The Economy!

[Toast]

The recent discussions are running out of steam, so here's something different. The virtual economy in World of Warcraft actually seems to be working pretty well so far.

Deflation:
Deflation, ie falling prices, is a normal pitfall that has plagued the genre. WoW combats deflation pretty effectively. The "Bind on Equip" system constantly reduces the item supply. Good npc vendor buy prices also help set a price floor for most items.

Inflation:
In my estimation, inflation will be a problem for all players from low level to high.

New low level players will get hit from both item scarcity and money supply inflation. Low level equipment is generated by low-mid level characters hunting. As the server population matures, there is less and less supply of items at the lower end of the level curve. Auction house prices rise for low end items. I saw a lot of this recently as a newbie at Sargeras (Horde) where it was virtually impossible to find weapons below level 20. When one did show up, it would be priced exorbitantly.

These same lowbies will also be hit by the growing money supply. Rich level 60s will drive the price of goods up while purchasing for twinks.

High level players see inflation mainly in the prices sought for rare patterns and epic items. With scarcity and an ever-increasting gold supply, prices have already gotten crazy.


Overall, there may be inflation, but the game offers enough options via quests or crafting subsistence for players to stay equipped and up to speed. I think Blizzard has done a good job, as the AH, when it works, is a nice "minigame" and source of enjoyment.

[sidereal]

I agree on the prediction of low-level inflation.  I think it'll get a little better when they put in more AH's.  As is, you generally only consider auctioning stuff that's fairly well below your current level.  Anything close either gets used or sent to a friend or alt.  But if something's well below your current level it's not worth a lot of effort to get it to an AH.  It'll be giving silver when you only care about gold and so on.  If there's an AH nearby, it's more likely you'll hold onto it until then.   I already resent the one trip to Orgrimmar I have to make per play session to deal with AH.  If I held onto all the lowbie gear I found, I'd have to make 2 or 3.

[WindupAtheist]

I leveled to 31 with ease, killing plenty of stuff a couple levels higher than me, equipped with nothing but quest drops and the odd bit of NPC-purchased junk.  What "low level economy?"

[Rasix]

Twinking, crafting, and actually buying good crap instead of NPC garbage, halfwit.  A blue level 30 dagger I sold a month ago will probably go for about 3x what I sold it for now.  There's a very active market in buying stuff below the level where people start gearing up for life.

Seriously, stop interjecting yourself where you have nothing useful to say.

[Fabricated]

Nearly everything I'm equipped with I crafted. The rest is "X of the Y" type equipment purchased from the AH or found on mobs. I simply can NOT afford rares, and I have no use for 99% of the ones I find.

How the hell do people make so much money? Is farming metal bars very profitable? I mean, my blacksmithing hasn't made me SHIT for money whenever I've tried crafting things for sale. Even the really annoying to make stuff (Green Iron Hauberks for example...which are pretty much the best mail armor you can wear for several levels, but require Green Leather Armor made by leatherworkers) doesn't sell all that well.

The only way I can see crafting being really profitable outside of selling off raw materials (and stuff like Rods for enchanters) is being in a guild so your guildmates can provide the craftskill-related materials you need.

Also: WTF is up with the Green Iron Hauberk being so good anyway? I constantly see plans for "Wildthorn Armor" up in AH for obscene amounts of gold...when it fucking sucks. It requires a shitload of Thorium, Arcanite bars, and other super-high level crafting materials, yet it doesn't offer nearly as good armor or bonuses.

[Morfiend]

Well, the high end crafting stuff can be really good. I have a killed helm on my rogue. The helm of fire, was made for me by a guild mate. Also, a bunch of the leather and cloth stuff is pretty good. But if you spend a lot of time instance farming, you will have better gear than the crafted stuff. Im level 53 and since about lvl 20 onward I have had about 30-45% crafted equipment on.

I use the AH to buy stuff just to fill spots in my equipment that is getting realy outdated, or if I find a really good piece of equipment.

Some of the high level set pieces are bind on equip, so you can sell them. Those pieces can range from 20 to 300 gold per.

[Rasix]

Well, my friend has about 400 or so gold.  He was one of the first really high up alchemists on the server.  He was 300/300 herbalism/alchemy really early on, perhaps as soon as he hit 40.  But, he hasn't been making potions for profit for a while.   I'm not sure how he makes all of it, but he's just constantly in the money.  

He uses the auction house a lot and seems to make an absolute kiling there.  He also plays a ton (pretty much self employed, so he has lots of time), and probably knows just about every chest spawn point in the game.  In comparison, myself and my other friend are usually dirt ass poor.  Even then, the amount of cash he has just seems obscene.

Farmers tend to do well in this game.  Most of the more notorious ones just have reams of cash.  But if you /who them, they're always on.

[Calantus]

My Paladin had 130 gold by level 36 from selling metal bars in the auction house. I say at 36 because at that point I started giving away a fair bit of it because I wasn't using it myself (and he started farming sweet, sweet lanterns soon after also... now nerfed from 17 silver to 70 copper... it's enough to make a grown man weep).

Now my chars burn all their gold on new stuff at the AH if they find anything good. My priest right now is swimming in the very best green and some sweet blues from 4 levels ago but can't upgrade because the only pieces better than what he has are like +1 int, +2 stam, and some uneeded armour for 1+ gold... screw that. He also has ~12 gold which is plenty enough for his level after all the expenses (including throwing 4 gold to alts).

I think the key is to pick up EVERYTHING and sell it to a vendor, then recognise what greens/blues are good and selling them at an AH for a good price. A few instance runs never goes astray as well.

[Kageru]

There's some other nice controls. The way the game sets a minimum price you can put something at the AH, the relatively short duration and the deposit discourages you from keeping low value items up for sale. Better to just vendor them.

I'm fairly sure some of the guild enchanters have been buying up items for dis-enchantment. That trade skill is an immense vacuum to suck cheap magic items out of the economy. And because the output is applied to bind on equip items one character can go through many enchantments over its lifetime.

[SurfD]

Enchanting also seems to be a HUGE money maker on PVP servers. Not only from people charging outrageous prices for enchantments (25g just to add a bit of damage and a cool glow to your weapon!?!??) and people selling the actual disenchant items (i have seen large radiant shards sell in auction house for 5 or more gold each)

[chinslim]

How the hell do people make so much money?

Time to play is a huge factor, as other people have mentioned.  One person I know dropped 1 craft for skinning, got it to 300 in a few days, and made 400-500 gold over a week or two to buy the lvl 60 mount.  A few others made a killing buying out limited recipes from Everlook and other remote vendors and marking them up on the AH.  Some people trade/arbitrage on the AH extensively and are making out like Wall Street bandits.  Rogues as a class in general have lvl 60 mounts the fastest thanks to SM farming.

[WindupAtheist]

Twinking, crafting, and actually buying good crap instead of NPC garbage, halfwit.  A blue level 30 dagger I sold a month ago will probably go for about 3x what I sold it for now.  There's a very active market in buying stuff below the level where people start gearing up for life.

Seriously, stop interjecting yourself where you have nothing useful to say.

Shit, I rarely even bought from an NPC.  I cruised on nothing but loot and quest drops.  I don't know what I was saving my money for, exactly, but I figured there was something out there better than a shiny new sword that I'd be mathematically required to throw away in a week because I'd outleveled it, couldn't re-sell thanks to soulbinding, and didn't really need because my quest drop sword was killing everything just fine anyway.

[Toast]

and didn't really need because my quest drop sword was killing everything just fine anyway.

Damage per second numbers are shown, so it is obvious that there is a significant difference between the weapons from quest versus those available at AH.

Buying a "blue" 20 dps dagger makes a huge difference over a 12 dps dagger from quest. You don't need the extra dps, but stuff will die much faster, and the grind will be that much less.

[Righ]

Low level equipment is generated by low-mid level characters hunting. As the server population matures, there is less and less supply of items at the lower end of the level curve.

I doubt that this will be anything more than a temporary condition. Last night I discovered that I can make cash more quickly by racing through Razorfen Kraul than I can farming satyrs and elves in Azshara. Of course, I get XP in Azshara, and the chance of a decent level rare drop, but XP is still coming in so fast, and world drops are rare enough to not worry about when they come. As a result of a quick run through RK, I have a large number of level 21-30 green items on the AH now. In the time it took, I would have been lucky to get more than a formula of elixir of the mongoose from Azshara. Since its easy for a high level player to generate a lot of lower level loot fast, prices will never go too high, since the high level players are always looking for an easy buck so as to grind up to that elite mount.

[WayAbvPar]

My method- when eligible for rested XP, I hunt level appropriate stuff, generally quest-related. Once I am on 'normal' experience, I can take the time to work on cooking, fishing, and farming low level stuff for cash. I had to wait 9 miinutes for my hearthstone to regen last night at the end of my play session, so I killed time by bashing 19th level mobs. Got 4 green drops in time; 2 were decent enough to go on the AH block.

I think high characters farming grey mobs for cash and drops will keep the low level stuff reasonably available in the AH. Only so many alts everyone can play, after all.

[Dren]

I do the same thing as Way almost exactly, but when it comes to making money on the AH, I just haven't "got it."

I even put some pretty decent stuff up for just a little bit above vendor prices to see if I could make ANYTHING move.  Nope, that didn't work either.

I'm guessing there is a time of day or other secret that I'm just not getting.  Anyone have some advise?

Also, I've been trying to buy things on the AH.  I put in around 15 bids this weekend and not a one of them stuck.  I'd be gone from IF for about 30 minutes doing my own thing and I'd get a message that I lost the bid.  I'm not going to go all the way back and rebid even though I want to.

My thought is that if the AH's are spread out to the major cities, I would be alllowed to get more re-bids in more often.  I like that, but I have to think that final bids might go up considerably due to that fact. 

[WayAbvPar]

Check the stats on the items your are selling in the AH.  If it is a sword or axe but gives bonuses to Spirit and Int, for instance, it probably won't sell (unless an enchanter buys it to destroy). The things that sell are weapons that give bonuses to the prime stats for the classes that normally use them (STR, STAM, AGI for axes and swords and daggers, SPI and INT for staves, for instance), or are somehow out of the ordinary (magic shoulders, rings, etc).

[Dren]

Yeah, I do that, but still doesn't seem to matter.  I just didn't know if those drops are just too frequent so everyone gets them.  I'll just have to sit at the AH some night and really work it.  So far, I've just found that to be tedious and "unfun."

[Morfiend]

I do the same thing as Way almost exactly, but when it comes to making money on the AH, I just haven't "got it."

Part of this might be not knowing your target market. If you get a pretty good 2h weapon or even a damn good weapon, for say around lvl 30-40. There is a really good chance it wont sel, because all warriors do a quest around lvl 30+ to get themselves a really good 2h weapon. So no one buys.

Armor on the other hand sells a lot better. I would think selling at a lower level is harder these days, becasue people in general are higher level.

Between lvl 20 and 40, I made a absolute killing on the AH, dropping all kinds of stuff, and having it sell. Not I usually just sell to the vendor if a guildies doesnt want an item.

[Calantus]

A quick guide to what armour people want to buy at the AH.


Cloth:

- Int/Stam (of the eagle) is king. Some people still like spirit, but most (including myself) would trade 20 spi for 2 int or stam.

- Int/Spi (of the owl) sells ok... if your prices are pretty low.

Leather:

- Agi/Stam (of the monkey) is king here. All the rogues and hunters want teh monkey and there is an awful lot of them. I crack a big smile whenever I get monkey because I know I can get more than it's worth.

- Int/Sta (of the eagle) is a little disappointing. Druids love it of course, but there's not enough of them to move large amounts of this.

- Int/Spi (of the owl) and Spi/Stam (of the whale?) would be more in demand for smart druids as they are the best class for it, but again, not enough druids to sell that much, and most don't understand why they should have spirit.

Mail:

- Before lvl 40 you want Stam/Str (of the bear) as warriors and many paladins like the stuff.

- Again before 40, you can also sell Int/Stam (of the eagle) to certain paladins. Funnily enough this sells well because even though the demand is fairly low, the supply is even lower because people don't know about it.

- After 40 it's the monkey that is king for hunters.

(I'd also imagine shamans would want of the eagle, but I've never been so high with a horde char)

Plate:

Same as mail was before level 40. Also, more paladins will be looking for eagle gear and people STILL don't know it.


I'm not sure about resistance or +spell effect items as I've never bothered trying o move them.

Also note that around levels 20-30 you can gouge people for crappy rings and amulets because they want to fill those slots.



For weapons, think Int and/or stam for staves, str and/or stam for weapons, and agi for any weapon a rogue or hunter can weild. Also, sell any green+ wand you pick up, they seem to go quite well.


EDIT: One more thing... put your auctions on 24 hour timers. It means more people get to see it for a bid, and people are more likely to buy it out as they don't wanna wait so damn long. You DO put in a buyout, right?

[murdoc]

And don't put a fucking ridiculous buyout either. Put something that someone might actually PAY.

[WayAbvPar]

If it is a hot item (one I know will sell from past experience), I set a buyout for 5 or 6 times the original bid at least. If I am just trying to move it for more than the vendors will pay, I will lower the original bid a bit and set the buyout to around 2.5x the original bid.

If you set a reasonable buyout, people will pay it more often than not- no one wants to wait for an auction to end. Instant gratification, damnit!

Also- if any highbies on Earthen Ring (Righ, I am looking at you) stumble onto a level 28-35 dagger or two (AGI/STA preferred), let me know! AH supplies have been scarce. I got outbid 3 times for the same crappy dagger yesterday. Bastards.

[Calantus]

If it is a hot item (one I know will sell from past experience), I set a buyout for 5 or 6 times the original bid at least.[...]

If you set a reasonable buyout, people will pay it more often than not- no one wants to wait for an auction to end. Instant gratification, damnit!

Exactly. My brother and I were lucky enough to find 4 blues in about 1/2 hour of hunting in the spier cave in wetlands. 3 of them were the same damn shield. He got 1 shield (and the gauntlets), the other 2 I sold individually in the AH (ie. I didn't put them both up at the same time). I put the bid for 1 gold, the buyout for 7 gold. Both sold to buyout within 12 hours (the first was something crazy like 4 hours). This was a low-mid shield too, so that was crazy money. I find that I'll buyout any blue I want unless it's simply rediculous because I KNOW some tool will buy it out before I win the item, so buyout is the only way to get it.

[Gimmick Acct Sky]

Yeah, I'm on a temporary account. Can't login  Anyway.

I've done 'ok' on the AH, not stellar. Mostly because I don't spend much time in town, which is really the key to buying from the AH.

For buying, I have two methods. One is for low bid items with long timers, I just throw a bid on it in case nobody grabs it. This is really good just before I got to bed as primetime wanes. The other, mostly for stuff I actually need, is to wait until it hits at least 'medium' before bidding. This is the method I'll use while watching tv or something, because when I want to buy something on the AH, I usually want to sit in there a while, and it gets pretty boring.

But if someone outbids me, I don't immediately bid again and jack the price. I let him think he's got it, and then jump in just before it sells. You can time it almost exactly if you are monitoring 'time left', when it switches from 'medium' to 'short', there's a half hour left. So about a minute before that time runs out, drop a bid. You'll usually get it, unless the other bidder is doing the same.

Selling, I'm not great at. :) But I do pretty good. I only sell desirable stuff, as outlined above, and items I know move pretty well, which you get a feel for by spending time at the AH. I try to time my auctions so the most eyeballs see it (usually 24h), and have it end in 'primetime' for a nice bidding war. I make an announcement when items go up for auction, and at least once more when the deadline draws near. Depending on the item, I may lowball the house minimum bid, using vendor price + deposit as a guideline. Unless something is really desirable, I put a reasonable buyout as well. For nice stuff, pure auction.

I normally only sell dropped items, but I do keep an eye out for common goods. Recently I've been doing pretty good buying trade goods and reagents that people drop on for default bids. One of my best moneymakers is pearl or other high gemstones. You can often find them for default bids, I pay 15s for black pearls, for instance. Then I turn it around and sell it for 50s bid, 1g buyout, and they are almost always bought out. Wish I had more inclination for playing the market, you can make a decent profit doing so.

[Righ]

Also- if any highbies on Earthen Ring (Righ, I am looking at you) stumble onto a level 28-35 dagger or two (AGI/STA preferred), let me know! AH supplies have been scarce. I got outbid 3 times for the same crappy dagger yesterday. Bastards.

You'd probably best come to RK with me some time, there's some worthwhile BoP stuff in there:

dagger
dagger

If you see the rare spawn Skhowl in Alterac Mountains, kill him for a decent chance at this:

dagger

For now, get DPS on your daggers, get your AGI/STA from armor. Other than those, most else around those levels are world drops or shitty. SV is as good a place as any to get deadly kris daggers which are the greens for your level.

[Toast]

Also, you can go solo for a nice 20.5 dagger in Gnomeregan. A rogue can do it at around level 30 with a heal potion. It's a pretty fast run if you know where to go.

http://www.thottbot.com/index.cgi?i=9007

[WayAbvPar]

You'd probably best come to RK with me some time, there's some worthwhile BoP stuff in there:

That is actually my next stop-have a few quests in there (as do my buddies), so we will probably give it a try one of these nights. Of course, if you happen to be wandering through there and have some time, we can do it that way too =)

[Train Wreck]

I love economics threads.  I would weigh in, but my account is less than a day old.  It's very interesting to read about the dynamics of it, though.  It sounds like its running along pretty smoothly.  Is this because WoW is still new, or is the economy built to last?

[Righ]

Brand new. There are a couple of enormous money sinks that are affecting things. Mounts and elite mounts. At level 40, 90 gold is a lot. At level 60, 900 gold is a lot. Many of the people who hit level 60 and got an elite mount have slowed their income massively by either doing raids or starting another main character. The economic effect of a significant number of people having acquired the elite mount hasn't really hit any servers yet. The Chinese "studios" are already very actively farming higher-level humanoids on most servers, so inflation wil set in.

[Toast]

The economy is brand new, but, compared to other games, it appears more likely to stay healthy.

The item sinks and money sinks (mounts + skill buys) are working well enough to keep things from careening to inflation or deflation.

One downside to the economy I have noticed is that many crafting skills are for subsistence, not for profit. Blizzard hit a home run with crafting in that almost every player participates. Unfortunately, that makes for a very crowded marketplace with prices on most crafted goods at or below cost of raw components.

Gathering and selling raw materials is the way to go to make cash.

[Train Wreck]

The economic effect of a significant number of people having acquired the elite mount hasn't really hit any servers yet. The Chinese "studios" are already very actively farming higher-level humanoids on most servers, so inflation wil set in.

Is it likely that a significant number of people will ever acquire elite mounts?  Is that like "winning WoW" or something?  Like becoming a Jedi in SWG? My impression from reading the general gaming forum is that WoW has little content for high level players, and that lvl 60 players usually either get bored or focus more on a different char.  It doesn't sound like they care about getting an elite mount, perhaps because the road to get there is thoroughly unentertaining?

Naturally, I could be reading things completely wrong.

I don't know what you mean by Chinese "studios."  I've been MIA on the MMORPG scene for the last few years, with exception to SWG, which I pretty much treated as a single-player game anyway.

[MrHat]

Gathering and selling raw materials is the way to go to make cash.

Skinning/Mining.  I've been netting around 150g a level at L55-57. 

[Righ]

Is it likely that a significant number of people will ever acquire elite mounts?  Is that like "winning WoW" or something?  Like becoming a Jedi in SWG? My impression from reading the general gaming forum is that WoW has little content for high level players, and that lvl 60 players usually either get bored or focus more on a different char.  It doesn't sound like they care about getting an elite mount, perhaps because the road to get there is thoroughly unentertaining?

Naturally, I could be reading things completely wrong.

I don't know what you mean by Chinese "studios."  I've been MIA on the MMORPG scene for the last few years, with exception to SWG, which I pretty much treated as a single-player game anyway.

There are four level 60 players in the guild my main is in. Two of those players have elite mounts. The elite mounts are very fast transport. Much faster than class abilities and normal mounts. People want them. It's also further bragging rights to set folks apart from the gutter level 60s. They're about the most popular thing at high levels other than purple drops.

There's more upper level content than you might imagine. Being a phat lewt game, levels and mounts are just a part of your e-peen. What comes next are high end drops from raid instances. These instances demand fully developed characters with decent equipment. Although the beta whores spout that there's a lack of high end content this is because many of them have already experienced a lot of it. Yeah, Blizzard could work faster, but we saw that coming.

Chinese folks refer to the sweat shops that people play games in for real currency as "studios". Places like IGE (HQ in China) which sell virtual assets employ people in 3rd world economies to play games to make virtual currency.

[Train Wreck]

There are four level 60 players in the guild my main is in. Two of those players have elite mounts. The elite mounts are very fast transport. Much faster than class abilities and normal mounts. People want them. It's also further bragging rights to set folks apart from the gutter level 60s. They're about the most popular thing at high levels other than purple drops.

After the elite mounts, do lvl 60 players continue to have high expenses?

Chinese folks refer to the sweat shops that people play games in for real currency as "studios". Places like IGE (HQ in China) which sell virtual assets employ people in 3rd world economies to play games to make virtual currency.

That’s fucked up.  I can imagine the hatred that these folks must engender.

[Righ]

After the elite mounts, do lvl 60 players continue to have high expenses?

Only if they buy expensive things from other players. There is no post-mount money sink of great significance to somebody with a level 60 income.

That’s fucked up.  I can imagine the hatred that these folks must engender.

Not much a player can do, so you shouldn't get bent out of shape. Blizzard are harsh with the ban stick, so report them. Two Horde characters on ER who could only answer "Shou SM" to questions about whether they were farming on a corporate account recently vanished after being reported.