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Economy and Guilds
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Gabriel_H✭✭✭✭The gold sellers are a good point. They cause inflation since more gold is in the market, which is not due to actual player activity.
Do they though?
How much gold can a single gold seller generate in a day?
How many players are there?
What is the % of gold sellers to (real)players?
In the real world money is technically finite, but governments can print more to buy their own debt through QE, this increases inflation.
In ESO there is no debt, and no government prints money, BUT gold is not finite. Even just logging in to do the daily crafting quests generates ~3k of gold out of thin air.
Lets say there are 30,000 unique daily players - based off steam charts at a reasonable estimate of what other platforms/login methods there are.
Lets say that each player has an average of 3 characters, making a total of 90,000 characters who just do daily crafting quests.
90,000 characters x 3,000 gold = 270 million gold generated out of thin air simply by doing crafting quests.
Lets say 50% of the unique daily players do other things like dungeon runs, other dailies, trials etc, but only on one character.
A fair estimate for additional gold for a couple of hours play, selling just white gear drops and treasure and junk? Around 30,000 gold.
15,000 characters x 30,000 gold = 450 million gold generated. For four hours of play 900 million.
That imo is a conservative estimate. I do not see gold sellers even coming close to being able to farm and sell enough for them to have any significant impact unless they are making up a majority of the playerbase.1 -
Necrotech_Master✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭The gold sellers are a good point. They cause inflation since more gold is in the market, which is not due to actual player activity.
Do they though?
How much gold can a single gold seller generate in a day?
How many players are there?
What is the % of gold sellers to (real)players?
In the real world money is technically finite, but governments can print more to buy their own debt through QE, this increases inflation.
In ESO there is no debt, and no government prints money, BUT gold is not finite. Even just logging in to do the daily crafting quests generates ~3k of gold out of thin air.
Lets say there are 30,000 unique daily players - based off steam charts at a reasonable estimate of what other platforms/login methods there are.
Lets say that each player has an average of 3 characters, making a total of 90,000 characters who just do daily crafting quests.
90,000 characters x 3,000 gold = 270 million gold generated out of thin air simply by doing crafting quests.
Lets say 50% of the unique daily players do other things like dungeon runs, other dailies, trials etc, but only on one character.
A fair estimate for additional gold for a couple of hours play, selling just white gear drops and treasure and junk? Around 30,000 gold.
15,000 characters x 30,000 gold = 450 million gold generated. For four hours of play 900 million.
That imo is a conservative estimate. I do not see gold sellers even coming close to being able to farm and sell enough for them to have any significant impact unless they are making up a majority of the playerbase.
gold sellers are a problem because the huge quantities of gold they have enters circulation
gold only enters "public circulation" when its spend on guild stores or traded hands directly, if a player does writs on 10 characters but never buys anything on guild stores, their gold is staying out of circulation
there are also players like myself who rarely if ever do daily crafting writs (im only doing them right now for surveys to finish the newish achievements for completing surveys)plays PC/NA
handle @Necrotech_Master
active player since april 2014
i have my main house (grand topal hideaway) listed in the housing tours, it has multiple target dummies, scribing altar, and grandmaster stations (in progress being filled out), as well as almost every antiquity furnishing on display to preview them
feel free to stop by and use the facilities0 -
kargen27✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Necrotech_Master wrote: »The gold sellers are a good point. They cause inflation since more gold is in the market, which is not due to actual player activity.
Do they though?
How much gold can a single gold seller generate in a day?
How many players are there?
What is the % of gold sellers to (real)players?
In the real world money is technically finite, but governments can print more to buy their own debt through QE, this increases inflation.
In ESO there is no debt, and no government prints money, BUT gold is not finite. Even just logging in to do the daily crafting quests generates ~3k of gold out of thin air.
Lets say there are 30,000 unique daily players - based off steam charts at a reasonable estimate of what other platforms/login methods there are.
Lets say that each player has an average of 3 characters, making a total of 90,000 characters who just do daily crafting quests.
90,000 characters x 3,000 gold = 270 million gold generated out of thin air simply by doing crafting quests.
Lets say 50% of the unique daily players do other things like dungeon runs, other dailies, trials etc, but only on one character.
A fair estimate for additional gold for a couple of hours play, selling just white gear drops and treasure and junk? Around 30,000 gold.
15,000 characters x 30,000 gold = 450 million gold generated. For four hours of play 900 million.
That imo is a conservative estimate. I do not see gold sellers even coming close to being able to farm and sell enough for them to have any significant impact unless they are making up a majority of the playerbase.
gold sellers are a problem because the huge quantities of gold they have enters circulation
gold only enters "public circulation" when its spend on guild stores or traded hands directly, if a player does writs on 10 characters but never buys anything on guild stores, their gold is staying out of circulation
there are also players like myself who rarely if ever do daily crafting writs (im only doing them right now for surveys to finish the newish achievements for completing surveys)
You are assuming where and how the gold will be spent. If it is spent on homes it is removed from the game. If it is spent on carries it just goes to players already sitting on a lot of gold. Gold sellers have to do something to generate the gold. If it is selling materials in guild stores that increases supply helping to fight any inflation.and then the parrot said, "must be the water mines green too."1 -
DenverRalphy✭✭✭✭✭
✭Necrotech_Master wrote: »The gold sellers are a good point. They cause inflation since more gold is in the market, which is not due to actual player activity.
Do they though?
How much gold can a single gold seller generate in a day?
How many players are there?
What is the % of gold sellers to (real)players?
In the real world money is technically finite, but governments can print more to buy their own debt through QE, this increases inflation.
In ESO there is no debt, and no government prints money, BUT gold is not finite. Even just logging in to do the daily crafting quests generates ~3k of gold out of thin air.
Lets say there are 30,000 unique daily players - based off steam charts at a reasonable estimate of what other platforms/login methods there are.
Lets say that each player has an average of 3 characters, making a total of 90,000 characters who just do daily crafting quests.
90,000 characters x 3,000 gold = 270 million gold generated out of thin air simply by doing crafting quests.
Lets say 50% of the unique daily players do other things like dungeon runs, other dailies, trials etc, but only on one character.
A fair estimate for additional gold for a couple of hours play, selling just white gear drops and treasure and junk? Around 30,000 gold.
15,000 characters x 30,000 gold = 450 million gold generated. For four hours of play 900 million.
That imo is a conservative estimate. I do not see gold sellers even coming close to being able to farm and sell enough for them to have any significant impact unless they are making up a majority of the playerbase.
gold sellers are a problem because the huge quantities of gold they have enters circulation
Gold sellers don't introduce gold into the game world. They simply move it around by grinding out mats to sell on the traders. But the gold used to purchase those mats were all generated by players. And gold sellers don't hoard their gold, because they don't make money if they're not selling it.
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Necrotech_Master✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Necrotech_Master wrote: »The gold sellers are a good point. They cause inflation since more gold is in the market, which is not due to actual player activity.
Do they though?
How much gold can a single gold seller generate in a day?
How many players are there?
What is the % of gold sellers to (real)players?
In the real world money is technically finite, but governments can print more to buy their own debt through QE, this increases inflation.
In ESO there is no debt, and no government prints money, BUT gold is not finite. Even just logging in to do the daily crafting quests generates ~3k of gold out of thin air.
Lets say there are 30,000 unique daily players - based off steam charts at a reasonable estimate of what other platforms/login methods there are.
Lets say that each player has an average of 3 characters, making a total of 90,000 characters who just do daily crafting quests.
90,000 characters x 3,000 gold = 270 million gold generated out of thin air simply by doing crafting quests.
Lets say 50% of the unique daily players do other things like dungeon runs, other dailies, trials etc, but only on one character.
A fair estimate for additional gold for a couple of hours play, selling just white gear drops and treasure and junk? Around 30,000 gold.
15,000 characters x 30,000 gold = 450 million gold generated. For four hours of play 900 million.
That imo is a conservative estimate. I do not see gold sellers even coming close to being able to farm and sell enough for them to have any significant impact unless they are making up a majority of the playerbase.
gold sellers are a problem because the huge quantities of gold they have enters circulation
gold only enters "public circulation" when its spend on guild stores or traded hands directly, if a player does writs on 10 characters but never buys anything on guild stores, their gold is staying out of circulation
there are also players like myself who rarely if ever do daily crafting writs (im only doing them right now for surveys to finish the newish achievements for completing surveys)
You are assuming where and how the gold will be spent. If it is spent on homes it is removed from the game. If it is spent on carries it just goes to players already sitting on a lot of gold. Gold sellers have to do something to generate the gold. If it is selling materials in guild stores that increases supply helping to fight any inflation.
houses are 1 time cost, not much of a sink really
if the gold changes hands at all, its entering the wider market, as those that now have the gold could spend it on something
im sure buying carries is one of the reasons people buy gold, but that still goes to players who spent it on stuff, a lot of those top tier people usually end up buying mats for pots and whatnot which goes into circulation and spread out
i dont know what people would buy gold for outside of carries, theres really nothing in this game that needs massive amounts of gold, but if you were just given say a couple hundred million gold, wouldnt you want to spend it on buying up stuff you wanted (expensive/new furnishing plans, motifs, etc) all of which ends up in circulation still
if even a couple dozen players just dump a combined billion gold into the guild store market buying things, now you have say 1000 players with millions to 10s of millions of gold if they were all high cost purchases, then those sales get registered on tracking addons, and thats the "new price" people are going to list for, repeating the cycle demanding more gold
remove the gold sellers, and you remove the massive influx of currency into the market, and existing sources of gold sinks are able to compensate for a slower increaseplays PC/NA
handle @Necrotech_Master
active player since april 2014
i have my main house (grand topal hideaway) listed in the housing tours, it has multiple target dummies, scribing altar, and grandmaster stations (in progress being filled out), as well as almost every antiquity furnishing on display to preview them
feel free to stop by and use the facilities0 -
oldbobdude✭✭✭✭✭I agree that supply and demand will dictate price. That’s ok. On the other hand obtaining the items I sell takes my time. If the price I could get falls below what I value my time as then I just don’t sell it. Example. I won’t sell the resin for woodworking for less than 1k. I just keep it for now.
To each their own.0 -
Gabriel_H✭✭✭✭Necrotech_Master wrote: »gold sellers are a problem because the huge quantities of gold they have enters circulation
gold only enters "public circulation" when its spend on guild stores or traded hands directly, if a player does writs on 10 characters but never buys anything on guild stores, their gold is staying out of circulation
there are also players like myself who rarely if ever do daily crafting writs (im only doing them right now for surveys to finish the newish achievements for completing surveys)
They are not creating gold. They are primarily farming mats and selling them taking gold from one player, then selling that gold to another.
Meanwhile players ARE generating gold to the tune of billions a week, where as the creation of gold by gold sellers through the same means will be very small.0 -
manukartofanu✭✭✭✭The gold sellers are a good point. They cause inflation since more gold is in the market, which is not due to actual player activity.
Do they though?
How much gold can a single gold seller generate in a day?
How many players are there?
What is the % of gold sellers to (real)players?
In the real world money is technically finite, but governments can print more to buy their own debt through QE, this increases inflation.
In ESO there is no debt, and no government prints money, BUT gold is not finite. Even just logging in to do the daily crafting quests generates ~3k of gold out of thin air.
Lets say there are 30,000 unique daily players - based off steam charts at a reasonable estimate of what other platforms/login methods there are.
Lets say that each player has an average of 3 characters, making a total of 90,000 characters who just do daily crafting quests.
90,000 characters x 3,000 gold = 270 million gold generated out of thin air simply by doing crafting quests.
Lets say 50% of the unique daily players do other things like dungeon runs, other dailies, trials etc, but only on one character.
A fair estimate for additional gold for a couple of hours play, selling just white gear drops and treasure and junk? Around 30,000 gold.
15,000 characters x 30,000 gold = 450 million gold generated. For four hours of play 900 million.
That imo is a conservative estimate. I do not see gold sellers even coming close to being able to farm and sell enough for them to have any significant impact unless they are making up a majority of the playerbase.
You get it right. At this stage, it is already a simple deflationary spiral.0 -
Gabriel_H✭✭✭✭manukartofanu wrote: »You get it right. At this stage, it is already a simple deflationary spiral.
It is more than just gold from thin air. It became a deflationary spiral the day that veteran active users (already have most of what they want) outnumbered newbie active users (have little of what they want).
The supply side outstrips the demand side. This can be addressed quite simply: Cut the number of people farming stuff to sell by 50% - I'll let you tell them which 50% they fall into.
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TaSheen✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭manukartofanu wrote: »You get it right. At this stage, it is already a simple deflationary spiral.
It is more than just gold from thin air. It became a deflationary spiral the day that veteran active users (already have most of what they want) outnumbered newbie active users (have little of what they want).
The supply side outstrips the demand side. This can be addressed quite simply: Cut the number of people farming stuff to sell by 50% - I'll let you tell them which 50% they fall into.
Oh good. I'm not affected.... because I never sell ANYTHING....______________________________________________________
"But even in books, the heroes make mistakes, and there isn't always a happy ending." Mercedes Lackey, Into the West
PC NA, PC EU (non steam)- four accounts, many alts....0 -
manukartofanu✭✭✭✭manukartofanu wrote: »You get it right. At this stage, it is already a simple deflationary spiral.
It is more than just gold from thin air. It became a deflationary spiral the day that veteran active users (already have most of what they want) outnumbered newbie active users (have little of what they want).
The supply side outstrips the demand side. This can be addressed quite simply: Cut the number of people farming stuff to sell by 50% - I'll let you tell them which 50% they fall into.
If everything were that simple, the influx of players to events would drive prices up. However, in practice, events now significantly push prices down, while their absence allows prices to recover slightly. So, it's quite the opposite. Regular players still consume a lot and are willing to buy, but the increased drop rates over the past year on almost everything, along with constant event-related freebies, are driving prices lower and lower.
This is also indirectly confirmed by the much faster price drop for style pages during events compared to before. Even though these are entirely new items in the game and are consumed by all players, they are particularly appealing to regular players who are more willing to buy them. And these are not items that can simply be farmed.
The same trend can be seen in the behavior of prices for new motifs. Take a look at the 128th motif — its value plummeted immediately upon release. And so on.
The real difference is that in the past, new players could profit from such releases, with demand coming primarily from regular players. This created a steady flow of gold from veteran players to newcomers. New players, in turn, bought materials and other essentials from veteran players. Now, however, items drop in such abundance that there’s no need to buy anything, leaving new players without a way to earn gold. Farming gold directly is inefficient, and as a result, prices for everything are falling because overall activity is declining.
Honestly, I don't even know why I started describing what happens during a deflationary spiral. All of this can be read in any article on the topic of "deflationary spiral.0 -
Zodiarkslayer✭✭✭✭✭
✭They added massive amounts of gold sinks (scribing is a huge one) and banned a huge number of gold sellers, and also clawed back and deleted gold that had been acquired via RMT.
The amount of gold in game dramatically decreased. As did the amount of gold *in circulation*.
I give you the "crack down on the gold sellers". That has an impact. Though not the one that you describe.
The millions of gold removed this way were strategic reserves and were not intended for purchasing any item from the guild store, anyway.
The effect on market prices is however minimal. It only serves to lower the impact that real life currency has on market prices in ESO. And only to a certain extend, because crown trading is still possible, the crossing between digital and analogue world is stil there.
The rest is just wishful thinking and massively overstating the dramatic effect of easily avoided service fees. 🤦♂️If anyone here says: OH! But, PVP! I swear I'll ...
Thank you for the valuable input and respectfully recommend to discuss that aspect of ESO on the PVP forum.0 -
Ingenon✭✭✭✭✭katanagirl1 wrote: »Yes, I agree. I don’t know about the PC market, but on PS even the three capital cities have traders I have never heard of and have little inventory.
ON PS/NA, I am also seeing traders in capital cities with guild names I have never seen before.
Separately, my sales are down. Not a problem for me because I have gold banked, and I'm not spending it faster than it is coming in. But I can see where someone who is into something that uses lots of gold could be stressing over this game economy.0 -
katanagirl1✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭katanagirl1 wrote: »Yes, I agree. I don’t know about the PC market, but on PS even the three capital cities have traders I have never heard of and have little inventory.
ON PS/NA, I am also seeing traders in capital cities with guild names I have never seen before.
Separately, my sales are down. Not a problem for me because I have gold banked, and I'm not spending it faster than it is coming in. But I can see where someone who is into something that uses lots of gold could be stressing over this game economy.
Yes, the prices for furnishing plans in the new chapter. I have some gold too and I keep holding out for lower prices but I am just not seeing them. Farming the structural plans for the last three chapters has proven fruitless so I just buy them now.
Khajiit Stamblade main
Dark Elf Magsorc
Redguard Stamina Dragonknight
Orc Stamplar PVP
Breton Magsorc PVP
Dark Elf Magden
Khajiit Stamblade
Khajiit Stamina Arcanist
PS5 NA0 -
Gabriel_H✭✭✭✭manukartofanu wrote: »If everything were that simple, the influx of players to events would drive prices up.
Returning players who already have lots of stuff and gets mats from event boxes that then increase supply? Those players?
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Amottica✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭The gold sellers are a good point. They cause inflation since more gold is in the market, which is not due to actual player activity.
Do they though?
How much gold can a single gold seller generate in a day?
How many players are there?
What is the % of gold sellers to (real)players?
In the real world money is technically finite, but governments can print more to buy their own debt through QE, this increases inflation.
In ESO there is no debt, and no government prints money, BUT gold is not finite. Even just logging in to do the daily crafting quests generates ~3k of gold out of thin air.
Lets say there are 30,000 unique daily players - based off steam charts at a reasonable estimate of what other platforms/login methods there are.
Lets say that each player has an average of 3 characters, making a total of 90,000 characters who just do daily crafting quests.
90,000 characters x 3,000 gold = 270 million gold generated out of thin air simply by doing crafting quests.
Lets say 50% of the unique daily players do other things like dungeon runs, other dailies, trials etc, but only on one character.
A fair estimate for additional gold for a couple of hours play, selling just white gear drops and treasure and junk? Around 30,000 gold.
15,000 characters x 30,000 gold = 450 million gold generated. For four hours of play 900 million.
That imo is a conservative estimate. I do not see gold sellers even coming close to being able to farm and sell enough for them to have any significant impact unless they are making up a majority of the playerbase.
To answer the first question, Yes. Any amount of money injected into the market, which in this case, someone is buying the gold to spend it, will add to inflationary pressures.
Real-world currency is not all finite, and printing more is not the reason why. The US Fed adds money to the economy if inflation is bottoming out. In their case, they add it by making loans cheaper. Granted, they have other tools, such as buying back bonds and adjusting the discount rate they charge banks. That is Economics 101.
Of course, what the Fed does does not happen in the game. I just noted that since the post I have quoted here suggests printing money is how more is added to the economy. That is slow and not done by major economies as it undermines their currency.
Back to the game, we are not talking about players but accounts. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure that out when they see a bot train farming. With their pathing, they are programmed to follow the path instead of having a player controlling anything line. I have seen 20+ bots together with at most one person controlling them. They all follow in a line per the programming and wear low-end gear. They follow that same path every time.
Oh, and they can operate for many more than a real player. When automated, they can operate 24/7. They just need someone to vendor the drops they get occasionally.
The estimated numbers are not correct, as they are just guesses. I would not be able to come up with an accurate number either, and that is important. A Google search turned up what looked like a couple of dozen groups selling gold in ESO, but even that does not tell us how much they can sell or farm daily.
Ofc, this is not the only source of inflationary prices as was noted in my full post, the one sentence was plucked from.
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Tenn60✭✭✭At least on Xbox, there are a ton of free trader guilds with decent spots. Certainly not as many for the main trader cities, but still a lot in DLC zones and other places that are high enough traffic that they do well. Naturally if you are paying a weekly/monthly due, you are going to try and make the most of your slots and be more particular in how you price items, and your more likely to want items to stay at the current/higher value to maximize your profit. As the amount of free/donation based traders increase, you’ll have less people inclined to spend whatever amount it is on dues. The free trading guilds are also usually built for player retention and focus on the community aspect to build that desire to donate, focus events, other benefits outside of the trader. That allows them when needed to ask for donations. I’ve seen plenty that people rally and donate substantial amounts to help maintain the trader, and you have some that decide hey let’s go for a less expensive trader and if we get it we get it if not we will try again next week. Not a knock on how the people that run trading guilds operate, most run a lot of events and try to focus on player retention, but you’ve also created this business relationship. If I’m paying you dues already and then you say we need more to keep this trader, or you have a week that you miss on a trader, then your more likely to take a big hit on members because their only tie to the guild is paying to use the trader and you as the guild aren’t maintaining your part of this business relationship. As mentioned before you have less new players, and after you have made so much money and collected so much stuff, a lot of people shift to wanting to just enjoy the game and not grind to maintain certain levels that used to seem important. The market is going to do what the market is going to do, just like any other business you either adapt or you fail. You can blame whoever you want for the changes, but it won’t stop them.0