Curse

Shadowspawn X · Jan 09, 2009, 10:52 PM // 22:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

Edit: @Shadowspawn. What "effect" on the economy. Z-keys just transfer money from one group of individuals to another. It does not "create" weath (like money droping on the ground) or "remove" it (ie, buying things from merchants). It has very minimal inflation/deflation effects.

This statement is absolutely wrong on every level. Zkeys are a currency that is created from nothing and floods the game once a month (Xunlai house payouts) in huge numbers. Here is a example I've used before:

The tonic of the month is for sale for 100e/z. The buyer gets his payoff from his XH predictions and coughs up 100 zkeys for the tonic. Now it should be clear to you that no gold is being transfered around period. The currency is being created from thin air and being inserted directly into the game.

Edit:

I nearly forgot to address your question on the effect this is having on the economy. Its called hyper-inflation. The economy is so bad that gold is losing its worth. The buying power of actual gold and plat is so low that the last 4 or 5 trades I have done (I'm not a big trader) people won't accept gold. Thats right. People don't want 100k +30e/z they only want 50e/z these days because everyone has a full storage of gold which has such low value its only worth a couple of everlasting tonics.

Martin Alvito · Jan 09, 2009, 11:02 PM // 23:02

Another economics thread. /sigh

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

A LOT of people where playing snowball arena during wintersday. The price drop we see over the past few weeks is due to the oversupply of faction that was spent on zkeys.

You don't know what you're talking about. The real increase in the supply of keys came from the massive number of reward points that were given to participants in the Snowball ATs. Teams that finished in the top 16 were getting something like 13-14 keys per player; 27 for top 8; 42 for top 4; 50 for finalist; 70 for champion.

That's three times per day (often 4-5 due to multiple groups in an AT), eight players per team. The amount of keys resulting from faction given out in the 4v4 arenas was DWARFED by this effect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

Edit: @Shadowspawn. What "effect" on the economy. Z-keys just transfer money from one group of individuals to another. It does not "create" weath (like money droping on the ground) or "remove" it (ie, buying things from merchants). It has very minimal inflation/deflation effects.

You don't know what you're talking about.

There's a fixed supply of the REALLY valuable stuff in this game. Req 8 rare skins, req 7's, ultra-rare minipets. These items are valuable because more of them are not being created (or close enough, with respect to minis).

Prices for these items are limited only by the capacity constraints of players. In other words, the market price is limited only by what players can pay.

Wealth in a trading economy tends to concentrate in a small number of hands, because money flows from poor traders to good traders.

It necessarily follows that there is a marginal, positive effect on what the wealthy can pay for ultra-rare items for every ZKey or ecto added to the system.

Such an effect is defined to be inflation. Thus, creating massive numbers of ZKeys is inflationary. QED.

Quote:

Originally Posted by crazybanshee

Basically, zkeys are a better currency option than ecto, and will probably remain pretty stable in price.

Sure, and housing prices will always go up, too.

ZKeys have the same problem as ecto - there's lots of them out there. If there's ever a major disturbance in the underlying in-game utility of ZKeys, you'll see the same sort of crash you saw in the ecto market when ANet broke Shadow Form in half. Everyone with a brain that has ZKeys will realize that the market is going to flood with them. That will result in a price drop, so the sensible thing to do is to sell now...which brings about the price drop, and the cycle repeats until people start seeing them to be "undervalued".

Gift3d · Jan 09, 2009, 11:05 PM // 23:05

There will always be pve players desperate to have an emote/better emote without needing to have time or talent to obtain it, i have no problem whatsoever selling them for 5k each, nor have i ever, nor do i believe i ever will.

GWEXTREEMFAN · Jan 09, 2009, 11:37 PM // 23:37

i can't remember ever opening z chest for everlastings...

Aussie Boy · Jan 10, 2009, 12:06 AM // 00:06

I sell mine for 4k cause I can't be bothered with that title or standing around ages just to sell for 5k
gee it's free money from predictions and i made 160k this month in a few min actualy
just from selling the 40 keys i traded for the XHP
I think the price will always remain at 5k or around that

Nessar · Jan 10, 2009, 12:30 AM // 00:30

Eh..its hard to sell for 5k imo. But zkeys will prolly remain around 4.5k-5kish perhaps. Depends on how patient people are with selling/buying...Also zkeys practically equal ecto...so they'll prolly always be 4.5k-5k...But this month tons of zkeys came from snowball and all that. So I've seen the price drop down to 4.2k.

But after this wintersday and junk, zkey prices will be more stable

rohara · Jan 10, 2009, 12:34 AM // 00:34

i still have no problem selling my zkeys for 5k a pop. granted, it takes longer than it used to because bulk buyers often look for a discount, but i don't see the price of zkeys dropping drastically anytime soon. as long as people want emotes and fancy items, the demand for zkeys will persist. the price drops ever so slightly around XTH prediction time, but that is to be expected.

snowball tourneys did wonders for my xunlai bank account

moriz · Jan 10, 2009, 12:48 AM // 00:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobulation

....Accept for the many, many 1000's+ being "created" per month.....

... which has no inherent value. the keys themselves do not generate gold, it is only worth a set amount of gold because players attach value to it.

AJD · Jan 10, 2009, 01:06 AM // 01:06

This thread is someone trying to bring the price down?

Icy The Mage · Jan 10, 2009, 01:08 AM // 01:08

So money is being transfered between players, no money is actually being injected to the game through these creation of Zaishen Keys (a.k.a. You can't sell Zaishen Keys to the merchant for gold) The occasional 300g value item from the z chest is the only thing that's being created.

Lycan Nibbler · Jan 10, 2009, 01:43 AM // 01:43

I agree with Martin Alvito having seen dth in just about every AT I was in too ^.^, there was a huge influx of keys over and above the normal amount due to the Snowball ATs which as such has depressed prices slightly towards 4.7k from the normal. There are still plenty of people going for the R3 for the HoM though to keep prices in the similar range to ectos.

Of course if they actually decided to add the rare minis as a rare drop from the chest (Polar Bear anyone?) then I'd imagine the price of keys to jump.. so as always we are at the mercy of anet

Shadowspawn X · Jan 10, 2009, 02:41 AM // 02:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by IcyFiftyFive

So money is being transfered between players, no money is actually being injected to the game through these creation of Zaishen Keys (a.k.a. You can't sell Zaishen Keys to the merchant for gold) The occasional 300g value item from the z chest is the only thing that's being created.

The zkeys are a currency not a commodity. Why people keep repeating some backwards theory of wealth transfer that makes no sense is beyond me. You can buy anything you want with zkeys which were created from nothing, you do not need other currency such as gold or ecto that was previously in the game. You can simply spend your zkeys. Which is basically a free monthly check.

You can't even buy a mod, tonic, mini pet, or rare weapon skin from the merchant so what the heck does that have to do with anything?

The Xunlai House is dropping at least 20 Million zkeys on this economy every month if there is a million accounts signed up with 100 rp's the average payout. That is like 20 million newly created ecto created from thin air. Thats why the prices in this game are out of control and will continue to get worse.

HawkofStorms · Jan 10, 2009, 04:36 AM // 04:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

... which has no inherent value. the keys themselves do not generate gold, it is only worth a set amount of gold because players attach value to it.

Bingo.

When you get 20 zkeys, you don't "introduce" 100k into the market. The 100k you get from selling them ALREADY existed in somebody elses invintory. It doesn't spawn wealth out of no where. All gold is created in this game comes from monster drops and items being sold to the merchant. How many "rare items" in the market might effect the value of that particular item, but it has no affect on the total amount of cash in the system. It doesn't matter if you sell a req 8 15^50 Crystaline for 999k to another player or a white non-max long sword for 999k to another player. In both situations, there is still only 999k worth of money involved.

Compare monthly z-keys to the MOX quests' reward. A.net has since come out and announced that gold reward (which was only 10k per character) actually had a severe impact on the economy, as they monitered the number of trades being made. That was A.net's excuse for not making the new Factions/Phrophecies/NF books retroactive, because they feared putting new gold into the system.

In a closed money market system, the amount of money in the total system is all that matters when determining prices, not how much money YOU personally have.

The only effect z-keys have on inflation is the merchant value of any of the gold item you get (which is minimal compared to farming).

Jensy · Jan 10, 2009, 06:14 AM // 06:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

When you get 20 zkeys, you don't "introduce" 100k into the market. The 100k you get from selling them ALREADY existed in somebody elses invintory. It doesn't spawn wealth out of no where.

This.

People don't open the chest solely for everlastings, you know. Some people like to gamble, some people want to work on the title, some people just hate selling (because yeah, standing around GTOB AD1 is hazardous to your brain, ugh)... there's a lot of reasons.

warrior running · Jan 10, 2009, 06:25 AM // 06:25

the prices will not lower as long as the tonics keeps coming

HawkofStorms · Jan 10, 2009, 07:25 AM // 07:25

Another point to reemphize. It doesn't matter how much money YOU have, but the system as a whole. Even if you've gotten fithly rich off of selling z-keys, by definition, someone else (the guy buying from you) has gotten just as poor as you are rich. And if that guy who bought from you gets a super rare item, then the guy who buys that item from HIM becomes equally poor. There is no new money introduced. There is no inflation.

Anyway, the economy was WAY screwed up long before the z-title was added. I still think inscriptions, GW:EN farming for mods, and the crash of ecto to less then 8-9k had a more adverse affect on the economy then z-keys. If anything, z-keys have made sales easier, by creating a desirable tradeable commodity.

Shadowspawn X · Jan 10, 2009, 08:01 AM // 08:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

The 100k you get from selling them ALREADY existed in somebody elses invintory.

That's an irrelevant tidbit of useless information. All you are doing here is talking about currency exchange. The guy just traded the equivalent of 100 pennies in for 20 nickels. But the 20 nickels came from thin air.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

It doesn't spawn wealth out of no where.

Unearned currency is put on your account monthly. Yes that is wealth spawning from nowhere.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

All gold is created in this game comes from monster drops and items being sold to the merchant.

Gold is not the only form of currency in this game. Do I seriously have to link you to a definition of currency?

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

That was A.net's excuse for not making the new Factions/Phrophecies/NF books retroactive, because they feared putting new gold into the system.

So I got screwed out of 500k ish luxon faction for my three canthan guardians because it would screw up the economy? No I doubt it

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

The only effect z-keys have on inflation is the merchant value of any of the gold item you get (which is minimal compared to farming).

So thousands of players with a pocket full of unearned zkeys bidding up the prices on thousands of items has no effect on the economy? Your grasp of economics is just horrible.

cthulhu reborn · Jan 10, 2009, 09:30 AM // 09:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by unkleanone

Zkeys will stay stable at 5k as long as people continue to refuse to sell lower and people refuse to buy higher. If too many people start to try and undercut others to sell their keys faster the price will fall. This goes the other way too if enough people begin to sell keys at a higher price the price will rise.

Yeah but that doesn't happen in reality. People get more keys more easily, they will give discounts for higher numbers of keys. As title hunters progress they need insanely more and more keys to get to the next level and so want bigger stacks and bigger discounts. People want to make money and so they will accept a slightly lower selling price.

I would suspect that the current prices on the WTB side that are currently around 4.6/4.7k will not necessarily go up again. So I expect that the prices will slowly go down. I don't think they will be worthless, but they may go down to around 4k during this year. There still is a demand for them and you really need an absolute insane amount of keys to max this title.

*lemming* · Jan 10, 2009, 11:05 AM // 11:05

There's a lot of awful economics in this thread.

zwei2stein · Jan 10, 2009, 11:21 AM // 11:21

Last time i checked (two months ago), there were ~ 120 000 accounts registered on XTH.

1 million keys per month is not unreasonable expectation.

Do with this whatever you want.