WoW Economic Collapse

[]|[ Mar']['in ]|[]

My first post in this very active thread

First off, to make myself sound more important, I'm from the [H] guild on Stormscale (now merged to Seven Sins, and possibly acquiring/merging into another guild soon).

Who's your character? This is Seleste!

 

[MeatPuppet]

Status update for those of you who might still be interested:

For the last week [couple hours a night], I have been working on leveling my toon, Cistasimia. Hit lvl 50 the friday before and 51 during the week. Did not do AH much because I have been hitting AV almost everynight. Leveled to 52 from all the BG, got some killer rep out of it and I am working on my Tier 0 equipment .

Any advice you can offer would be appreciated.

I have started producing Arcanite, but as some of you predicted it gets purchased before I can even get it out of my bag. As I suspected, the cool down between each transmute, prevents accumulation of inventory. The most I have had at anytime was 3. Furthermore, the profit margin is not great enough to sustain an income on that product alone. I produce the arcanite ahead of time and require an exchange of mats along with a purchase. Thus, reducing or eliminating my material costs.

To control arcanite, I believe you would have to form a guild of people capable of producing it. The only reason I could see for doing this would be for profit . You would have to make it worth while for someone to be part of that guild. I don't know what that would take; I am not big on the idea of setting up or running a guild. I also don't know how you would vet people into the guild. I would think you might consider producing a bar of arcanite as your application fee and then a test to prove your worth.

The problem is unless you capture a large percentage of the producers, the organization runs the possibility of failure because your motivation is different. The very thing that might motivate you to work together [profit], would ultimately be your undoing. e.g. Jerry does not feel he is getting enough from the guild for his contribution, so Jerry goes freelance or starts a competing guild. The politics of this scenario hurts my head.

Another problem is that as you make arcanite more profitable, more entrants to the market will join, attracted by your profits. How do you keep it sustainable?

Since this is a relatively new market to me, any thoughts, insights or contributions that you could offer to further this discussion would be welcome.

Have fun,

MeatPuppet

 

[]|[ Mar']['in ]|[]

I hate everyone that calls their characters "toons", its the gayest thing I have ever heard.
Also, whats up with the gay names... "Celeste" "Cistasimia" ...

My characters names are Kut, Neutered, and Necrophilia
Even my girlfriend came up with a less gay name for her Tauren: Charge

Don't shit on people's choices in character names. (ie; don't be a dick)

 

[Gongo]

You must have had a lot of broken things in your bags.

full tank and dps just about broken. along with some misc resist pieces.. it was a long night of raiding to say the least.

 

[tvdang7]

i dont play WOW but i wonder if ur technique can work for silkroad online

 

[spugnor]

Jerry does not feel he is getting enough from the guild for his contribution, so Jerry goes freelance or starts a competing guild. The politics of this scenario hurts my head.

What do you have against Jerry, he never did anything to you!






Hehehehehe...

 

[MovieMan80]

I don't think the arcane crystal market can be controlled. This is largely due to the items that the crystals are used in and the way that they are obtained. If you were so inclined to try to control the arcane crystal market, now is a really bad time to do so. Right now it's not worth trying to control any gem market (and it's probably never worth it)

First off Arcane Crystals are obtained through mining as a byproduct of mining (mostly) Rich Thorium Veins. They're a low drop rate item which means that people need to mine a lot of veins in order to get the crystals. Which is ok, since most people aren't mining the veins for the crystals but rather for the thorium which they need for bullets or stoneshield potions or any number of crafted items. So to most miners finding an arcane crystal is a bonus and they'll be more willing to undercut you to sell it since it's all profit for them.

Second, the arcane crystal market is still settling down from the release of patch 1.11. Pre-p1.11 arcane crystals were 16g on my server, then they announced the T3 set piece quests and the people started hoarding the mats required which required several crystals for warriors. This brought the price up to around 25g, then the attunement requirements were posted and the price of crystals jumped to 35g. Then Naxxramas finally opened and all the people who were slacking in getting attuned suddenly needed crystals and the prices skyrocketed, I was able to sell a couple at 70g. I saw some buyouts later on that same day for 100g, I don't know if they actually sold though. Since that time the price of crystals has been dropping, right now the price is around 30g for a crystal, sometimes a little less. I'm expecting the market to semi-stabilize around 25g.

Third, Thunderfury and Hand of Ragnaros require huge stockpiles of arcanite, 100 for TF and 50 for the hand. There are some people who are constantly watching the arcane market and if they spot a deal they'll snatch it up in preparation for the legendary drops. Also most of those people are able to spot a market fluctuation and will put up a couple crystals or bars if the prices seem inflated, this allows them to get a small profit and puts downward pressure on the price of arcanite and when the prices drop back down they replace the arcanite they sold at the inflated price.

Fourth, the gem market is full of speculation with regards to the expansion and the new Jewelcrafting profession. Pristine Black Diamonds on my server used to be 50s each, now they've risen to around 4g each. Same is true for all the other gems. I know of at least three people in my guild who are stockpiling as many gems as they can afford to powerlevel their jewelcrafting as soon as BC hits. A smart entrepreneur with a lot of free cash would be wise to also stock up on gems now and then resell them when the expansion hits and the markets go crazy.

 

[ojax]

I hate everyone that calls their characters "toons", its the gayest thing I have ever heard.
Also, whats up with the gay names... "Celeste" "Cistasimia" ...

My characters names are Kut, Neutered, and Necrophilia
Even my girlfriend came up with a less gay name for her Tauren: Charge

Charge is the gayest WoW name I've heard yet... if thats the less gay name, I feel you maybe on fire...

 

[MovieMan80]

Oh yeah one other thing. Transmuting arcanite is not the most profitable transmute most alchemists don't even bother with it because of the low profit and two day cooldown. There's several alchemists in my guild that don't even bother transmuting at all, they only do it when someone in the guild asks for one.

Essence of Water to Essence of Air and Essence of Undeath -> Essence of Water are the two more popular transmutes. One day cooldown and decent profit.

Personally I like the Heart of Fire -> 3x Elemental Fire transmute, it's on a 10 minute cooldown and I use the E-Fires in Greater Fire Prot. pots which I sell for even more profit. Heart of Fire usually sells for less than 2g and elemental fire sells for 1g each. Hearts and elemental fires are both small enough markets that have high demand that someone could try to control if they were so inclined.

 

[Torgo]

It's obvious that the transmute cooling process is a time sink. I never fully realized the full impact that it really has. (That's one thing you gotta love about WoW, is the mechanical depth to it. Of course, that just also adds to the complexity of everything which is a positive and a negative.)

MovieMan80, thanks for that awesome post. It's great to get as many informative and varied perspectives as you can get. It confirms in my mind that gems and crystals have much more in common with BoE items than I first realized. To acquire any of those items would require a huge undertaking. Possible, but only with a literal horde of people constantly acquiring random drops. It's the randomness that really puts a damper on it.

At that point it becomes a game of percentages. Not that playing the percentages isn't fun or worth it. The economy of Nevada depends on people enjoying and playing percentages that are never in their favor. In game design, using random numbers, chances and percentages are essential in some way. As it pertains to the marketplace, it's really a downer. It leads to instability and is a disincentive to those who live by the adage "hard work = $$$".

Now your post about gem speculation is intriguing. It's a combination of educated guessing and gambling. On one hand, you know that the gem profession is fast approaching, but is light on the details. So you gamble on which items are going to be hot. If you're the day trading type of guy, how much more fun could that be?

I tend to be risk-adverse in life and in gameplay for some reason. It's tempting but I'm always afraid of losing my shirt. What else has everyone seen in terms of gem speculation? Is the entire market segment up, or just certain items? I wonder if idle rumors (or outright planted lies) on various WoW forums could influence gem prices? It's illegal in real-life (just witness the Infinium Labs junk faxes that propped up the prices) but certainly fine here. Hmmmm.... my gears are turning on this one.

 

[Martyr]

well considering that any gem besides arcane crystals is almost worthless, you dont have alot to risk.

 

[CodeX]

Charge is the gayest WoW name I've heard yet... if thats the less gay name, I feel you maybe on fire...

Learn to speak and write in proper english and maybe I will pay attention to you...

 

[FiZ]

I hate everyone that calls their characters "toons", its the gayest thing I have ever heard.
Also, whats up with the gay names... "Celeste" "Cistasimia" ...

My characters names are Kut, Neutered, and Necrophilia
Even my girlfriend came up with a less gay name for her Tauren: Charge

I know this is off topic, but what the hell is your problem? I am pretty sure someone considers your names as "gay", in other words it's all relative. Get a life and troll elsewhere.

 

[Woofer00]

Checking in on this thread again...

As you noted, with developing servers, it's very easy to predict where demand will be and to prepare for it. However, to really make anything significant off of it, you face a massive problem - time.

If order to stay ahead of the server demand, you need to spend significant amounts of time leveling when the server first opens. Otherwise, you'll only be able to supply the trailing wave of characters.

In addition, to be able to supply the server effectively, you'll need to spend significant amounts of time farming. This takes time away from effective experience gain, and you'll be defeating your own purpose in trying to stay ahead of the market.

To be able to level effectively, you need at least 4 other people to instance to have a chance at obtaining gear which will last for more than a handful of levels. This means either finding a dedicated group who is willing to speed-level with you or not instancing, in which case you'll be wasting time having a harder time leveling with garbage greens.

It's possible to predict markets on emerging servers, but extremely difficult at not even remotely in line with your minimal effort --> maximum profit theory.


As for your glances into other markets, you're encountering precisely what everyone else in the thread has been repeatedly telling - the deviant fish market doesn't obey the same rules as the rest of the markets. There is no demand other than individual desire to play with a fun toy (think noggenfogger/moonkin builds). As a test market, it was probably one of the worst to build a theory on. Supply, demand, and associated pricing simply do not reflect the realities of the rest of the game.

 

[MeatPuppet]

Actually, fish was fun because there is a social dynamic to it. If you think about it people usually use them when in groups for amusment. Yarrr! Given that I figured out that certain characteristics of items make them more attractive, even when you are charging a little bit more.

I make it a point to stick with things that are required for quests or other use that keeps their demand relatively steady. Like anyone else, I sell anything I don't use. I watch for quest items along the way that can be turn at an easy or quick profit.

The theory rose out of observations that were made and a discussion over manipulating the behavior of other players for fun, not for profit. If not anything else you would agree I manipulated behavior . I mean how many possibly rational [and maybe not so rational] people were frothing at the mouth over this thread.

I also wanted to provoke some honest investigation into how you could successfully work AH to make money without screwing other players. Basically, create a service layer provider of large quantity of goods at cheap prices. I could care less if it were me or not. I benefit either way. The premise is not unattainable, just not practical in the short run or as a solo player.

Now we are hoping to create a sincere dialog of what people do, what works, what doesn't and how we can make it better. We are evolving the theory to make it, more workable and more practical. The best part is you get to come along as we investigate.

Furthermore, it takes a little pressure off me so I can concentrate on leveling to 60 and getting my gear.

If along the way any of you have problems with AH and would like assistance or advice, we will continue to frequent this thread to offer any analyaia or advice we can. I am certain from the quality of the posts lately that we have a lot of people who can offer great advice on working AH. You contributions are appreciated.

So I ask, what sells? What are the best quantities to sell thoses items? How much does it sell for and how much does it vary? How attainable is the item? And most important why to any of these?

I look forward to seeing your posts!

Have fun,

MeatPuppet

 

[]|[ Mar']['in ]|[]

well considering that any gem besides arcane crystals is almost worthless, you dont have alot to risk.

He's referring to the fact that while most gems are worthless now, they very well may not be when the expansion comes out (gem crafting or whatever).

 

[MovieMan80]

Now we are hoping to create a sincere dialog of what people do, what works, what doesn't and how we can make it better. We are evolving the theory to make it, more workable and more practical. The best part is you get to come along as we investigate.

Probably time to make a new thread as the scope of this thread has changed significantly.

So I ask, what sells? What are the best quantities to sell thoses items? How much does it sell for and how much does it vary? How attainable is the item? And most important why to any of these?

Anything related to raiding should sell but it's also partially dependent on the number of raiding guilds on your server and what level of content they're going after. Herbs are always needed for learning new encounters, the more guilds learning difficult stuff the more demand there is for consumables. The most in demand herb is probably dreamfoil but plaguebloom, gromsblood and black loti are also high in demand.

Some raid consumables require things other than herbs though and those mats sell fairly well. Stonescale Eels are in high demand right now because it takes 10 per Flask of Titans, 3 per Stoneshield pot and 2 for an Elixir of Superior Defense. The stoneshield pots only last 2 minutes and our tank usually goes through 3 or more pots per attempt on Maexxna. Even more pots will be needed for Patchwerk. Firefin snappers are used in Greater Fire Power potions. Greater Nature Protection requires an elemental earth which sells for about 40-50s each on my server. Greater Fire Protection requires elemental fire which sells for 90s-1g.

Prices of raid consumables fluctuates during the week. On my server the big guilds usually all raid Tue/Wed/Thur/Sat and start at 8pm which they usually have people who need to prepare for the nights raid. This is the time that Herbs are usually the priciest.

Other things that sell well are the quest items and items used in repeatable reputation quests. Rugged leather and rugged armor kits are used for both Darkmoon Faire rep and for the Craftman's Writ quests from AD. Twilight texts are also a big seller but there's a lot of farmers for these and they tend to fluctuate in price quite a bit because people usually can't buy what they need instead they buy what they can afford.

Another thing to remember is that many people have multiple level 60's who probably all have different professions. So if the metal market is flooded with cheap thorium more players will farm something else that they can sell and buy the thorium. My alts a 300 tailor who I use solely for purifying mooncloth, but it makes more sense for me to stay on my main and make 20g an hour farming and buy two pieces of felcloth for 3g each than it does to go farm Satyrs for the felcloth and make much less money.