Moneysinks and WoW design

[Dynalisia]

Originally Posted by Wodin

What did you guys do with all your resources? MC BoEs, Cores, Ingots, Elementium, Obsidian Shards, extra AQ20 skillbooks. All of these things are worth a lot of money. Your crafters had access to recipes that three or four other people on the server did. Did you leverage that and make money off it?

Raid guilds have had unique advantages that others haven't when it comes to making money. Some have been amazingly good at making money. Others like ourselves have been so-so. But regardless, the resources required to craft the tier 3 sets are not going to seriously tax any serious end-game raiding guild.

Yes, but a lot of those things tend be ingredients only other raiding guilds would need and in my personal experience between raiding guilds this will often come down to trading of resources, not selling.

What Cyb says is the same as I did. Our guildbank grew to monstrous size during the era where we farmed ZG, MC and BWL but were mostly saturated with any BoE drops from there, so we sold a load of it. Nowadays it's steadily going downhill, with AQ40 having almost no good sellables whatsoever (scarabs were argueably, but are almost worth nothing now) and the older cashwells running dry. Selling all the stuff from AQ20 gave a short term boost, but we only really profited of that between our guild becoming saturated on AQ20 stuff and the rest of the server getting satured. As a result, it would be nice if a new, more consistant way of making money was introduced for raiding guilds, because it's only a matter of time before MC BoE's, ZG stuff and AQ20 stuff all become worthless and with nearly a score of bosses in Naxxramas, it looks like we're going to need a lot of gold aside from the whole sets cost.

I think the game could use a few good raid-only drops, maybe something like the jewelry you would see on the age old EQ raids. Why bother with cash drops on bossmobs when you could just have em drop grey items like "Scintillating Chromaggus Scale" or "Diamondine Legtip of Fankriss" worth a good chunk of cash at vendors?

Edit:

Yep, there's plenty of cash loot in the raiding game. Problem is they dissapear into 'guild banks' that no one except corrupt guild leaders abuse.

Man, I really feel for you poor sobs that get stuck in guilds where that shit happens. No, I'm not even sarcastic.

[Ailu]

I actually agree with TBH somewhat. People are making the problem bigger than it is, most likely because their guild bank isn't paying for repairs.

Unfortunately on my server in the last two months it's been basically impossible to make cash from the blue BOEs you get from certain bosses. There's just too many raiding guilds selling the same crap. My guild have about 8k gold ready for naxx to help out on repairs now. I'd be curious how much other high end guilds have in their bank? I've heard some have much more. I guess having someone who enjoys playing the AH for the benefit of the guild would help, heh.

[Lleauaric~EW]

Plus that stuff has a limited market.
How many droppable blues will the server economy absorb before the value disappears. If you are the 5th guild on the server to get a raid zone on farm status and start collecting droppable blues, there is an amazing amount of diminishing returns on the value of that stuff as the market becomes more saturated.
I guess we see that the instancing of zones does not address artifical cockblocking of "guild progression" by creating innate disadvantages to guilds who complete content after the first ones.
Again, at least EQ1 was honest about it.

Oh I know.. how about weapon that requires 100 arcanite bars!! Or how about a "server event" that basically requires the entire server to farm basic useless shit. 80000 carapaces... just because!
There isnt a whole lot imagination going on over there... kinda just mailing it in it seems.

[Man0warr]

Whats the problem here? Our guild bank doesn't give out money for repairs usually, Guild bank money is used to buy potion and consumable mats off the AH, which are sent to the guild alchemist to make pots and then transfers them to a mule that anyone can buy potions from before raid at 1g each. Bank pays for some other things but they it won't be paying for Tier3 either. Bank makes most of its money from AQ20 now as we havn't done MC in awhile.

I'm always at around ~200gold, as I work all day I don't have time to farm because after raids I have to go to bed to be up in time (Buying gold would probably be the most advantage to someone like me since I don't have much time to farm but do have disposable income, yet I still don't do it). Yet I still have farmed all the mats for T3 already since they were found out, just from doing 2 or 3 hours of mining a weekend. So yeah, if I can farm enough to keep up with repairs and get mats for Tier3, with my limited time, without buying gold, why are you guys crying?

[Digo]

Originally Posted by Lyenae

Yep, there's plenty of cash loot in the raiding game. Problem is they dissapear into 'guild banks' that no one except corrupt guild leaders abuse.

Simple liquidate the guild bank every week/monk once it breaks over a limit.

Your guild sucks. There, I said it. You and everyone who whines about having no money, no potions, no consumables, and no support from your guild have no one to blame but yourselves.

My guild currently has over 26,000 gold, an entire character with tomes, grimoires, and rare books, a mountain of elementium, cores, and other crafting materials, not to mention the 10-20 BOE purples available for purchase in the auction house that we can replenish every week in two measly hours if we so choose, all documented and accounted for in our guild bank.

Here, I'll even help you set this up. Find some responsible members of your guild with moral fiber hovering somewhere above 'serial rapist' and put them in charge of the bank. Keep excel spreadsheets to document the stock.

During the raid, have an officer keep track of how much gold is earned from boss kills. There are even mods that do this for you nowadays. Every night after raids, have your members send a bill to the guild bank. Then have the banker subtract the amount earned from the repair bill, and send that amount back to the raider.

You do have officers right? You do have raid leaders that possess the vision and planning to ensure your tanks will have flasks, your healers have potions, and your rogues have all the sharpening stones and shit they can eat, right? You do have a guild bank that can buy all the herbs at prices so ridiculously cheap (thanks Xiaoxing and friends!) that you literally never have to spend a second farming herbs or minerals, right?

There is no experience debt, and no penalty for death in this game. The only reason this thread hasn't been rickshawed to its rightful place yet is so morons can be properly lambasted. That's the tiny but clear difference between these boards and the WOW boards -- here, your bullshit will be called out and curb-stomped by the powers that be. But thankfully, it looks like Emonix and Tseric have been unfettered and set free to verbally eviscerate the idiots. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...=1#post8574129

[Abalieno]

Originally Posted by Dynalisia

I think the main question should be about what alternatives there are for moneysinks. Any armchair designers got any ideas?

Locking "money" out as a game mechanic.

But that would be dare too much.

[Tolanin]

my guild doesnt pay repairs (to much administrative work for no real purpose imo) but potions come cheap and theres always a good supply... and tanks never pay for their own flasks/zanzas.. seriously if your guild is having you farm your own flaskes then something is seriously wrong... theres tons of cash in this game and countless ways for raiders to make money.. hell a single transmute alt can turn out 60g a week in mats for almost no effort.

If you are having cash problems in this game and actually go out and farm lvl 55 mobs for silver your problem is more a lack of personal vision than any problem with the game itself.

Repair costs in this game unless you are learning a new instance should be pretty neglible, AQ might put a dent in you if you are an MT but BWL should definitly make up for it and then some.

[TheCutlery]

I'd say the real problem is that there are so many new "Endgame" guilds compared to EQ. Because of the design of the game where anyone and everyone can kill spawns at their leisure, you've got people who probably shouldn't be leading guilds leading guilds right now. Hell, on my server the only thing comparable to an uber guild from EQ is on Alliance side. Horde doesn't have shit. All Horde manages is a revolving door of exploitation equipping a handful of people with Tier 1 and 2 loot while simultaenously fucking over the other 35 guys who helped make it possible. These mouth breathers somehow convince the majority of the raid that this is how "End game" raiding should be and then we have problems such as the ones we see here.

My guild doesn't run crap except for 5 man's, and hell, even we've talked about having a guild bank. We don't even need one when the most expensive cost we incur is like 10 candles on a lousy nite, but we know it's important to the continuing financial success of the guild.

[ex-genj]

The reason there is and continues to be end game moneysinks is because for every 10 legitimate end game players and raiders there is a chinese person paying $12 a month to sell them gold and making millions of dollars for Blizzard Entertainment. Duh. This is the reality of this game, regardless of what you can "guildbank" out of raid zones if there wasn't a demand for thousands of usd in gold every week then there wouldn't be these countless hordes of chinese farmers that every single server has.

[Akileese]

Originally Posted by The Black Hand

Sorry but any raiding guild that is honest about the game knows this is horseshit. Raiding guilds have money to burn. Argue with me about it - I'll call you a liar and I'll be right.

"Oh no, we wiped learning a raid mob that is going to further widen the gap between us and Timmy Casualguy. Why must we have to pay for this? Why? Why is my guild subjected to such nonsense? My guild who if they are worth a goddamn should have at least 15k gold and unlimited supplies just sitting in the bank."

Seriously, no sympathy. Suck it up.

My old guild (I still keep up with them as most are IRL friends) has something like, 8-15k gold in the guild bank from what I here. Gold is not a problem. Especially when you can sell ingots and what not. While I agree that the moneysinks are gay, they are not a problem for top of the line raid guilds, hell, they aren't even a problem for middle of the pack raid guilds (they still have shitloads of gold as it is).

I mean, if you really want to bitch, look at how Naxx is going. Pugs aren't necessarily doing that poorly in that place and I know that the way it is going now isn't exactly set in stone (most fights will be tweaked, probably increased in difficulty). Also, isn't it true that if you get exhalted your naxx attunement is free?

[Ennya Dragonslayer]

In EQ people complained about outrageous inflation and having to buy gold to keep up unless you're the uber's uber. This caused by "printing more money" than gets spent.

Now the complaint is that you have to spend a lot of gold in game and that's how the farmers thrive?

Well shyte, so maybe there has to be a fixed amount of gold per player and nothing drops till it's spent...

You want to fix sinks in WoW, fix reputation time sinks.

[Antarius]

Originally Posted by The Black Hand

My guild who if they are worth a goddamn should have at least 15k gold and unlimited supplies just sitting in the bank."

15,000 gold in the guild bank created from selling 800 gp bracers and similiar items on the AH to people who buy gold from gold farmers.

Either through an officer managing a guild bank or through personally farming items that are in hot demand, like focus librams in DM, it doesn't make a difference, you're still supporting the professional gold farmer and the absolutely massive numbers of people that are buying gold.

Game economies are HARD.

[boy-]

Originally Posted by Antarius

15,000 gold in the guild bank created from selling 800 gp bracers and similiar items on the AH to people who buy gold from gold farmers.

I donno about that. I'm fairly convinced now that the non-raiders are sitting on an absolute shitton of gold. After levelling up an alt to 60 and realizing that a full 100% repair on him cost the same as *one death* for me, I'm not so convinced that the nonraiders are buying large amounts of gold either.

They don't have the moneysinks we do, and actually gain money through normal gameplay (ie stratholme instead of aq40).

[Maxxius]

Despite the silly name calling by The Black Hand, the OP actually does make a good point. I think WOW is far more "gold" intensive than EQ ever was. This in turn actually does encourage gold farming to a large degree. It becomes a vicious cycle.

As a pvping rogue it becomes expensive to constantly buy regeants, bandages, and potions. Wouldn't mind so much, but there really is little compensating loot in BGs for this once you finish the one shot quests. So I wind up having to spend time farming, which hurts a pvper more since you lose standings by being "idle."

The biggest difference between say EQ and WOW is, that in EQ you farmed to improve your character, in WOW you farm often to simply maintain your character.

[chaos]

25k on guild bank, we pay for all repairs and i actually pay our herbalists over market price to farm herbs for guilds pots, which are made by the guild pot maker (lvl 41 mage and a couple of guys with flasks/major mana/mageblood recipes) and distributed as such. All that and I can sometimes still turn a profit. Sometimes. I predict Naxx repairs bankrupting our guild bank, no shit. Stopping MC and AQ20 plus the tripled repair bills and additional consumables will fucking bankrupt us.

The sink is still way too much. Whoever is on TBH account, you're being an asshole. It's too god damn much, you only have to raid like a week with the average guild to know that. We aren't all in FoH, some of us still have that wipe or 3 in BWL. Everyone on this board likes to act like their dicks are hard 24/7, it's all bullshit. In the average guild, repairs are a huge problem.