Gold drain and reducing inflation

[MaxBlack1]

ok, i say it in easy words.

-50% gold drain on a certain day will hit players with lesser economy knowledge,
while players that actually know market (not a wow marketplace but real stuff) rules
will use this mechanic to actually drain most of gold to them and secure it within certain goods,
that simply can be vendored back with way less that 50% lost...

but yeah. make it like that. i already have prepared plan for it.

but no **** - allow players to spend thousands of gold for certain items (dunno - mounts/pets/tabards/lottery/whatever you decide) - and people will do that.
take money away from them without clear reasons (not all know economy) and give nothing back - they will hate you more and more...

[MaxQuest]

I'm curious as to what's wrong with the other economies? I don't "play" the auction house, but I do understand that as the realm gets older, you have to pay more for things. But, that also means you sell things for more to compensate. How is that so terrible? [...]

On the first sight, indeed, there is nothing wrong.
A moderate inflation can even be beneficial. Since inflation decreases amount of goods the money can buy, it encourages people to spend their cash, instead of stashing it and let it lose it's value over time.

But too much inflation is bad. It can wipe players' savings.
For example you were slowly saving for that x shiny item. But know what? It's price goes up too. And it remains elusive.

Another thing to consider is: if in the past, when the prices were low, you could just go and do some dailies or clear dungeons for gold. Now those rewards became pitifully small in comparison. And AH becomes the first source of income.

Now you may ask "so what?". Well, it opens they door to AH monopolization (i.e. when someone buys all the items in a category and relists at higher prices.)
When the prices were low, he would slowly lose his money, since a lot of products would not be bought, thus AH deposit fee would kick-in. But when the prices are high, that fee (which is based on vendor sell value), can be simply neglected, since those items which will be actually sold, will easily cover the expenses. So the monopolizer will be able to relist his stocks again and again.

Another thing worth mentioning is: current gold sinks, like repairs, food, mounts, deposit fees, training and flying costs are static. They don't change depending on the current buying power of gold. This means that while the amount of in-game gold is relatively low, these sinks will do their task nicely. But once the prices go up, their effectiveness will spiral down at on ever-increasing rate.

[Kesyn7]

Now you may ask "so what?". Well, it opens they door to AH monopolization (i.e. when someone buys all the items in a category and relists at higher prices.)
When the prices were low, he would slowly lose his money, since a lot of products would not be bought, thus AH deposit fee would kick-in. But when the prices are high, that fee (which is based on vendor sell value), can be simply neglected, since those items which will be actually sold, will easily cover the expenses. So the monopolizer will be able to relist his stocks again and again.

Another thing worth mentioning is: current gold sinks, like repairs, food, mounts, deposit fees, training and flying costs are static. They don't change depending on the current buying power of gold. This means that while the amount of in-game gold is relatively low, these sinks will do their task nicely. But once the prices go up, their effectiveness will spiral down at on ever-increasing rate.

There was a comment somewhere about simply raising AH usage fees, like cuts taken from sold items and increased deposit fees for more expensive items. For instance, if faction AH's were increased to the cut rate of neutral AH's, that would server to rear in inflation for some time.

However, these solutions mostly cut into less experienced or newer players, whereas a static gold cut would hurt people who legitimately worked for their gold. I would be bitter about having the gold I earned taken for nothing, and honestly reconsider playing at that point. And that kind of cut could be avoided by having enough alts to spread the money to.

The problem with having a casino or optional gold sinks is just that: they're optional. While they might be good on paper, no one has to use them, effectively making them volatile at best. Something you might consider is an pseudo-optional sink; giving players choices as to what they must spend their gold on, such as vanity or cosmetic items, or lose it. I'm not sure how this could translate into something feasible, but I am completely against losing hard-earned gold with nothing to show for it.

[xZEPOx]

Thread is a little long so I didin't read everything.

A special vendor could help mitigate the "damage" if the 50% gold drain is implemented. That vendor should sell BoP items: badges, emblems, misc stuff? hell, even custom stuff like honor points, buy reputation. Well use your imagination. The prices should be carefully consider.

Vendor exists during a limit time ofc

[Mikrob]

It would be interesting to see how it would work cause people who work hard get what they want, regardless of the obstacles on the way. So yes.. not to hurt the casual gamer :p

I am for the static gold drain though. Despite it perhaps hurting the casual gamer a bit more. I guess this is for a healthy realm in general as I would like the feeling you had when closing in to level 20, to remain somewhat the same. (I do mean counting every silver so you could get a mount).

I am for it hurting low level characters a bit, in a restricted kind of way so bank alts cant be abused or some feature coming into play with a certain tax being drawn when sending the gold to your main. But I also guess that would mean that low level characters cant be able to purchase certain items that are too high for their level or gg system, kinda.

[Feralbeard]

I totally do not support the idea of static gold drain. Being wealthy would mean nothing. Ofc you could buy some expensive stuff just before squish but that is unnecessary pain. As someone already mentioned before, the example would be following:
if you have 200g now after 1/2 squish you will have 100g (100g difference) to gain back that amount you will need to do ~20 quests, or sell 2 gems etc.
if you have 20 000 now after 1/2 squish you will have 10 000g (10 000g difference) to gain back that amount you will need to do ~2000 quests, or sell 200 gems. This is ludicrous...

Lottery is good idea, however staff should be careful about what items they put into.

[LikeDwind]

I haven't red a working solution so far in this thread, the most tempting so far - to increase AH taxes, well global channel and other trading channels will be flooded by WTS messages and the prices in AH will go higher to account for the higher taxes which will make the AH less useful and it is not good

[Zardonic]

I haven't red a working solution so far in this thread, the most tempting so far - to increase AH taxes, well global channel and other trading channels will be flooded by WTS messages and the prices in AH will go higher to account for the higher taxes which will make the AH less useful and it is not good

Which won't happen at all, those people that are spamming got just a few items, while those that use the AH are selling more than 10 items on daily basis...
And when you use the AH you don't have to be online in order to sell ur stuff or move to a major city, so I really doubt people will just abandon the AH because the price is a bit higher.

[Jakkre]

I think a gold drain would have more negative than positive effects.

The question is if Lordaeron will have a big inflation at all.
The server has x1 rates, transfers from other wotlk realms arent available and purchasing gold for coins is also disabled.
These were all problems that ruined the economy on the old Lordaeron realm.

[OsvaldasGirtys]

Gold drain mechanics:

-RDF subscriptions, pay x gold, get to use RDF for n amount of time.
-Server wide lottery for something.(Reputation, easy access to something, certain buffs, ability to morph into different model[RP people would love this as most RP servers have some way to do so], ability to offer small or big changes to the server for something[almost like a ruler for a week thign].
-Faction competitions on certain benefits, x amount of people from each faction get a benefit of sorts for being winners of lottery.
-Paying tax to remain neutral and avoid World PVP.(Something along the lines of making yourself PVE only char for certain amount of time for cost of gold.
-Ability to call down world events for gold( or something like that)
-Make GMI into a hub for VIP people who pay x to get there. Make it no-pvp area, with most required vendors and portals. Not like Dalaran, but more like "Yea, we got money so we stay in lag-free area."
-Sell materials as GMs to the people, thus increasing amount of resources and decreasing their prices, thus manipulating amount of gold that is in use and giving people useful materials to work with.

Also playing AH is part of the game, so punishing players that play AH very well, is like taking RDF away from PVE people or taking BG away from PVP people.

[Deathsmaster]

This is not WoW on blizzard's servers where people pay $12 a month per active account. There is nothing to stop people from creating multiple accounts in order to spread their gold. Bad idea.



It hurts newer players while leveling. Imagine having a 0.2 or 0,5 gold drop amount. Would you be able to afford spells or mounts?

Yes, would just take longer. IE... gold harder to come by, but you don't get inflation as fast and with the cap you aren't likely to horde gold as it does you no good.

I disagree with you on my suggestion as a bad idea.

There will always be clever individuals that use rules, game mechanics and loop holes to get around systems in place. are you going to make lots of accounts just to save gold? maybe, but i'd bet most people wouldn't

[hellforge]

Static drain should be with more frequent, lower percentage tax.

For instance: 50% per 6 months >>> 10% each month.

Much better, and less variation in prices between resets. Also avoids panic around buying out AH or else.

The static drain is really the only way to force any kind of a drain. People that stockpile gold (like me) will play no games, no lotteries, no mounts, no transmogs, no titles, no companions - someone has to take the gold away from me, cause I won't give it away for vanities if I can buy better (and more useful) stuff instead.

[VaipogamingYT]

Am I the only one to whom gold drain sounds awful? I am the kind of player that likes to hoard gold. I am literally to cheap to spend on 280% flying for my alt if I know the only time he will use it is when leveling. To put it into perspective, I like to play auction house and earn money, and now u tell me if I earned 20k you will take 10 k from me for what?
That kinda makes me want to go to AH before the Gold Drain happens, buyout as much as I can of the crafting materials and enlsit them once the wipe is over?

Do you work?

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That's called 10k Tax mate.

Warmane may have a government that screws you over on your earnings hahaha :D

[LikeDwind]

What if there is a 0.3% gold drain from everyone every day at 12:00 server time, this way you will solve the problem with people buying goods the day before the drain to save their gold and it will be fair for new players as for old ones. That's the best i could think of if you want to have such a drain system

PS: if you decide to adopt this idea i will be very happy if you give me some something like an achievement or something similar so i can be proud with it :D

[VaipogamingYT]

What if there is a 0.3% gold drain from everyone every day at 12:00 server time, this way you will solve the problem with people buying goods the day before the drain to save their gold and it will be fair for new players as for old ones

That's actually not a bad idea!
I wouldn't make it 0.3% though, as something like this needs to be a constant thing in the background and having 0.3% will be draining people's gold quite quickly.

My suggestions for this would be:

0.15% if you have up to 500g,
0.03% if you have up to 1k.
Anything over 1k 0.01%

Quite a good idea though, I like it.

A constant drain of gold that isn't too noticeable.