What are your opinions on how the economy has shaped up?

Nihili

I'm not a massive trader or anything, in fact I don't belong to a trading guild (though I used to), just because I rarely sold stuff when I did. But I make use of guild traders on the regular and purchase stuff with gold made from questing. I am really interested in hearing some of the opinions on the "ESO-economy" from some of the community.

A bit about myself -- I'm doing a course in finance and accounting at my university, and seeing as ESO is the first MMO I've played it's also the first gaming economy I've really encountered. Though there's a part inside of me that cries every time I think about how much I have to pay for a Focus of Androitness, as well as the accessories of the Warlock, I realize the prices on these things are only so high because, well, that's what they can get away with selling it for.

The reason why I specifically mentioned the point above is because a lot of people I've spoken to seem to think that the ESO economy suffers from heavy overpricing which has been allowed to perpetuate due to disinformation over the true value of these items -- or otherwise been allowed to perpetuate because a gaming economy doesn't have normal market regulations nor normal responses to changes. What are some of your opinions on this? My view is that in a strange way gaming economies are, like, the most free market systems I've seen. And a part of me hates it, a part of me finds it interesting. I don't really love it though. Just because I want some really sought-after accessories that might end up costing me 250k gold... *Cry with me people. Cry for my pain*.

Any opinions?

Flaminir

Well from my perspective I DO see it altering due to changes/stimulus.

The whole supply/demand thing driven by the current game & class meta still holds true.... EG high level martial knowledge when 1.6 first came out prices going up.... then as people realised other ways of aquiring it the market had more supply so prices stabilised etc etc.

Normal patterns apply. Those who enjoy the trading side of the game are always looking at whats going on, looking at the patch notes for changes & working out whats going to sell as a result.

I won't get into the whole trader kiosk debate... but as an economy as a whole... it reacts quite well overall.....the only discussion is that actual stimulus provided by ZoS that's applied to drive those changes. Some of those are questionable (EG the rareity of Kuta at the moment driving prices up.

On the disinformation front.... Hmmm.... possibly initially when a change is applied to the game... but it soon evens out over time if the disinformation really did have no substance. Martial knowledge is a good example. Initially after 1.6 V14 pieces were very overpriced.... now they are coming down as people realised they could farm them fairly easily & weren't worth 60-80k each. Nirnhoned on the other hand started high.... & has stayed high as there's a real reason for it. The market will eventually react to any disinformation.

domon924_ESO

It's very simple, there are more rich people than there are poor people at end game. Every single vr14 weapon damage/stam build character you see running around is wearing about 1mil gold worth of gear on them. A lot of old money who came back for the free to play with several million gold in their bank probably didn't help the economy either.