Undercutting crafted items that are "game drop" is a waste of time and money!

[Brightamethyst]

Seriously who the fudge comes up with this stuff? Glamour items are oftenm the bread and butter for crafters since they always sell well. SE totally killed that off with their dumbass relic content. Bloody hell.

Why are you surprised by this? SE turns older crafted stuff into drop all the time. It's how they get people to move on to new things while also keeping the prices of old item from skyrocketing after their content window has passed (old maps, etc.)

[Angelhearth]

Why are you surprised by this? SE turns older crafted stuff into drop all the time. It's how they get people to move on to new things while also keeping the prices of old item from skyrocketing after their content window has passed (old maps, etc.)

The thing is that developers of an online game should never ever interfere with the games internal economy. If there are players that are willing to pay a high price, well then let them, and let the crafters that want to make them, make them, and earn gil doing so. There's also the problem that the drop rate on some (all?) items seems to be related to the amount on sale at the MB. This means that if an item drops in some way (retainers mostly), there is no use trying to buy them up, because the drop rate will just be turned up. Basically, in my opinion, SE are destroying the game for a large number of players, those that play the game mainly for gathering, crafting and trading. I don't know hoe large a percentage of the player base this is, but obviously not enough for them to care.

[Jojoya]

The thing is that developers of an online game should never ever interfere with the games internal economy. .

They have to interfere to keep the game user friendly for new players who join the game late. Newer players who can't afford items because sellers are pricing them for veteran players with loads of currency accumulated will quit when they can't get the items they feel need.

I have yet to play a MMO where the developers haven't interfered with the markets in one fashion or another to make certain new players don't feel left out. If you're playing to accumulate wealth, you're just going to have to work harder.

[Angelhearth]

They have to interfere to keep the game user friendly for new players who join the game late. Newer players who can't afford items because sellers are pricing them for veteran players with loads of currency accumulated will quit when they can't get the items they feel need.

I have yet to play a MMO where the developers haven't interfered with the markets in one fashion or another to make certain new players don't feel left out. If you're playing to accumulate wealth, you're just going to have to work harder.

You never played WoW? They never interfered until they started selling that gold thingy. Developers interfering with the in-game economy is sure to piss off more players than if they didn't.

[ItMe]

You never played WoW? They never interfered until [...]

So... they did interfere then...

[Prrringles]

So... they did interfere then...

Different motivation. That was a pure money grab and had nothing to do with helping players out.

[Kes13a]

Different motivation. That was a pure money grab and had nothing to do with helping players out.

This.

Blizz went after some of the RMT market share. screwed up the markets but players were never a big concern anyway.

[Jojoya]

You never played WoW? They never interfered until they started selling that gold thingy. Developers interfering with the in-game economy is sure to piss off more players than if they didn't.

I did play WoW from mid BC to end of Legion. Blizzard was constantly interfering in ways you probably wouldn't recognize as interference either because it was part of their ongoing game design or other reasons were being given for the changes.

Changing drop rates or node yields interfered with sales on the AH. Changing the way stats worked interfered with sales of gear on the AH. Introducing heirlooms interfered with sales of gear on the AH. Restricting armor types to specific classes interfered with the sales of gear on the AH. Putting level caps ("this item has reduced/no effect for character over level 60/items over level 115") on use of enchants, gems and consumables interfered with sales of those items on the AH. Adding the disenchant roll option to dungeons when Dungeon Finder was introduced interfered with sales of enchants and enchanting mats on the AH.

I watched it all go down and saw how those changes plus many more affected the AH trends.

You want to know why the WoW token became a necessity to help keep new players from quitting the game within a few weeks of starting? Are you ready for this?

Transmog.

Veteran players were suddenly eager to get their hands on all those greens they had been ignoring since heirlooms were introduced in Wrath. What had been going for 20-30 silver suddenly shot up to 20-30 gold, or hundreds of gold in the cases of the "slut mog" items from the Vanilla levels (I can't complain, I had some no longer obtainable recipes for a few of those slut mog models, I got rich).

New players were relying on what had been cheap greens for their gear because the stat changes over the years had made the majority of quest rewards near useless if not completely useless. Now those cheap greens were prohibitively expensive for a new player starting out.

Blizzard for some strange reason thought new players would be happy to spend all their time trying to slowly level professions to make gold to buy gear they needed to level their class so they could level their professions farther to earn more gold they would need to get even better gear. Obviously it didn't work out because the majority of players don't pick up WoW to be a crafter with the limited time they have to play. They pick it up to "slay dargons [sic]", as a raiding friend of mine put it. New players couldn't make enough gold to buy the gear they needed to keep from being kicked from leveling dungeons. If other players aren't going to allow them to play the game because of things outside of their control, then there was no reason to stay.

Enter the WoW token so they had a way to get the gold they needed.

The interference was always there even if you didn't notice it.

[ForteNightshade]

They have to interfere to keep the game user friendly for new players who join the game late. Newer players who can't afford items because sellers are pricing them for veteran players with loads of currency accumulated will quit when they can't get the items they feel need.

I have yet to play a MMO where the developers haven't interfered with the markets in one fashion or another to make certain new players don't feel left out. If you're playing to accumulate wealth, you're just going to have to work harder.

To be fair, you can "interfere" in a way that doesn't utterly destroy the market. Using the Summer Indigo Shirt for example sake. If it was a rare Bozja drop or needed a good chunk of platinum coins, you accomplish the same goal without making it dirt cheap.

This actually wouldn't be as big a problem for crafters if their own endgame recipes weren't nerfed into the ground this expansion. Alas, the devs are more concerned with making everything easier to obtain than providing a solid endgame for crafters. Yoshida has openly stated he doesn't like items being listed for super high prices.

[Jojoya]

This actually wouldn't be as big a problem for crafters if their own endgame recipes weren't nerfed into the ground this expansion. Alas, the devs are more concerned with making everything easier to obtain than providing a solid endgame for crafters. Yoshida has openly stated he doesn't like items being listed for super high prices.

I agree with him to a large extent. Commonly used items should be low in price so players can get them as needed, not to mention it can actually benefit sellers by creating more buyers. I got rich in WoW by making things affordable where other sellers were more concerned with making themselves rich. It was a fun game to play to tank their markets while getting more players buying the items in question than had been buying them at inflated prices.

You would think McDonalds, Walmart and similar companies would serve as an example of how to get rich - sell high volumes at still profitable prices almost everyone can afford instead of selling at high prices few are willing to pay even if they can afford them.

But there still needs to be those items that more expensive, either because of scarcity of materials or time investment to produce the item. A lot of players are subtly influenced by the prestige of owning such items. When it's too easy to get everything you want, a game can quickly get stale and boring.

If sellers don't like SE's interference with the current markets, they need to accept responsibility for the role they played in driving prices so high SE felt it necessary to step in. SE has to think of the needs of all players, not just the few players out to get rich on a virtual game currency.

I will say that the limit on marketboard listings does not help things. It stifles competition that would have naturally kept prices lower in the first place. That's on SE's head.