Gold squish to maintain healthy economy, fighting gold sellers with AI

[ollsson]

50% gold squish is equal to a sudden 100% inflation. Prices will be a mess for a few months but, since rates are not changing, prices will eventually stabilize where they are now. And if you save the gold and lose 50% of it, you can buy 50% less with it. So it's basically a 100% inflation combined with 50% reduction in the numbers you see, which visually hides the fact that it's actually inflation.

You are totally right in the fact that prices will go up to current levels, I am not arguing with that. I really don't get your logic behind a 100% inflation and the 50% reduction at the same time?

With that bachelors in Economics I would've expected you to understand that taking away everyone's money is not the only effective method to reduce inflation. Will it bring prices down for a short time ? Yes. Is it sustainable ? No. Because for the last time, Botters and Gold sellers will continue to flood the market. One effective way would be to increase the AH cut on items Sold Out.

If I am using your terminology, have I ever said it is the only effective method?

Don't pull out arguments out of thin air

Have I ever said it is the best method? All I said from the beginning was that people here whine and act like they know better than the staff. I haven't anywhere said that this is a sustainable method or a long term solution.

Okay Mr. Bachelor in Economics lets ignore the most basic and important gold dump in game i.e. Vendors, training and skill ups which take up a considerable amount of money and talk about pure AH prices. AH prices rely on the cost of producing the item+profit surely you know that.

What's with the insults? Once again, please use arguments without trying to insult. I don't see why that is necessary in any way? And yes I do know that, but the good thing about Warmane economy is that the "cost" of producing an item = farming materials. And if gold is squished by 50% so is the "cost" in terms of farming it. The "cost" will still be the same ratio as before just 50% less in numbers.

Why even bring Illegal ways of farming into the anology ? My dear friend that is what the entire gold squish is based on and the reason for this 16 page thread. I don't know what Black Talk is but assuming it is something derogatory. Then again I am also one of the "Rich People" who got rich by legit means and there are several others just like me. Then there are those who got rich by illegit methods, hence the "possibly".

First I apologize because English is not my first language and thus might not be perfect but I try to make myself understood anyway.

If you read Proterean's first post again you shall find that he never say that the gold squish is to fight botters. So I don't see where this argument even is coming from? He said the AI bot is for fighting botters and the gold squish is to maintain a healthy economy.

The hardcore farmers are a very minuscule amount of people in the game who can afford to invest their time into farming and playing the AH. As you must already know, majority of players here are those who cannot afford to spend hours on a day to grind mats and craft stuff. These are the people with jobs, kids, families and other commitments. They cannot realistically become "hardcore farmers". If they could, there wouldn't be an inflation in the first place as the supply of goods will far outweigh the actual demand. How could this encourage botting ? Well, they can't farm like others and botters are not suffering from this decision so they could just get a bot to grind for them while they go on about their work.

Okay saying hardcore farmers was not exactly how I meant it. But regular farmers, everyone knows that farming is a part of World of Warcraft. Even if you are a casual player you must farm gold at some point. It might be true that botters won't suffer the same way but I find that argument very far fetched that this would increase people using botting programmes. If they do, it is on them and they deserve to be banned.

No, I implied a possibility which holds truth because there indeed exist botters. I meant it as a possibility that some of them are botting, not all of them.

Yes you did make that clear in your last post that it was a possibility but I don't see why it was relevant in the analogy? In that case the hard working wage earner could possibly have done shady stuff to earn his savings but I dont see how that is relevant in the analogy? My point is that it was a bad analogy because how those millions had been earned had nothing to do with it. But this feels a bit off topic now.

God complex much ?

Okay I don't see how that statement could possibly give me "god complex"? But then again, wouldn't surprise me if it was yet another insult from your side.

True, but in game fixed prices are one of the major issues here. If this was purely an AH price squish, no one would have a problem with it.

So now you are giving me right? I really don't see the fixed prices as a major issue. People can still farm gold in various ways. And as people already pointed out the gold rate is higher which means that inflation will grab hold again and we will be back at the same place we are now before the gold squish. So worst case, those people who so dreadfully have a problem farming gold in-game with the rates, wait a few months and the inflation will be back.

All your degree and ''logic'' is irrelevant if you cant distinguish real world economy with WoW economy.
In WoW gold is created by quest rewards, looting mobs and selling items.
Gold disappears when you repair, buy item or skill from vendor, pay fee in AH.
As you can realize this means there will be always more gold created than ''destroyed''.
This means that AH prices will inflate forever until a gold sink is created that majority of players will try to get.
Reducing the total amount of gold by 50% only reduces the prices in AH for couple months before they come back to their previous level and inflate even further.

Thank you for repeating what already have been established in the discussion. I have never ever said anything contradictive to this....

In the end all you achieved is delaying AH inflation mostly by screwing over player who are farming gold for seomthing like flying. This is not a good solution for 90% of the player base who are casual and are saving gold for flying mount/epic items.
All this means for them is that they lost they earned gold and now need to farm for their flying mounts even longer.

Well obviously the staff disagree with you. And that have been my point all along, people here act as if they knew better, which they don't. So just sit back and maybe trust the staff in what they're doing. They have more information than any of you in this thread and thus making a better decision based on that information. And please don't throw out statistics like "90% of players", you have no sources to support that statement in any way.

[Anyone0]

You are totally right in the fact that prices will go up to current levels, I am not arguing with that. I really don't get your logic behind a 100% inflation and the 50% reduction at the same time?

Normally inflation means price increases, so both income and expenses increase. The work you did earlier becomes less valuable than the work you do now. 50% reduction is just visual. The actual change is that the gold you earn after squish is increased by 100% over the gold you earned before and kept. That happens immediately from quest rewards and eventually from AH prices.

[Vankaaz]

This is bad! Many people will left warmane!

[ollsson]

Normally inflation means price increases, so both income and expenses increase. The work you did earlier becomes less valuable than the work you do now. 50% reduction is just visual. The actual change is that the gold you earn after squish is increased by 100% over the gold you earned before and kept. That happens immediately from quest rewards and eventually from AH prices.

Oh now I understand what you meant with the last sentence. Yeah that's true and the inflation will go up again. Which was my point several posts ago that there has been inflation since last gold squish (definitely not 50% but still inflation).

[Anyone0]

Oh now I understand what you meant with the last sentence. Yeah that's true and the inflation will go up again. Which was my point several posts ago that there has been inflation since last gold squish (definitely not 50% but still inflation).

My point was that it does not fix the inflation. It just temporarily visually reduces the price at the cost of creating 100% inflation.

[Lightsurge]

Guys, keep the good tone. Warmane's board have always listened to it's community and, hopefully, will do it again.

I also share the opinion that annual gold squish by 50% would be ineffective and is not necessary, especially for Lordaeron and Medivh. Give Jin some time to make himself comfortable, increase the Auction House deposit cost/buyout cut and with the money made out of it you can afford to increases Jin's salary, thus making him even more cautious and aware of spammers. Economy would be "HEALTHY" without gold-sellers - a real hindrance. If Jin fails in defeating them, and if you still decide to keep the annual gold squish rule, well.. So be it.

Please, conform Warmane's community wishes.

Thank you.

[ice3nyanf]

After serious thought, I've come to a solution.

I'm going to be spending my gold on Draenei/Nightelf Strippers and Booze the night before the GoldCut.

[Savagerie]

Reducing the total amount of gold by 50% only reduces the prices in AH for couple months before they come back to their previous level and inflate even further.

This is not true for Frostwolf, as I have previously pointed out with my data. The prices remained reduced in quite a sustained manner.
Arguably, prices may rise back up quickly in new servers. However, I do not see any reason why the prices should inflate "even further".

Only players who are affected positively by this change are people who have no gold.

This will be always true.
Indeed, tt is more useful in servers with pricey goods which need to attract new players, who have 0 by default (i.e., Frostwolf again).

Gold sellers and bots who make their gold from quests and mobs will greatly benefit.

I think this is true.
BUT
Although it was a part of a single announcement, the gold squish is NOT supposed to harm bots and gold sellers.
The gold squish has a different purpose, but I see people conflating the two topics.
The bot and gold-seller measures are distinct from the gold squish.

[japramj]

Yeah i can understand last year gold reduction but i fail to see why do you need to do it this year also. Prices are almost same as they were all year it just get harder for people to get in game things like flying or mounts,... And thing is that people if they come to play on high rate server they come bcs they dont want to worry about buying raiding,lvling,... Point of high rate server is to get it quick. Not to mention how hard is to get gold on low rate servers... So now you will just half everyone gold every year? Thats bad mkay

[Savagerie]

Don't you know who the richest players on the servers are? If so, can't you monitor and check out what these people are doing or how they are obtaining gold?

It is me, sorry.
I am the most proffesional AH goblin you will ever find.
As stated, I ramped up 5M in 3 months after the last squish on Frostwolf.
No bots, no goldselling, no goldbuying. You know... this is just how good I am, man.
In fact, I am a person that basically functions as a gold sink for the server, as I think of it now. Haha.

Let's make this thread about me. Also, the goldsellers and the squish are two distinct topics in my opinion.

Punish meeeeee!

[BiGTsOLaS]

Account status: In good standing
Donation rank: Exalted
Activity rank: Envoy
Community rank: Patriot

Join date: February 9, 2011

In the course of the last 2 years, I have donated to warmane, more than 1500 USD.
I have donated even more before the server wipe.

I was donating to this server, because I thought that You - Warmane Staff were doing your best for us - the Molten/Warmane community.

The last year's gold squish, was really a needed measure and I thought nothing of it, understanding that it was a really necessary step. After it, in the course of the next six months, I had donated 540 usd again, supporting my favourite server and my favourite community. I have bought many things with these coins, Warmane Traded Gold included.

The incoming gold squish, as many people have already pointed out, IS unnecessary, the prices in Icecrown are almost always stable since the previous squish(example: Primos' prices were 800-1000 per piece, for half a year now).

Outland and Medivh are new realms, that haven't even lasted a year, to accumulate so much gold that a big and risky inflation would occur, that it needs to be squished. There literally is nothing to squish yet. Most of the population on these realms is still struggling to get their mounts...

What I am trying to say, is that after all these years of support, by not only me but most of the community, this is SO MUCH dissapointing to say the least, that it's the first time I logged in to post a reply to the news...

I have donated to buy coins that are needed to get gold via YOUR LEGAL IMPLEMENTED system, because I don't have the time to farm the gold or be even 3 hours online everyday, nowadays.

And there are people that were spending so much time hard-farming that gold, that I feel literary sorry for them, this is just not fair to them.

I can pay for gold if need be but there are people that have invested so many hours farming, at least be fair to THEM, don't alienate them, these are your hard-working players that are essential to your population and server economy.

This is the first time I have read 16 pages of replies to an announcement thread, that were 85-95% negative about the change.
That MUST mean something!
This is the worst idea you had since I came in 2011 to this place.

Again, MOLTEN/WARMANE, on behalf of most of your population, especially VETERANS, PLEASE RECONSIDER!
IT'S NOT LATE YET!

[-Notorious-]

We don't want to reward those filthy rich people who buy gold off of 3rd party sites.

Blizzard also had 3rd party sites selling gold. The feature they implemented to combat the high gold inflation was Black Market AH (and strict policing against gold selling, and it seems like Warmane is also doing).

Even if we assume that gold selling is much worse here, why 50%. Isn't that a very extreme option. Why not do a 10% or 15% decrease?

[Sixtyninee]

I haven't seen this many negative reviews in one place since Skype became Snapchat.

[Nemesis153]

Oh god not another gold squish, Its pointless to do another one, this only looks like punishment to the players.

[furiadelvolcan]

The economy is fine just leave it as it is, the gold squish will only harm the playerbase.