Items on sale cost more than they do off sale = GG

JanusZeal - Heavens Tear wrote: »

You keep looking at PWI sales, and while that can influence the severity at how many people want to buy gold, this has always been the same regardless of packs. You need to look at how naive you are -- see below:

Look in your HT auction house. All day yesterday there was tenfold buyers than sellers, and gold was at 650K. Less sellers, less supply. Less supply means less quantity, coupled with higher demand, means higher prices. Now gold prices are 800K to reflect the demand for gold. Gold is a very elastic good. Notice how tokens are still the same? There's an enormous supply of them. Tokens are relatively inelastic and are unresponsive to the change in price of other things. This does not negate the fact that people will buy gold at the price it sells for, and the price it sells for is always correct because people will buy it -- they have the freedom not to, but they do because they can and have chosen to.

The only people that don't get it are the ones who are overly idealistic about what gold prices should be.

Gold has been determined by the packs since they started. People get a certain value of "prizes" which create a value based off the combined emalgumated total divided by chances for those prizes. Before packs, the highest "valued" item was the hammer, which set its price due to 5 gold for 1 mil from the chests, so of course gold moved quickly from 140k range to 200k range nearly over night and would no longer go below it. Then when packs came out, they created a new price floors although the floor was a little fuzzier due to a less explicit value on the combined prize value. However over time, that prize value has been shown to be roughly 450k for tiger packs (less for corals as the chances for good prizes are lower).

The merchants are the ones to experimentally find this price as they open hundreds and sell off the goods and at 450k per pack they still make profit. Thus, the price people are willing to pay for Tiger Packs became about 450k. The amount of supply of gold no longer even has much determination over the price (like it would in the real world) due to the fact that if gold is higher then this 450k value on sale, whether its alot or a little, its not really sold to anyone, or much fewer, as the pack demand drops off. While if its lower then this 450k per pack line its all bought up but the huge increase in demand from these pack buyers. They will buy as much or as little gold that is offered below this new floor.

PWI directly influenced this by putting high value goods, higher then anything else on sale in the boutique into the packs. They had done it before any packs with the hammers, and we saw how that went. You can not blame consumers for being willing to spend the value of the goods, nor can you blame the suppliers for wanting what they can get for gold. The 3rd party, PWE is influencing the exchange rate by effecting the value of goods that 1 gold can bring you, plain & simple. To say otherwise is naive.

Oh and as an aside, the reason tokens are inelastic now is they've reached market saturation, there's more sellers then buyers. However due to the fact that you can NPC tokens for 10k a piece puts a selling floor on them, as why would anyone sell for less when they can simply NPC them for 10k.

Darksylph - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Gold has been determined by the packs since they started. People get a certain value of "prizes" which create a value based off the combined emalgumated total divided by chances for those prizes. Before packs, the highest "valued" item was the hammer, which set its price due to 5 gold for 1 mil from the chests, so of course gold moved quickly from 140k range to 200k range nearly over night and would no longer go below it. Then when packs came out, they created a new price floors although the floor was a little fuzzier due to a less explicit value on the combined prize value. However over time, that prize value has been shown to be roughly 450k for tiger packs (less for corals as the chances for good prizes are lower).

The merchants are the ones to experimentally find this price as they open hundreds and sell off the goods and at 450k per pack they still make profit. Thus, the price people are willing to pay for Tiger Packs became about 450k. The amount of supply of gold no longer even has much determination over the price (like it would in the real world) due to the fact that if gold is higher then this 450k value on sale, whether its alot or a little, its not really sold to anyone, or much fewer, as the pack demand drops off. While if its lower then this 450k per pack line its all bought up but the huge increase in demand from these pack buyers. They will buy as much or as little gold that is offered below this new floor.

PWI directly influenced this by putting high value goods, higher then anything else on sale in the boutique into the packs. They had done it before any packs with the hammers, and we saw how that went. You can not blame consumers for being willing to spend the value of the goods, nor can you blame the suppliers for wanting what they can get for gold. The 3rd party, PWE is influencing the exchange rate by effecting the value of goods that 1 gold can bring you, plain & simple. To say otherwise is naive.

Oh and as an aside, the reason tokens are inelastic now is they've reached market saturation, there's more sellers then buyers. However due to the fact that you can NPC tokens for 10k a piece puts a selling floor on them, as why would anyone sell for less when they can simply NPC them for 10k.

Yes, you can, and definitely should blame consumers for spending that much. Packs are not a necessity in this game. Things not considered a necessity (tokens are far more considered this than the pack itself) are highly elastic. Gold it not a necessity either.

If all people were doing was buying/selling gold on their own to artificially raise pack prices to something people won't buy, then it would never work. The gold system and things that gold buys, are all part of the same system, which is that people buying things buy things if they have the money and decided it's worth it to them to buy. That's how economics works. PWI knows that packs influence prices and more people want them, but packs have been constantly in the boutique since last September. This blaming packs and PWI though is an ideological farce. It's stupid. As proven by your "before packs" rant. That was 15 months ago. I remember several of these months where gold stayed in the 300K range. We're around the holidays, where more people buy/sell gold, more buying than selling, so prices get higher. This is economics and supply and demand. It's too bad you can't see that through your nonsense.

_WickedOne_ - Heavens Tear wrote: »

And they said replacing TW coins with mirages would eventually help "stablize" the economy over time. Its been how long now and prices are crazier then ever but that is because of the greed you all created. The players are just as bad as PWI themselves.

Ya, that was hilarious. I'm pretty sure by stabilizing they meant making TT mats more expensive and DQ revenue less.

Darksylph - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Pay attention to your packs more.

Gold was around 300k at its lowest during intervals when NO packs were on sale (there were times).

Gold was 350-400k when corals were on sale (these are shown to have less value).

Gold has been over 400k consistantly, ussually over 450k, when Anni Packs or Tiger Packs were on sale.

Maybe if you realized there has been a direct corelation between packs & gold price you wouldnt be spouting this nonsense.

Merchanters buy up all the lower priced gold so it elevates, because they make profit until it reaches the value mark on packs. They make profit at this mark but wont when its higher.

The problem is you keep spouting supply and demand of a true micro economy, without realizing that in PWI there's a 3rd force, thats PWE, which has a direct influence over >EXCHANGE VALUE< This 3rd force exists in the real world, its part of the second half of economic theory called macro economics however. I think you've been sitting in your micro economics (supply & demand = micro economics) classes too long without realizing it only paints half of the picture.

Hmm, no, these gold prices I saw during both sunshines and corals. I know. I sold 'em.

And keynesian economics (I've taken macro too) only applies to gold when PWI directly sets the prices of gold in the AH. IIRC they have a price ceiling, but this has no influence on trade beyond the possibility of it skyrocketing beyond 1m, in which case, this works against you as well. Gold trading is classic lassaiz-faire economics. Nobody said it's fair, as that's a rather ambiguous thing that you have been trying to argue with me this entire time.

Merchanters blowing up prices still are affected by supply and demand. If people think it costs too much, they won't buy it. I remember trying to sell packs for over 400K shortly after the last natural coral sale, and nobody would buy it, even though it was a mere 20K above gold price. That's because they anticipated a lower gold price and thus a lowering of pack prices. This also helped drive the price of gold down.

You obviously did not learn enough from both your micro and macro courses, because theory and application are two different things.

I did not read the whole thread, but I read your post TheDan.

I mean, not only do you have to think about gold through in-game coin price, but as well as real life money price.

It's more expensive coin-wise to buy things "on sale", yes. I agree with you on that. But it's cheaper to charge zen and buy things on sale.

$50 = 53 gold (assuming one charges $50 all the time for the bonus 300 zen) = $0.943 per gold
On sale 50 tiger packs = 22.5 gold = 0.45 gold per pack = $0.4244 per tiger pack.
Off sale 50 tiger packs = 33.75 gold = 0.675 gold per pack = $0.6365 per tiger pack.
50 packs other than tiger = 45 gold = 0.9 gold per pack = $0.8487 per pack.

So, in other words, this "on sale" is directed towards cashshoppers.

Which is unsurprising, considering almost all MMOs just think about money instead of the players.

Darksylph - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Except for the fact that in application its working out exactly how i'm saying it should. So you're right theory & application are different. However i'm talking about application & you keep going back to theory on why it shouldnt be, exactly what it is.

Nope, be honest.. you're blaming PWI, and have excluded consumers in responsibility. I can quote you on this, it's only on the last page.

You've cited how consumers themselves buy and sell gold to raise prices in the AH trade. This is not PWI. This is consumers.

What you want IS keynesian economics, which is PWI to intervene directly in the price of gold, by the way you think is the item at fault, which is packs. For that, they have to set a very rough and stringent ceiling.

The demand for gold is relative to how much it sells for, versus how much people are willing to spend for it. The price for gold directly relates to the demand versus the supply, additionally, what consumers will pay to buy it. The market does not work if there are only people buying/selling gold artificially raising prices. And this is not under PWI's influence. It's a market tactic that exists, and always has since monetary values were set up, everywhere, especially outside this game. PWI can put in the boutique packs as much as they want. If people don't want them, they don't hit "o" and purchase packs to place into the market, then turn around and sell them, because they won't make a profit. As the demand gets constantly bigger, the price consequently gets higher. This is the holidays, and consumers spend more. They are at fault for the rise of this, and when this spending frenzy goes down, so will the price of gold. Sit back and watch economics at work, i.e. application.

JanusZeal - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Nope, be honest.. you're blaming PWI, and have excluded consumers in responsibility. I can quote you on this, it's only on the last page.

You've cited how consumers themselves buy and sell gold to raise prices in the AH trade. This is not PWI. This is consumers.

What you want IS keynesian economics, which is PWI to intervene directly in the price of gold, by the way you think is the item at fault, which is packs. For that, they have to set a very rough and stringent ceiling.

The demand for gold is relative to how much it sells for, versus how much people are willing to spend for it. The price for gold directly relates to the demand versus the supply, additionally, what consumers will pay to buy it. The market does not work if there are only people buying/selling gold artificially raising prices. And this is not under PWI's influence. It's a market tactic that exists, and always has since monetary values were set up, everywhere, especially outside this game. PWI can put in the boutique packs as much as they want. If people don't want them, they don't hit "o" and purchase packs to place into the market, then turn around and sell them, because they won't make a profit. As the demand gets constantly bigger, the price consequently gets higher. This is the holidays, and consumers spend more. They are at fault for the rise of this, and when this spending frenzy goes down, so will the price of gold. Sit back and watch economics at work, i.e. application.

The price will go back down whenn the sale prices go away. So you cant just say "after the holidays" as if nothing else will change besides the end of the holidays. And did you even see my edit in the above post? address it rather then ignoring it because its a pretty damn good illustration of the type of effect PWE has on the economy.

And maybe if i put it into other terms; PWE directly effects the demand on gold. They put higher value things up for the same gold price. You can not blame the people on the demand side if they are willing to pay more for a higher value good can you? That exactly was wealth means, higher value for higher prices. And you can not blame the supplier of the gold for wanting to get as much value for their gold can you? No thats what any sane person would do (as long as you ignore Zoe's theory of economics).

The complete influence has been over the value of the goods you can get for what price. That increases demand. When someone suddenly says they'll sell you 2 hot dogs for a a price which isnt fixed, you dont think that price would work out to double the price of 1 hot dog? Look at the 1g > 75s > 50s reduction on packs for that exact influence. PWE effects demand by increasing the value of the goods you can get for 1g, plain and simple.

Oh and;

Nope, be honest.. you're blaming PWI, and have excluded consumers in responsibility. I can quote you on this, it's only on the last page.

IS exactly what is happening. As nothing has changed between yesterday and today EXCEPT PWE putting things on sale. Nothing else has changed, thats the ONLY facter to have had any change, which means its the only influence on the suddenly change in the price of gold.

So yet again i go back to;

Except for the fact that in application its working out exactly how i'm saying it should. So you're right theory & application are different. However i'm talking about application & you keep going back to theory on why it shouldnt be, exactly what it is.

JanusZeal - Heavens Tear wrote: »

All in all, your tangent is blame PWI for consumer behavior when buying/selling to other consumers. That's quite mind-boggling. What I truthfully gather from your tangent is you want PWI to intervene on the Auction House gold price, which would be the very thing you are accusing them of doing, yet being wrong on.

You failed to add 2 + 2 together to =4.

My tangeant was an extreme example of how putting a high value item on sale on the boutique would influence the price of gold dramatically.

Putting Tiger Packs on the boutique for 50s now is changing the price of gold dramatically.

PWE did this, price went up. Noone else to blame.

"Good Lord" Make the connection, i'm giving you the entire trail of bread crumbs here.

JanusZeal - Heavens Tear wrote: »

The only people that don't get it are the ones who are overly idealistic about what gold prices should be.

I certainly agree with this.

Regardless of what people think Gold prices should be, the reality is that they will be set to whatever item has the largest (In-Game Value : Cash-Shop Gold Price) ratio. By putting Tiger Packs at an additional 33% off that ratio jumped overnight and thus Gold prices will adjust to match.

I had ~75 million lying around last night and checked Gold prices, saw that they had jumped ~150k, looked at the sales, and immediately bought as much Gold as I could without hesitation. Sure, I "lost" ~15 million by not buying the day before like I should have, but it would be a huge mistake to not cut my losses and buy more Gold right now.

Why? Because Gold is actually UNDER-PRICED right now. The psychological resistance to paying a new record high is keeping it low, as is the psychological resistance of many merchants to sell any remaining Tiger Packs they might have purchased earlier at a loss. But the market will correct and prices will climb.

Granted, I could certainly be wrong, but considering I just earned another ~200 million last night without even realizing it I figure my reasoning has served me pretty well up until this point.

JanusZeal - Heavens Tear wrote: »

The value is determined by sellers and buyers. If it's a hot commodity it has a higher demand and thus if supply can't keep up the price goes up too. Every single time a new mount comes out, for example, the price is extremely high because it's rare and has a high demand but little supply. Soon as the supply gains, demand lowers, the price lowers. Happens every time. No idea why this is over your head.

It looks like you're busy adding 2+2 and not understanding how an economy works.

If all that is true then why would you tell me the following in a prior post?

JanusZeal - Heavens Tear wrote: »

What I truthfully gather from your tangent is you want PWI to intervene on the Auction House gold price, which would be the very thing you are accusing them of doing, yet being wrong on.

You're saying that the action i was using as an example (putting Warsouls up for 50g) would be PWE intervening on the Auction house gold price (to which i agree, and was my whole point with that example). Yet if everything is up to the players, then oh Warsouls arent really valuable, its just all the players saying they are. You're contradicting yourself.

The fact is the items they offer in the Packs have rarity and PWE knows this, they even set the % of the rewards. Rarity + high desireability/usefulness gives them high value, economic fact. Now if all that was in the packs was rare level 50 rings & weapons the packs wouldnt sore in price, but PWE put high value items in for a very low price. You accuse me of being wrong but you have yet to despiute the evidence. Just saying i'm wrong, does not make it so.

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary wrote: »

Regardless of what people think Gold prices should be, the reality is that they will be set to whatever item has the largest (In-Game Value : Cash-Shop Gold Price) ratio. By putting Tiger Packs at an additional 33% off that ratio jumped overnight and thus Gold prices will adjust to match.

^ This is what i've said over & over, and it was even said just 1 post above your last, but you dont dispute him. And you have yet to provide any evidence to the contrary, because you can't, its how the economic factors involved with this situation work.

guys... you can't beat them, just accept it. what this particular game's boutique has manifested into is something much bigger than any of the discussion actually happening. no where else has a cash shop influenced or been so apart of the day by day development of an online game that harbors peoples countless hours of investments than here. even the traditional mmo players who knew how to go out and work for something in the game have slowly become dependant on what marketing does. slowly but surely, you take the discipline out of somebody and they become your *****. now unless you want to fund your costly habbits in-game by halving the amount of time doing what you want to do when you log in each night, get used to PWI calling the shots.

bottom line: nobody is ever happy with what they got, pwi knows how to play on our obsessions because we always want or think we need more.

Rawrgh - Raging Tide wrote: »

Except for when double drops ends and prices stay the same.





As for me I got lucky. I saw the announcement almost as soon as it was posted. Immediately took the 75mil in my bank I had been saving up, bought as much gold as I could afford at 540k each. I waited for the sale to start and bought a ton of d orbs.


Now I'm sitting on 1k d orbs for 75mil, gonna resell in a week at 120k each

ive tried that before...my d orbs still havent sold

JanusZeal - Heavens Tear wrote: »

What do you mean haven't provided evidence? You haven't shown that PWI directly influences or inflates gold prices. I've shown how they have no influence on how people set prices. Your warsoul example I never responded to because it's a waste of my time to debate theoretical nonsense (given this has not been done -- hello theory vs. application) when there are blatantly repetitious proof of this right under your nose. You contest this is not consumers' fault but PWI's. In this case, you need to show how PWI sets the price themselves, to raise it in the fashion they do. The **** in the packs they repeatedly place in the boutique have no rare items, and when the packs come out items that are shortly considered rare under-go depreciation. Thanks for providing this example, because it works against you yet again. Demand versus supply. Deicides, for example, which are one thing that usually come from insignia via the pack raise in price because there's an enormous demand and not enough supply in the market. Lunar robes and rings have plummeted in price, mostly the rings, due to a very low demand and greater supply. An RL friend of mine was lucky to rid of the ring for 35m, which was over 80m a year ago on HT. I dunno how you can ignore everything here that smacks you in the face of ]the market sets the price, but you certainly do a fantastic job of it.

I never said that PWE sets the price of gold in game. I said their actions are the direct cause of the inflation of the price of gold. That is a huge difference.

And yes, the weapons & rings and tomes and other assorted items are rare. People would not pay 60 million for a common weapon. There is alot less supply then there is demand for those items, thus they do not meet the demand and are rare. To state the contrary is foolish.

But the fact is, when they cut the price in half of the item which has controlled the market value of gold, the packs, the price of that gold doubled. You can not debate this because it is undeniable fact. 450k per gold with 1g packs -> 900k gold with 50s packs is as i have stated, their direct actions causing the price of gold to double.

Hojuken - Heavens Tear wrote: »

i don't understand why people keep complaining about this.

PWI is run by a company that has one mission: profit. it's not a charitable organization nor is it an NPO. they exist because they make money. if everything could be farmed easily w/o charging, they wouldn't make money, thus the game would die. what's so hard to understand here?

it's still essentially free to play, you can still farm your gears if you work hard and long enough.

on a completely different note: rob we miss you Q_Q

the point is that pwi got along pretty well way before packs were implemented. Now they are just being greedy and killing the game, and either they do not care or they don't see it happening.

So to your comment "the game would die" the game already died when half the player base quit once they saw the bs happening.

WarrenWolfy - Sanctuary wrote: »

That's because Technical Analysis alone (ie. just watching shifts in supply and demand alone without understanding the "why?" behind them) is more than sufficient to still be a successful trader.

Insightful human.
b:avoid
Tis how a hamster with no concept of monies made tons of it.
b:avoid

JanusZeal - Heavens Tear wrote: »

PWI does not intervene between buyer and seller, therefore they are not a factor in the price people set for gold or even packs, and the price people buy it for. Sales are more geared toward people who buy Zen -- it's a quick revenue stream banking off people buying more things with RL cash. So all that's left is.. what a buyer believes it is worth, they pay for -- that's obviously the market price determined by buyer and seller, not PWI. If gold is this high and packs are this high, it's because this is it's value determined by the market. Not by PWI. You've greatly exaggerated PWI's role in the gold trade market, and hell, the market in general. PWI can't help that people spend more during holiday season, and that F2P people see P2P players buying things with gold and follow suit. That's how people are.

Yes, players set the market price of gold, but it is in direct reaction to the PWI controlled sales. Players have very little effect on the system.

Once the collective player base has determined the values of ingame items, it's a relatively slow process to shift those values. On the other hand, PWI can manipulate the availability of said items and dramatically alter their value, on the drop of a hat. This is exactly what has just happened when they dropped the price on Tiger packs. It has nothing to do with the holiday season or people wanting to spend money.

People put Gold up for auction because they want ingame coins. When a Tiger pack contains a base 230k worth of npcable wealth, halving the Gold cost of a Tiger pack effectively doubles the coin value per Gold spent. The sale directly influences the Gold to Coin transfer ratio. Players have nothing to do with that shift, it is entirely in the hands of PWI.