james_joyce

I know, and I'm saying I think they're making a mistake by prioritizing RP over a seamless social experience. At least, I'm guessing more people are annoyed by the solo-only missions than like them, and I'm guessing very few people would be annoyed at not being able to PvP when the mission owner makes a choice they disagree with.

Again, I could be wrong about the preferences of most players, but I'd be surprised if I was.

I can understand your opinion, but I disagree - I would always prioritize a seamless social experience over a consistent RP experience. I don't have any data, but my sense is that most players do not RP, and definitely not to the extent that they would feel the urge to engage in PvP because the mission owner made a choice they disagreed with. I'm guessing most people just want to play through the content casually with their friends.

Now I could be wrong about that, and it might be the case that most people care about a consistent RP experience. I'd be very surprised, though, based on the sample of people I encounter while playing. I think it's a much bigger deal to prevent a group from playing through an entire arc than it would be to force the team to play a mission according to the owner's choices.

I strongly agree with this - any difficult group of mobs would be made far less frustrating if it didn't mean we had to sit around for 5 minutes waiting for our health to regen. There was a post about eliminating the recharge on Rest in beta, and as far as I can tell it would be impossible to abuse.

#2 also goes without saying, though I think that would require significantly more work, both design and code. I can't think off the top of my head a good way to do that, even conceptually, without significant rework of how missions are presented.

Go ahead and whip some of these up for us.

???

Sorry, all I had was my phone! EvilGeko did a much better job than I would have anyway, in that other thread. They didn't really spill any new info anyway.

Seriously?

wuh-oh

What you're saying is that certain items become really expensive, and not everyone can afford them. You're right, and this is, I think, as designed. Unlike the real world where we want as many people to have access to the best stuff as possible, we don't want that in a game where the best stuff is supposed to be rare, and you're supposed to expend effort to get it.
If purples were abundant and cheap, they wouldn't be working as intended.

Second, you're still ignoring that for every buyer there's a seller. Whenever someone pays a high price for something, that means someone on the other side got that inf. This works really well for lowbies who can rake in some serious cash for a stray rare drop.

I've seen several people make this claim. I'm not saying it's false - it might be true. But I'd like to see someone demonstrate that effect at a significant level. Even if it is true, I'm not sure it's a bad thing. This is a game and not real economy. Unlike reality, we don't want everyone getting everything cheaply, and we want some level of game to the market - otherwise you lose the much of the achievement aspect to the enhancement system.

So I don't fully disagree with what you're saying - I just don't think it's a problem in the context of a game economy.

I would argue there's a difference between guessing and making a prediction based on prior knowledge.

I don't want to speak for UberGuy, but in my estimation you're correct - any general rise in price levels is a reflection of inflation, and not of real prices. In other words, if you had more inf sinks or lower the rate of influx of inf it would lower prices on the market, but it would not mean that players could afford more items - it just means nominal prices are lower. Players would not be "wealthier."

The reason that might be a good thing is because the general price level will never reach the inf cap, which would be awkward, and because it would be slightly easier for new players to buy things on the market without selling anything.

The first might be a big deal, I don't know. The second I don't think is a big deal at all - new players should be encouraged to sell things. So while I'm in favor of more inf sinks, I don't think it's critical.

I don't actually have data suggesting that the general price level has been rising, though. I'm inferring that from the fact that new inf is constantly being streamed into the economy. There might be other factors at play, and I'd be curious to see if anyone's kept track of the price level over the market's entire existence.

I think this is correct and under appreciated. Prices are rising slowly because of inflation - not because of manipulations or the last 5 display. It's because inf is being devalued constantly.

Now, I actually don't think it's that big of a deal. As prices rise, it means sellers are making more, and able to buy just as much as they were before. But it will become a big deal if the general price level hits the inf cap.

I think more inf sinks are probably a good idea, though every time they add one people are going to complain about it.

It's not logically necessary - it was necessary for the game mechanics they're introducing in GR, and to improve the market's performance for villain-side players.

I'm not really trying to convince you to use the markets, but I'm just curious... if War Witch had got on and said, "Hey folks, even though the markets are merged mechanically for player convenience, our lore is that they are still separate - all bids are anonymous, so you can pretend the extra bids are coming from other NPC characters on your same side." Would you have a problem with it? In other words, can there ever be something that's mechanically true, but that you ignore for the purposes of RP?

I'm very confused by this definition of market.

What you're saying is that in order for the market to function properly, we have to have tens of thousands of each item for sale and bidding at any one time.

I haven't done the math, but it seems to me that's impossible even at WoW's subscription rates - unless you're proposing that the devs should reduce the amount of marketable goods.

Furthermore, isn't the blue-side market general considered to work well?

I think you're assuming an asymmetry of power. If what you say were true, it would be impossible for any sufficiently public person to keep any secrets whatsoever. That's clearly not the case. That's justified because just as there are psychics and clairvoyants scrutinizing things, there are also psychics and clairvoyants hiding things. You can't assume that the good guys have infinite perceptive power, but the bad guys have none.

I'm not saying this is the way the fiction plays out - just that it can be used as a justification for the fact that the world has important secrets kept from the public.

You're right, they don't - they're playing a game. But also, it's utterly impossible to have a sufficiently complex fictional world with no inconsistencies - much less a game world where fun often has to override fiction.

My free advice is to worry less about fictional inconsistencies in a generally very inconsistent game world.

For every buyer there's a seller. If prices do rise because of the merge, then you can make up the difference by selling your now more expensive drops.

However, there's no reason why prices should rise under a merge. They'll normalize between the two games, but they wont rise any more than they would anyway because of inflation.