Trials of a World of Warcraft Player: Entry Three

“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.

0 thoughts on “Trials of a World of Warcraft Player: Entry Three”

  1. I’ve noticed that the economies on different realms can vary drastically. One realm I recently played on had green items (for levels 10 to 20) at a gold to 3 gold, and something like a stack of 20 copper ore sell for 2gold or under. Same with stacks of the lower leveled herbs

    Start playing a different server and now those items are dirt cheap, like 20 to 60 silver for things much better than the quests are going to give you. I even picked up some 20+ dps wands for around 60s each – such a huge bargain I think. But all is not peachy keen, 20 stacks of Copper Ore is selling for around 4gold! The low level herbs are almost just as outrageous.

    I actually like the economy in the second case much better. Pick up mining, and you can sell your ore and pretty much have your toon equiped with uber gear the whole time.

  2. I’ve noticed that the economies on different realms can vary drastically. One realm I recently played on had green items (for levels 10 to 20) at a gold to 3 gold, and something like a stack of 20 copper ore sell for 2gold or under. Same with stacks of the lower leveled herbs

    Start playing a different server and now those items are dirt cheap, like 20 to 60 silver for things much better than the quests are going to give you. I even picked up some 20+ dps wands for around 60s each – such a huge bargain I think. But all is not peachy keen, 20 stacks of Copper Ore is selling for around 4gold! The low level herbs are almost just as outrageous.

    I actually like the economy in the second case much better. Pick up mining, and you can sell your ore and pretty much have your toon equiped with uber gear the whole time.

  3. Yeah, it has a lot to do with population density on the server and how many raiding guilds are populated there as well.

    If you want to get into a nice whacked out crazy economy wait until they open a new server and go wild. You’ll find rare drops are dirt cheap while common materials are through the roof.

    Mainly because there are not enough high level characters to raise the demand on big items and so many low level new characters (without the ability to twink) that they’re all demanding basic materials.

    Of course, in those situations, if you bring a character over via a transfer you’re going to find the AH useless for a lot of your high level needs for a few months.

  4. Yeah, it has a lot to do with population density on the server and how many raiding guilds are populated there as well.

    If you want to get into a nice whacked out crazy economy wait until they open a new server and go wild. You’ll find rare drops are dirt cheap while common materials are through the roof.

    Mainly because there are not enough high level characters to raise the demand on big items and so many low level new characters (without the ability to twink) that they’re all demanding basic materials.

    Of course, in those situations, if you bring a character over via a transfer you’re going to find the AH useless for a lot of your high level needs for a few months.

  5. Interesting comments. I think that Blizzard has done a good job of providing what people need no matter what their desires are. For twinks (people who purchase gear far in excess of what they “should” have at that level) they can spend gold to get right into action and not have to do the boring farming. For people like me, the fun is in questing and grinding and for my first toon I never purchased anything at the auction house, just used whatever I found and farmed my own herbs for potions. My friends were astounded at my lowlevel greens in Outland but I could kill monsters with ease so what did it matter?

    I know there are people who run bottomscanner looking for deals and experience the vicarious thrill of buying low and selling high.. Wow has something ro everyone!

  6. Interesting comments. I think that Blizzard has done a good job of providing what people need no matter what their desires are. For twinks (people who purchase gear far in excess of what they “should” have at that level) they can spend gold to get right into action and not have to do the boring farming. For people like me, the fun is in questing and grinding and for my first toon I never purchased anything at the auction house, just used whatever I found and farmed my own herbs for potions. My friends were astounded at my lowlevel greens in Outland but I could kill monsters with ease so what did it matter?

    I know there are people who run bottomscanner looking for deals and experience the vicarious thrill of buying low and selling high.. Wow has something ro everyone!

  7. I’ve used bottom scanner, mainly because it comes with my Auctioneer and I, at one time, was a huge AH fiend. Lately, I’m just happy to fish 🙂

    I’ve never been one to sit in the AH and just spend 100G to get my skill from 10 to 300 as fast as possible, mainly because I like to have it follow with my level. That way I can use what I’m making and feel progress when I build my own armor AND get skill for doing so.

    However, once in a guild situation I like to supply the new low-levels with crafted armor to give them a bit of an edge. This is where things get hairy, as I head to AH to build light leathers and such because I don’t want to take my level 46 out just to kill tigers for an hour; lazy yes it’s true.

    But, in those specific situations I’m astounded that I’ve got to pay many gold to make such basic equipment. If I were level 10, I’d have all that light leather as a skinner as I’m going through quests, but it’s when you get higher and want to make a buddy some basic equipment that you no longer provision that you realize just how inflated the AH is.

    The end result, if people didn’t buy it the prices would fall. So, someone is buying it. Someone with big pockets!

  8. I’ve used bottom scanner, mainly because it comes with my Auctioneer and I, at one time, was a huge AH fiend. Lately, I’m just happy to fish 🙂

    I’ve never been one to sit in the AH and just spend 100G to get my skill from 10 to 300 as fast as possible, mainly because I like to have it follow with my level. That way I can use what I’m making and feel progress when I build my own armor AND get skill for doing so.

    However, once in a guild situation I like to supply the new low-levels with crafted armor to give them a bit of an edge. This is where things get hairy, as I head to AH to build light leathers and such because I don’t want to take my level 46 out just to kill tigers for an hour; lazy yes it’s true.

    But, in those specific situations I’m astounded that I’ve got to pay many gold to make such basic equipment. If I were level 10, I’d have all that light leather as a skinner as I’m going through quests, but it’s when you get higher and want to make a buddy some basic equipment that you no longer provision that you realize just how inflated the AH is.

    The end result, if people didn’t buy it the prices would fall. So, someone is buying it. Someone with big pockets!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Gaming Flashback: Yo! NoidGaming Flashback: Yo! Noid

Yo! Noid was a commercial opportunity for Domino’s Pizza developed by Capcom. This retro style game revolved around Domino’s Pizza claymation style mascot, the Noid, as he adventures through fourteen stages of side scrolling action.

The game sound was much like any other 8-bit action platformer. It reminded me of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the Nintendo Entertainment System, not the cool arcade one. Minus the turtles, Yo! Noid is a battle against Mr. Green, the Noids evil duplicate, a concept used in so many games; remember Shadow Link?

Unlike Link, Noid lost a life when he hit an enemy similar to the Super Mario Bros. style platformer but with a Yo Yo weapon. You could also gather smart-bomb type scrolls to clear the screen of all enemies, another classic side scroller arcade recipe. Yo! Noid brought nothing to the table in terms of uniqueness and relied on the standard recipe of side scrolling conflict.

This retro game may be one of the first true “total conversion mods.” Later we’d see Counter Strike born out of the Half-Life engine and way before that, Noah’s Ark 3D built out of the Wolfenstein 3D engine. Yo! Noid was a re-creation of the game Kamen no Ninja Hanamaru. Oddly enough, Yo! Noid was probably more well known than its forefather game because Capcom didn’t release Kamen no Ninja Hanamaru in the United States. Instead, we got Yo! Noid and a $1.00 off coupon on the back of the manual so we can get ourselives some Domino’s Pizza.

Although a few of us may recall Yo! Noid from our childhood, the title really didn’t create any huge waves in the game industry. Yo! Noid did show developers that a brand named product could be used as a marketing and brand awareness strategy, something we’d later see Burger King try on the Xbox 360 and find some success.

Can you tell the difference between Yo! Noid and Kamen no Ninja Hanamaru?

Microsoft Says Blu-ray Holds No 360 ValueMicrosoft Says Blu-ray Holds No 360 Value

Rumors float around the Internet questioning when Microsoft will ship a Blu-ray enabled Xbox 360 or add-on device like they did with the, now failed, HD-DVD. At CES 09 Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment & Devices division, says this request is “way down the list.”

Mr. Bach had some great selling points as to why a Blu-ray player has little value in the world of Xbox 360. The primary reason, of course, being the Xbox 360 developers cannot take advantage of Blu-ray as a development platform for games. This was the price Sony, or the consumer, paid to own a PlayStation 3 since all games are printed on the media and are, in effect, Blu-ray “capable.”

We say capable because not all (any?) PlayStation 3 games currently make full use of the Blu-ray media. Many games will reprint the game on the media for optimization purposes, fill the game with international voice overs for all countries or, otherwise, stuff the media with something that will serve a useful purpose. Sony has near-future-proofed their device by giving game developers years of growth in terms of utilizing the Blu-ray capacity.

Microsoft chose to take the smaller old-style DVD format for games and media. Adding the HD-DVD didn’t add a large deal of risk because, as we saw, they can discontinue the model and not change their core gaming demographic. We still laughed a bit at them, but that was where it ended. Bach also said that it’s not really a great economic time to push a new 360 SKU on potential customers with additional cost just for Blu-ray movies playback.

They could add Blu-ray game development support as well but that would just alienate the “28 million Xboxes” they have already shipped.

“OK, let me get this straight: I’m going to add something to the product that’s going to raise the cost, which means the price goes up, consumers aren’t asking for it, and by the way, my game developers can’t use it.” (gamespot)

Of course, the first thing that came to our mind was “well, you did it for HD-DVD, how is Blu-ray different?” The key areas we can think of really come down to Blu-ray is a Sony technology and they are a direct competitor and, to top it off, HD-DVD allowed them to fight against the PS3 at the media level of the industry. They minimized the risk by making the product a secondary add-on device and, if HD-DVD had won, they’d have the winning format already under production (still not for games).

It seems Microsoft has changed their battle plans a little. They started out talking up the media aspects of the 360, using Media Center, renting movies and TV shows and had the HD-DVD as a subproduct. Today, they’re investing in Netflix for media and everything else favors the games.

Which is fine, we like games.

We Need Another Ikari WarriorsWe Need Another Ikari Warriors

In 1986 SNK released Ikari Warriors, it had all the makings of a classic title. Cool weapons, time strategies, two player action and a great challenge. We’re now seeing folks reproduce some of the essence of classic games by creating platformers like Little Big Planet and Mega Man 9, where is the love for the top-down scrollers?

Ikari Wariors was one of the first game titles to use a rotary joystick along with a directional system. Looking at the current generation Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 it’s plain to see the joystick is equipped with this design. We’ve seen Geometry Wars utilize the analog stick to create a 360 directional attack, so it’s possible to utilize this behavior for Ikari Warriors.

Given SNK is still alive under the name SNK Playmore the intellectual property must still exist to breath fresh life into an Ikari Warrior remake, with about six to eight months development time a classy title could be re-developed using old concepts brought to the current generation hardware.

Blast grenades, RPG’s, smart bombs, air strikes the options are limitless and the concept has been proven to work. Given the gamer demographic of 18-34 it’s plain to see old gamers of the Arcade and NES would recall and rebuild their love for the title while attracting younger audiences whom have never seen an Ikari Warriors title; if it worked in 1986 are we so adverse to it working again?

Games do not have to implement full 3D perspective graphics to be cool, we’ve seen proof in that with the Wii and the demand for titles like Little Big Planet. We neeed another Ikari Warriors.