Gort,Nov 25 2005, 12:09 PM Wrote:This misses the crucial element of money SUPPLY. The biggest influx of gold produced by the farmer is that dropped by NPCs. Simple example:
NPC X - spawns in Tyr's Hand, remains untouched for 3 hours then drops 12s.
NPC Y - spawns in Tyr's Hand, dies within 2 minutes and each respawn for the next 3 hours, dropping 12s each time.
X's death brings 12s into the economy.
Y's (repeated) deaths bring 90 x 12s into the economy, or 1080s = 108g.
Difference is 107g 88s over the course of those 3 hours.
Now obviously the respawn rate in Tyr's Hand has been changed, the above was artificial number to illustrate a point. The constant farming of high cash value NPCs was pushing the gold supply to insane levels and continues, albeit at a slightly abated pace. Sales on the AH etc may circulate the money but each NPC killed brings fresh cash into circulation and the relative value of items calculated against the overall supply (known as M0 in the UK treasury for example) is pushed down, resulting in the trend Kandrathe identified so eloquently.
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The mobs drop 10g 80s (which would not otherwise be in the economy). They also drop ... runecloth? blue items? occasional purple items? which would not otherwise be in the economy (and most likely get more than 10g 80s at AH).
so the overall effect is what? not extra gold chasing the same number of items. It's extra gold chasing a larger number of *certain* items. Both gold and gold sinks are created. I couldn't say really whether the gold outweighs the gold sinks or not, given that there's also some gold from vendor trash generated...
so if that gold goes largely to to *buying* the same items dropped, then overall you might see a slight deflation relative to certain items (which can drop in Tyr's Hand) and a slight inflation relative to other items (which don't drop in Tyr's Hand.)
so it's good for casuals farming areas and selling items that farmers dont farm. Bad for casuals buying items that farmers dont farm. Good for casuals buying items that farmers do farm. Bad for casuals buying items that farmers don't farm.
anyhow it's not blatantly a horrible ruin to the economy. It would seem to be introducing some weirdness in pricings though.
i can't imagine any gold farmers farming electro-lanterns. Casuals must've been farming electro-lanterns and Blizzard (rightly) nerfed the price (wrongly) too much. They should just figure out a good average salary (money per time) for each char level and do the math from there.
[edit: I suggest, humorously, that the solution to farmers only farming world drop items would be to have better trained farmers, who can raid all the high end instances and thus balance out their effect on the economy. This would result in deflation wrt a lot of purple or better BoE drops, which i suspect most players would appreciate. ]