I made a post asking how much gold people had on average, in around 200 responses, and giving a conservative estimate on math. Those 200 participants had a total purse of 5 billion gold. Imagine what the rest of this game looks like...
That's a pretty terrible premise on which to base the idea that everyone in the game is filthy rich and that, therefore, the economy is nonexistant/destroyed.
People who don't have massive amounts of gold aren't going to respond to an epeen poll like that because the "haves" are going to mock them. It's almost like saying "I went into a very exclusive country club and there weren't poor people, therefore, poverty must not exist!"
As a completely anecdotal counterpoint, if you added up everyones wealth on my friends list you wouldn't get 5 billion gold. Hell, it's possible you wouldn't even get 1 billion gold.
At the end of the day, though, just like in the real world, if you're selling a good/service there need to be people who can afford to purchase it. Who do you think is out there purchasing those 250 million gold items so that you can pocket the profits? If you want to be able to sell items for hundreds of millions of gold you have to be willing to accept that the buyers almost assuredly have that price covered by at least one order of magnitude.
I'm guessing you didn't see the poll I'm talking about, but it was more or less what one would expect of a distribution of wealth:
This entirely far off of what most economies are. A lot of very average income folks, with few "extremely poor" and fewer "extremely rich". I suppose some people are probably "e-peening" as you say, but I'd hardly say that this is in line with your "country club" example seeing as how I think 1M-5M is a pretty reasonable amount of gold for one to beat inferno. Distribution wise this more or less falls in line of what MOST economies are, however the real issue is just the volume of currency.
I wasn't saying that the D3 economy is "nonexistent or destroyed". I named a good number of factors which contribute to the nuttiness that is this market.
For starters money is being injected constantly with every second the game is being played. In fact my original point of that poll post was to eventually form an argument against GF being included in the Paragon system. Imagine your job gave you a 3% raise every week, would you ever leave that job? Blizzard has almost completely nullified the higher repair costs. The 15% AH cut, repair costs, and the abysmal blacksmithing system are the only real ways that money is taken OUT of this economy, but frankly I highly doubt it can keep up with the gold find bonus of the Paragon system. This is the major inflation I was talking about. This doesn't include the bots who exclusively exist to constantly farm gold (and who have now gotten a great bonus for all their hard work playing).
Part of the overpricing also comes from irrational sellers. That is in part due to the knowledge that there's a ton of money in the system. There's ZERO cost to someone to produce anything (except perhaps opportunity cost of not playing the game itself). So if you take into the fact you know there are people with tons of gold, and you have a good item, why wouldn't you post it insanely high and just keep dropping the price every time it doesn't sell. Maybe you'll even take it to the trade channel and avoid the 15% cut (which happens with a lot of high priced items, circumventing Blizzards own system). If it sits on your shelf or on your AH listing for a few days it isn't costing you money, you keep dropping the price until someone who has that money will buy it. I'll acknowledge that crafting of set/legendaries does come at a cost to the producer, but it's a small part of a bigger picture.
Remember back to the first day of the RMAH when every dickhead was putting things up for $250? Why? because they could and it was of no cost to them for doing so.
The other point about overpricing is just the vastness of stats, because of such a varied array of rolls it's also hard nail down an actual price because comparison is so loose. It's not like WoW's early day economy where the blue/purple BoEs on the AH were all set amounts.
Now where the RMAH falls into it is the fact that overall, it's simply more stable to do business over there so people will. The RMAH is fueled by actual money which undoubtedly grows considerably slower than the Gold in the economy. I sort of smirk at the idea that some people are actually putting money into the RMAH but hey, that's their money and they can "invest" it in whatever they want.
So overall, no I don't think it's a terrible premise to assume there's a ton of gold floating around which in turn raises prices not because they are valued higher than they were before, but because there is more money in the system.
there's a ton of changes to common primary/secondary damage dealing abilities which are incredible. I don't see how there's any need for complaints about the VQ change.
Blizzard's created a monster over the years. One of the things that I don't think gets a lot of credit is how much they actually interface with the community as opposed to other developers. I think they have done a pretty stellar job in communicating the state of their game during a games life cycle.
Oddly enough however they've certainly gone mute. Maybe it's prep for gamescon, maybe some key people have taken their summer vacations (everyone needs a break sometime!). As a result though we've gotten used to the communication and at times like this we raise our eyebrows.
I agree, what IS going on over there? I'd have to think that some pretty serious changes are happening and they're trying to compile them all. However the lack of a global summary is puzzling. I figured we would see the developer blog that was a little more indepth on the philosophy of what they are trying to achieve. I imagine that one of the reasons they haven't finalized it yet is because they are still kicking it back and forth.
Then again the Morhaime post was rather unconventional and I felt at the time a band-aid, or at least some relief work to buy the development team some more time (aka, take the heat off).
Time will tell, until then I'm catching up on all the steam sale games I bought this past week.
The AH itself is a concept that works however their implications of it I think are perhaps more about a sustainable moneymaking model than a providing a successful self-sustaining economy. The game however I believe has become more about how well you use the AH than thinking about builds/skill combinations.
The AH provides satisfaction to a player where if the random chance of loot finding has fallen short, the time isn't entirely wasted because in the time that an upgrade wasn't dropping, gold was being accumulated. In some cases when good items may have dropped they weren't usable but had value to another class and could generate income.
The division of the RMAH and GAH I don't particularly agree with. Desirable items (which I consider items with 4/5 or 5/5 desirable stats) are already scarce enough. The probability of you getting 5 desirable stats is extremely low, however with currency you can acquire it. But when some of these items float to the RMAH where some players don't shop, then that creates a rift between plenty of players.
More to the point the AH I think is heavily influenced by those who have considerable amounts of gold whether they've put more time in, bought gold, or the farmers. The farmers I actually believe are an invisible hand in a lot of the game's economy.
From a personal philosophy standpoint, I think the GAH is a terrible idea. I think paying for any of this gear is ridiculous and irresponsible, even as "little" as $5 an item. I'm an individual with a well paying job and a considerable amount of disposable income and I personally would never buy anything from the GAH, or gold via the commodities. But hey, it's not my place to tell other people how to spend their money, they earned it they can spend it.
However I DO believe that Blizzard should have set a standard currency similar to XBL points (or sony equivalent). If gold was available for sale from the start, I believe inflation may have been curtailed some and the market would stabilize at far lower price points.
1
I'm guessing you didn't see the poll I'm talking about, but it was more or less what one would expect of a distribution of wealth:
Under 1M: 9% (19 votes)
1M-5M: 31.5% (67 votes)
5M-20M: 27% (58 Votes)
20M-50M: 15% (32 votes)
50M-100M: 12% (27 votes)
100M+: 4% (9 Votes)
This entirely far off of what most economies are. A lot of very average income folks, with few "extremely poor" and fewer "extremely rich". I suppose some people are probably "e-peening" as you say, but I'd hardly say that this is in line with your "country club" example seeing as how I think 1M-5M is a pretty reasonable amount of gold for one to beat inferno. Distribution wise this more or less falls in line of what MOST economies are, however the real issue is just the volume of currency.
I wasn't saying that the D3 economy is "nonexistent or destroyed". I named a good number of factors which contribute to the nuttiness that is this market.
For starters money is being injected constantly with every second the game is being played. In fact my original point of that poll post was to eventually form an argument against GF being included in the Paragon system. Imagine your job gave you a 3% raise every week, would you ever leave that job? Blizzard has almost completely nullified the higher repair costs. The 15% AH cut, repair costs, and the abysmal blacksmithing system are the only real ways that money is taken OUT of this economy, but frankly I highly doubt it can keep up with the gold find bonus of the Paragon system. This is the major inflation I was talking about. This doesn't include the bots who exclusively exist to constantly farm gold (and who have now gotten a great bonus for all their hard work playing).
Part of the overpricing also comes from irrational sellers. That is in part due to the knowledge that there's a ton of money in the system. There's ZERO cost to someone to produce anything (except perhaps opportunity cost of not playing the game itself). So if you take into the fact you know there are people with tons of gold, and you have a good item, why wouldn't you post it insanely high and just keep dropping the price every time it doesn't sell. Maybe you'll even take it to the trade channel and avoid the 15% cut (which happens with a lot of high priced items, circumventing Blizzards own system). If it sits on your shelf or on your AH listing for a few days it isn't costing you money, you keep dropping the price until someone who has that money will buy it. I'll acknowledge that crafting of set/legendaries does come at a cost to the producer, but it's a small part of a bigger picture.
Remember back to the first day of the RMAH when every dickhead was putting things up for $250? Why? because they could and it was of no cost to them for doing so.
The other point about overpricing is just the vastness of stats, because of such a varied array of rolls it's also hard nail down an actual price because comparison is so loose. It's not like WoW's early day economy where the blue/purple BoEs on the AH were all set amounts.
Now where the RMAH falls into it is the fact that overall, it's simply more stable to do business over there so people will. The RMAH is fueled by actual money which undoubtedly grows considerably slower than the Gold in the economy. I sort of smirk at the idea that some people are actually putting money into the RMAH but hey, that's their money and they can "invest" it in whatever they want.
So overall, no I don't think it's a terrible premise to assume there's a ton of gold floating around which in turn raises prices not because they are valued higher than they were before, but because there is more money in the system.
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1
Oddly enough however they've certainly gone mute. Maybe it's prep for gamescon, maybe some key people have taken their summer vacations (everyone needs a break sometime!). As a result though we've gotten used to the communication and at times like this we raise our eyebrows.
I agree, what IS going on over there? I'd have to think that some pretty serious changes are happening and they're trying to compile them all. However the lack of a global summary is puzzling. I figured we would see the developer blog that was a little more indepth on the philosophy of what they are trying to achieve. I imagine that one of the reasons they haven't finalized it yet is because they are still kicking it back and forth.
Then again the Morhaime post was rather unconventional and I felt at the time a band-aid, or at least some relief work to buy the development team some more time (aka, take the heat off).
Time will tell, until then I'm catching up on all the steam sale games I bought this past week.
1
The AH provides satisfaction to a player where if the random chance of loot finding has fallen short, the time isn't entirely wasted because in the time that an upgrade wasn't dropping, gold was being accumulated. In some cases when good items may have dropped they weren't usable but had value to another class and could generate income.
The division of the RMAH and GAH I don't particularly agree with. Desirable items (which I consider items with 4/5 or 5/5 desirable stats) are already scarce enough. The probability of you getting 5 desirable stats is extremely low, however with currency you can acquire it. But when some of these items float to the RMAH where some players don't shop, then that creates a rift between plenty of players.
More to the point the AH I think is heavily influenced by those who have considerable amounts of gold whether they've put more time in, bought gold, or the farmers. The farmers I actually believe are an invisible hand in a lot of the game's economy.
From a personal philosophy standpoint, I think the GAH is a terrible idea. I think paying for any of this gear is ridiculous and irresponsible, even as "little" as $5 an item. I'm an individual with a well paying job and a considerable amount of disposable income and I personally would never buy anything from the GAH, or gold via the commodities. But hey, it's not my place to tell other people how to spend their money, they earned it they can spend it.
However I DO believe that Blizzard should have set a standard currency similar to XBL points (or sony equivalent). If gold was available for sale from the start, I believe inflation may have been curtailed some and the market would stabilize at far lower price points.