WoW's economy is beyond redemption at this point

[Raelbo]

First of all, I never said Blizzard lies. They just don't make it easy to puzzle things together.

Really? The article [1] you linked explains it very clearly. I am not sure what's hard to figure out.

About tokens being created out of thin air, that is not my word, that is Blizzard themselves 'Because the Token exchange has to start somewhere, we will be setting the initial gold value of the WoW Token ourselves.'[1]. So they created an initial "pool" of tokens (or guaranteed offer for tokens), nobody knows how many went onto the market before the buy side kicked in.

I think you've misconstrued something here. They never said anything about creating an initial pool of tokens. All they did was to set the initial price. The pool was created by people buying them from the store and then listing them on the AH.

No one got their gold before their token was bought from the AH. And no one can buy a token unless there is a supply on the AH.

About Blizzard not setting the prices. They do actually, and freely admit that but they do of course take into account the offer/demand. You see, Blizzard doesn't just operate the exchange, they are also a mandatory intermediate, living of a very hefty 40% commission, and also fulfill the role of designated market maker [2]. The market maker makes money (gold in this case) by setting the spread, the difference between the buy and the sell price for the tokens. The spread is indirectly dictated by the offer demand, as the market maker insures liquidity to the market. If they would make the spread to wide, transactions and the profits associated with them would dry up. Blizzard has explicitly said in presentations that it is not just the players demand and supply that sets the price. Specifically they said 'The gold price for these tokens on the AH is not set by players--it is set via an internal algorithm. It will automatically increase and decrease based on supply and demand. [3] This is exactly what a market maker does. Control the spread to increase or decrease liquidity.

Firstly, I think you're really just playing with semantics regarding whether Blizzard control the price. Yes, of course they are the ones that ultimately decide what that price is, but the basis of that price is driven by player behaviour. In other words they don't arbitrarily set the price, they allow it to move according to market forces. The token price is an accurate reflection of player perceptions of the $$ value of gold and has nothing to do with what Blizzard thinks this value should/shouldn't be.

Secondly, I wouldn't classify them as a market maker, even if they do share some characteristics. A market maker facilitates trade by being a buffer between buyers and sellers who will either buy stock from sellers and hold on to it until a buyer wants it, or who will sell stock to a buyer even if no one is actually selling. Blizzard does neither of these things. When you sell a token on the AH you don't get paid immediately. You get paid once a buyer is found. And if there are no tokens available on the AH then as buyer you can't buy until stock becomes available.

The market maker that fully controls the market (this is where the gold/silver token separation comes in, it ensures there can be no other market maker evolving over time) can also move the spread by just moving one of the sides. This sacrifices liquidity for other purposes. Increasing the spread by only moving the supply side (you get more gold for the token you are trying to sell to blizzard) increases the gold in circulation, moving only the demand side (you can buy a token from Blizzard for less gold) deflates the amount of gold circulating in game. It is the control of the 'spread' that is the 'knob'.

There is zero evidence to support the notion that Blizzard does this.

Blizzard's algorithm attempts to balance two things:
1) That there are always enough tokens on the AH to meet demand
2) That tokens don't sit too long in the AH, thus ensuring that sellers get their gold in a reasonable amount of time

In simple terms, the token supply on the AH is like water in a drinking trough. Sellers are constantly adding water, buyers are constantly drinking the water. The only way to try and control the rates at which both those things happens is by changing the price. Increasing the price encourages the water to flow into the trough faster while simultaneously slowing the rate at which it is let out. Decreasing the price has the opposite effect, reducing the rate of inflow while increasing outflows.

If the algorithm fails reflect an accurate assessment of the value players attach to gold, then the trough would either overflow (meaning that sellers would have to wait increasingly long periods of time to sell their tokens) or run dry (meaning that players would not be able to buy tokens off the AH because they'd always be sold out.

In essence all that algorithm is doing is modifying the price up or down based on how full that trough is and rapidly (and in which direction) the level is changing. The algorithm tries to keep the trough essentially at a constant half full level.

In effect that price is set by player behaviour.

I hope this more detailed explanation is a more satisfactory answer to 'If Blizzard wanted to shamelessly make money by selling an unlimited supply of gold, why even bother with the token system?'. The token system is actually very decent and serves the checks and balances needed to stabilize an in game economy very well. Just dumping in gold would be a disaster.

Well, yes, the token system as described by [1] is very decent. Which is why I have to question why you think the actual system works differently. Blizzard doesn't need to supply extra tokens if the AH runs dry. In fact the AH shouldn't ever run dry because it will react quickly enough to push the price up which will stabilise it.

In theory, yes, Blizzard could sell more tokens on the store than they list on the AH (eg for every three tokens bought from the shop they sell two to players for gold and then destroy the third and pay the seller the gold). But there is no evidence that this even might be the case, and no good reason for Blizzard to do it, and as you say "Just dumping in gold would be a disaster" not to mention a massive reputational risk if it ever came out.

Which is why I say that arguments that like to suggest that Blizzard are doing such sound a lot like conspiracy theories.

- - - Updated - - -

they are selling gold for real money, something that literally they were against for long time, they were only opposing it when they weren't making profit, make it not an immoral problem as they tried to convince us for ages, just a greed problem

You're trying to argue that Blizzard are hypocrites but you're basing your argument on false equivalences and completely ignoring context.

Maybe stop to consider why Blizzard was against the selling of gold for real money. And no, it's not because they have any kind of fundamental problem with the idea of players exchanging gold for any reason whatsoever - whether it be for charity, for friendship, for the good of the guild, for sexual favours or *gasp* even for money.

What they do have a problem with is what certain unsavoury, scummy, unscrupulous people will do given the opportunities presented by the ability to exchange gold for money.

Blizzard are against gold sellers using bots to disrupt the economy (at the expense of honest players). Blizzard are against gold sellers hacking people's accounts and stealing their gold, disenchanting their gear and selling off the pet collections. Their only gripe with buying gold is when it encourages this sort of thing.

And if you actually stopped and thought about it for a few seconds, you'd see that Blizzard electing to provide a safe, reliable and harmless way to facilitate the trade of gold between honest players, then it should be really obvious that it's totally consistent with their stance against gold sellers.

Do Blizzard make some money off the token system? Yes they do. But was that really their main motive making the token system? I think you'd have to be pretty foolish to believe that. The token system is good for players, it's good for the game, and it's good for Blizzard.

- - - Updated - - -

Are you stupid or you just act like it ? How come buying gold with real money and afterwards buying 350-355 BOEs from AH when ppl looting 340 from normal mythics at start of BFA isnt P2W ?

Because

1) there is absolutely zero requirement to buy tokens in order to do so
2) buying gold through tokens isn't going to magically translate into game-winning gear

[Deleted]

Ok sure it's the ~180k tokens that are "ruining the economy"

Multiple people in my guild have made literally millions just selling stuff on the auction house in the weeks since BFA launched. With mods you can just follow a guide on how to configure them and then milk the auction house with minimal effort on your part after the initial setup.

I've yet to encounter players that have a lot of money that don't just play the auction house. It's never oh I spent a few weeks salary on WOW tokens...

[Mafic]

they are selling gold for real money, something that literally they were against for long time, they were only opposing it when they weren't making profit, make it not an immoral problem as they tried to convince us for ages, just a greed problem

True.

And the consequences of such greed is coming home to roost now. And the casual WoW player suffers as a result.

[Schizoide]

Tokens don't generate gold, so they didn't generate inflation and did not ruin the economy. Free gold from garrison and class hall missions, that ruined the economy.

Tokens are pay2win and that degraded the integrity of the game as a whole. No doubt about it. But not the economy, specifically. Tokens aren't why everything is expensive.

[Raelbo]

Tokens don't generate gold, so they didn't generate inflation and did not ruin the economy. Free gold from garrison and class hall missions, that ruined the economy.

100% correct

Tokens are pay2win and that degraded the integrity of the game as a whole.

100% nonsense

[HuxNeva]

---snipped to save space----

The problem I have with your explanation is that it is too simple. You have absolutely 0 need for building a complete market maker setup if you are just going to directly have buyers and sellers coupled and let the market freely set the prices. That was the situation with the pet: you bought it in the store, then listed it on the AH and the price you got was whatever the market dictated. No, they fully understood the potential for a market maker position in dictating the economy, and they made sure they had a monopoly on that. I'm not implying they are using it nefariously, but not using it is like installing a very fancy central heating system, and then ignoring it and still burning oil in a canister in the living room.

Your water analogy is apt, but it is one with a very big reservoir in the middle and two valves. If it rained too much and there is little demand, your going to start filling the basin, not flooding the basement or keeping the water pent up in the garden.

[Deleted]

100% correct



100% nonsense

Actually exactly opposite. I am also glad you know very internal Blizz algorithms. Please do share. There is no way to prove there actually need to be people selling tokens on AH for them to be available. None.

There is also no such thing as “milking the AH”. It’s making profit on people who have enough gold to not care for prices. Partially because they earned it in game before, partially because they can afford the money cost of the token-gold for their own fun.

Token prices are claimed to be linked with their availability and willingness to buy but both of these are not available to be looked up by players.

If you are willing to spend a few hundred $£€ on Blizz game stuff, I would rather spend that on buying gold, taking over the economy on the server and buy some more Blizz balance with the manipulated gold. Care to prove this impossible? Pretty please. I’m not even claiming someone would do this for malicious reasons but for pure financial gain. The tool is there.

[tacoloco]

Has the term "a slap in the face" appeared in this thread yet?

Most of this thread can be summarize that people are mad that other players don't do the same work as they do. Whether it's "welfare epics", tokens or some other thing, it comes down to the same thing.

[Marrilaife]

The only thing I don't get is why the hell the finished product Items are going for almost nothing while the mats just seem to go up lol.

People are flooding the AH with by-products o their profs up-ranking. For example epic enchanting crystal was recently around 1k value yet someone dumped tons of torrent of elements scrolls that require a crystal for 300g a pop. Why? Because it's one of the few recipes you can use to skill up enchanting in specific bracket.

With flasks I bet the competitive crafters either buy their herbs in bulk from botters or spam trade every day "buying all anchor weed for (80% of market price) buying herbs (also underpriced heavily)" and lots of people fall for it, because AH is laggy on many servers so they go for quick sale.

However on my server flasks went 20% up since 2 weeks ago, I wonder why. The anchor weed buff did nothing.

[PlazaPlaza]

ZzZzZzZzZz...

[chazus]

It stops the playerbase to buy things in the AH. Or encourages them to buy gold by selling tokens.

It doesn't, really. It makes the tiny group of top end people whine a lot, little more.

[Mafic]

The way gold moves around because the token exist does wreck the WoW economy. It is not just about gold generation via WoD/legion missions or gold sinks. But it is how the gold is distributed that is impacting the WoW economy far more.

[Uselessrouge]

had 100k from WOD yeah i dont do mission tables.. and did not have alts..


managed to make 5 million gold on BFA release just with farming BOE items with a premade group and we split up the gold . got the AH mount and made 500k just by selling normal stuff , people are lazy and pay its ok for me dont have a problem with making gold

[sam86]

You're trying to argue that Blizzard are hypocrites but you're basing your argument on false equivalences and completely ignoring context.

U should told that to blizzard from wow launch up to Cata at least, it was very clear, they always said buying gold is wrong and immoral and unethical, and was against ToS that u agree upon when u play, they literally removed those lines, and stopped even mention that buying gold is wrong, not surprise later they started to sell golds themselves

1) there is absolutely zero requirement to buy tokens in order to do so
2) buying gold through tokens isn't going to magically translate into game-winning gear

there are ppl who are playing during legion at least i met who literally payed to have some of best gear and equipment without playing, only logging, pay real life money for few tokens, buy a couple of boosts, voila, f8ck ur hours of playing, they are better than my main, yeah they don't have the best gear, but they still have far better gear than someone who actually play, and since gear>skill u can go f8ck urself or enjoy fighting a wall or u have to be a serious hardcore to start have chance with someone who just have lot of cash because he was born in a non-egyptian country and can afford doing so

[SkagenRora]

and then? To what purpose?

"And since no one is buying gear I cant see where this is p2w."
That is what i replied to. I just told him that you can buy gear with the gold you get from blizzard.

That's all there is to my comment.

[Raelbo]

Actually exactly opposite. I am also glad you know very internal Blizz algorithms. Please do share.

It's pretty obvious how their algorithm basically works because you can see how it behaves - provided of course you have a reasonable level of competence in maths and/or engineering. I do get that for some people it might seem to be black magic, but if that's the case such people should simply accept that they have no clue instead of trying to argue the point.

There is no way to prove there actually need to be people selling tokens on AH for them to be available. None.

Sure, there is no way to prove it. But a little bit of logic, critical thinking, deductive reasoning lead to the conclusion that to assume otherwise would be pretty stupid. I mean what would the basis for such a belief? Why would Blizzard perpetuate a lie that cost them money?

If anything, it's more likely that there don't need to be buyers for sellers to receive their gold and even that would require an unreasonable amount of cynical skepticism.

There is also no such thing as “milking the AH”. It’s making profit on people who have enough gold to not care for prices. Partially because they earned it in game before, partially because they can afford the money cost of the token-gold for their own fun.

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about here. Context?

Token prices are claimed to be linked with their availability and willingness to buy but both of these are not available to be looked up by players.

So what? That is not a rational basis for mistrusting those claims. Do you have some data to point at that would put those claims in doubt? Because as far as I am concerned the system behaves pretty much exactly as I expect it would behave based on the claims of how it works.

If you are willing to spend a few hundred $£€ on Blizz game stuff, I would rather spend that on buying gold, taking over the economy on the server and buy some more Blizz balance with the manipulated gold. Care to prove this impossible? Pretty please. I’m not even claiming someone would do this for malicious reasons but for pure financial gain. The tool is there.

I am not even sure what exactly you're asking me prove or why. Is is possible to buy a bunch of tokens for $$ then sell them on the AH, and then buy them back for gold at a cheaper rate? Sure there is. If you'd done this just before the prepatch you could have made a small profit.

Buy 100 tokens 3 months ago for €2000 and sell them for 325K gold each to get 32.5M gold
Spend 32.5M today at 180K each to buy 180 tokens which you redeem for €2350

But looking at what happened to the market with the benefit of hindsight to see what you could have done is a very different proposition from taking a risk based on what you think might happen.

[tikcol]

The mental gymnastics.. Back when blizzard didn't sell gold legally and people bought it from some chinese website the world was at war! People kept crying about others getting unfair advantages and not getting banned for it.

Nowadays it's legal, those same people buy tons of gold themselves. The clear proof is the amount of people selling boosts. You can't open the game, look at the screen and not see at least 1 message each minute of someone selling boosts for gold. This didn't happen before tokens and most certainly not in this scale.

Stop buying boosts you plebs, it's embarassing. Oh, maybe not,. Keep buying them or I'll have to start farning fucking herbs like a rice farmer

[Shakou]

"You're just a whiny cryfag, the wow economy is better than it's ever been, I completely corner the market on whatever item I feel like, it's great!"

- fkn moron that doesn't know an economy is considered strong when most people have spending power

[Deleted]

snip

You aren’t even funny in how you like to trust a big money making business to act in your best interest and remain ethical. It’s sad but maybe with age and experience you will come to the right conclusions about big companies who make money off you. Good luck.

[Raelbo]

U should told that to blizzard from wow launch up to Cata at least, it was very clear, they always said buying gold is wrong and immoral and unethical, and was against ToS that u agree upon when u play

It was also very clear that they were talking about buying gold from goldsellers/3rd party websites. It was also very why they had a problem with it - namely that doing so encouraged gold seller activity (eg botting, cheating, account hacking etc) which harms the game and the player experience.

they literally removed those lines, and stopped even mention that buying gold is wrong, not surprise later they started to sell golds themselves

Nope, it's still there that you are not allowed to trade gold for money:

Blizzard Eula

Prohibited Commercial Uses: ... (ii) gathering in-game currency, items, or resources for sale outside of the Platform or the Game(s); (iii) performing in-game services including, without limitation, account boosting or power-leveling, in exchange for payment; (iv) communicating or facilitating (by text, live audio communications, or otherwise) any commercial advertisement, solicitation or offer through or within the Platform;

Yes the wording has changed because they have extended their definition to cover trade of anything in-game for real money.

there are ppl who are playing during legion at least i met who literally payed to have some of best gear and equipment without playing, only logging, pay real life money for few tokens, buy a couple of boosts, voila, f8ck ur hours of playing, they are better than my main, yeah they don't have the best gear, but they still have far better gear than someone who actually play, and since gear>skill u can go f8ck urself or enjoy fighting a wall or u have to be a serious hardcore to start have chance with someone who just have lot of cash because he was born in a non-egyptian country and can afford doing so

Cool story. But it doesn't have anything to do with pay 2 win.

Here's another true story. I made about 40M gold in Legion 10M of which I actually spent on tokens. Let me be clear, aside from the fact that very few people out there would have spent €3000 to get a similar amount of gold, it doesn't even make a difference if they did so because I had more than enough gold to buy anything I might have needed to "win" via gold.

Sorry to be so blunt, but if you're getting beaten by lazy players who bought gold for € it's not because they had the cash to buy the gold, it's because you're too incompetent to make the gold in-game. Gold is not and has never been that hard to make in-game that you have any need to go buy a token unless you're not prepared to put in any effort at all.

WoW token gold is not pay 2 win. It's pay to be lazy.