are you kidding me?

OPKossy wrote: »

I do hope this gets a decent few participants. Considering it's only 4 character mailboxes per server, you actually have a fairly decent chance of winning with just 1 big note unless your server is filled with people willing to play a huge gamble and send in far more than an item's value in hopes of getting it.

Daegu - Sanctuary wrote: »

What I would like to see GM's do as a coin sink is for them to start selling gold in the Auction Hall. It seems like many servers are low on gold and the gold prices seem unreasonable for most players. The GM's could then just discard the coin they get for selling the gold.

I am sure they could get rid of billions of coins every day from each server using this method.

Daegu - Sanctuary wrote: »

The problem I see with your statement is that the GM's have already been manipulating prices to go up several times.

When? What were the exact effects of their manipulation?

Another problem with your statement is that they would not need to dump gold prices. Nowhere in my statement it says that. Over time with more gold in the game and more money being removed in this coin sink the prices would normally and naturally drop. I do not see how that would crash the economy. It would have a chance to repair it.

In order for the coin sink to be effective lowering gold prices has to be a side effect. If the gold is at the same price as it is now there's no incentive to buy it, and people who sell gold will simply undercut the GMs to sell quicker. The market is competitive, and even if you did have a GM sit there all day competing with other people it's unlikely that they'd be able to actually unload enough gold to create a significant coin sink while trying not to alter gold prices too much.

The only way for them to sell off a large enough amount of gold to take out a lot of the coin that's currently circulating would be to drastically lower the prices so that the price is appealing. Unfortunately, that would cause a massive outcry in the community, and many people would definitely ragequit.

If there is a solution with gold, this isn't it.

Case of point could be when gold price was around 1 mil and a good sale would temporarily boost gold prices up to 2 mil only for it to drop back down when the sale was over. Examples like that have happened several times in the past in this game and it have never crashed the economy nor caused people to leave the game cause they could not sell gold for the higher coin price.

The difference is those prices were player driven, not GM driven. As I stated earlier the only way this would be an effective coin sink is if the GMs set the price to be a significant amount lower than current prices, otherwise people will just compete with them.

I'm not gonna pretend I took some economy course in college or something, but unless you explain your idea a bit more I just don't see how it could end up being healthy.

Daegu - Sanctuary wrote: »

The first example of it happening in the game would be when the gold price was at 100-130 k and they added an item to the boutique at 5 gold that was used to get 1 mil coin in game which forced the gold price to jump to 200k. There have been many similar things since then.

That's completely different. Your suggestion is for the GMs to sell gold, which means the money would go to them and be taken out of circulation. This requires the GMs to directly affect gold prices.

Your example of them doing this is adding an item to the boutique, which is completely invalid because that's not a coin sink. Every coin someone spends on that gold remains in circulation. When items are added or removed from the boutique gold prices are determined by the players, not the GMs.

As far as I can recall there's been no examples of GMs DIRECTLY tampering with gold prices.

People are already competing with gold prices without them going down. Right now there is so much coin in the game that it is making gold price stay high as the cheapest gold keeps getting bought.

Yes, they're competing, because that's how a free market works. This is the exact reason that if a GM were to try to sell gold as a coin sink while also trying to maintain the price of gold it would fail. Gold sellers will compete with them, undercut them, and ultimately sell more gold than them.

Like I said in my post gold prices would naturally lower over time as there is more gold on the server and coin is getting taken out of the game even with GM's Just matching current gold price and then following the gold price as the players keep on lowering it.

Yes, gold prices would naturally lower over time, but as I recall you said that's not the important part. The only two options I see are this:

• GMs sell gold at competitive prices and are undercut, rendering their coin sink almost useless.
  
• GMs sell gold at a far lower price and crash the market, making their coin sink effective at the cost of upsetting many players. This wouldn't effect just the gold market, but every market.

Lowering of the gold price would make more people happy than it would make people sad. There are a few that wants gold prices high but they seem to be a very small minority.

If lowering of the gold price is a side effect of the GM's adding more gold into the game as a coin sink it would still be just as player driven as for example a sale in my example. They can even not tell the players about it and do it in secret so that people like you do not randomly complain like you normally do.

PWI can't afford to lose a significant percentage of players. Period.

No, it wouldn't. Player driven means the players have the ability to effect the market, they can make the price of an item go up or down based on supply and demand. If a GM sells gold players no longer have that ability, and gold prices can only sink. Yes, people will still be able to buy and sell their gold, but they lose their control over the prices they can get for it. That isn't player driven.

Any idea that strips players of any type of freedom is doomed to fail from the start. The issue isn't whether or not they do it in secret, eventually players would figure out something is up when gold only ever decreases in price, even during sales. I'm not randomly complaining, I'm voicing a genuine concern. Why people always believe that anyone who opposes their idea should be automatically dismissed is beyond me, this is how ideas are shaped. Someone suggests something, someone else points out flaws or voices concerns, the idea is reworked or other ideas are suggested and the process begins again.

Let's assume your idea works though. Let's assume nobody quits and people exclusively buy from the GM because they're available 24/7 to lower their gold so as not to be undercut. What happens then is gold spirals down, it becomes extremely low in price. As a consequence R9 materials, pack items, tokens, everything boutique related falls in price. Your idea is a success and gold is being removed from the game.

Except for one thing. It isn't enough. While a fair amount of coin is being removed, there's still people with extremely large amounts of wealth. People who no longer require boutique items as they've completed their gear, and only use it for vanity items. As time goes on gold will only go down in price, prices of boutique items will drop accordingly, and the players that no longer need these items will increase.

Players will continue to accumulate wealth after they've finished their gear, which is made easier by the perpetually dropping prices caused by your suggestions. Eventually more and more players will reach a point where they have no need of the gold market. The ability to acquire end game gear much easier than before, while it's been everyone's dream, would become this games destruction.

The wealth players get through the game would be more than sufficient to purchase items at their reduced price, aside from the odd Scroll of Tome or Crown of Madness. This, combined with severely reduced gold prices will mean there's no reason to actually put ZEN into the game. For anyone. Having mostly end game gear while being able to easily afford any item means there's just no need to charge ZEN aside from certain sales, like +10/11/12 Orbs that happen every so often. Even then, I'm pretty sure PWI loses money from your suggestion in the long term. Afterall, why would players buy ZEN when they can afford everything they need and already have most of their gear? Why would they buy ZEN when it sells for such a low price that it's just not worth the money anymore?

An item coinsink, making NW recast items available for craft with an all coin fee or a coin fee+item, as well as making certain gems available for a coin cost wouldn't directly affect gold prices. That side of the economy could remain mostly unaffected while giving the game a massive coin sink.


I am sorry you do not understand the simplicity of this concept Zanryu and that you try to create unreasonable doomsday scenarios to defend your views about it. It is okay with me that you do not understand it though. Hopefully most other do.

I grasp the simplicity of the concept. I understand your idea, you want to have GMs inject gold into the game so players buy it. This takes the coin out of circulation by providing people with an item they want and having them send money to someone that will never spend it, effectively removing that coin from the game. The problem is you operate under the assumption that people will buy exclusively from the GM, or that the GM can be competitive with other players. The fact of the matter is they can't. Period.

You have not once truly defended your position. The only thing you've done is tell me I'm wrong, but you give no reason as to why I'm wrong. This isn't a doomsday scenario, this is what I believe will happen with your suggestion. If my logic is wrong I'm confident someone will call me on it.

Daegu - Sanctuary wrote: »

Did you notice you are now unaware of what you have said a few posts ago and that you have started to argue against yourself? I feel that makes it redundant to talk to you so I will just say one thing. It is mostly an opinion and not based on any sustainable facts.

It seems like people leaving is your strongest argument so I thought I should just comment on that. People have threatened to leave this game for a few years now. Most of those who make those threats are still playing and posting on forums. It seems to me that PWE have never cared about those threats and I do not see why they would start doing so now. I take that threat of people leaving from you as empty now as well. I would even find it reasonable that the current gold price is making more players quit. Gold price getting more obtainable for a bigger portion of players could have a chance to get hem back.