Inflation may never happen

[Deleted]

On the topic, I don't think there will be deflation, but I believe they will try to create parity. After all every economy in the world values stability over inflation or deflation. There is no reason to assume Blizzard wants deflation or inflation.

[Deleted]

It's either one or the other, the only thing blizzard really care about is that the purchasing power stays stable.

[Deleted]

Though due to the accumulated wealth of old players, it's probable a stable purchasing power will probably be synonymous with a stability of prices.

[StationaryHawk]

On the topic, I don't think there will be deflation, but I believe they will try to create parity. After all every economy in the world values stability over inflation or deflation. There is no reason to assume Blizzard wants deflation or inflation.

Judging by the cost of the multi-seater yak mount, I'd have to say that there will be inflation, and that Blizzard knows that/plans on that.

[Deleted]

Well, if they do deflate the prices a lot with the mount, there you have it, no inflation.

[padie]

Whats wrong with inflation? The point with a new expansion is about starting from 0 again... having to reach a new lvl cap, gearing up again... gold fits in there aswel.
Id say give more inflation(like 10 times more)

[Deleted]

Well, it's not zero though is it? Old players starting with millions of gold, new players starting with nothing.

If you inflate you help the new users, if you deflate you may piss the old.

It's probably best to screw neither.



It's also not just 'selfish players'. Some guilds will lose money. Think of it like real-life's 'public funds'. You can't destroy those easily for the sake of something else.

[padie]

Inflation is there for everyone. You also dont need to be an old player to have millions. I have enough gold for anything i want to do, but for all i care they can remove everyones gold when mop hits. Its a currency, its not the endgame of wow. Im not gonna tell you what to play, but im sure you can find alot of games where money is the endgame.

[Deleted]

The issue with gold is in a game like WoW after a certain value has been earned it becomes practically worthless to the general player. There are only so many sandstone drakes, mechano-hogs, or other gold sinks available before it just becomes an accumulated commodity. Projecting real world analysis onto the game's economy is misguided because it differs not only in the way it is produced but also spent. Sure, Blizzard could and are introducing more expensive gold sinks, but this only moves the bar upwards before the gold is accumulated again. The BMAH sounds like a decent idea for a gold sink which sets a moving target in the amount being removed from the economy in direct relation to the amount being hoarded in any given realm, but it's effect has yet to be seen to be seen on live realms; and it's worth considering that those player's who are already gold -capped and thus hoarding the most amount of gold are capped not because they felt they needed the gold but because they wanted to how much of it they could accrue as a personal challenge. Inflation isn't the problem with WoW's economy, it's the worth of of the gold currency beyond a certain point and maybe the BMAH might solve that and maybe not.

[ablib]

There's nothing wrong with earning your money legitimately and getting a raise every couple of years for your work. Going out and doing a quest, and the money you make from it, is legitimately making money. When a new expansion drops, you get more gold per quest and mob. This isn't what I think causes the massive inflation in WoW at this time.

Massive inflation, in the real world and in WoW, is caused by the devaluation of the dollar (or in WoW, the gold piece). In game this is caused by the real "money printing": restoring hacked accounts.

Millions, if not billions, of duplicated gold is added to the economy through restoring hacked accounts. Until players start taking responsibility for their own account security, and get an authenticator, this problem will only continue to get more and more out of control. If the US Treasury did this, a candy bar would cost 100 dollars, due to the dollar being worthless.

[Blackenator]

I think this is why the blackmarket ah was implemented to have money sinks and to stop people stockpiling gold their are going to be items that everyone wants from mounts to current heroic gear.

[Ferocity]

I partly agree with OP. Especially after one of later Beta builds changed daily rewards from 60g to 19g, and with incoming nerf to older content raid gold drops (which is most common way to produce gold out of thin air).

No need to forget, that only people who have big amounts of gold are either AH players or long-term hoarders (or some kind of combinaton among these two). AH players didn't never produce gold out of "thin air", they were getting gold, which already existed before in the hands of other players. Long-term hoarders usually are gold sink in themselves - they don't use the gold, which they have: gold is effectively removed out of economics through them.

There are 2 factors which define value of gold in WoW - resources and vanity stuff. If resource is too scarce, price on it will be higher. If there is some expensive vanity mount, people will feel they need to get more gold to afford it, and they start to work on bringing more gold into economics and would raise prices on other items, while otherwise they would do some BGs or would participate in some other activity, which wouldn't be connected to direct gold acquisition.

Say, person looted some BoE, which isn't presented on AH, and tries to put it as expensive as possible, to be able to afford BMAH bid/mount. Buyer of that BoE, person who is absolutely not interested in BMAH/vanity, would have to produce more gold to make up for such purchases. Second seller of same BoE, who isn't interested in BMAH/vanity, would put that BoE at a price close to 1st seller's price. "Supply-demand" rule would cause rise of prices on resources, and as result - global inflation.

BMAH and 120k gold mount won't do anything good. I'd say "there will be no inflation in MoP", if not these 2 factors. BMAH and uber-expensive mounts will promote bringing more gold out of "thin air", be it legal farm, botting or whatever.

P.S.: yak's analogues from previous expansions. TBC 5k epic flight could be measured in 500 dailies done. Cata's 33k sand drake - in 2000 dailies done. MoP's 120k gold Yak - in 6000 dailies done. Developers need either to buff dailies' rewards at least 10 times (upto 190 gold per daily) to make dailies be actually worth time-invested, or to lower price of Yak to at least 16k (slightly more expsnive than WotLK's Mammoth). Most people aren't rich in WoW, and those who are rich (I am among them I guess) won't be throwing money on overly expensive vanity stuff. Such gold sinks won't lead to anything good.

[Deleted]

The reason is simple. "Money printing" in wow is mainly done through mob drops, boss drops, quest rewards etc. Everything is directly controlled by Blizzard.

[...]

Some could argue that's unlikely but there's nothing saying it won't happen. Inflation is not inevitable.

Oh, if Blizzard wanted to cause deflation I'm sure they could.

But Blizzard's design is to make players feel more powerful in every way, as they level up. That includes more gold, and that leads to inflation.

Your whole argument devolves into a discussion over the definition of 'inevitable'.

(Though I could see a "gold-squish" sometime in the future, it certainly won't happen in MoP. Inflation, here we come!)

[Deleted]

They can't combat inflation with optional gold sinks. Either they are forced, constant, and for everyone (that's it, there is less gold entering the system than exiting it), or the only thing they reduce is deviation. And as long as they are optional, people with huge deposits won't get down to the level of the mass either. I wouldn't expend something I can't afford (that means, paying so much I can't get BoE and epic gems in the next patch) in an optional thing, and if I were, I won't lose the means to get the gold again. If they make them forced (want tier14? pay 10000g+token per piece), they completely mess up with the normal players leaving unscathed the >1M ones.

If they were to really want to reduce inflaction (which I don't see why they would want too), they will have to introduce tons of optional gold sinks so the deviation goes lower even if the average goes higher. Then, in the next expansion, reduce everyone gold proportionally for commodity (use a new currency, for example platinum as 1000g) and to finish the job, nerf the hell of the AH so everyone takes more or less the same time to make the same amount of money (which is were the disparity comes. When a player can do much, much more Gold per hour played than others without the know-how, there is no catching up). The last part, of course, will be horrid to the game.

They are probably picking the wisest decision in only optional sinks + platinum (in the next expansion). That takes care of inflation (or at least, inflation of 000s), but not of rich people that will pay top prices for boe gear, epic gems, mounts, etc driving them high. They can't really make a system where everyone have more or less the same money and at the same time make a healthy AH. They could if Blizzard were selling wares on the AH and instantban every bot/dupe activity. Which won't accomplish anything more than annoy the players that enjoy playing in the AH. Blizzard would want normal players to spend some time to buy things in the AH anyways, and the time needed now is already fairly low. Sincerely, I don't figure how gold sellers still manage to sell any gold at all with the ease to obtain it and the low necessity for it.

[Stede]

If you inflate you help the new users, if you deflate you may piss the old.

It's probably best to screw neither.

New users pay more money. Old users are already hooked. Blizzard favors New Users because of that.

[majinbebi]

New users pay more money. Old users are already hooked. Blizzard favors New Users because of that.

Just like drug cartels, heh.

[Deleted]

New users pay more money. Old users are already hooked. Blizzard favors New Users because of that.

Old users know how to make gold with little effort.

Hint: It takes gold, to make gold.

[Windfury]

Blizzard will allow the inflation to happen, I don't think they'll try to create parity, I don't think that's possible. There was a thread the other day with a bunch of people thought under 10k was normal, how do you even start to create parity between those people and millionaires?

The stuff you suggest, changing money on mobs/from quests/from dailies is only going to hurt the ability of the poor to make gold, because that's where they get it from. The rich are using proffessions, using the AH, sitting on big stockpiles with which to generate more wealth and so on. Is Blizard going to just delete the gold I have in my bank? The theoretically could, and I'm sure that would solve the 'issue' as well, but it's pretty unlikely.

[Deleted]

The stuff you suggest, changing money on mobs/from quests/from dailies is only going to hurt the ability of the poor to make gold, because that's where they get it from. The rich are using proffessions, using the AH, sitting on big stockpiles with which to generate more wealth and so on.

The poor get their income from daily activities: Quests, dungeons, loot, etc.
The rich get their income from stockpiles: Gold, materials, items, etc.

By increasing rewards from dailies and such Blizzard boosts the poor's income, while the inflation it causes hurts the rich.

If Blizzard were to decrease rewards, the poor's income would drop, and the resulting deflation would boost the rich' purchasing power.

So Blizzard will continue to inflate the economy with every expansion.

[Windfury]

The poor get their income from daily activities: Quests, dungeons, loot, etc.
The rich get their income from stockpiles: Gold, materials, items, etc.

By increasing rewards from dailies and such Blizzard boosts the poor's income, while the inflation it causes hurts the rich.

If Blizzard were to decrease rewards, the poor's income would drop, and the resulting deflation would boost the rich' purchasing power.

So Blizzard will continue to inflate the economy with every expansion.

Had you bothered to read the original post you would have noticed the OP is suggesting that inflation be controlled via Blizzard limiting the ammount of new money generated via quests/drops etc, while at the same time arguing Blizzard could achieve some sort of income parity, hence my reply ^.^.