How Blizzard wrecked prices and the economy

[Wilfire]

Stage 1. WoD and Legion Garrisons / Halls create stupendous gold inflation that will never be drained from the economy.
Stage 2. M+ provides an infinite, repeatable source of gear hence unbundling boosting from weekly lockouts.
Stage 3. Blizzard adjusts prices on repairs and "luxuries" such as reputation mounts and pets to be exorbitant to drain the excess gold from the economy.
Stage 4. The elites don't give a fuck about price adjustments. They just step up their infinitely repeatable boosting game and drain the gold from the proletariat to pay for 5 mil brutosaurs and 300k frogs.
Stage 5. In effect, the Garrison / Hall bourgeois become poor again because all of their gold has been drained by elite boosters to pay for gear, exclusive mounts, achievements and whatnot. The elite remain as rich as ever.

There's no "middle class" in this game anymore. Either you are an elite booster in the Gallywix community with an endless supply of gold and can afford everything in the game without batting an eyelash, or you are one of the destitute poor struggling to pay for consumables. Since Blizzard obliterated traditional ways of goldmaking such as professions, the entire economy looks like this:

The poor or the "whales" buy gold with tokens to pay for gear and exclusive content -> the elite boosters extract the gold from the poor -> the elite buy tokens with gold. In essence, the elite are exploiting the proletariat for free game time.

[Devilyaki]

Seems about right to me

[XDurionX]

Blizzard didn't "wreck" the economy. While i agree that garrisons have been a mistake goldwise, the circumstances are the same for every player. Nobody is forced to use boosts or spend 5M on a shitty mount either. Don't blame blizzard for your lack of knowledge and self control.

The only people wrecking the economy are botters, injecting buttloads of gold for no effort into the economy, driving prizes up.

[Narwhalosh Whalescream]

It's time to rise up, strangle the bourgeois with our chains! Set up 40 man groups to spawncamp all auction places.

[LordVargK]

Blizzard didn't "wreck" the economy. While i agree that garrisons have been a mistake goldwise, the circumstances are the same for every player. Nobody is forced to use boosts or spend 5M on a shitty mount either. Don't blame blizzard for your lack of knowledge and self control.

The only people wrecking the economy are botters, injecting buttloads of gold for no effort into the economy, driving prizes up.

I mean, the game has a about 100% yearly inflation rate if you compare luxury mounts over the course of all expansions. 100% inflation rate could be seen as an indicator of a wrecked economy.

[XDurionX]

I mean, the game has a about 100% yearly inflation rate if you compare luxury mounts over the course of all expansions. 100% inflation rate could be seen as an indicator of a wrecked economy.

This inflation is part of the game loop. Gold inflation serves the same purpose as gear inflation.

[Throwme]

There's no "middle class" in this game anymore. Either you are an elite booster in the Gallywix community with an endless supply of gold and can afford everything in the game without batting an eyelash, or you are one of the destitute poor struggling to pay for consumables.

Not true at all. I am in that "middle class" you think do not exist.

I have less than 200.000 gold combined across 23 characters.
I cannot afford the AH mount, the spider or even the golden armor from Argus.
I am not struggling to pay for consumables, mainly because I do not USE consumables.
I am not a desperate raider trying to get 5 more dps out every time I enter LFR.
I just play the game and enjoy it.


You should try that some day. Join the "middle class". It's actually a fun place to be.

[Dracullus]

You have some stats to back any of this, right? If not, please crawl gently back to your hole where such genius threads are produced.

[Biomega]

You're missing the actual driving forces behind the gold economy for the vast majority of players, which are regular upkeep costs, not wealth accumulation. In order for that to be slightly above parity for the majority of players, you'll automatically create a surplus for anyone with more ambition at playing. If you balanced around the top 1%, everyone else would constantly be gold-starved for their essentials.

As a random average player, you'll operate at a slight gain from doing casual content. Which is exactly where you want things to be from a design perspective. If they reduced income, people would suddenly find themselves running out of gold for repairs, raid reagents, etc. which is decidedly NOT where you want to be.

The balancing of gold income and spending is, in fact, ALL ABOUT the "middle class" of WoW. That it's out of whack at the extreme high end of the spectrum with boosters and BoE traders is an acceptable side effect (though Corruption BoEs were almost certainly a mistake). Luxury gold sinks are exactly that: luxuries. They're meant to be expensive and unattainable for most people. That's... their point.

[Shaetha]

Stage 1. WoD and Legion Garrisons / Halls create stupendous gold inflation that will never be drained from the economy.
Stage 2. M+ provides an infinite, repeatable source of gear hence unbundling boosting from weekly lockouts.
Stage 3. Blizzard adjusts prices on repairs and "luxuries" such as reputation mounts and pets to be exorbitant to drain the excess gold from the economy.
Stage 4. The elites don't give a fuck about price adjustments. They just step up their infinitely repeatable boosting game and drain the gold from the proletariat to pay for 5 mil brutosaurs and 300k frogs.
Stage 5. In effect, the Garrison / Hall bourgeois become poor again because all of their gold has been drained by elite boosters to pay for gear, exclusive mounts, achievements and whatnot. The elite remain as rich as ever.

There's no "middle class" in this game anymore. Either you are an elite booster in the Gallywix community with an endless supply of gold and can afford everything in the game without batting an eyelash, or you are one of the destitute poor struggling to pay for consumables. Since Blizzard obliterated traditional ways of goldmaking such as professions, the entire economy looks like this:

The poor or the "whales" buy gold with tokens to pay for gear and exclusive content -> the elite boosters extract the gold from the poor -> the elite buy tokens with gold. In essence, the elite are exploiting the proletariat for free game time.

I get more than enough gold from just playing the game than I need. I do not need to buy shiny things. I only need gold to pay for repairs and consumables, and some consumables are profitable to make. You just have to put in the smallest amount of effort to find them. The only people that have problems are raid loggers.

[Revamp Man]

Eh I have 8 capped characters

The weekly assaults give decent gold so that’s at least 20k
Add in the emissaries and paragon caches
So that’s 30k a week
Not taking into account the gold mission that can proc so islands give 10k conservative estimate including boe sales

That’s 60k a week Not including the sales of mats and consumables

“But gathering takes tiiiiime” I have 8 characters so I can afford an hour every night to gather herbs and fish

You are only as poor as you let yourself be

[Greengrim]

Stage 1. WoD and Legion Garrisons / Halls create stupendous gold inflation that will never be drained from the economy.
Stage 2. M+ provides an infinite, repeatable source of gear hence unbundling boosting from weekly lockouts.
Stage 3. Blizzard adjusts prices on repairs and "luxuries" such as reputation mounts and pets to be exorbitant to drain the excess gold from the economy.
Stage 4. The elites don't give a fuck about price adjustments. They just step up their infinitely repeatable boosting game and drain the gold from the proletariat to pay for 5 mil brutosaurs and 300k frogs.
Stage 5. In effect, the Garrison / Hall bourgeois become poor again because all of their gold has been drained by elite boosters to pay for gear, exclusive mounts, achievements and whatnot. The elite remain as rich as ever.

There's no "middle class" in this game anymore. Either you are an elite booster in the Gallywix community with an endless supply of gold and can afford everything in the game without batting an eyelash, or you are one of the destitute poor struggling to pay for consumables. Since Blizzard obliterated traditional ways of goldmaking such as professions, the entire economy looks like this:

The poor or the "whales" buy gold with tokens to pay for gear and exclusive content -> the elite boosters extract the gold from the poor -> the elite buy tokens with gold. In essence, the elite are exploiting the proletariat for free game time.

Don't know if I ever told you how much I enjoy reading your posts. I really do enjoy the subjects you raise.

Yes I agree. And don't forget you can buy bis item with bis corruption from AH too. That's also something very wrong... Sadly Blizz don't give a shit, so long as it nets them more cash.

[LordVargK]

This inflation is part of the game loop. Gold inflation serves the same purpose as gear inflation.

sure it is. Infact that's true for real life as well. But 100% yearly? don't you think that's a little exessive?
My other problem is that boosting people is by far the most efficient money making method (time/value wise). I for myself can't even understand how someone would pay 150k for a dungeon run instead of just playing the game, but hey; it's not my money. 150k/15min/4players*4*15min/1h = 150k/h per player. And those who buy boosts don't buy as much enchants, flasks, potions, runes, because they don't need those to "progress". So boosting hurts other gold making methods.

[Rucati]

Since Blizzard obliterated traditional ways of goldmaking such as professions, the entire economy looks like this:

What? Literally every profession in the game can make 100k a week fairly easily, and something like Alchemy can make around 100k a day in about 10 minutes.

I currently have around 7mil gold, haven't bought the Brut mount yet cause I'm lazy, and I could have way more but again, I'm lazy, and I don't do any carries/boosts for gold. Literally all of it is made either flipping on the AH or using professions, and I never spend more than 30 minutes a day on it.

There's still tons of ways to make gold in game, you just have to be willing to put in some effort to do it.

[crusadernero]

It's time to rise up, strangle the bourgeois with our chains! Set up 40 man groups to spawncamp all auction places.

This one gets it

[Nevcairiel]

How do you even define a middle-class?

I have enough gold to buy anything I want to buy (currently around 2 mil across chars). I just don't want to spend millions on silly mounts, or buy character power. I rather earn my own (and its not like I don't have any, I got a rank 3 Twilight Devestation. a few echoing voids and a infinite star around to use), the only difference might have been getting it a week earlier.

I can afford consumables (and I do buy those when needed), and I can afford materials for crafted gear as needed (eg. in early 8.3), and plenty reserves to buy stuff on expansion and patch launches as needed.

I am certainly not ultra-rich, and I'm also not poor. Are you saying I don't exist? Do you honestly believe the only people that exist are those that have everything, and those that want everything and can't have it? There is plenty of us normal people around that are flat out just not interested in buying boosts, 5m mounts, or other nonsense vanity items.

[VinceVega]

Naaaaahhh. I make more than enough gold with my farming once every blue moon to pay for all my consumables (with runes) to raid.

I will never have enough to buy the Dino Mount but that is for the power AH people.

Money is worth nothign and there is no real need to have money. If you cannot farm the money for consumables.... i am sorry, but then you don't deserve the consumables.

[moazzem90]

Stage 1. WoD and Legion Garrisons / Halls create stupendous gold inflation that will never be drained from the economy.
Stage 2. M+ provides an infinite, repeatable source of gear hence unbundling boosting from weekly lockouts.
Stage 3. Blizzard adjusts prices on repairs and "luxuries" such as reputation mounts and pets to be exorbitant to drain the excess gold from the economy.
Stage 4. The elites don't give a fuck about price adjustments. They just step up their infinitely repeatable boosting game and drain the gold from the proletariat to pay for 5 mil brutosaurs and 300k frogs.
Stage 5. In effect, the Garrison / Hall bourgeois become poor again because all of their gold has been drained by elite boosters to pay for gear, exclusive mounts, achievements and whatnot. The elite remain as rich as ever.

There's no "middle class" in this game anymore. Either you are an elite booster in the Gallywix community with an endless supply of gold and can afford everything in the game without batting an eyelash, or you are one of the destitute poor struggling to pay for consumables. Since Blizzard obliterated traditional ways of goldmaking such as professions, the entire economy looks like this:

The poor or the "whales" buy gold with tokens to pay for gear and exclusive content -> the elite boosters extract the gold from the poor -> the elite buy tokens with gold. In essence, the elite are exploiting the proletariat for free game time.

Yes, you are right, I agree with you.

[Alvito]

Just playing the game nets you gold from so many sources, people that are constantly broke in WoW are doing some bizarre stuff to stay that way. Ignore the AH if you want just play get your rep cache every so often for a 5k drop, on your way to getting that you will make several thousand gold. If you are going broke because you keep buying things figure out a way to make them, either yourself of somebody in game. Yes some people have multiple gold capped characters and far more gold than others, but even casually playing it is insanely easy to always have a few hundred thousand gold buffer all the time.

[Popastique]

There's no "middle class" in this game anymore. Either you are an elite booster in the Gallywix community with an endless supply of gold and can afford everything in the game without batting an eyelash, or you are one of the destitute poor struggling to pay for consumables.

In your tiny mind that is