The problem with WoWs economy is that, when you complete a quest, if you are at max level, it converts the quest's XP into money, and it's a set exchange rate, so doing the daily quests that you have to do to gain the reputation to get into end game content ends up giving you tons of gold. That's why, on the AH, silver ore is now more expensive than gold.
Well, silver is used in arguably more recipes than gold, though little known fact; gold ore is more valuable than gold bars because it isn't hard to convert it and it is very effective at powerleveling mining.
Not sure how all of that relates with the inflation though, that's just supply and demand in a free market.
Supply and Demand and all that is all well and good, but fuck all if, on my server, a single piece of silver ore is now 5g buyout. That's just ridiculous. What's even funnier is, because of "twinking" anything with a level requirement ending in -9 is automatically an order of magnitude more expensive. So that nice, green level 19 gun I wanted to buy for my hunter so I could stop using a vender-bought white? Yeah, 25g. For an item with a level req of 19. That's just ridiculous.
Apparently, the new patch will remove money conversion for quest XP. They may add a rep boost, I dunno, but that should help. They won't be "printing more money" as badly, so things should even out, soon.
Plus all the bitching new mounts they're working up. That will also help, apparently.
Dude, whatever. You don't think alcohol manufacturers or bar owners are aware that addictiveness plays a part in their business model?
I don't think it plays a part in their business model, no. I think some of the money that they get they get because people are addicted, but given that there's more than one bar if you build your business model on the addictiveness of alcohol you can't compete. Unless you're, like, adding cocaine to people's drinks, or something.
You . . . you think they make money off it but it's not part of their business model?
The problem with WoWs economy is that, when you complete a quest, if you are at max level, it converts the quest's XP into money, and it's a set exchange rate, so doing the daily quests that you have to do to gain the reputation to get into end game content ends up giving you tons of gold. That's why, on the AH, silver ore is now more expensive than gold.
Well, silver is used in arguably more recipes than gold, though little known fact; gold ore is more valuable than gold bars because it isn't hard to convert it and it is very effective at powerleveling mining.
Not sure how all of that relates with the inflation though, that's just supply and demand in a free market.
Supply and Demand and all that is all well and good, but fuck all if, on my server, a single piece of silver ore is now 5g buyout. That's just ridiculous. What's even funnier is, because of "twinking" anything with a level requirement ending in -9 is automatically an order of magnitude more expensive. So that nice, green level 19 gun I wanted to buy for my hunter so I could stop using a vender-bought white? Yeah, 25g. For an item with a level req of 19. That's just ridiculous.
Apparently, the new patch will remove money conversion for quest XP. They may add a rep boost, I dunno, but that should help. They won't be "printing more money" as badly, so things should even out, soon.
Plus all the bitching new mounts they're working up. That will also help, apparently.
You shouldn't be buying off the AH at 19 anyhow.
postinonthenets on
Solitude sometimes is best society, and short retirement urges sweet return
The problem with WoWs economy is that, when you complete a quest, if you are at max level, it converts the quest's XP into money, and it's a set exchange rate, so doing the daily quests that you have to do to gain the reputation to get into end game content ends up giving you tons of gold. That's why, on the AH, silver ore is now more expensive than gold.
Well, silver is used in arguably more recipes than gold, though little known fact; gold ore is more valuable than gold bars because it isn't hard to convert it and it is very effective at powerleveling mining.
Not sure how all of that relates with the inflation though, that's just supply and demand in a free market.
Supply and Demand and all that is all well and good, but fuck all if, on my server, a single piece of silver ore is now 5g buyout. That's just ridiculous. What's even funnier is, because of "twinking" anything with a level requirement ending in -9 is automatically an order of magnitude more expensive. So that nice, green level 19 gun I wanted to buy for my hunter so I could stop using a vender-bought white? Yeah, 25g. For an item with a level req of 19. That's just ridiculous.
Apparently, the new patch will remove money conversion for quest XP. They may add a rep boost, I dunno, but that should help. They won't be "printing more money" as badly, so things should even out, soon.
Plus all the bitching new mounts they're working up. That will also help, apparently.
You shouldn't be buying off the AH at 19 anyhow.
I'm not buying, just shopping. That's still retardedly high priced.
Also, as a casual player, I don't fly through the levels nearly as quickly as others, and so I get much more mileage from equipment.
Dude, whatever. You don't think alcohol manufacturers or bar owners are aware that addictiveness plays a part in their business model?
I don't think it plays a part in their business model, no. I think some of the money that they get they get because people are addicted, but given that there's more than one bar if you build your business model on the addictiveness of alcohol you can't compete. Unless you're, like, adding cocaine to people's drinks, or something.
You . . . you think they make money off it but it's not part of their business model?
It's possible to make money off of something without taking it directly into account or even while trying to reduce it. Physicians make money off of vicodin addicts but the law requires them to take measures to discourage addiction. Gun manufacturers make money off of criminals but they don't directly target the armed robber market. Etc.
Whether or not bars are friendly, neutral, or hostile towards alcoholism... well, I'm not sure. I'm just saying that making money off of unhealthy behavior [X] does not necessarily imply that you've incorporated it into your business model.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Supply and Demand and all that is all well and good, but fuck all if, on my server, a single piece of silver ore is now 5g buyout. That's just ridiculous. What's even funnier is, because of "twinking" anything with a level requirement ending in -9 is automatically an order of magnitude more expensive. So that nice, green level 19 gun I wanted to buy for my hunter so I could stop using a vender-bought white? Yeah, 25g. For an item with a level req of 19. That's just ridiculous.
Apparently, the new patch will remove money conversion for quest XP. They may add a rep boost, I dunno, but that should help. They won't be "printing more money" as badly, so things should even out, soon.
Plus all the bitching new mounts they're working up. That will also help, apparently.
I think I misunderstood your first post, I wasn't really defending the market, just questioning the correlation with silver ore being more expensive than gold ore\bars, which is not quite what you meant to say I think.
I think the level x9 items being incredibly expensive is retarded as well, but I am more annoyed by how rares and epics that kinda suck tend to be ten times more expensive than what they should be, just because of their color. It's not like the shards are particularly useful until higher item levels, either.
Anyway, we are drifting heavily off-topic and into WoW forum territory.
Addiction, can you dig it? Where do we draw the line of interference?
The problem with WoWs economy is that, when you complete a quest, if you are at max level, it converts the quest's XP into money, and it's a set exchange rate, so doing the daily quests that you have to do to gain the reputation to get into end game content ends up giving you tons of gold. That's why, on the AH, silver ore is now more expensive than gold.
Well, silver is used in arguably more recipes than gold, though little known fact; gold ore is more valuable than gold bars because it isn't hard to convert it and it is very effective at powerleveling mining.
Not sure how all of that relates with the inflation though, that's just supply and demand in a free market.
Supply and Demand and all that is all well and good, but fuck all if, on my server, a single piece of silver ore is now 5g buyout. That's just ridiculous. What's even funnier is, because of "twinking" anything with a level requirement ending in -9 is automatically an order of magnitude more expensive. So that nice, green level 19 gun I wanted to buy for my hunter so I could stop using a vender-bought white? Yeah, 25g. For an item with a level req of 19. That's just ridiculous.
Apparently, the new patch will remove money conversion for quest XP. They may add a rep boost, I dunno, but that should help. They won't be "printing more money" as badly, so things should even out, soon.
Plus all the bitching new mounts they're working up. That will also help, apparently.
You shouldn't be buying off the AH at 19 anyhow.
I'm not buying, just shopping. That's still retardedly high priced.
Also, as a casual player, I don't fly through the levels nearly as quickly as others, and so I get much more mileage from equipment.
Not about mileage, about cost. Don't buy off the AH is the best way to save your gold for your mount. As a casual player you have less time to grind for money so it makes sense to pinch your pennies...or coppers.
postinonthenets on
Solitude sometimes is best society, and short retirement urges sweet return
MMOs may have an incentive to encourage short and sparse play sessions (prolonging game content over multiple months, and reducing server load) but they also have an incentive to make sure players are invested. Because they don't want them to decide they'd rather spend that two hours a week doing something else, and/or that $15 a month really isn't worth it for as little as they play.
As someone who could probably have been labeled as a WoW-addict, I found that my rationale for playing the game became circular.
At first, I played WoW because it was fun. Then, I played it because I had nothing else to do. It was at that point, that the game took up all my time. In my defense, I really didn't have anything else to do. But because I would spend all my time playing WoW, instead of looking for things to do, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I played WoW because I had nothing better to do, and I had nothing better to do because I played WoW all the goddamn time. It really was encroaching on my life. Things went on like this for about a year or two before I realized that the game itself is so fucking hollow.
The point of the game is to grind things out to make your character powerful, so that you can grind things out again in a new place, starting the whole cycle over again. It became so fucking obviously pointless that I couldn't even pick up the game without remembering the whole treadmill in complete disgust, and how fucking abysmal my life had become because of WoW - all because I used the excuse of "I have nothing better to do, so I may as well play WoW!"
To the OP: I'd suggest, as many others have, talking to the guy about how much he plays and how his RL friends would like to hang with him occasionally. As long as the game isn't impacting the 'important' parts of his life (health, school, work) it's his choice.
I will weigh in on the side of the possibility of MMO addiction in general, though. I used to live with a guy who nearly defined the "addictive personality" that folks talk about being susceptible to the lure of behavioral conditioning. Final Fantasy XI came out and, by and large, that was the last that anyone saw of him. I also worked with him at the time, so when he failed to show up for work on time (if at all) and didn't answer his phone I would invariably be asked where he was and whether he was coming to work. He remembered to eat, but forgot to buy his own food or pay the rent. He ran out of clothes that fit so just wore too-tight t-shirts and boxers when he did leave his room. He once went to the gas station for soda that way. At one point his time online some 6 months after release amounted to just over 50% of the total time since release (eg: > 12 hours per day, every day, since the game came out... he theoretically worked a full time job and was in school). At one point he sold enough Gil on eBay to make $300. Rather than use any of that to pay the $1000+ of back-rent he owed, he spent it to buy a slightly larger amount of Gil on eBay. He cursed violently at my wife (then my fiancee) one day because she un-plugged the cable modem and hid it so that he would go to work for the first time in a week.
He got a girlfriend a few months ago because she decided (for what reason I have no idea) that she was going to date him and forcibly inserted herself into his life. She gets him to leave his room occasionally but he still spends 6+ hours a day on FFXI. If that's not an addiction then I don't know what to call it.
As someone who could probably have been labeled as a WoW-addict, I found that my rationale for playing the game became circular.
At first, I played WoW because it was fun. Then, I played it because I had nothing else to do. It was at that point, that the game took up all my time. In my defense, I really didn't have anything else to do. But because I would spend all my time playing WoW, instead of looking for things to do, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I played WoW because I had nothing better to do, and I had nothing better to do because I played WoW all the goddamn time. It really was encroaching on my life. Things went on like this for about a year or two before I realized that the game itself is so fucking hollow.
The point of the game is to grind things out to make your character powerful, so that you can grind things out again in a new place, starting the whole cycle over again. It became so fucking obviously pointless that I couldn't even pick up the game without remembering the whole treadmill in complete disgust, and how fucking abysmal my life had become because of WoW - all because I used the excuse of "I have nothing better to do, so I may as well play WoW!"
Sort of same here. I played endlessly while I was unemployed, and achieved full epics (a mix of 25 man and 10 mans). I regularly ran everything, and was MT'ing for Naxx and everything else. But once I had progress to that point, I just didn't see the godamn point of doing it anymore, and it depressed me to spend so much time on it, so I stopped...and played CoD4 instead.
postinonthenets on
Solitude sometimes is best society, and short retirement urges sweet return
As someone who could probably have been labeled as a WoW-addict, I found that my rationale for playing the game became circular.
At first, I played WoW because it was fun. Then, I played it because I had nothing else to do. It was at that point, that the game took up all my time. In my defense, I really didn't have anything else to do. But because I would spend all my time playing WoW, instead of looking for things to do, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I played WoW because I had nothing better to do, and I had nothing better to do because I played WoW all the goddamn time. It really was encroaching on my life. Things went on like this for about a year or two before I realized that the game itself is so fucking hollow.
The point of the game is to grind things out to make your character powerful, so that you can grind things out again in a new place, starting the whole cycle over again. It became so fucking obviously pointless that I couldn't even pick up the game without remembering the whole treadmill in complete disgust, and how fucking abysmal my life had become because of WoW - all because I used the excuse of "I have nothing better to do, so I may as well play WoW!"
Sort of same here. I played endlessly while I was unemployed, and achieved full epics (a mix of 25 man and 10 mans). I regularly ran everything, and was MT'ing for Naxx and everything else. But once I had progress to that point, I just didn't see the godamn point of doing it anymore, and it depressed me to spend so much time on it, so I stopped...and played CoD4 instead.
Maybe I'm not the type to get addicted, but I find WoW bores me too quickly to get addicted to it. I like playing the game because of the history steeped into the game. I've been a Warcrafter since WCII first came out, and I've played through most of the missions on all three WC products, including the two expansions. I like WoW because I get to see some of the same places and whatnots that I've interacted with before, but now I get to see and interact with those places and things in a different way, from a different angle, and with different results.
That's honestly the attraction for me. It's an established franchise. If they translated the RPG to D&D4e format, I'd be digging for a TT group to play with.
and yes, I'm quite away of the discontinuity, ret-cons, and general poor choices made in the history/lore of the game. I'm okay with it, nobody's perfect, and although I played all three WCs, I didn't get very involved with the lore until WoW, so it doesn't hurt my feelings as badly.
See, I stopped, played a couple of other games, but mostly I spent my time on school, making new friends, and Jiu Jistu.
I think what finally got me off of WoW was finding other things to do that weren't video games.
Oh for sure on the other things. I didn't play much in college because I was just so damn busy. However, after college, once I quit my job, I just had scads of time.
Now that I have a job and have moved away from my parents house to NYC I don't play any games. I tend to read or hang out with friends instead.
postinonthenets on
Solitude sometimes is best society, and short retirement urges sweet return
That's actually what got me interested in the game in the first place - exploring places where missions were set in the RTS.
That's one of the main attractions of the game. That, and now they're starting to delve into the history of the races themselves. Content in BC and WLK are exploring the history of the Orcs, Draenei, and now Humans and Dwarves.
Dude, whatever. You don't think alcohol manufacturers or bar owners are aware that addictiveness plays a part in their business model?
I don't think it plays a part in their business model, no. I think some of the money that they get they get because people are addicted, but given that there's more than one bar if you build your business model on the addictiveness of alcohol you can't compete. Unless you're, like, adding cocaine to people's drinks, or something.
You . . . you think they make money off it but it's not part of their business model?
It's possible to make money off of something without taking it directly into account or even while trying to reduce it. Physicians make money off of vicodin addicts but the law requires them to take measures to discourage addiction. Gun manufacturers make money off of criminals but they don't directly target the armed robber market. Etc.
Whether or not bars are friendly, neutral, or hostile towards alcoholism... well, I'm not sure. I'm just saying that making money off of unhealthy behavior [X] does not necessarily imply that you've incorporated it into your business model.
Do you think the cigarette companies who engineered cigarettes to be more addictive incorporated it into their business model?
TBC was such a shit show compared to Lich King IMO
Well, it may not seem like much, but this was the first major overhaul to the game, so it was sort of an experiment unto itself. I'm not sure that excuses it, but the content wasn't that bad. The biggest mistake they made was dropping "everything" right away. Illidan was intended to be the big, bad, final boss of TBC. Unfortunately, they didn't expect people to grind up and take him down that quickly, so they added in QD and made Kil'Jaeden the final boss as of 2.4.
It was....it was okay. It wasn't awesome. It was an experiment, though. And they learned from the mistakes they made, clearly, if WLK is to be any indication.
TBC was such a shit show compared to Lich King IMO
Well, it may not seem like much, but this was the first major overhaul to the game, so it was sort of an experiment unto itself. I'm not sure that excuses it, but the content wasn't that bad. The biggest mistake they made was dropping "everything" right away. Illidan was intended to be the big, bad, final boss of TBC. Unfortunately, they didn't expect people to grind up and take him down that quickly, so they added in QD and made Kil'Jaeden the final boss as of 2.4.
It was....it was okay. It wasn't awesome. It was an experiment, though. And they learned from the mistakes they made, clearly, if WLK is to be any indication.
Kind of amusing how they've totally abandoned the content though.
postinonthenets on
Solitude sometimes is best society, and short retirement urges sweet return
TBC was such a shit show compared to Lich King IMO
Well, it may not seem like much, but this was the first major overhaul to the game, so it was sort of an experiment unto itself. I'm not sure that excuses it, but the content wasn't that bad. The biggest mistake they made was dropping "everything" right away. Illidan was intended to be the big, bad, final boss of TBC. Unfortunately, they didn't expect people to grind up and take him down that quickly, so they added in QD and made Kil'Jaeden the final boss as of 2.4.
It was....it was okay. It wasn't awesome. It was an experiment, though. And they learned from the mistakes they made, clearly, if WLK is to be any indication.
Kind of amusing how they've totally abandoned the content though.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
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Supply and Demand and all that is all well and good, but fuck all if, on my server, a single piece of silver ore is now 5g buyout. That's just ridiculous. What's even funnier is, because of "twinking" anything with a level requirement ending in -9 is automatically an order of magnitude more expensive. So that nice, green level 19 gun I wanted to buy for my hunter so I could stop using a vender-bought white? Yeah, 25g. For an item with a level req of 19. That's just ridiculous.
Apparently, the new patch will remove money conversion for quest XP. They may add a rep boost, I dunno, but that should help. They won't be "printing more money" as badly, so things should even out, soon.
Plus all the bitching new mounts they're working up. That will also help, apparently.
You . . . you think they make money off it but it's not part of their business model?
I host a podcast about movies.
You shouldn't be buying off the AH at 19 anyhow.
Twitter
I'm not buying, just shopping. That's still retardedly high priced.
Also, as a casual player, I don't fly through the levels nearly as quickly as others, and so I get much more mileage from equipment.
It's possible to make money off of something without taking it directly into account or even while trying to reduce it. Physicians make money off of vicodin addicts but the law requires them to take measures to discourage addiction. Gun manufacturers make money off of criminals but they don't directly target the armed robber market. Etc.
Whether or not bars are friendly, neutral, or hostile towards alcoholism... well, I'm not sure. I'm just saying that making money off of unhealthy behavior [X] does not necessarily imply that you've incorporated it into your business model.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I think I misunderstood your first post, I wasn't really defending the market, just questioning the correlation with silver ore being more expensive than gold ore\bars, which is not quite what you meant to say I think.
I think the level x9 items being incredibly expensive is retarded as well, but I am more annoyed by how rares and epics that kinda suck tend to be ten times more expensive than what they should be, just because of their color. It's not like the shards are particularly useful until higher item levels, either.
Anyway, we are drifting heavily off-topic and into WoW forum territory.
Addiction, can you dig it? Where do we draw the line of interference?
Not about mileage, about cost. Don't buy off the AH is the best way to save your gold for your mount. As a casual player you have less time to grind for money so it makes sense to pinch your pennies...or coppers.
Twitter
grumble grumble 16.74 in massachusetts grumble grumble "online subscription tax" grumble grumble
As someone who could probably have been labeled as a WoW-addict, I found that my rationale for playing the game became circular.
At first, I played WoW because it was fun. Then, I played it because I had nothing else to do. It was at that point, that the game took up all my time. In my defense, I really didn't have anything else to do. But because I would spend all my time playing WoW, instead of looking for things to do, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I played WoW because I had nothing better to do, and I had nothing better to do because I played WoW all the goddamn time. It really was encroaching on my life. Things went on like this for about a year or two before I realized that the game itself is so fucking hollow.
The point of the game is to grind things out to make your character powerful, so that you can grind things out again in a new place, starting the whole cycle over again. It became so fucking obviously pointless that I couldn't even pick up the game without remembering the whole treadmill in complete disgust, and how fucking abysmal my life had become because of WoW - all because I used the excuse of "I have nothing better to do, so I may as well play WoW!"
I will weigh in on the side of the possibility of MMO addiction in general, though. I used to live with a guy who nearly defined the "addictive personality" that folks talk about being susceptible to the lure of behavioral conditioning. Final Fantasy XI came out and, by and large, that was the last that anyone saw of him. I also worked with him at the time, so when he failed to show up for work on time (if at all) and didn't answer his phone I would invariably be asked where he was and whether he was coming to work. He remembered to eat, but forgot to buy his own food or pay the rent. He ran out of clothes that fit so just wore too-tight t-shirts and boxers when he did leave his room. He once went to the gas station for soda that way. At one point his time online some 6 months after release amounted to just over 50% of the total time since release (eg: > 12 hours per day, every day, since the game came out... he theoretically worked a full time job and was in school). At one point he sold enough Gil on eBay to make $300. Rather than use any of that to pay the $1000+ of back-rent he owed, he spent it to buy a slightly larger amount of Gil on eBay. He cursed violently at my wife (then my fiancee) one day because she un-plugged the cable modem and hid it so that he would go to work for the first time in a week.
He got a girlfriend a few months ago because she decided (for what reason I have no idea) that she was going to date him and forcibly inserted herself into his life. She gets him to leave his room occasionally but he still spends 6+ hours a day on FFXI. If that's not an addiction then I don't know what to call it.
Sort of same here. I played endlessly while I was unemployed, and achieved full epics (a mix of 25 man and 10 mans). I regularly ran everything, and was MT'ing for Naxx and everything else. But once I had progress to that point, I just didn't see the godamn point of doing it anymore, and it depressed me to spend so much time on it, so I stopped...and played CoD4 instead.
Twitter
I think what finally got me off of WoW was finding other things to do that weren't video games.
Maybe I'm not the type to get addicted, but I find WoW bores me too quickly to get addicted to it. I like playing the game because of the history steeped into the game. I've been a Warcrafter since WCII first came out, and I've played through most of the missions on all three WC products, including the two expansions. I like WoW because I get to see some of the same places and whatnots that I've interacted with before, but now I get to see and interact with those places and things in a different way, from a different angle, and with different results.
That's honestly the attraction for me. It's an established franchise. If they translated the RPG to D&D4e format, I'd be digging for a TT group to play with.
and yes, I'm quite away of the discontinuity, ret-cons, and general poor choices made in the history/lore of the game. I'm okay with it, nobody's perfect, and although I played all three WCs, I didn't get very involved with the lore until WoW, so it doesn't hurt my feelings as badly.
Oh for sure on the other things. I didn't play much in college because I was just so damn busy. However, after college, once I quit my job, I just had scads of time.
Now that I have a job and have moved away from my parents house to NYC I don't play any games. I tend to read or hang out with friends instead.
Twitter
That's one of the main attractions of the game. That, and now they're starting to delve into the history of the races themselves. Content in BC and WLK are exploring the history of the Orcs, Draenei, and now Humans and Dwarves.
Twitter
Well, it may not seem like much, but this was the first major overhaul to the game, so it was sort of an experiment unto itself. I'm not sure that excuses it, but the content wasn't that bad. The biggest mistake they made was dropping "everything" right away. Illidan was intended to be the big, bad, final boss of TBC. Unfortunately, they didn't expect people to grind up and take him down that quickly, so they added in QD and made Kil'Jaeden the final boss as of 2.4.
It was....it was okay. It wasn't awesome. It was an experiment, though. And they learned from the mistakes they made, clearly, if WLK is to be any indication.
Kind of amusing how they've totally abandoned the content though.
Twitter
I'm not sure what you mean by that.
How totally something I'm going to lock!