PW Economics 101: Suggestion to the problem.

Strife_son - Sanctuary

If PWI's business model was truly successful, then the value of their companies stock would be higher. The fact that it is down in the single digits shows that investors do not think this company is worth anything. A truly successful business model would not be focused on just "scraping by" which is all PW is managing to do now.

There are a lot of reasons why end game shard prices are high, but I think gold is definitely one of the smaller factors. I think it has to go with player supply and demand. With more players reaching "end-game" and obtaining their "end-game" gear, they want to shard it with the best possible shards. These come from packs. I think that high demand, and a monopoly of the majority of the gems by merchants drives up prices. DoT prices on sanctuary have doubled, despite a "significant" change in gold prices, as an example.

Aubree - Dreamweaver

Strife_son - Sanctuary wrote: »

If PWI's business model was truly successful, then the value of their companies stock would be higher. The fact that it is down in the single digits shows that investors do not think this company is worth anything. A truly successful business model would not be focused on just "scraping by" which is all PW is managing to do now.

Wrong. Notice where Forbes says international is only 20% of PWE's business. If you want to know why PWE doesn't give a rats *** about us, this sure explains a lot.

Michael_Dark - Lost City

Strife_son - Sanctuary wrote: »

If PWI's business model was truly successful, then the value of their companies stock would be higher. The fact that it is down in the single digits shows that investors do not think this company is worth anything. A truly successful business model would not be focused on just "scraping by" which is all PW is managing to do now.

Their business model does work. It's their horrible mis-management that has ruined this game for us, not for CN servers. Their stock price isn't based on just the US economy. PWE is a multi-national corporation. The world economy sucks right now too and there aren't a whole lot of winners in the stock market at the moment.

There are a lot of reasons why end game shard prices are high, but I think gold is definitely one of the smaller factors. I think it has to go with player supply and demand. With more players reaching "end-game" and obtaining their "end-game" gear, they want to shard it with the best possible shards. These come from packs. I think that high demand, and a monopoly of the majority of the gems by merchants drives up prices. DoT prices on sanctuary have doubled, despite a "significant" change in gold prices, as an example.

End-game shards are cheap when you compare them to what shards really cost. And end-game shards are (or at least were) somewhat comparable to how much it costs for a pack in relation to the odds of winning that item.

So you failed on two points. Grats! b:pleased

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

Refining to ~7 is not going to cut it when a lot of players in TW factions aim for 10-12, which still needs d orbs. This is why I said that sales on such boutique items help, but not high gold prices by itself.

Sorry, but I still don't grasp the math behind your argument.

At 85%-off and ~1.8million per Gold, Dragon Orb 1 cost about 80k each these days. If you got them a couple of months ago, when the first 85%-off sale hit, you could have gotten then for ~68k each.

Compare that with 1 year ago, when Gold was 875k. At 66%-off, Dragon Orb 1s also cost 80k each.

I've got copies of refining spreadsheets that stretch back a couple of years, and the facts are that refining, thanks to the new 85%-off sales, has been cheaper than it has ever been in the entire history of the game, both for cash-shoppers and pay-with-coins players alike.

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

Gold absolutely influences shard prices. How do you explain the fact that shards have doubled in price? How much were vit stones, garnets, a year ago? The only shard that has pretty much stayed the same are sapphires, and they have a much less demand.

Looking through my copies of old Pack-payout estimates, all the truly end-game gear from Packs have gradually increased in price over time, while the prices of all the non end-game gear has dropped. This is true for all items, not just shards, and the price increases/drops have not tracked Gold prices at all (ie. they have not gone up/down at the same times or by the same proportions that Gold prices did).

The most obvious answer, to me at least, is that everybody is 101+ these days, hence demand for the truly end-game items is much higher, and that is the reason for the gradual increase in prices.

Again, I'm not seeing the mathematical underpinnings of your counter-argument. Correlation doesn't indicate causation, especially when an alternative explanation fits the facts much better.

Fintan - Lost City

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary wrote: »

The most obvious answer, to me at least, is that everybody is 101+ these days, hence demand for the truly end-game items is much higher, and that is the reason for the gradual increase in prices.

Isn't that about what I had said? b:surrenderb:chuckle

didi

It has to be packs that increase gold price so much. Any mechant that sells them for period of time should be able to confirm this if i'm not wrong.

Unlike other goods in the boutique shop, there is something different and unique about packs. Its a great money generating idea for pw, and thats why ftp merchant can make so much from them.

Unlike other goods in the boutique shop, packs has a unique longer lasting demand effect compared to other goods. When fashion is on sale for example, gold price goes up but drops back and stabalise when demand have been satisfied. Packs on the other hand will increase gold price which often is at a record high and will remain high untill the end of the sale period. After sale period is over, gold price drops back down which if i remember correctly, is also a significant drop. Idk for a fact though as i don't merchant or buy packs.

Anyway, imagine this. You buy Zen and can afford 200 packs. At the begining, u plan only to buy 100 packs. You open them hoping to get something you really really want. However, luck wasn't on your side. You didn't lose all your money though as the lucky tokens and a few tobl can be converted to coins then to gold, then to more packs.

Here alone you can see how 100 packs can lead to increase demand for gold being purchase. The thing about pack is, it is a form of gambling and some people love to take chance, and its not a win or lose all, but a lose can lead to more gold being purchase. Theres a good chance that, pack buyers who did not get what they want can and will sell their tokens so that they can buy more packs thus continue demand for gold. Unlike basic item such as fashion where demand is quickly satified thus drop in demand for gold, packs retain that demand for gold, which gives pw the ability to control prices which they use to generate money.

Its not coincidental that gold price increase every christmas holiday period, its intention imo. But look at it from their perspective, During christmast period, theres an increase in amount of people who have more time and money to spend and the increase in gold price will give CS that discount feeling we all are familiar with, such as the, "wow, i can afford this now, so cheap" feeling.

You could say that mmorpgs are or can be seasonal in terms of how money can be made. If you put yourself in their shoe, what would you do. Besides to the f2p players, they have increase drop rate by 2x for people who needs extra coins.

Fintan - Lost City

didi wrote: »

It has to be packs that increase gold price so much. Any mechant that sells them for period of time should be able to confirm this if i'm not wrong.

WarrenWolfy has disputed this and he's one of the biggest merchants who posts on the forum. That alone blows a hole in your theory/argument.

Quilue - Sanctuary

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary wrote: »

Sorry, but I still don't grasp the math behind your argument.

At 85%-off and ~1.8million per Gold, Dragon Orb 1 cost about 80k each these days. If you got them a couple of months ago, when the first 85%-off sale hit, you could have gotten then for ~68k each.

Compare that with 1 year ago, when Gold was 875k. At 66%-off, Dragon Orb 1s also cost 80k each.

I've got copies of refining spreadsheets that stretch back a couple of years, and the facts are that refining, thanks to the new 85%-off sales, has been cheaper than it has ever been in the entire history of the game, both for cash-shoppers and pay-with-coins players alike.

That's why I've said many times that high gold prices by itself does not help, only sales on specific items. Just because gold prices is high doesn't mean refining cost will stay the same, only when high gold is caused by a sale on orbs is refining costs the same.

When gold was at ~1.5m and d orbs were at 0.45 silver each, it was less than 70k each. However, packs pushed gold up, not a further sale on d orbs, making d orbs 80k each as it is now. What are you going to say if packs stay but d orbs sale ends? They can keep gold much higher than d orbs are actually worth by just making pack sales more and more drastic. Only high gold caused by a sale on d orbs is going to help cash shoppers with d orbs.

Ursa was saying high gold helps cash shoppers because they can sell their gold for more coin, but I said the cost of gearing up is going to rise as well if gold is high unless the sale was on the gear/refines itself. My point was simply that selling gold for coin is not what's going to gear people up endgame.

Looking through my copies of old Pack-payout estimates, all the truly end-game gear from Packs have gradually increased in price over time, while the prices of all the non end-game gear has dropped. This is true for all items, not just shards, and the price increases/drops have not tracked Gold prices at all (ie. they have not gone up/down at the same times or by the same proportions that Gold prices did).

The most obvious answer, to me at least, is that everybody is 101+ these days, hence demand for the truly end-game items is much higher, and that is the reason for the gradual increase in prices.

Again, I'm not seeing the mathematical underpinnings of your counter-argument. Correlation doesn't indicate causation, especially when an alternative explanation fits the facts much better.

I just think players have always attributed a value to coin based on gold. As gold price rises, coin is simply worth less.

I'll concede that there are more lvl 101 now than ever before, but not everyone gears up toward endgame. If high level players with good gear have dramatically increased, you would see many more factions that can compete in TW, except this is not the case. It's still the same old factions, and not one of them have reached 200 players. New players come, but people quit or stop gearing up as well. A lot of people are still using their nirvana gears.

There are other factors that influence prices. Nobody knew how good jades were until relatively recently, so DoD was really cheap until now. However, everyone liked vit stones back then as well. If anything, vit stones are gotten by less people now than before because a lot of people are looking to jades. If anything, less robes are sharding garnets now in favor of jades. Why have those prices risen? It's because coin is worth less.

Strife_son - Sanctuary

Michael_Dark - Lost City wrote: »

Their business model does work. It's their horrible mis-management that has ruined this game for us, not for CN servers. Their stock price isn't based on just the US economy. PWE is a multi-national corporation. The world economy sucks right now too and there aren't a whole lot of winners in the stock market at the moment.




End-game shards are cheap when you compare them to what shards really cost. And end-game shards are (or at least were) somewhat comparable to how much it costs for a pack in relation to the odds of winning that item.

So you failed on two points. Grats! b:pleased

I never said that their business model did not work at all, I said it sucked.

I made no comment about end-game shards being cheap or expensive, I stated that shard prices have increased because of an increased number of people reaching "end-game" and wanting "end-game" shards for their gear. I'm pretty sure my comment on shards was focused on whether or not gold prices had much influence on shard prices. Maybe it's different on your server, my observations come from my own.

ItsAWolf - Archosaur

Fintan - Lost City wrote: »

WarrenWolfy has disputed this and he's one of the biggest merchants who posts on the forum. That alone blows a hole in your theory/argument.

the complete opposite actually:

Saying that the sales don't affect the economy much couldn't be further from the truth.

Sales are the single most important factor that determines Gold prices, period.

Which is indeed easily confirmed by any other merchant as well. It's usually quite easy to see what the driving factor behind the current gold price is, regardless of what else is on sale at the same time. In this case it is obviously packs. Gold price will drop to around 1.5 mil or so if packs were to go off sale and the rest remain I bet.




As to the shards price having to do with gold price:

All the high end shards come from packs. The pack price in coins stays about constant (during a sale period) regardless of what pack sale comes across, as the gold price generally adjusts to fit a certain pack price. This means that the coin cost to get shards does not depend on the gold price. I've personlly found they've dropped a couple of million during the recent pack sale, meaning the opposite is happening to what is being suggested by certain people.

The def shards are now equal to the vit shards in price, simply because they gained popularity, not because gold prices increased. Every single person in this game (at endgame) wants these shards. It should be quite obvious they rise in price.

Naturally their price will correlate in some manner with the price of packs, so if packs aren't on sale, yet other things are (so there is a higher gold price), less packs will be bought and their price will rise a bit. But during pack sales, when gold is higher their price won't really increase because of that, as packs still cost the same in coins.

Massad - Harshlands

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

I'll concede that there are more lvl 101 now than ever before, but not everyone gears up toward endgame. If high level players with good gear have dramatically increased, you would see many more factions that can compete in TW, except this is not the case. It's still the same old factions, and not one of them have reached 200 players. New players come, but people quit or stop gearing up as well. A lot of people are still using their nirvana gears.

.

You are forgetting one simple part to that belief... Not everyone wants to tw. Some of the highest geared players on any server are in lil factions or not in any faction what so ever... I personally like going for the ultra high lvl difficult to get endgame gear. But I refuse to join any tw faction even though I get invitations, for the most part I often refuse to join any faction. Yet my toons have been compared with the highest people on the server (I also like anonymity on the subject)...

I grind my lvls for a few months, buy all the gear I need refine to +10 and shard with Dots or savants. Play the toon for awhile then take a break from the game for a month or 2 come back and start all over again

Baddaz - Lost City

more easy for a gm to sell 9999 gold in ah and after remove the coin, but they don't want to do something for economy in my opinion