“Gold Rush”
It’s amazing how economies thrive on virtual worlds like Azeroth. One can buy and sell wares at an auction house to bring in money and spend money. Unfortunately, on my return back to Azeroth after a large siesta from the virtual world, many things seem to have changed… it costs an arm and a leg for almost everything. Perhaps the Burning Crusade expansion has set a new level of cost?
Here’s the deal. If you’re a brand new World of Warcraft player, you’re going to find yourself having to harvest the materials of the world (known as “mats”) for yourself because the auction house is way too expensive for everyday items. Inflation is out of control, imagine going to the store to purchase a leather jacket for the price of a car. You’d go cold wouldn’t you?
Once upon a time things were different, “low-bee” items (items between 1 and 15 let’s say) were a reasonable price, usually in the silver range of money. Today, they’re weighted in gold. The concept of supply and demand is at work but how is it we can purchase the supply at such a high cost? Because we’ve got friends or other characters with a lot of unused cash!
With Burning Crusade we saw basic quests tossing around gold as if it were common place. A character would save up thousands of gold for mounts and then horde the gold as if it were precious until they realized it was nearly infinite in supply and would start passing it around their guild or to other low level characters in their account. The end result, a low level character can go into the auction house with 100 gold in hand and buy whatever they need for basic materials no matter the price.
The laws of supply and demand take on a whole new meaning when people buying have nearly infinate supplies of cash. For me, I’ve decided to purchase some materials while “grinding” for others because they’re just too costly to purchase. However, I’ll do what needs to be done to also exploit the high prices when selling items back to the auction house and contribute to the over-inflated economies.
Perhaps, over time, Blizzard will create a platinum piece to replace the common nature of the gold as it depreciates in value. Although that’s said more in jest, it’s unfortunate that brand new gamers to this MMORPG won’t be able to take full advantage of the auction house as they could years ago with the influx in gold deposits.
Electronic Arts has announced SimAnimals, a game where you play the godlike hand and control the lifestyle of over 60 animals. In the game you’ll play the role of a disembodied hand which moves around and life animals, pick flowers and interact with the environment much like a past Lionhead Studios game: Black and White.
@Wii U priced at $300 for basic, $350 for deluxe
I heard a lot of criticism towards the console after the pricing was announced. This doesn’t look good.
@Obsidian unveils Kickstarter title Project Eternity, raise $1M in 24 hours
I don’t get it, Dr. Evil … Studios going to Kickstarter for money instead of going to producers? I take it they no longer want to cope with the pressure of the producer?
Thing is, “One million dollars” doesn’t keep a studio running for too long, so what’s going on there?
@“no disc based games” next-gen
That’s quite some bandwidth required right there. For this reason alone (and the fact that I’m using a 3G modem) I say that CD/DVD is good, me likes them 🙂
@QOTW:
Not much. I played Shadowrun for SNES during my Internet-less vacation, and I found that game to be surprisingly entertaining.
@Wii U
Not sure. I also think having 2 versions is stupid, considering the Deluxe version is way superior to Basic. The price is not so bad. But in the current economic situation I don’t expect it to sell out like the Wii. Personally, I will play it safe and get it early next year. I will wait for reviews, new title announcements and to see how popular it will get. Don’t need another Nintendo branded brick on my hands.
Especially if it mostly plays Xbox 360 games
@Guild Wars 2
I kind off fell out of the whole MMO world. Level grinding is just not my thing. Usually I get to LvL 20 and loose interest. That’s why I play F2P stuff. Not sure if I should invest into Guild Wars. It has no subscription but does it provide enough content to make me play it long enough? MMOs are just to repetitive these days.
@QOTW
Just finished Yakuza on PS2. Currently playing Witcher. It’s funny. Jonah says he is playing Mass Effect and completing all the quests. I have done that on my first playthrough. Then I did it for the second time as an asshole. I usually play games very thoroughly. I only reached chapter 3 on Witcher but already played over 30 hours. I prefer to do everything on the first attempt. Although, in an RPG that means that I max level half way the game and then kill the final boss with a backhand slap.
@Wii U priced at $300 for basic, $350 for deluxe
good job on the guess guys! i think this price is ok for a console of that caliber, it might be “a couple of wiis taped together” but it will fufill the gamer’s needs for a few years without a doubt (i hope)
@Obsidian unveils Kickstarter title Project Eternity, raise $1M in 24 hours
well, they really do have a history with good games! they deserve it!
@QOTW
mostly Borderlands 2 and Battlefield 3: armored kill. as of now, i am a lvl 19 assassin focused fully on the melee tree… oh god, the carnage! :3
now time for my question: wich classes and wich builds are you guys doing on BL2? and wich you made for BL1? i made mordekai as a kick ass sniper, also 100% focused on the sniper tree.