Which do you prefer: good sales or cheaper gold?

Kerona - Sanctuary · April 2012

The recent trend in sales obviously bothers a lot of people, myself included. Some have suggested PWI is fulfilling its promise to try to lower gold price due to customer complaints of high gold price driven up by exploitative sales. On Sanctuary, gold has stayed at a constant 1.3-1.4 for the past several months due to the lack of "good" sales. The last time orbs were on a decent sale, gold was around 1.9 on Sanctuary.

50 Gold at 1.3 (taxed) = 66.3 mil
20 Gold at 1.9 (taxed) = 38.76 mil
30 Gold price per orb is the price at which the two values are nearing equal.

This sale is so frustrating because even with lower gold, we're paying double the price for the product. Cash Shoppers are paying more than double the price. If the price were lowered to 30, would you be as upset? Of course, this is ignoring that months of crappy sales led to the lower gold price to begin with and that gold would mildly inflate with a decent orb sale... People who purely cashshop would be paying 10$ more per orb in this example, while farmers would be paying about the same.

So overall, how does the community feel about this issue? The higher gold is, the more expensive everything is for non-cashshoppers. The lower gold is, the less likely (as observed historically) it seems that PWI will put in discount "steal" prices. Think about it, the R9 discount was put in when gold was exceptionally high (2mil each) and what it did was forcibly lower R9 costs to around 1.4 gold price. Should their be some fixed "value" as to effort required vs cash price?

Or do you prefer some mythical middle ground? Am I off base here? If I'm really off base, just go drink a beer. My treat.

Angel_Spawn - Sanctuary · April 2012

No idea, I just go with the flow while raging about everything b:chuckle, need to work hard to afford something if you don`t cs, but heck it`s not impossible.

KawaiiJen - Heavens Tear · April 2012

Cap Gold to coin ratio at 800k. Problem solved.

_Skai_ - Raging Tide · April 2012

What PWE should realize by now that it's too late to fix the market. The moment they introduced 5 Ocean orbs for 100 gold, it was already too late. Once a sale of that value has been released, it will stick to the player base til death. They know that there might be chances of it happening again.

Gold has never reached below 1m in over 8 months at least on Raging Tides, and it never will go lower. Not only that, but having boutique items at such a high gold price drives away many cash shoppers. It reduces the enticing factor quite a bit, and in the end this sale is benefiting farmers more than it is cash shoppers.

Farmers can just farm the coin for the orb, and sure it will require a lot more farming for one, but they can at least farm. As for cashshoppers, back then they could charge $100 USD and get 5 Ocean orbs. Now if they charge the same amount they get less than half of that. Which leads back to the original point I made in the first paragraph.

There are some actions you just simply can't fix unless you take extreme measures, and this is one of them. Good job PWE.

The extreme measures they can take is to limit gold to a certain limit in the gold trade, which would destroy what's left of the economy.

Manostra - Harshlands · April 2012

How naive
People would Stop putting gold in AH and ask for Coins via Trade aka selling item xxx for xxxxxxxxx coins. You can not Cap the gold price that easy unless an npc sells it for coins wich will never happen.

KawaiiJen - Heavens Tear · April 2012

So you say but if people knew there was a cap, they would just wait until people put it in the AH instead of supporting the "buy" from WC.

Aasaf - Sanctuary · April 2012

Good sale is always worth to cash shopper and merchants, and hurts farmer somewhat. The percentage of players who are truly farmers compared to other is debateable, and no one knows the numbers.

Good sales = low token price, everyone benefits, low pack item price, everyone benefits.

I remember prim and savant stone for 25~32m a piece, when decent sales rolled around. At that point gold fluctuated from 1.3m~1.5/1.6m. Is that any different from now, the gold price is still too high for gold to be useful for anything. The argument that gold prices are being brought down, i believe is an utter lie.

Those of you expecting gold prices below 1m gold, hasn't happened from Dec 2010 from when i joined, after that dec sale, it momentarily went below 1m, but ever since has been above 1m. I don't think those glory days will come back, even with these horrible sales.

I got lunar robes for 35~40m, deicide+5 for 30~35m, try finding those prices now. If you are a farmer, sure gold is low, but what are you going to spend it on? If you are a merchant, not many trading oppurtunities. If you are a cash shopper, people spend less. The heavy cash shoppers spend the same due to their large incomes, the smaller ones are more affected.

In the end these sales are hurting most parts of the player base, but the top and extreme bottom, and since PWI has shown they do no care about the rest except the top, what ever we believe does not matter.

I know that once D3 comes out, a chunk of player base will disappear for a while. In that game everything can be acquired via farming alone, unlike here.

Mitachi - Dreamweaver · April 2012

Kerona - Sanctuary wrote: »

The recent trend in sales obviously bothers a lot of people, myself included. Some have suggested PWI is fulfilling its promise to try to lower gold price due to customer complaints of high gold price driven up by exploitative sales. On Sanctuary, gold has stayed at a constant 1.3-1.4 for the past several months due to the lack of "good" sales. The last time orbs were on a decent sale, gold was around 1.9 on Sanctuary.

50 Gold at 1.3 (taxed) = 66.3 mil
20 Gold at 1.9 (taxed) = 38.76 mil
30 Gold price per orb is the price at which the two values are nearing equal.

This sale is so frustrating because even with lower gold, we're paying double the price for the product. Cash Shoppers are paying more than double the price. If the price were lowered to 30, would you be as upset? Of course, this is ignoring that months of crappy sales led to the lower gold price to begin with and that gold would mildly inflate with a decent orb sale... People who purely cashshop would be paying 10$ more per orb in this example, while farmers would be paying about the same.

So overall, how does the community feel about this issue? The higher gold is, the more expensive everything is for non-cashshoppers. The lower gold is, the less likely (as observed historically) it seems that PWI will put in discount "steal" prices. Think about it, the R9 discount was put in when gold was exceptionally high (2mil each) and what it did was forcibly lower R9 costs to around 1.4 gold price. Should their be some fixed "value" as to effort required vs cash price?

Or do you prefer some mythical middle ground? Am I off base here? If I'm really off base, just go drink a beer. My treat.

First of all, dw only went max to 1.5mil with proper 10* sale. Second of all theres a thing called planning ahead. I have saved my gold since december for a proper orb sale so ill only be paying 28mil per ocean. PS if i sound rude sorry im really pissed about this sale. i will continue to save my gold tho

Kerona - Sanctuary · April 2012

Capping gold price would just discourage people from actually buying Gold, in my opinion.

@ Mitachi - The fact remains that if you were to sell the gold you saved, you would make more coin. They're costing you the price gold is valued at at the time you bought them. And the last "real" 10* sale was last December. If Dreamweaver really peaked at 1.5 during that sale, that would be astounding news to me.

KawaiiJen - Heavens Tear · April 2012

I don't think it would discourage buyers as much as people selling said bought gold. Though there will always be some that will anyways just like there are people buying the 10*s right now as we type. Extreme adjustments are the only real solution to getting the economy back on track... as well as other things to pull this game out of life support. Maybe not the extreme of 800k (thats half the cost almost of our servers coin/gold ratio) but maybe 1mi.

Mitachi - Dreamweaver · April 2012

Kerona - Sanctuary wrote: »

Capping gold price would just discourage people from actually buying Gold, in my opinion.

@ Mitachi - The fact remains that if you were to sell the gold you saved, you would make more coin. They're costing you the price gold is valued at at the time you bought them. And the last "real" 10* sale was last December. If Dreamweaver really peaked at 1.5 during that sale, that would be astounding news to me.

Yes i agree, and dw was

however i need 10*'s so my cleric would cry "REFINE ME ****!" or the merchant with in me would say "SELL THE GOLD MFER" so derp hard to choose.

Flamespirit - Dreamweaver · April 2012

The best way to lower gold price via coins is to make coins more valuable....Make an npc that sells something worthwhile for coins. Unfortunately the best of everything is bought with gold not coins, so coins while usefull are devalued. The morai npc selling gems is a great idea, only they put a stupid quest points side to it, and I for one would be ok with the jewelmaster selling all the types and strengths of gems for a steady price in coins. Another great idea would be selling wines from the bh guy for reasonable price near what it costs now so that players would do that out of laziness rather then making thier own.

TwinDreams - Harshlands · April 2012

KawaiiJen - Heavens Tear wrote: »

So you say but if people knew there was a cap, they would just wait until people put it in the AH instead of supporting the "buy" from WC.

Capping gold price will not solve anything. The merchants will be the ones camping at AH buying out all the gold and then sell items from boutique at its true price where demand = supply. If a cap happens, I would also set up a catshop buying things like dragon orbs above gold cap price, so cs-ers will sell to me instead of AH.

Unless you do the same, non-merchant consumers will still pay high prices despite the cap. The cap merely destroys the function of AH being the medium of exchange for gold-coins.

The only way a cap work is for an NPC to sell gold at the so-called 800k, but that will kill PWE's revenue.

Mayfly - Dreamweaver · April 2012

Flamespirit - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Unfortunately the best of everything is bought with gold not coins, so coins while usefull are devalued.

Not true for everything. <cough>faction base pet skill scrolls<cough>

Hurrdurr - Lothranis · April 2012

Is there a point of having low gold if we have no sales? At the end of the day gold at 2m with 50% off is exactly the same price to F2P players as no sale but 1m gold. The only people it will affect is major CSers.

Quilue - Sanctuary · April 2012

Kerona - Sanctuary wrote: »

The recent trend in sales obviously bothers a lot of people, myself included. Some have suggested PWI is fulfilling its promise to try to lower gold price due to customer complaints of high gold price driven up by exploitative sales. On Sanctuary, gold has stayed at a constant 1.3-1.4 for the past several months due to the lack of "good" sales. The last time orbs were on a decent sale, gold was around 1.9 on Sanctuary.

50 Gold at 1.3 (taxed) = 66.3 mil
20 Gold at 1.9 (taxed) = 38.76 mil
30 Gold price per orb is the price at which the two values are nearing equal.

This sale is so frustrating because even with lower gold, we're paying double the price for the product. Cash Shoppers are paying more than double the price. If the price were lowered to 30, would you be as upset? Of course, this is ignoring that months of crappy sales led to the lower gold price to begin with and that gold would mildly inflate with a decent orb sale... People who purely cashshop would be paying 10$ more per orb in this example, while farmers would be paying about the same.

So overall, how does the community feel about this issue? The higher gold is, the more expensive everything is for non-cashshoppers. The lower gold is, the less likely (as observed historically) it seems that PWI will put in discount "steal" prices. Think about it, the R9 discount was put in when gold was exceptionally high (2mil each) and what it did was forcibly lower R9 costs to around 1.4 gold price. Should their be some fixed "value" as to effort required vs cash price?

Or do you prefer some mythical middle ground? Am I off base here? If I'm really off base, just go drink a beer. My treat.

They're not really trying to lower gold though. It's BS because packs are still in at 44 gold per 100 packs. Anything under 600k per pack and players will gobble it up. This, as well as the expectation that a ridiculous sale might come around, is what's keeping gold high. Even if 10 stars were at 75 gold each, gold still won't drop as long as packs is keeping it up.

As for mythical middle ground, I think 1m per gold is fine. I think to be able to farm for gold at a reasonable rate is good. Most cash shoppers don't expect to buy all their gear and refines straight with credit card, they expect to play in-game too.

Hurrdurr - Lothranis wrote: »

Is there a point of having low gold if we have no sales? At the end of the day gold at 2m with 50% off is exactly the same price to F2P players as no sale but 1m gold. The only people it will affect is major CSers.

Depends on what's on sale and what's not, high gold with sales can be more frustrating because PWI can force players to pay up for certain items well above their market price by simply cutting gold prices on one item. Extended pack sales with no other sale on anything else shows this.

Asterelle - Sanctuary_1381265973 · April 2012

KawaiiJen - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Cap Gold to coin ratio at 800k. Problem solved.

You can't force someone else to sell something to you for less than it's worth.
That's just being greedy and is cheating them out of the full value of their gold.

If you remove the ability of buyers to outbid eachother a merchant like me will just block the rest of the server from buying any gold at all by placing a large order. How fun would it be to have to wait behind an order for 1000 gold at 800k when almost no gold sellers want to sell at that price?

Aubree - Dreamweaver · April 2012

Kerona - Sanctuary wrote: »

Capping gold price would just discourage people from actually buying Gold, in my opinion.

@ Mitachi - The fact remains that if you were to sell the gold you saved, you would make more coin. They're costing you the price gold is valued at at the time you bought them. And the last "real" 10* sale was last December. If Dreamweaver really peaked at 1.5 during that sale, that would be astounding news to me.

It was not 1.5, it was @ 2m+. I started dabbling in PWI again at that time and was like "LOLOLOL 2m gold wtf".

Kerona - Sanctuary · April 2012

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

They're not really trying to lower gold though. It's BS because packs are still in at 44 gold per 100 packs. Anything under 600k per pack and players will gobble it up. This, as well as the expectation that a ridiculous sale might come around, is what's keeping gold high. Even if 10 stars were at 75 gold each, gold still won't drop as long as packs is keeping it up.

As for mythical middle ground, I think 1m per gold is fine. I think to be able to farm for gold at a reasonable rate is good. Most cash shoppers don't expect to buy all their gear and refines straight with credit card, they expect to play in-game too.

Depends on what's on sale and what's not, high gold with sales can be more frustrating because PWI can force players to pay up for certain items well above their market price by simply cutting gold prices on one item. Extended pack sales with no other sale on anything else shows this.

To be honest, Packs aren't what keeps gold high. Merchants keep gold high. SHHH don't tell anyone. Sell-Profit merchants need to keep gold up to keep their prices up because they are trying to make a profit in coin, not gold. Every day gold drops down several times and then some angry merchant bids it back up. They do it both sneakily and obviously (1 gold at each bid point really? i'm talking to you mr sanctuary merchant from yesterday. I saw that.)

Pack addicts? Will buy packs at whatever price you put them at. Even when they're off sale. Why? Becuase they're addicted, they mostly don't even look at the actual price.

Mitachi - Dreamweaver · April 2012

Aubree - Dreamweaver wrote: »

It was not 1.5, it was @ 2m+. I started dabbling in PWI again at that time and was like "LOLOLOL 2m gold wtf".

WHat really?! wow i must of been drunk then trololol

Quilue - Sanctuary · April 2012

Well that's the thing. Merchants will keep bumping up gold prices as long as people will buy what they get from that gold. If people are willing to pay 600k for packs, this current gold price simply is what you're going to get.

XCurse - Dreamweaver · April 2012

I don't mind having crappy sales to lower gold price, but will this sales be "crappy" forever? NO. even if pwi managed to lower gold price with crappy sales to 1m or below that they will just bring big sale and ruin everything.
it took how long ? 6 months to see gold below 1.3m so another 6 month to get it to 1m. o wait there is anniversary every year and tons of other special occasions. so that would never work b:laugh
PWI not putting these crappy sales to lower gold. they just want ppl to keep waiting for good sale so when it comes they get more money out of these people who waited forever.

endless greed b:angry

Blows - Dreamweaver · April 2012

KawaiiJen - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Cap Gold to coin ratio at 800k. Problem solved.

I think that's to low i think maybe 1.3mil would be a fair gold cap.. people selling the gold may not even bother with selling gold anymore at that price

Zarni - Dreamweaver · April 2012

Quilue - Sanctuary wrote: »

They're not really trying to lower gold though. It's BS because packs are still in at 44 gold per 100 packs. Anything under 600k per pack and players will gobble it up. This, as well as the expectation that a ridiculous sale might come around, is what's keeping gold high. Even if 10 stars were at 75 gold each, gold still won't drop as long as packs is keeping it up.

Thanks for saving me the trouble of typing this out. I thought it was common knowledge by now that pack prices are what drive gold prices, but I guess not.

Kerona - Sanctuary · April 2012

Zarni - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Thanks for saving me the trouble of typing this out. I thought it was common knowledge by now that pack prices are what drive gold prices, but I guess not.

Because it's not entirely true.

Tremblewith - Heavens Tear · April 2012

I'd like my 90k coin per gold ratio back pl0x.

XTrigger - Archosaur · April 2012

Tremblewith - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I'd like my 90k coin per gold ratio back pl0x.

I wish I bought up every single gold back then

Strife_son - Sanctuary · April 2012

I refine 1-12 with mirages only. Orbs are for suckas. Like Kerona. wordddddd

mm2000 · April 2012

Cheaper sales are better off than lower gold prices, no thank you. I am against lower gold rate now since there access to R8 or better and wraith badges, people would never spend a single dime and the game would be too easy for everybody that plays this game, people would be walking around with +12 everything, not even for endgame alone. PWE will not be making any more money afterwards because it will hurt their business. It may also result in a server shutdown... Do you want that? No, just no.

Morghast - Dreamweaver · April 2012

I prefer a game that isn't completely broken.

Oh wait...

brett8715 · April 2012

I remember when gold was 80k-100k each and now is over 1 mil- 2 mil. I think was about 3 years ago so about 3 more years gold will be at 3-4 mil each...

Which do you prefer: good sales or cheaper gold?

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