The High Cost of a Low Price
Posted by 
Heartbourne on Friday, July 17, 2009 - 13 Comments Tags: economy, farmer, gold, patch 3.2, ptr
Heartbourne on Friday, July 17, 2009 - 13 Comments Tags: economy, farmer, gold, patch 3.2, ptr 
With patch 3.2 on the test realms and the Ulduar hype slowly fading, it seems like the live servers are more empty than usual. Not only are there less players overall, but there may be less gold farmers than usual. The game economy on each server is relatively small and sensitive to these temporary changes in player demographics, and right now the shifting player base on at least my server has had some serious effects on the economy.The first thing that I noticed are less raw materials at a higher price. Since there are less players on, there are less players running around doing dailies and quests that lead them to herbs, mining nodes, or dead animals to skin. On the flip side, there are less people spending hours and hours a week raiding than there were with the launch of Ulduar. Thus, the demand for things created by these materials - like elixirs, Ulduar recipes, etc, has also declined. The result is an overall smaller market that is overall easier to manipulate. With less herbs (especially Frost Lotus) available on the auction house, I'm not able to make quite as many flasks, but they aren't all getting bought either. With less competitors in the market, I have made quite the pretty penny on flasks - though I am selling much less overall. Its a perfect opportunity to expand and explore into other areas. I recently picked up Engineering and I'm going to see how many of these Nesingwary 4000 the market is willing to buy.
It makes me wonder how much of am impact gold farmers really have on the market and how many are really out there. Back in the vanilla WoW days, you could hardly walk into Tyr's Hand without seeing a dozen gold farmers gathering cloth and other baubles to sell in the auction house. It might be more subtle these days. Ever see those power-leveling services advertised in trade chat? If they are going through the hassle of advertising in-game, they are getting at least a few people to buy into it, and all those characters at their disposal gives them a great way to farm up cloth and materials while leveling those characters and dump it into the market. Where there's fire, there's smoke. Illegitimate services like power-leveling are likely a sign that gold farmers are still out and about on the realms in some fashion.
With a steady supply of raw materials into the market from illegitimate players like gold farmers and hackers, many of the prices we are accustomed to are likely the work of a great supply. We are used to the land of bounty where we can go to the auction house and get almost whatever we want if we are willing to pay a reasonable price. If gold farmers leave the game completely, will this change? How negatively do these types of services actually impact the game?
Looking forward, the release of patch 3.2 will bring an influx of players eager to jump back into heroics and all the old raids as well as the new Argent Tournament content. Start preparing now and stock up on potions, elixirs, eternal, and other materials. With epic gems and many new recipes, patch 3.2 will undoubtedly jump-start the WoW economy.
Reader Comments (13)
Man I hope so. The market on my realm is tough. I have good weeks and bad. Seems to be better to farm for yourself and guild then it does to farm for the AH.
I think I will start stocking up and only farm for an hour and then quest in a new area I didn't level up in on my way to 80.
Here's to a profitable 3.2 that better give more opportunities to recipies then just the current end game raid.
The last wek of my vacations (July 5-12) saw me making quite a bit of gold since the farmers left the server. I haven't seen a single ad in trade chat for the last 2 weeks.
And, yes, I have noticed a difference since they left.
On my server, gold seems to be a whole lot easier to make since the markets are no longer flooded thus bring the prices down. There was a time where I couldn't even list a Forest Emerald on the AH for more than 2g a piece. My server saw an inflation and now the pretty green stone sells for 12g on a bad day.
Good riddance to gold farmers. Gives us little folk a better chance of making some real gold to get the fund for either the Traveller's Tundra Mammoth or the Mekgineer Chopper.
As for farming for gold myself... I vow to never flood the market and only undercut sellers if I want to unload quickly and feel to lazy to give a shout on trade chat.
Will that make enemies? Probably.
Do I care? No.
Am I close to having the funds for the 2 mounts mentioned in this reply post? Half way there to both.
"The first thing that I noticed are less raw materials at a higher price. Since there are less players on, there are less players running around doing dailies and quests that lead them to herbs, mining nodes, or dead animals to skin." Please use correct grammer all of those times that you used less it should have been fewer please please please
love the site though
gold farmers are still running rampart on my server, even whispering players with BOE items they need for their class, then when a reply is made, they get the gold farm add. as for the economy, everything is so cheap and plentiful!
@ bear4242 What's "grammer"?
heartbourrne you got the expression back words the expression is "whear thiers smoke thiers fire"
i havent had time to miine but i checcked the prices on AH they are rediciliously low so even if i did i probably wont make to much money i bought a stack of titatium to make titansteel only i didnt know it had 20 hour cooldown so i ended having to sell teh surplus a stack was going for arround 300g since i didnt have a full stack i sold for a bit less a day later it was still siting in the AH so i just piece by piece i figured bigger chance for someone to buy it have checked my mailbox yat
havent
mining has been all he more harder since the nerf i mean it is really annoying
@bear4242 and Vag:
Not only that, Vag, but:
Please, use correct grammar. All the times that you used less, it should have been fewer. Please, please, please?
Love the site though.
Punctuation and capitalization ftw.
Now back to something that is more interesting: Can't say that I have noticed a big change in the market. But I'm on a low population server and horde, so perhaps that has something to do with it? Plus, it being summer, I don't log on all that often ;o)
@bear4242 - "Please use correct grammer all of those times that you used less it should have been fewer please please please
love the site though
LOL?
Anyone who is buying mounts pre-3.2 is crazy. I predict lots of people will be buying more after the patch.
all the gold farmers went to my servers, ah is screwed up massively, with only a few items still at high costs.
Trade has always at least 3 or for gold selling agencies posting with around 6 to 7 adverts a minute. Even ignore doesn't filter them as usually they're back in a few minutes under a different name.
Powerleveling services are offered in whisper to even lvl 80 players to level up their alts fast. And being on an alt you get around 2 whispers for gold or powerleveling every 10 minutes. They drive me crazy. Moreover, they dump stuff at rediculousely low prices in ah messing up the market. You're only chance to protect the market is buying them out and that only breaks your cash reserves and puts you with ginormous stacks of items they are dumping again just 8 hours later.