The Great Herb Price Crash of 2012 - A Tragedy Told In Graphs

[Farabee]

Well, it was bound to happen with the DMF leaving town and the ink trader setting up shop but I didn't expect this level of "crash":

https://theunderminejournal.com/item...jin&item=72235

This is Silkweed on my server, as Silkweed is the primary herb most people use for milling purposes due to the difficulty of Fool's Cap to obtain and the relative ease of obtain-ability of this herb coupled with the small amount of alchemy uses. Obviously not the whole story is being told by the Market Price, as the bottom of the market is now down to 2g. The quantity available is also fairly telling of current buying habits as supply hasn't really changed. There's been almost a 66% reduction in price over the last week and it's STILL not selling.

What if you buy and craft into inks? Well that's a sadder story:

https://theunderminejournal.com/item...jin&item=79254
https://theunderminejournal.com/item...jin&item=79255

Yes, even trading up you're only make a 30g profit on IoD to Starlight. Starlight suffering currently a 75% reduction on price.

Thanks to Golden Lotus, herbs are worthless to an alchemist with the main block to market availability being the Golden Lotus, the ridiculously rare herb that nobody can seem to get enough of:

https://theunderminejournal.com/item...jin&item=72238

But even there we see the pinch as more and more people spend their SoH on alts, on gatherers on this herb. What if an alchemist were to buy both the Silkweed and Godlen Lotus and produce the final result, the Flask of the Warm Sun (+int)? Well...

https://theunderminejournal.com/item...jin&item=76085

That's right. A grand total of 15g profit, if the flask even sold at all. Judging from once again the glut of market availability, people are relying on guild alchemists for their raiding needs right now.

The real question is, in the face of nearly unlimited supply how can Blizzard make markets viable again?

[Purpledrink503]

I'm a little confused on why people even bitch about prices on anything going down. What do you even use gold for? I had 2 million gold at the start of this expansion and just wasted like 200k on crap just for the hell of it to use gold. I just don't get what you need gold for. I could of easily just not spent that 200k and I would be fine lol.

[Farabee]

I'm a little confused on why people even bitch about prices on anything going down. What do you even use gold for? I had 2 million gold at the start of this expansion and just wasted like 200k on crap just for the hell of it to use gold. I just don't get what you need gold for. I could of easily just not spent that 200k and I would be fine lol.

Besides the irrelevancy of your comment, some people just enjoy playing the AH. It's as valid a play style as raiding or PVP.

If you don't, you're probably in the wrong forum.

[Swolltitan]

Easy - lower the # of nodes everywhere. Ghost iron still sells just under 5g per ore on my server. But when they post it close to 3, i buy them up and use them for my xmutes.

[Armourboy]

So is it just Silkweed taking a nose dive or is it a global thing as well? Hopefully the supply goes down with one of the patch changes in the future ( although I would actually like to see Golden Lotus go up)

[Znuff]

The supply increased mostly due to bots finally leveling up to 90.

First weeks the bots weren't leveled up (so they couldn't fly) and there was a very low supply of materials.

Look at the "Quantity" curve slowly rising starting from 12-13th of October.

[Kezotar]

I'm a little confused on why people even bitch about prices on anything going down. What do you even use gold for? I had 2 million gold at the start of this expansion and just wasted like 200k on crap just for the hell of it to use gold. I just don't get what you need gold for. I could of easily just not spent that 200k and I would be fine lol.

Clearly you know nothing about the market, and you 2 million gold is bought or a lie.

To OP:

The market crashed due to botters. When a market has more sellers than buyers the price will drop and no buyers will be there to buy it.

Think of it as a simple price curve.


P0 gives us X0. P0 Is the price of the unit, X0 is the amount the market will buy at that price.


Problem - More and More invest into this and you can see the prices dropping. Why? Because this isn't a monoply, meaning that the market decides the price and not the seller. So what happends now after more people are into selling this item? Of course the quanity of the item increases, but it increases too much that the market cannot buy it all. Either way, with the quanity increase the sell price reduces and giving us.

P2 and X2. Price dropped, but quanity increased. Now this depends on the item, as here you can see a slim decrease in price but big increase in quanity. This was pure to demonstrate it.

Also the market curve in my picture has also added PX1 which should be ignored in this case. Also Reel Etterspørsel and Nytt Tilbud is to be ignored. I could've drawn a better curve but I didn't have the time and the programs at this computer. It's simple though, the logic in this should be open for you. Of course values and calculations haven't been counted but it's just giving a basic knowledge of the market.

What blizzard can do to increase the prices - Reduce spawned nodes (something that will happen as soon as cross realms open).

How else to solve it?
- Inscription requires more Inks to craft. (Glyphs from 3->5) (Shoulder Blue 3->10/15) (Shoulder Epic 3 Starlight -> 6-10)
- Alchemy increased mats requirements for herbs for flasks etc.
- Reduced spawned nodes
- Milling gives less results ( reduce proc rate of Common Ink 50% ) ( Reduce uncommon Ink 25% )

Do this and prices on herbs will double or triple.

[Purpledrink503]

Besides the irrelevancy of your comment, some people just enjoy playing the AH. It's as valid a play style as raiding or PVP.

If you don't, you're probably in the wrong forum.

So how do lower profits prevent you from playing the AH? It doesn't. I don't play the AH and have managed to come up with 2 million gold. Every now and then i might see something cheap and mark it up but just means you have to play more to make more?

[Farabee]

The supply increased mostly due to bots finally leveling up to 90.

First weeks the bots weren't leveled up (so they couldn't fly) and there was a very low supply of materials.

Look at the "Quantity" curve slowly rising starting from 12-13th of October.

It was not difficult for bots to simply go to the Yan'zhe River and farm herbs there, with the relatively low amount of hostile mobs that could be avoided altogether by classes that use water-walking. DK is one of the most botted classes around and can simply turn on Path of Frost and gather herbs at a rate similar to having a flying mount.

Though you are right, Silkweed is going to be the easiest target for these type of bots and thus will see the biggest hit. However, pretty mcuh all herbs on my server have seen similar price dips with the exception of Fool's Cap which is difficult even for non-bots to obtain due to the relative hassle of contending with the mob-packed Dread Wastes area.

[Purpledrink503]

Also lol at my gold being bought. If I didn't know anything about the market I wouldn't know when to creep in and make my move to make a quick 10-20k on a single item instead of listing 100 stacks of herbs i had to go and pick myself lol.

[Farabee]

The market crashed due to botters. When a market has more sellers than buyers the price will drop and no buyers will be there to buy it.

From personal experience trying to sell yesterday this isn't the case. The fact is, since DMF left town and the ink trader now allows you to circumvent milling large amounts of herbs for Starlight Ink, the demand has dropped off the map. I was bottom of the market for most of the day yesterday and still not selling a single stack despite constant relists.

[Kezotar]

From personal experience trying to sell yesterday this isn't the case. The fact is, since DMF left town and the ink trader now allows you to circumvent milling large amounts of herbs for Starlight Ink, the demand has dropped off the map. I was bottom of the market for most of the day yesterday and still not selling a single stack despite constant relists.

Read my whole post Of course botters have had their influence in price, but this isn't only the case. Ofc DMC have had their toll. But if you would read my post you would maybe understand it. but w/e.

[Edlarel]

Speaking purely as a consumer, I'm glad prices are going down. This saves me what little gold I do have so I can focus on my own professions. I mean this as nicely as possible, but it's supply and demand; get used to it, find a new source, or get a new hobby.

[Farabee]

Speaking purely as a consumer, I'm glad prices are going down. This saves me what little gold I do have so I can focus on my own professions. I mean this as nicely as possible, but it's supply and demand; get used to it, find a new source, or get a new hobby.

Except a drop in one market will have a ripple effect across the entire AH of your server.

[Honkeymagoo]

The demand was huge b/c of the fair, there actually wasn't enough herbs on my server to cover everyone. As a result tons of people started farming herbs b/c they were selling for a lot. You still have to mill a large amount of herbs for starlights though, even if it's approximately half what it was before. The demand of herbs will go down b/c of that, but so will the amount of farmers from the price drop of herbs. Another thing is that people don't need herbs right now because they have such huge stockpiles of ink, so very few people are buying. Give it a few weeks when the next fair comes around and stockpiles start dwindling and you'll see a big increase in demand for herbs along with a smaller supply of herbs than before. This will cause prices of herbs to go up again. Herb and inscription prices will be lower b/c the people willing to fork over a ton for quick a darkmoon deck have gotten their trinkets, but this is just a typical trough that happens in any cycling market. Now's the time to invest imo. The only thing that will really crash this market at this point is bots.

[Tinsoul]

The ink trader effect shouldn't be underestimated. For most of the week, I felt herbs and not SoW were my limiting factor in card production. When the ink trader arrived I had over 1000 ink to trade (and I'm a small timer). It was a massive increase in supply.

[Karazee]

I'm a little confused on why people even bitch about prices on anything going down. What do you even use gold for? I had 2 million gold at the start of this expansion and just wasted like 200k on crap just for the hell of it to use gold. I just don't get what you need gold for. I could of easily just not spent that 200k and I would be fine lol.

Not everyone has 2 million gold and can just piss it away like you.

[Deleted]

Well, it was bound to happen with the DMF leaving town and the ink trader setting up shop but I didn't expect this level of "crash":

https://theunderminejournal.com/item...jin&item=72235

This is Silkweed on my server, as Silkweed is the primary herb most people use for milling purposes due to the difficulty of Fool's Cap to obtain and the relative ease of obtain-ability of this herb coupled with the small amount of alchemy uses. Obviously not the whole story is being told by the Market Price, as the bottom of the market is now down to 2g. The quantity available is also fairly telling of current buying habits as supply hasn't really changed. There's been almost a 66% reduction in price over the last week and it's STILL not selling.

What if you buy and craft into inks? Well that's a sadder story:

https://theunderminejournal.com/item...jin&item=79254
https://theunderminejournal.com/item...jin&item=79255

Yes, even trading up you're only make a 30g profit on IoD to Starlight. Starlight suffering currently a 75% reduction on price.

Thanks to Golden Lotus, herbs are worthless to an alchemist with the main block to market availability being the Golden Lotus, the ridiculously rare herb that nobody can seem to get enough of:

https://theunderminejournal.com/item...jin&item=72238

But even there we see the pinch as more and more people spend their SoH on alts, on gatherers on this herb. What if an alchemist were to buy both the Silkweed and Godlen Lotus and produce the final result, the Flask of the Warm Sun (+int)? Well...

https://theunderminejournal.com/item...jin&item=76085

That's right. A grand total of 15g profit, if the flask even sold at all. Judging from once again the glut of market availability, people are relying on guild alchemists for their raiding needs right now.

The real question is, in the face of nearly unlimited supply how can Blizzard make markets viable again?

markets are viable.

As a herbalist, and with inscription and alch also I have no issue with this.

Hope the same is true for metals and cloth and encht mats.



What you want is to gouge a huge profit, tough.

[noxatron]

It was an inevitable crash, as it always is around DMF. If you weren't prepared then you need greater foresight in the future.

[Maruka]

This is crazy but on the bright side green tea stacks are 38g right now on my server. While ink of dreams are 12g and starlight are 200g, time to print me some gold.