume you do get one... Even when coin was 400k/gold, that's 213,840,000 coin... Last I checked, Scroll of Tome was going for 60M not 214M... so if you're complaining so loudly about such a DEAL, then you need some schoolin' on probabilty theory and basic economics.

Borsuc - Raging Tide wrote:

Your effort here doesn't mean anything. Your effort/profit in comparison to others is what matters. Some sort of ranking system. And that is not good.

If you want ultra-rare goodies sure, but if you want everyday stuff that is readily available in the Catshop, then you're way off the mark. It's just like the real-world where buying 1 lottery ticket gives you a million-to-one shot of getting a $20M cash prize. Is spending the extra dollar for a million-to-two shot worth the investment? Some would say twice nothing is still nothing while others would say that you just DOUBLED your chances of winning $20M. Quite the conundrum, eh? *lol*

Kupuntu - Sanctuary

Borsuc - Raging Tide wrote: »

Not just packs, think of D.Orbs as well. You know gameplay-altering stuff that costs a crapton of money.

In the current economy, everyone has an access to d. orbs since there is so much gold on sale. And when you lose that access, the game is essentially dead.

If the d. orbs were farmable only, it would still probably be an exclusive thing to best farmers, comparable to the current TT3-3.

FiDollaYou - Sanctuary

Borsuc - Raging Tide wrote: »

Not really. If there's only X amount of items on the server, and you can't acquire it through farming or playing the game (otherwise known as effort, as charging that credit card is not considered "effort" as far as I know at least), then naturally, that would go to the X highest bidders.

Honestly, what we have are two paths for acquiring wealth in this game. The first path is through in-game mechanics (farming, merchanting, etc.), and the second is through purchasing Zen with RL money. Why do you believe that one path is better than the other?

Borsuc - Raging Tide wrote: »

You can farm and play all you want: as long as they are above you and they also keep farming, they will get it (inflating the price of it).

Your effort here doesn't mean anything. Your effort/profit in comparison to others is what matters. Some sort of ranking system. And that is not good.

Why is this not good? I'm curious as to your reasoning for stating that a ranking system WRT material acquisition is not good.

Borsuc - Raging Tide

You guys don't get it. The reason the gold supply seems infinite is because of the high prices that it is set at. Or rather, the opposite is a more reasonable assertion. Because of the finite and cash-shop exclusive supply of gold (really because of cash shop exclusive stuff that only gold can buy), and people who can't acquire it wanting it, the top ones set the demand price for it. If top X people have 1mil to spend on gold, but there's Y below, and there's only enough gold for the top X, then guess what the prices will be? You guess it, 1mil.

A scroll of tome is let's say ~150mil. Now, this price may seem like "well I can farm as over time, I'll get enough coin to buy it", but the reason the price is so high is because of its scarcity in the first place. A scarcity affected by charging zen only and that is a problem.

It may seem like there is an endless supply of gold over time, because you can move in the market's ranking, but under ideal conditions, the amount of gold and coin at one time affect its price, so that only top X who have that coin of the server can get it.

Thus it seems "infinite" for those that do NOT have the coin, because they won't afford it anyway! They can think that they can farm harder to get it, but they will just work up their ranking (assuming others do not!), effectively making someone else, who has been shifted now down the market ranking, complain that he can't afford gold anymore.

EDIT: tl;dr the prices are the outcome of exclusivity and scarcity -- when something costs more than the average GDP per capita or whatever you want to call it, it becomes an item that the average player will not be able to afford, now matter how hard he works. IF he does acquire it through hard work, it means he shifted his position above average and now someone else has to fill that spot of course.

Valirah - Sanctuary

Thelas_Carr - Sanctuary wrote: »

Why buy it (e.g., a Scroll of Tome) from someone else when you can simply farm coin, buy gold, and buy the packs yourself? A Year of the Tiger Pack has a 0.002% chance to give a Tome of Scroll... On sale right now they cost $33.75 USD for a pack of 50. You'd have to buy 792 packs to have an 80% confidence of getting a Scroll of Tome with that probability rate in a binomial distribution, so that's about $535 USD and STILL a 20% chance that you won't get one... Let's assume you do get one... Even when coin was 400k/gold, that's 213,840,000 coin... Last I checked, Scroll of Tome was going for 60M not 214M... so if you're complaining so loudly about such a DEAL, then you need some schoolin' on probabilty theory and basic economics.

What are you smoking?

A 0.002% chance is 1 out of 50000. How exactly does 792 tries at that grant you an 80% chance of success?

Also, a Scoll of Tome goes for 200M+ on Sanctuary, you might be thinking of a Script of Fate (which makes L5 tomes), they go for 50-60M.

FiDollaYou - Sanctuary

Borsuc - Raging Tide wrote: »

You guys don't get it. The reason the gold supply seems infinite is because of the high prices that it is set at. Or rather, the opposite is a more reasonable assertion. Because of the finite and cash-shop exclusive supply of gold (really because of cash shop exclusive stuff that only gold can buy), and people who can't acquire it wanting it, the top ones set the demand price for it. If top X people have 1mil to spend on gold, but there's Y below, and there's only enough gold for the top X, then guess what the prices will be? You guess it, 1mil.

A scroll of tome is let's say ~150mil. Now, this price may seem like "well I can farm as over time, I'll get enough coin to buy it", but the reason the price is so high is because of its scarcity in the first place. A scarcity affected by charging zen only and that is a problem.

It may seem like there is an endless supply of gold over time, because you can move in the market's ranking, but under ideal conditions, the amount of gold and coin at one time affect its price, so that only top X who have that coin of the server can get it.

Thus it seems "infinite" for those that do NOT have the coin, because they won't afford it anyway! They can think that they can farm harder to get it, but they will just work up their ranking (assuming others do not!), effectively making someone else, who has been shifted now down the market ranking, complain that he can't afford gold anymore.

EDIT: tl;dr the prices are the outcome of exclusivity and scarcity -- when something costs more than the average GDP per capita or whatever you want to call it, it becomes an item that the average player will not be able to afford, now matter how hard he works. IF he does acquire it through hard work, it means he shifted his position above average and now someone else has to fill that spot of course.

You do realize that's the effective meaning of the word "average", right? Or do you want everyone in the game to be above average?

Wuss - Harshlands

yall are missing the bottom line here..

pwi wants to end coin farmers.. well

when 10mil = 20 dollars from coin farmers
and 50mil = 100 dollars from pwi at 500k per gold

they have evened out th playing field...

what they fail to realise is non cash shoppers or players to lazy to wait to resell there gold are gonna always go to the coin farmers.. whether they dont wonna help some assclown charging high prices or simply dont want to wait for the gold to sell in auction

another thing this is pushing players into is botting.. 500k is allot lets say the average 80+ grinds 2mil a day that was all day sitting there killing random mobs.. the average player doesnt want to waste that much time therefore they bot..

now there are many bots out there some free and generic some very nice and pay to use.. bottom line is players will so what it takes to stay competative using the pwi cash shop or not

prices have to come down on everything in the cash shop in order to bring coin prices down and stop players from looking into these outside sources to stay at par... we all know pwe is a greedy money ***** but it is soon to be there downfall

NightRage - Raging Tide

FiDollaYou - Sanctuary wrote: »

You do realize that's the effective meaning of the word "average", right? Or do you want everyone in the game to be above average?

Yes, that's what he wants. He wants everybody to be able to obtain everything.

DaKillanator - Raging Tide

He must be communist b:shocked

Borsuc - Raging Tide

Well first of all everyone being above average is impossible since that would be the new average...

Now I do get what you guys meant, and yes, I'm a "communist" in games, but simply based on effort: equal effort, equal gains, as a rule of thumb. (not babysitted like in the "real" communism ofc, but let's not get into that since I disagree anyway).

At least as far as gameplay is concerned (not looks or fashion or titles or w/e), there shouldn't be exclusive items only available to a few to make them more powerful. I have no issues with non-gameplay altering things, such as "rare mounts" or things like that (provided they aren't faster, which they aren't).

"Rare" stuff is what I don't like. After all it's a game, at least give everyone the same chances, not have some guy screwed because the economy he lived in was dominated by a lot more hardcore people than 5-6 months ago, for example.

Since this is easily possible in a game (devs are like Gods after all), I don't see why it shouldn't be done. It would make the game more enjoyable for every player... except the ones who think they are entitled to better stats/power than others :P (with same effort)

Michael_Dark - Lost City

Borsuc - Raging Tide wrote: »

"Rare" stuff is what I don't like. After all it's a game, at least give everyone the same chances, not have some guy screwed because the economy he lived in was dominated by a lot more hardcore people than 5-6 months ago, for example.

Since this is easily possible in a game (devs are like Gods after all), I don't see why it shouldn't be done. It would make the game more enjoyable for every player... except the ones who think they are entitled to better stats/power than others :P (with same effort)

As I've said to you many times in the past... you're playing the wrong game.

Giving everything to everyone makes the whole point of playing the game pointless. You should stick to single-player RPGs or FPS games. They're more your 'style'.

Borsuc - Raging Tide

Eh not without effort. What's so bad about having a traditional-style RPG but with a large community? In a normal RPG you could get all stuff by yourself, didn't have to rely on others' to trade (although that would be convenient often it wasn't NEEDED).

TT gear is one example. It is like that. People can buy it, and often do so for convenience. But you can always farm it yourself if you want to. You can farm the subs also yourself. etc

FiDollaYou - Sanctuary

Borsuc - Raging Tide wrote: »

... you could get all stuff by yourself, didn't have to rely on others'....

You don't quite get the "MM" in MMO, do you?

Remmi - Raging Tide

As a side effect ( or maybe intended) ; It's feeding addiction:

>you want the gold, you work for it, you get a reward: the gold

>prices go up, you work longer, you get the reward

>prices go up further, you work as long as you can , you get a little less, but stil almost make it.

>prices go down, you don't work less, you try to make more; you want it now, this is your chance; you get a good reward

>prices go up again: now you need to work harder and harder to make what you made before.

conclusion:
If prices keep going up; you will continue to work harder and harder for less and less; like the chinese are doing on their servers. You have now become a hamster in a wheel congrats. b:bye

Borsuc - Raging Tide

FiDollaYou - Sanctuary wrote: »

You don't quite get the "MM" in MMO, do you?

So there is no MM in the way TT is set up? b:question

I didn't say you must NOT interact with others... just that you could get, theoretically, everything by yourself (or with your squad ofc). This is hugely important -- NOT that everyone will do everything by himself, because a lot of people will choose something different. Some prefer to run X, others Y, etc... as long as it's possible to do so. Everyone will probably do different things, but you can't farm something that doesn't drop!

Say, if you wanted to sell D.Orbs to buy TT mats... only way possible is if you "farm" the "cash shop" with that credit card of yours. Which leads to gold being needed for gameplay altering stuff... and refining is major btw.

Thelas_Carr - Sanctuary

Valirah - Sanctuary wrote: »

What are you smoking?

A 0.002% chance is 1 out of 50000. How exactly does 792 tries at that grant you an 80% chance of success?

Also, a Scoll of Tome goes for 200M+ on Sanctuary, you might be thinking of a Script of Fate (which makes L5 tomes), they go for 50-60M.

My error... used 0.2% instead of 0.002% in the binomial distribution. If you bought 50,000 packs, that's only a 50% chance that you'll actually get a Scroll of Tome. Same way that if you flip a coin it has a 50% chance of landing heads, but if you only flip it twice, there's only a 75% chance you'll get heads (your chances of getting heads keeps improving but is never 100%). If that doesn't make sense, Goggle "Binomial Distribution" or "Probability Theory."

FiDollaYou - Sanctuary

Borsuc - Raging Tide wrote: »

So there is no MM in the way TT is set up? b:question

I didn't say you must NOT interact with others... just that you could get, theoretically, everything by yourself (or with your squad ofc). This is hugely important -- NOT that everyone will do everything by himself, because a lot of people will choose something different. Some prefer to run X, others Y, etc... as long as it's possible to do so. Everyone will probably do different things, but you can't farm something that doesn't drop!

Say, if you wanted to sell D.Orbs to buy TT mats... only way possible is if you "farm" the "cash shop" with that credit card of yours. Which leads to gold being needed for gameplay altering stuff... and refining is major btw.

There is absolutely nothing in this game that you can't get if you put in enough time and effort. However, there ARE things in the game that you cannot get without someone (you or someone else) buying Cash Shop items. Either you buy Gold from the company, or you buy gold/boutique items from someone else. Technically you CAN get everything without ever interacting with another person in the game, but it'll probably cost you a goodly chunk of RL cash. It's not optimum, and probably not all that fun, but if that's the way you choose to play, well more power to ya. As for having to depend on the cash shop for some items, well, welcome to F2P - they're going to make money some way or another.

However, you are right that it is not possible to get everything in game without either spending IRL cash or interacting with other players. Tough luck. Maybe others are right, and a single player game is more your style.