Gold Deflation and Vendor Prices

#1 - Sept. 18, 2012, 5:05 p.m.

I see people keep complaining that items sell bellow or at vendor prices. I think the reason for this is that gold is hard to get, and money is deflated to the point that an item’s real value is significantly BELOW the vendor sale price. Obviously the vendor sale price serves as an artificial bottom, or the prices would be way lower.

Again, the reason for this is not enough liquidity (not enough gold in the economy yet).

This should mean you should invest in materials or items now, then sit on them and hope for inflation to kick in. I am actually thinking of doing that with some higher-level materials. Thoughts?

John Smith

#3 - Sept. 18, 2012, 6:13 p.m.

I think deflating is the wrong word. I think you just mean gold is scarce. And the scarcity of gold means that all items have a low value. I don’t think this is necessarily true, there are other motivations keeping prices for some items low and some high.

John Smith

#8 - Sept. 18, 2012, 6:40 p.m.

Lunesta.3742:
The economy (and prices) were moving up over the first two weeks, but have definitely deflated over the last week. Exotic tailored good prices have gone from 30-40s over cost to 50-60s BELOW cost. Very strange, this has to be novel for a MMO.

When something new is first released, there is a set of early adapters who discover and profit off the new items/markets. Because there is relatively few early adapters, prices are artificially high as supply is much lower than demand. As more players enter the market, the the price falls.

(I wish I could insert graphs)

This is a change in market saturation. It happens in every mmo because the new markets are introduced so frequently.