So I saw there was a nice topic going on regarding combating inflation on Lordaeron, which is really nice and interesting to me. Sadly, the topic got zerged by money-maker wanna-bes and got closed at the end of 2015. Either way, I'd like to see what is being done on Lordaeron so far regarding this issue and to give my opinion on the matter.
First of all, I'm a Bachelor in International Economic Relations, so I'm not just pulling words out of my *** or talking about my own self-interest, like the majority of the player base. Alright, so now that we got this thing straight, let's continue...
I'll start with the two options you guys offered: an online lottery, costing in-game gold, and a scheduled gold takeout.
1) The online lottery is an overall good idea, because it sucks gold out of the realm out-and-out. There are two main issues which come to mind thought: first, will the rewards be tempting enough for people to regularly play the lottery; second, will all the rewards be soulbound?
If the rewards aren't good enough (personally, I don't give a flying **** about vanity items in the game, but that's just me), then people will only ever use the lottery if they have more gold than they can spend. Which is not necessarily bad, but it's not very good either, because it limits availability. SOME time ago you mentioned a transmog option for WotLK. Is this being worked on? Would you implement it online for in-game gold? As we all know, transmog was pretty much half of the game on Cataclysm and people went ape-**** crazy about that stuff, returning to old dungeons, old raids, and old quests to get their favorite-looking items. Transmog is a cosmetic which every player desires and will pay gold for, so as such it can be a very effective way to suck out gold from the realm.
The second issue is quite self-explanatory. Two years ago you gave out random Christmas rewards, ranging from pets through vanity items to mounts. As I mentioned above, I don't give a crap about cosmetics, so guess what happened when I got my Spectral Tiger... Yeah, I sold it within 15 minutes for a gold cap and got settled on that realm for life (read: until Moltdown). Now, this wouldn't have happened if the tiger was soulbound, but it wasn't. So if those non-obtainable items are not soulbound (again, I'm stressing on non-obtainable), imagine how much gold people will be paying for them.
2) The gold takeout, although arguably effective, is a very extreme measure, by all means. You may think that gold takeout directly decreases the amount of gold in circulation in the server, thus indirectly reducing prices, which makes sense totally. But by reducing the amount of available money, demand will also decrease as players won't have purchasing power. Read more about this here. The gold takeout is like a severe punishment to players for making gold and if the takeout is a percentage (I guess it will be, as that's the most logical), then the more gold people make and save, the more they'll be punished for it. Additionally, there is a very easy way of offsetting losses from gold takeout - investments. Prior to a gold takeout a smart player can spend most of his gold, leaving just enough for current expenses, on materials such as orbs, titansteel, crystals, leather etc. He can then stock these materials in the bank and wait for the prices to go up again and sell them back to return his gold.
So what other ways are there?
1) A classic approach to reducing money in circulation is government bonds (or server bonds in our case). You can see server bonds for a WoW server as the donations we're doing (Kind of. Server "shares" would be more appropriate, as money from shares doesn't return, unlike bonds). Now, here's the idea: currently, account tools cost either donation points or vote points. And while vote points are important (are they, really? I mean we're not in any server list), you could add gold as an option for things such as character re-customization or re-name. Leave the voteshop and coinshop as they are with their items, but allow players to spend gold for some of the things. Remember the transmog option, too.
2) Increase fees, such as AH commissions and taxi fees (the taxis in Northrend, especially in Dalaran), and increase prices on high-end products, such as fast fly mounts and 80lvl reagents. The game has no other actual taxation, apart from these instruments, so a logical approach would be to increase these. AH commissions, for example, differ between Steamwheedle auctions and capital city auctions and they can be raised to tax money for income. Of course, there are also negative effects - this will push players away from using the AH and drive them towards the usual "Trade", which cannot be taxed (or can it?). Read more here about reducing money in an MMO.
This is what I had to say regarding the issue. As people play the game, farm mats, grind daily quests, and sell BoE items, inflation will occur. That is something normal and it is a signal of a well-running economy. The problem is when hyperinflation happens and we reach a point where the Raging Behemoth shoulders or the BQL necklace sell for a gold cap on the AH, like on Ragnaros shortly after ICC release. When supply is low and demand is high, the prices soar and hyperinflation occurs. Soon all it took on Ragnaros to be rich was to do an ICC rep farm and reserve the BoEs. Of course, over time the amount of BoEs increased, as a result from people gearing up and more easily clearing ICC, but by that time the damage had already been done.
I hope that we can have a civilized discussion with people who actually know economics and have realistic ideas which can be implemented in an MMO. :)
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Banned
Economic tools
Edited: February 22, 2016
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Banned
Hoping for some input on this from both players and staff. Over 100 views, yet 0 replies.
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Member
I'm uh.... a bit overwhelmed so... I can't find a way to reply it....
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Member
Transmog = never gonna happen, its been answered million times, they said there probably will be kind of website/armory based transmog, but I dont think people would use that feature at all, because how often do you even look at other people in armory and do you even care how they look there?
Static % cut = total bullsh.
Gold instead of vote points and coins = total bullsh, there is no VP store in Lordaeron (recustomization and rename should never be in hardcore realm, especially rename(feature from heaven for ninjas). I cant think of any feature for VP that suits Lordaeron right now. Coins - if you can buy same items for gold instead of coins, then it will decrease donations greatly.
Increase commissions, taxes - will punish new players too much. + there will be second "global spam" channel - Trade.
I see lottery as the only viable option but it is additional work from administration. The rules (prizes) should be reconsidered 100 times before lottery goes live, if it ever be live.
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Member
Well, I'd use transmog if it can make my attires look reasonable. Can't do anything if it's coin based though, cuz I don't have international credit card to donate with
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Member
Morning, fella. Race change, faction change, rename features have already been implemented to Lordaeron for weeks (maybe a month) ago. Go check the marketplace.
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Banned
I see transmog as the best option for sucking gold. It targets mainly 80lvl players who are often very prone to paying big amounts for it The only reason I can think of why they wouldn't want to do it is because it wasn't live on WotLK, but that doesn't mean it's not possible, as we've all seen from other private servers. If the transmog is only armory-based, then nobody would use it, I agree. In that case it would be no different than a model viewer.
Regarding the static % cut, that was referring to the suggestion Warmane gave - pre-announce a date on which gold will be taken out directly from the realm. It's not bull**** and it's doable too, but it's highly possible that it will be perceived negatively by the community, and it can also be countered by investing all your gold beforehand.
About renaming I'll agree, but I see no reason why a fully cosmetic utility, such as re-customization (mind you, not race/faction change - just features), can't be included for a hefty gold fee.
You're right about coins. What I meant was something like my above point - switching things, which are currently only obtainable through coins and VPs, to gold. These shouldn't be items that affect gameplay, of course.
Increasing commissions will be done as a percentage, but you're right that for a new player the commission is a far greater factor than for an established 80lvl main. I would like to know if taxi fees can be set for specific regions/flight masters. If so, then it won't be hard to just set them higher for Northrend. Increasing cost of high-level reagents will also have a similar effect. Global trade spamming, although likely to happen, cannot replace the flexibility and ease-of-use, which the AH offers, where you can post many different kinds of items without having to bark on channels continuously. Fact is that even now only really rare drops or mass-production same-type materials get traded under the table. The rest goes to the AH.
I'm looking forward to seeing how they'll implement the lottery, whether it will be tempting enough for players or not, and how much it will actually cost.Edited: February 23, 2016
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Moderator
For starters, before there being an economy to be balanced, there needs to be a server funded to have an economy. So already making things available for coins also available for gold would be flushed down without a second thought. There are no "VPs" on Warmane anymore (where are people voting for us?), and on Lordaeron there's no point shop at all. We already put things in the coin section for higher prices to make it so the amount of people who get those things outside the game will be reduced. It would make no sense to make them available for gold, something people can just farm for and get in a matter of time, instead of in a matter of contributing with our maintenance costs.
The transmogrification (assuming it happens) would be a web-based toggle, not something to be seen only in the Armory. The mechanics for it would all be web-based, so no custom content would be included in the game itself. You wouldn't go to an NPC or whatever to get transmogrification. This has been explained and repeated half a dozen times or more, so you can search for it if you want more information, but it's not something I see happening for gold. I expect (and will vouch for) it being coin-based.
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Member
Kind of sucks to see name change enabled on hardcore realm where your character reputation actually means something, some trolls will definitely take advantage of this. Other features enabled doesnt harm anyone, so its fine.
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Member
It's ridiculous that the devs asked for input on how to avoid inflation when there is a really simple answer; Fix the exploits. Lots of exploits have been available since the start of the server (i.e. since we were locked at 60) and they are single-handedly responsible for any inflation. So when I see the devs suggesting to half gold every month etc, it makes my head ****ing spin.
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Banned
We do gain points by simply logging into the server and then clicking one button on the website. The stuff obtainable through these could be made available for gold too. Not only through gold, but also through gold. I believe the point shop will open on Lordaeron sooner or later, won't it?
And if the transmog goes the way you explained, why would people want to use it? As I said, it would be no different than a model-viewer in that case. Who would want to use it, and spend coins, on top of all?
I dunno, Obnoxious, I'm just trying to think of different ideas that can be applied, but your reply burned most of them out.
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Member
As I understand from Obnoxious post, transmog could be seen by people in-game but the mechanic itself will not be implemented in-game (you wont have to go to vendor in-game to change the style of your armor, instead you will have to log in website to complete the transmog). It basically could be the same transmog you see in later expansions, but to complete the armor change, you just have to do it on website, instead ingame.
It still is custom feature, it doesnt matter if it has website toggle or ingame, the visual result will be the same.
I quit Lordaeron already because there are already things implemented that administration said never will happen to hardcore realm, nothing stops them to break any other promises, the trust is broken. Will better wait for Lord core to be implemented in other WOTLK realms.
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Moderator
No, there are no plans whatsoever to open a point section for the Lordaeron Marketplace. The tweaks we have made to the coin part were to slowly try to fine tune not making it too cheap that everyone gets stuff with coins and not too costly that people just don't help cover the costs. Adding point items wouldn't help with that in any way whatosever, so it's not even considered.
From what I explained of transmogrification you should have looked at the lengthier explanations that have been given and repeated elsewhere. It's not just a "website model viewer." It will just be a website-based toggling.
Being able to donate to get items or benefits like the temporary queue skipping are "custom features." Getting gifts during holidays are "custom features." Playing on a private server without a subscription and on a defunct expansion is "a custom feature" itself.
Do you even realize the difference between custom feature and custom in-game content?
And regarding "broken promises": we needed player support to keep the server as we intended. We're not going to fully pay from our pockets so people can play their "dream," which apparently involves the server being hosted by charitable unicorns with magical services that can be paid with the goodness of our hearts. You say the trust is broken? I guess you're right - our trust in the community stepping up to do their part in maintaining Lordaeron how we originally intended.
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Banned
If that is the case and said transmog costs gold, then the solution lies there.
Like what? The name change? Personally, I won't quit Lordaeron for any of the old realms, regardless of the 6k GS chars that I've got there. Lord is just better and has significantly higher population. It will also remain Warmane's flagship realm even after its core is transferred.
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Member
Make transmog for gold AND coins (and points even maybe?), this would solve A LOT of issues.
You wouldn't believe how many would end up using it, and it has 0 effect on anyone else, it's literally a visual treat, no bonus stats, no increased anything. This little feature is one of THE BEST ways to offset a lot of problems.
That being said.
Gold take out is outright, sorry for no other word, dumb, as already explained it would create an economy where people trade item for item since the value of the gold is too unstable to be worth having, so there will be percieved value for items, and most likely AH would be dead and global chat would increase 50 times over with people selling common goods for other goods rather than gold.
Lottery is the safest way to achieve this, coupled with web based transmog, it would keep everything in checks for sure.
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