Gold prices steadily increasing

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary

Elenacostel - Heavens Tear wrote: »

However, Sir WarrenWolfy, I unsure as to your stance on the following: should the average player be required to arrive to such conclusions if they simply want to buy items from the Item Mall?

I feel they should not. The average player just wants to play an MMORPG. Not become an connoisseur of MMORPG economics. Thus, I do not really fault the average player for wanting things that they cannot realistically get.

I completely agree with you.

The game was much more gamer-friendly back when the cash-shop contained almost exclusively vanity and convenience items.

But when PWI introduced high-volume cash-shop items that had a very clearly calculable in-game value, that era came to an end. The game is certainly poorer because of it, and there's nothing the players can do about it if PWI has chosen to run the game economy this way.

Muah - Heavens Tear

Ois - Lost City wrote: »

Wasn't there a gold cap of 1 mil in this version before? I swear there was...maybe I'm wrong though.

I don't know if anyone actually answered this but YES, as far as I know the gold cap is still in AH at 2m. People sold out of AH in december because gold prices reached over the cap due to the rep sale etc.

Lythianaa - Dreamweaver

Well, I know I'm not going to become the hardcore player for this game as I was before. I'm just back on casually to just hang out and do some runs with friends or PUGs. I hope I do not get sucked into the cash shop craze like I did before; I feel there's no point anymore wasting my money in this game that I won't be on much anymore :[

i got most of my gear so I'm satisfied though

XxZavxX - Raging Tide

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary wrote: »

Fortunately for me, most players are "smart", and would agree with you. b:chuckle

But unfortunately for them, an idiot like me then comes along. b:laugh

"Smart" players refuse to raise their bid prices in hopes that their resolve will result in Gold prices slowly going down. They feel very strongly that their reasoning makes perfect sense, and inevitably are upset that the rest of PWI doesn't do things according to what they think everyone ought to do.

I'm an idiot, though, so I let basic math do my thinking for me instead.

First, I let Excel add up the value of all the rewards that come out of Easy Rider Packs, and I find that they pay out about ~375k per Pack.

Next, I add 20% to that price because people love to gamble, so they're willing to pay more than they're actually worth in hopes of getting lucky. That brings us to ~450k.

Now this is where I ignore all that highfalutin' nonsense about supply and demand, and how the players set Gold prices, and about greed, and about being smart/stupid, etc..., etc..., etc... Those explanations are for "smart" people, and I prefer to stay as stupid as possible and let brainless, objective, opinion-less math do all the work instead.

So I just do a straight-forward division based on whatever PWI is selling Packs for: 450k per Pack / 0.36 Gold per Pack = 1.25 million per Gold.

Ta da! I now know the base-line price for Gold, as set by PWI's current 0.36 Gold per Pack exchange rate. Which is why back when Gold was selling for 1.1 million and the "smart" people were refusing to buy for such a "high" price, I was furiously buying as much as I could, knowing that it was actually under-priced.

Of course, 1.25 million is just the base-line. The current price is higher than that because of the Rep/Badge sale followed by the Dragon Orb sale.

Ultimately, "smart" players who refuse to pay "high" prices are actually just clueless about how easily and predictably Gold prices are controlled, and about how powerless players are to do anything about it. They can argue with idiots like me all they want, but meanwhile the idiots are scooping up all the profits.

You prove my point for me. You buy gold when it is higher. As I do. I merchant too. The issue is is people say PWE controls gold prices. Like hell they do. You admit to making it higher while being off subject.


I just know better that to blame PWE for player habits when it comes to economics.

Naturion - Dreamweaver

Thing is PWI did this... They keept the packs with the rank sale n gold prices went up, rank sale ended and now theres a orb sale, and now theres gonna be x2 drops and people will afford to buy the gold with the gold price today with all the farming

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary

XxZavxX - Raging Tide wrote: »

You prove my point for me. You buy gold when it is higher. As I do. I merchant too. The issue is is people say PWE controls gold prices. Like hell they do. You admit to making it higher while being off subject.

I just know better that to blame PWE for player habits when it comes to economics.

Sure you do. *pat pat pat*

XLaraCroftx - Heavens Tear

Just had to pipe in and say a great many thanks to Warren for his guides on merchanting. Buying gold with coin no matter the price and selling items from the cash shop is no harder than it probably was back when gold was 100k. You buy gold, sell for a little higher of whatever hot item happens to be out at the time and you make money easily and you don't have to start with a ton of coin either if you work your way up gradually. I've made more money off this sale than the R9 rep stuff honestly which is surprising to me.

My point is that we can't blame PWE entirely for gold prices. How much what's in the Cash Shop is worth to us is what makes the gold prices staggering. Putting a cap on gold wouldn't change anything either. I tried the Malaysian server once a few years ago (back when we would laugh that gold would NEVER get to 1mil lol) and their cap was 1mil per gold in AH. However there are always still people who will shout for selling/buying gold for higher than that through trade instead. Needless to say I didn't stay there long.

Only thing that would have brought gold down is if the items in the mall were only for convenience or... things we didn't really need. Things like fashion, inventory stones, etc. Those were all great to have but those things alone would not bring gold to what it is now. It was all thanks to the first year Anniversary packs. That's when gold prices skyrocketed, as anyone who's been here the full 3 years or close to, would probably know.

Michael_Dark - Lost City

NatureLover - Harshlands wrote: »

For those who said Gold Cap will not prevent people from selling gold beyond the cap, thats not very true.

Like Michael_Dark said in point 2, if PWI places an NPC that sells gold at 1m each, 1m becomes the immediate cap for gold.

e.g. Quest Related > Trade 1,000,000 coins for 1 Gold.
or Buy Gold Pack, right click for 1Gold

Having this type of cap also mean coin sink to the game, which seriously need one. Right now we can NPC gold for coins (throught tokens/best lucks) but we cant NPC coins to gold.

The cap for gold would only work if cash shop items became untradeable though. Without any restrictions on orbs, medals, chips, packs, pack items, etc... there could be no real gold cap that would work.

JanusZeal - Heavens Tear

PWE barely has any blame regarding gold prices other than pushing up the price ceiling to reflect prices on gold. Sure, without a doubt they know the effects certain sales will have. They are merely doing what any business does and catering to their bottom line. Business is acting like business acts.

However, the customer is clearly buying and satisfied with such product because they keep coming back for more. If people truly thought gold at 1.4m was too high of a price, they wouldn't buy it. Warsoul was, for the longest time, the most epic gear available, yet people (besides one player) weren't going out of their way to get it in bunches because the cost was far more than it was worth to invest in, and this applies to anything that gets bartered. Therefore, gold prices as they are now, likewise, as they were before, are and were exactly what they should be (and should have been), because this is what players trading gold<->coins have deemed it's value to be. Surely no one has to like the value of it for this to reflect it's actual worth, but the transactions since summer 2009 that have led to a twenty-fold lift in AH gold prices speaks for itself as to what the true value of gold is.

Certainly PWE and their developer have forgot the "ethics" part of economics, but that is never a requisite in the first place if it doesn't affect bottom line.

SashaGray - Heavens Tear

JanusZeal - Heavens Tear wrote: »

PWE barely has any blame regarding gold prices other than pushing up the price ceiling to reflect prices on gold. Sure, without a doubt they know the effects certain sales will have. They are merely doing what any business does and catering to their bottom line. Business is acting like business acts.

depending on how you are using "blame"

if you mean that they dont influence the value of gold relative to coins, even if they dont control the buying practices of individuals, then you are wrong, as both warren and i stated on the last page.

if you mean blame in the sense that they arent doing anything wrong by using that influence to increase what gold buyers get with their money and decrease what can be accomplished by the average non-merchant player, in an attempt to stimulate more people buying gold, and raise more profits, then you could be right, but in the long run i dont see it paying off, but i think PWI is approaching the end of its life-cycle so milk it for all its worth, and god bless america, or china, or whatever.

StormHydra - Sanctuary

If I see the words "supply and demand" one more time in this thread I am going to tear my eyeballs out.

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver

supply and demandb:avoid

CheetahWoods - Raging Tide

wonder if there is a gold price point where the farmers give up. not saying this will happen, just presenting a scenario....

here is just one example of the many getting-further-out-of-reach-fo-non-CS-players
on sale, best price, d orb =like 120k each bulk purchase.

so right there that puts roughly a double multiplier on what you used to get them for.
no biggie until higher level refines, then biggy.

Or like now, here's another one.
who will farm 400mil for SoT. anyone buying zen is going straight for the endgame pack items and endgame gear and level...all boutique ready to go.

even if you throw this 2x drop bone, that almost gets it back to even.


and what if the peeps who cant/dont buy zen for whatever reason stop that river of coin for boutique items/gold? would be interesting to see if the bottom fell out, would the top still hold together..

just something to wonder about......

Obly - Dreamweaver

Ois - Lost City wrote: »

Put a fking gold cap at 1-1.2mil...this 1.4-1.6mil gold price is getting old. b:surrender

There used to be a cap on the gold prices, it was 999.999 coin per gold. they intentionally removed it to allow this inflation creating a tempting situation for non cashers to charge some zen and get the coin they need ingame. This was prepared by first strategically kiling all the profitable markets that where generally used.

So yes it needs to be re-instated, but no they won;t it brings them extra funding.

Mumintroll - Heavens Tear

Obly - Dreamweaver wrote: »

There used to be a cap on the gold prices, it was 999.999 coin per gold. they intentionally removed it to allow this inflation creating a tempting situation for non cashers to charge some zen and get the coin they need ingame. This was prepared by first strategically kiling all the profitable markets that where generally used.

So yes it needs to be re-instated, but no they won;t it brings them extra funding.

I told this maybe 1 year and 1/2 ago. For PWI owners is best when gold prices are as high as possible. Lot of people was arguing with me then. It's logical, because players are forced to buy gold with cash rather then with coins. So they will NOT force to gold price down.

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary

StormHydra - Sanctuary wrote: »

If I see the words "supply and demand" one more time in this thread I am going to tear my eyeballs out.

Yeah, but this is yet another Gold-should-be-capped thread, which means at least 58% of replies are going to be by people who don't understand economics, and the other 42% are going to be by people who think they understand economics and like using fancy terms they hear smart people using on Fox news and CNN. b:chuckle

Boogiepanda - Raging Tide

and 0.01% by the people who understands and says nothing?

Magicsaber - Dreamweaver

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary wrote: »

Yeah, but this is yet another Gold-should-be-capped thread, which means at least 58% of replies are going to be by people who don't understand economics, and the other 42% are going to be by people who think they understand economics and like using fancy terms they hear smart people using on Fox news and CNN. b:chuckle

Why someone had created this useless thread ?

To troll on forums ?

Can someone go to shop and buy something for his/her own price ?

No.

Seller set prices to maximize revenue, although not all customers will pay the same for the same product.

X_trigger_X - Heavens Tear

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary wrote: »

smart people ... Fox news

Never thought I would see these 2 phrases put together.

Ois - Lost City

Magicsaber - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Why someone had created this useless thread ?

To troll on forums ?

Can someone go to shop and buy something for his/her own price ?

No.

Seller set prices to maximize revenue, although not all customers will pay the same for the same product.

It was only a partial troll to begin with...I mean seriously...look at the poll. Did you need to ask?

Let's say Walmart sells products. Ok, so what? You pay the price that they have set for their stuff. Easy enough, no problem there. But let's say Walmart also controls the value of currency thus influencing the value of your dollar. Would that not be a problem?

So if you're ok with that...well I just don't care. Cuz I'm not. b:shutup

Ois - Lost City

Another viable option in place of the gold cap would be to...

Make some items available via NPC such as dragon orbs, charms, etc basic stuff that everyday players will need. These items would have set prices and depending on what the gold price was for the boutique...this NPC shop would act as a coin sink.

No items would be removed from the boutique and the NPC shop would not have special items like packs, fashion, blah blah blah...so if gold prices were low it would be a better deal to buy from the boutique versus the NPC.

I think something like that would actually work out. It would give some structure to the value of coin/gold instead of: Hey I have a dollar I can buy a soda. But hey, I could collect all the dollars in the world and then get multiple sodas for a dollar.

swgs

Ois - Lost City wrote: »

Another viable option in place of the gold cap would be to...

Make some items available via NPC such as dragon orbs, charms, etc basic stuff that everyday players will need. These items would have set prices and depending on what the gold price was for the boutique...this NPC shop would act as a coin sink.

No items would be removed from the boutique and the NPC shop would not have special items like packs, fashion, blah blah blah...so if gold prices were low it would be a better deal to buy from the boutique versus the NPC.

I think something like that would actually work out.

It is going to work, but it will never going to happen. all high demand items can be sold in CS for real money (remember medal?). Let players buy them with coins is equivalent of PWI buying coins with RL money (useful items = RL money for PWI).
The best hope we can have is they actually slow down pack sales. even that is close to impossible.

Ois - Lost City

swgs wrote: »

It is going to work, but it will never going to happen. all high demand items can be sold in CS for real money (remember medal?). Let players buy them with coins is equivalent of PWI buying coins with RL money (useful items = RL money for PWI).

I know it won't happen but read what I said again. With my idea only items everyday players would need would be in the NPC shop. Rank 9 clearly would not apply.

Quilue - Sanctuary

Wait what happened to the "QQ bring packs back!" people?? lol...

Ois - Lost City

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

Wait what happened to the "QQ bring packs back!" people?? lol...

Ois does not understand.

swgs

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

Wait what happened to the "QQ bring packs back!" people?? lol...

People will always QQ for everything. Seriously, I do not think gold price matters to this game anymore. There is no way you can farm your end game gear any more even gold go down to 750k each. If you want good end game gear, you charge or to be a successful merchant. If you just want to play PVE, gold price really does not matter too much.

Tsukyini - Raging Tide

Ois - Lost City wrote: »

Ois does not understand.

A few months ago there was a period with no pack sales, and token prices were up around 17k. Due to that, there was a bit of a cry out for packs to return.

Boogiepanda - Raging Tide

1) Remove all sources of dyes and pigments.

2)Implement a NPC that sells random pigements for 200k each and hot colour packs for 250k each, with bulk buy discount so merchants wouldn't QQ too much.

3)Wait until female players get bored

4)???

5) PROFIITTT

Ois - Lost City

Tsukyini - Raging Tide wrote: »

A few months ago there was a period with no pack sales, and token prices were up around 17k. Due to that, there was a bit of a cry out for packs to return.

I understand that...what I dont understand is what that has to do with the current prices. Gold prices would be a lot more stable if let's say 4 sales didn't overlap forever.

JanusZeal - Heavens Tear

swgs wrote: »

People will always QQ for everything. Seriously, I do not think gold price matters to this game anymore. There is no way you can farm your end game gear any more even gold go down to 750k each. If you want good end game gear, you charge or to be a successful merchant. If you just want to play PVE, gold price really does not matter too much.

The first sentence is all I can agree with. People will QQ over anything. QQ packs ruined the game, QQ we need packs so token prices go down, QQ QQ QQ whine whine whinge ***** moan wahhhh, trivial s**t.

Now, suggesting that you must be a successful merchant or charge is bull, when one can easily make bank doing Nirvana or TT runs, doing WG/HT TM, especially knowing which ones to do and what is profitable. Unfortunately those who find themselves poor and crying up a storm tend to be lazy ones that just want to mindlessly grind and get rich while complaining about people a little more innovative getting rewarded.