I looked at the FAQ and saw Scyber's response on stabilizing the economy without ladder resets, but I'm still confused as to how this works. Can someone please elaborate on how Bliz will keep the economy from going to crap and having items and gold being decreasing in value?
The development team has been working on the economy for a long time. Many item, and gold sinks are in place to slow the inevitable decrease in item and gold values. Gold Sinks such as durability repairs, enchantments, socketing, removing runes, or gems from items, crafting, salvaging, and more will likely keep gold in check for a long time. Item Sinks are a little less straight forward, features like salvaging will aid in this aspect. If the item to gold value is balanced enough, maybe sometimes it will be worth it to sale an item to an NPC for gold.
An idea that's been floating around in my head has been a weekly, or monthly "Fire Sale" of sorts where you can sell items to a certain NPC for a higher value than normal for a short period of time. Making selling even high tier items a possible good choice. This same concept could also manifest in the form of rare wondering NPCs which will buy your items for a higher price than common NPCs in town.
“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” - Albert Einstein
long story short, crafting/salvaging and gold sinks.
Crafting and salvaging help pull items from the economy. Really rare items will have to be destroyed in order to get the materials to craft other items.
There were not many viable gold sinks in D2 except gambling so people could hold onto gold. This will not be the case in D3.
n idea that's been floating around in my head has been a weekly, or monthly "Fire Sale" of sorts where you can sell items to a certain NPC for a higher value than normal for a short period of time. Making selling even high tier items a possible good choice. This same concept could also manifest in the form of rare wondering NPCs which will buy your items for a higher price than common NPCs in town.
That would be really awesome. A big "item sales" and probably at the same time an even where you can "buy" stuff that's currently lacking in the economy (say in a given time the amount of Obsidian runes is much smaller than Alabaster ones - they could sell Obsidians in this same monthly/weekly/whatever "event" - or maybe sell specific Gems or even some Rare Dyes if the objective is to remove even more "gold" from the economy).
The random NPC that pays more for you items could work - it might even make you wonder whether it is worth to bring with you that unique/legendary item you found in case you find an NPC that will buy it for a good sum of gold.
Expanding on that timely salesman... it could sell temporary "buffs" as well. This would effectively permanently remove items/gold from the economy in exchange for temporary power. It'd be best if it didn't sell things that hastened progression directly, such as faster experience gain buff, but more generalized things like an attack buff, or something less dull but doesn't directly affect progression either.
I'm still a little worried about other kinds of inflation though.
For instance, I'm fairly sure there's nothing pulling gems out of the economy at the moment. Being able to de-socket them without destroying them--while costing resources--still means that gems will never stop cycling through the economy. Eventually enough top-level gems will have accrued that they'll be virtually worthless.
There may be some stabilization from the cost of desocketing (if a gem is cheaper than it is to desocket, gems will be destroyed, and they'll equalize in value). But I imagine this cost is not enormous. I could be wrong about that, but if the idea is to be able to desocket low level gems, the cost can't be terribly high, as low level characters will be able to do it.
So unless there's some gem sink I don't know about, the highest level of gem will very quickly stabilize to roughly the same (probably low) price as it takes to desocket.
IFor instance, I'm fairly sure there's nothing pulling gems out of the economy at the moment. Being able to de-socket them without destroying them--while costing resources--still means that gems will never stop cycling through the economy. Eventually enough top-level gems will have accrued that they'll be virtually worthless.
I personally feel quite confident that gems (and other things of this nature, like runes) will be important in crafting, enchanting, etc., which will provide a great means of removing them from the economy. You're right, of course, that we haven't heard anything specific regarding pulling gems from the economy, but I'm sure Blizzard is aware of this potential problem and has probably multiple solutions to it.
If you've played any other rpg, you can look at how their economies work. The ladder reset and non-ladder dump is strictly implemented by Diablo II and was a hackneyed afterthought; probably the worst economy any developer could implement into a game. Games like GuildWars (and probably WoW) have hired economists and mathematicians for the purpose of an in-game economy. GuildWars has self-regulating merchants which change the prices of items based on surveying the entire game for supply/demand/buy/sell, and the drop rate was functioning perfectly within a few patches of the initial release.
I expect to see a surge in prices as the game starts, that happens with any big game's economy at launch. I remember a black dye in GuildWars costed 799,000 gold for the first few days (the highest level monsters drop 200 gold, and a full set of armor is 10,000 gold) until it was balanced.
If Diablo III pays attention to its economy, it should run smoothly as long as it has been set up correctly.
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The final test of the Serpent's Form takes place in "The Pit of 12 Vipers." The initiates are not told about the 13th.
IFor instance, I'm fairly sure there's nothing pulling gems out of the economy at the moment. Being able to de-socket them without destroying them--while costing resources--still means that gems will never stop cycling through the economy. Eventually enough top-level gems will have accrued that they'll be virtually worthless.
I personally feel quite confident that gems (and other things of this nature, like runes) will be important in crafting, enchanting, etc., which will provide a great means of removing them from the economy. You're right, of course, that we haven't heard anything specific regarding pulling gems from the economy, but I'm sure Blizzard is aware of this potential problem and has probably multiple solutions to it.
This is probably true, but that's exactly it: we haven't heard anything about this yet. That worries me a little. They probably have a solution, but I would have thought they'd say something
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I looked at the FAQ and saw Scyber's response on stabilizing the economy without ladder resets, but I'm still confused as to how this works. Can someone please elaborate on how Bliz will keep the economy from going to crap and having items and gold being decreasing in value?
An idea that's been floating around in my head has been a weekly, or monthly "Fire Sale" of sorts where you can sell items to a certain NPC for a higher value than normal for a short period of time. Making selling even high tier items a possible good choice. This same concept could also manifest in the form of rare wondering NPCs which will buy your items for a higher price than common NPCs in town.
Crafting and salvaging help pull items from the economy. Really rare items will have to be destroyed in order to get the materials to craft other items.
There were not many viable gold sinks in D2 except gambling so people could hold onto gold. This will not be the case in D3.
Otherwise we do not know much else about how they plan on handling the economy. You can read Don_G's article for some insight though: http://www.diablofans.com/topic/17929-forget-recession-its-a-boom-of-the-diablo-economy/
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The random NPC that pays more for you items could work - it might even make you wonder whether it is worth to bring with you that unique/legendary item you found in case you find an NPC that will buy it for a good sum of gold.
For instance, I'm fairly sure there's nothing pulling gems out of the economy at the moment. Being able to de-socket them without destroying them--while costing resources--still means that gems will never stop cycling through the economy. Eventually enough top-level gems will have accrued that they'll be virtually worthless.
There may be some stabilization from the cost of desocketing (if a gem is cheaper than it is to desocket, gems will be destroyed, and they'll equalize in value). But I imagine this cost is not enormous. I could be wrong about that, but if the idea is to be able to desocket low level gems, the cost can't be terribly high, as low level characters will be able to do it.
So unless there's some gem sink I don't know about, the highest level of gem will very quickly stabilize to roughly the same (probably low) price as it takes to desocket.
I personally feel quite confident that gems (and other things of this nature, like runes) will be important in crafting, enchanting, etc., which will provide a great means of removing them from the economy. You're right, of course, that we haven't heard anything specific regarding pulling gems from the economy, but I'm sure Blizzard is aware of this potential problem and has probably multiple solutions to it.
I expect to see a surge in prices as the game starts, that happens with any big game's economy at launch. I remember a black dye in GuildWars costed 799,000 gold for the first few days (the highest level monsters drop 200 gold, and a full set of armor is 10,000 gold) until it was balanced.
If Diablo III pays attention to its economy, it should run smoothly as long as it has been set up correctly.
This is probably true, but that's exactly it: we haven't heard anything about this yet. That worries me a little. They probably have a solution, but I would have thought they'd say something