View User's Journal

Notes From Gaia

Random thoughts from inside Gaia

Report This Entry Subscribe to this Journal



Development Update / Gold Grants Dev notices have really taken out the need for a journal, to some extent, but I did want to talk at some length about the economy and some of the changes that we're making. Note that I'm not an economist, so anything here that is correct is as a result of discussions with Sagger-AT3, and anything that is incorrect is undoubtedly my fault. Also, to some extent I'm trying to get the main idea across, but with anything in economics there are all sorts of edge cases and caveats. What Is Inflation? Inflation is a general rise in the cost of goods; basically, the notion that you were able to buy more last year with 100g than this year. Note that inflation is different than appreciation, which is the tendency of an item to rise in price as it ages. From our point of view, the ideal situation is that a user can buy an item for 100g, sell it a year later, and come out ahead in real terms after adjusting for inflation. Bad metaphor: One way to think of inflation is to think of gold as seed corn, and virtual items as birds. Throw more seed corn out there, and each bird is going to eat more (i.e., inflate). Throw more birds out there, and each bird gets less corn. Updated: Apparently, a very confusing AND bad metaphor. Okay, the main point here is that inflation is actually controlled by two countervailing influences: adding gold to the gold supply is inflationary, while creating new virtual items in the world is deflationary. Note that anything user-to-user is either neutral or slightly deflationary. Inflation and Gaia The quick answer: We're trying to fix inflation because we want the user to feel like items are attainable on the marketplace. If prices are increasing faster than you can earn gold, then it becomes very discouraging. The longer answer: actually, what we're really trying to fix is the balance between different features. BG and zOMG outshadow anything else in terms of earning potential -- which means that either a) you play BG or zOMG to earn gold for your items, or b) you don't, and you just watch the price of the item always be unattainable. With recent changes this ratio is better, and we're hoping to adjust it further still. By adjusting the balance we're trying to make items on the marketplace attainable for people doing lots of different activities on Gaia. Inflation and the Marketplace The price of an item, ultimately, is influenced upward by a) the desirability of the item (i.e., cats tend to do well), b) the rarity of the item, and c) the amount of gold that people have available. Desirability we have some control over, but really, our optimum course is to try and make the items as good possible. Rarity really all depends on how many users like and buy the item (and is therefore correlated with desirability). Bringing down marketplace prices requires either marketplace manipulation (a la price caps, which we've said we won't do) or re-releases (which we've said we won't do) or... getting more virtual items out there to chase a decreasing gold supply. That's what we're working on. Side note 1: many people hate the hoarders that put stuff on the marketplace for tens of millions, but really, that doesn't cause inflation. They'll either a) get someone to pay their price, in which case the item is actually worth it, and we deduct 2% of 10m from the gold supply, or b) it isn't worth it, in which case no harm is done. Side note 2: the 2% marketplace tax, as hated as it is, is one of our most consistent, best performing gold sinks. If I ever get to the point where I don't have enough stress in my life, I'll propose raising it to 2.25%. Inflation and Cash Shop Also: Does Gaia Want To Reduce Gold Grants to Force People To Buy Gaia Cash? There is some evidence that indicates that high inflation actually gives people a reason to buy. This is because cash is a non-inflated currency buying into an inflating gold pool. Nonetheless, it would be better for gameplay to balance everything out, so that's what we're doing. Also: But Isn't Cash Shop The Cause of Inflation? Cash Shop is actually a strong deflationary influence; if we didn't have Cash Shop then our problems would be substantially worse. Cash Shop introduces new virtual items into the system, so you have the same amount of gold chasing more items, leading to overall deflation. Also: But RIGs Are The Cause of Inflation Usually the focus here is sellback values for the fail items. However, consider the life cycle of a RIG: - user exchanges RIG for a random item - deflationary - user keeps - deflationary - user sells on marketplace - deflationary - user 2 buys from user, then sells on marketplace - deflationary - user gets fail item, sells on marketplace - deflationary - user gets fail item, sells back - inflationary When you add everything up (i.e., 2% tax from marketplace), it is equal to or more than the amount of gold generated from a sellback; and, most of the time, you're left with another virtual item. As a result, RIGs are deflationary. Why Are You Picking on BG / zOMG Because, together, they represented 80-90% of the total gold generation in Gaia. Why Pick On BG? It turned out that 30-35% of the gold being generated by BG was botted gold. Botted gold is pretty harmful in a number of ways; it takes a lot of time from our staff to go after and clean up bots, and it impacts the community when someone has to have a trading pass revoked because they were involved in transactions with botted gold. So, given a choice between botted gold and non-botted gold, we usually try to resolve botted gold first, because a) it impacts the community negatively, and b) you fix it, see the effects, and then decide if you need to fix things further. (There are still issues with BG, with the main one being immortal fish -- but leave that for another journal entry, we're still doing an analysis on it). Why Pick on zOMG? So, the issue with zOMG was different. It wasn't a botting problem, but an issue with entirely too much gold being given out. So, what we did today was this: - take everyone that played the game yesterday (about 12k people) - sort them - look at how much the top 1% made - made that the cutoff, and reduce gold payouts once you hit cutoff Picking 1% was perhaps a little arbitrary, but it makes a real difference. The top 1% made 25-30% of the total gold created by zOMG yesterday. We'll be looking at the results over the weekend and then decide how to proceed. Why Pick On my favorite feature Ah, this is the fun thing about trying to fix gold granting: everyone believes that you should try to fix inflation, but they don't want you to touch their feature. A frequent refrain: "You can't reduce the amount of gold I get, because I need it to afford the massive prices." The very reason those items are so expensive is because we're giving out so much gold. So What Next? We'll be doing changes constantly to grants to try and get them adjusted to where we want them. Goldsinks are unequivocally good, so we're going to do more of those. Don't expect prices to immediately drop -- it takes a while for economic changes to propagate -- but making these changes will make for a more stable economy. While your gold earnings may decrease, you'll still be able to buy the items you want with approximately the same amount of effort; however, you'll be able to reasonably earn it in many different ways, instead of just limiting you to just two flash games. This was a super high level view. Questions below -- you ask 'em, I'll answer 'em.

Posted by: Panagrammic Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 09:58am

Read my journal!

User Comments: [91] Viewing page 0 of 2 · Goto Page: 1 2 » [add]

armadillodreamer
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 02:33pm


	It's not a solution, exactly, but have you considered re-releasing more of the really popular items? For instance, a some of the most expensive items are RIG items, and there was never any promise that you wouldn't re-release those. Increasing the supply of some of the high-demand items would bring down the price. It would also anger the people who wanted massive profit, but bugger them.

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 02:50pm


	I agree with armadillodreamer. Rereleasing some of the more expensive RIG items would be amazing and make them more affordable. I would buy some of those items up like crazy if I could even consider getting that amount of gold. What about the lurker users however? You are increasing gold grants for other stuff besides those two games, but what about the users who just look around all the time? Will surfing Gaia have a gold grant increase too? I don't think I saw anything about this in here but I might of missed it XD

npulse
Community Member

Offline

hillary84
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 03:36pm


	I'm glad the botters were eliminated. it was making it difficult for those of us who have difficulty earning gold to keep up with everyone else. Thank you so much for letting us know about new features.

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 03:39pm


	Thanks very much for this entry Pan. While there is no doubt that the Dev Notices are excellent for getting the "encapsulated" information out to us, and are greatly appreciated, more complex and globally impactful issues such as inflation and the efforts to control it, are definitely worthy of greater explanation. I only hope that enough people read this to finally bring the caterwauling surrounding Gaia's attempts to reduce inflation to an end. Making more items, more affordable, for more people is undoubtedly good for everyone, and I appreciate the efforts of yourself and the rest of the team on our behalf. Stick with it, hang tough, and don't let the bawing of the vocal, self centered minority get to you. There was one bit of salient information that I was looking for and did not see. You mentioned a point in gold accretion in zOMG at which the payouts would be reduced, but did not provide a number. While I am more than confident that I will not be affected by it, knowing what that cut-off point is would certainly inform the discussion and calm the nerves of those who erroneously perceive themselves as being negatively impacted and shine a light on those who selfishly feel that they should be able to advance their own situations to the detriment of the general populace.

WideEyed
Community Member

Offline

Tantooden
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 04:11pm


	This really will calm some of the discussion in all the guilds, I belong. cool And actually all what you've said in my opinion is quite correct though the example of the chicks is not quite clear for me. Now, about the tax, I personally do not have a complaint about, given that the taxes on real life are higher (12%,15%, 25%, 41%,65%) But I really would like that we could sell on decimal too...though thinking about it we do not have cents denominations. In addition to the second poster...We the lurkers do not earn that much for surfing just 2,4,15gg and we actually only represent around of 0.5% of the population. My guessing. Also another addition to the second poster...that would be an amazing idea, sell stuff from the rig but would be better if this were put in a gold sink as a random roulette game or something like.

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 05:02pm


	I must give you guys credit for seriously thinking through the options you have come up with to battle the inflation here. A round of applause for those behind the scenes! I just want to understand one area better: When I sell back itmes because I really see no point in flooding the marlet with thousands of the 4th amigo pants... am I creating inflation? I enjoyed the Valentine's Day event and laughed at how much gold I spent. I know I was broke more than once during it. I was forced to sell items and play BG just so I could send more valentine's, LOL! I know others mostly likely spent more than I did, but I was happy to help get some gold out of the economy. Thank you for noticing there was an issue and for working so hard to correct it!

GrafinGothicwar
Community Member

Offline

Shadey Kitty
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 05:10pm


	Quote: Rarity really all depends on how many users like and buy the item (and is therefore correlated with desirability). Bringing down marketplace prices requires either marketplace manipulation (a la price caps, which we've said we won't do) or re-releases (which we've said we won't do) or... getting more virtual items out there to chase a decreasing gold supply. That's what we're working on. I respectfully disagree. The rarity of items doesn't always depend on how many users like and buy the item. It depends on the availability. Some items were created to be rare on purpose by Gaia - Lucky the Cat, for example and by some degree, does indeed have an effect on the MP. Many users would absolutely LOVE to buy the item but can't because Gaia made it so rare. This in turn causes MP sellers to list the few available at extremely high prices and in this case, out of reach for most people who desire to have it. While I agree that MCs should not ever be re-released, other extremely rare items that are not MCs could be re-released. I hope that is rather what you meant when you said: Quote: ...getting more virtual items out there to chase a decreasing gold supply. That's what we're working on The History of Bootygrab Taps Please?

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 05:20pm


	Thank you for all that you do. 3nodding

pirhan
Community Member

Offline

Citrus Limonium
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 06:15pm


	ＣＩＴＲＵＳＬＩＭＯＮＩＵＭ I'm glad you made the point about people who say that they need ncreased gold drops to afford the items. I just wanna punch those people in the face. XD But anyway, thanks for all the work you and the other sat Gaia HQ do! ^_^

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 06:31pm


	Since the gold grants from BG and zOMG are being lowered, will you the higher the gold grants for stuff like Pinball?

Boosted Panda
Community Member

Offline

Semper Tigris
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 06:57pm


	I have a response to your little piece about the Cash Shop and inflation. 1, but not so important, it sounds messed up as eff that you're trying to "force" us to buy GC. But that's not what I want to talk about. 2, and what I'm here to ask about is the Gold Shops. Why not put more work into making bigger, better Gold Shop updates. When people buy items from Gold Shops they take money out of the system as well. Perhaps consider this idea to make a middle class shop which would likely be more effective than DC is. Even if people sold back to the inventory, you sell it for half of what you bought it, so technically over all half of the items money is still gone from the system. If people chose to sell to the MP then there's the 2% tax. I know there are lots of color schemes and colors of items missing, and using the Gold Shops more would be a good gold sink. I understand your busy, but a response to this would be pretty nice. (Also, I wouldn't mind a 3% MP tax >> wink*

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 07:06pm


	While some may really want an item, no one needs it. This is not the case with aquarium fish. The Booty Grab community really needs you to do something about fish prices now. We can not afford to just wait for prices to stabilize.

Not Glowing
Community Member

Offline

beckygrendel
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 07:53pm


	Thanks for your efforts to combat inflation. Every little bit will help. 3nodding Based on my testing, the cutoff point is 100k. Yes, for the first time ever, I played a mind-numbing 100k+ worth of Papa Saw today. Once I hit 100k, my payouts were reduced by half. 100k a day should be PLENTY for everyone. heart Off to put a cold compress on my eyes now... eek

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 07:57pm


	Pan, quick question: Could we possibly (sooner or later) get a public announcement about this subject? I can already feel that we'll get self-entitled users who will DEMAND an answer to the reason their daily abused gold dwindled even just a slight bit. (side note: I recently had my autocash hiccup, any chance I could wrangle one of you devs to take a look at it?)

Gabriel Faust
Community Member

Offline

GioHawkins
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 08:14pm


	Quote: If I ever get to the point where I don't have enough stress in my life, I'll propose raising it to 2.25% actually I really happy of that way, and many control in the MP isn't a measure to set aside inflation, but it is a cushioning reasonable I don't know maybe you could make a range between the prices of "store price" of any item, like some rigs items have, and the reasonable price of the item, because some items have insane prices like 50 millions, I know they are unique, but for me, is an insane price

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 08:22pm


	Have some luv <3 A silent and possibly clueless majority will eventually unconsciously thank Gaia for this xD

gataka
Community Member

Offline

Elen_Gilthoniel
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 08:26pm


	I wish I could <3 this journal, Pan. It was very informative and really laid things out in an understandable way for those who have questions and concerns about inflation and gold drops/sinks on Gaia. Thank you for posting this. =3

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 08:26pm


	I'm happy this has been done. Changes like this can be hard to notice the resignal effects over time but it seems that it's being checked on. For someone who really isn't effected by the drops in a negative way (don't play BG or zomg much) it's nice to have gold go back into forum posting, the good old standards and new features like omgpop to pull peoples attention to the sponsored links. I certainly hope this change of gold gain can help the site out over all.

JeeszyCreezy
Community Member

Offline

neufchatel
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 09:04pm


	Thanks for going into such depth on this subject. I'm confident that you guys are making the right decisions over in Gaia HQ. Pan, you rock. 3nodding

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 09:18pm


	Thank you for this explanation. I agree with armadillodreamer.that it might be good to release more of some of the super rare and over priced items. The more there are of something, the lower the price should be, right? I mean I would like a kitten star, but I can see I will never get one crying

RafiCat
Community Member

Offline

deadrun
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 09:49pm


	Pan, you are a force for good! I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking so much time to not only share information with us, but make it easier to find. the dev notice feature was long overdue! :3 this is a great write up, I would also like to join the others in encouraging you guys to add more gold sinks. I think that prize and joy is under used when you consider how much gold slots could remove from the economy. I'm really excited that it's being updated a little more frequently now. denircri was also a great idea but the high price tag scares a lot of users and the uncertainty of whether you can even buy the item before the shop disappears makes the idea of questing for a dc item seem fruitless, but I wonder what if we had a 500k-1mil premium gold shop that was a little more reliable?

Commented on: Sat Mar 12, 2011 @ 09:50pm


	@armadillo, @npulse: We've said we won't do mass re-releases. If a user spent a lot of gold/cash to get the original item, then they would be pretty peeved if we came out with the item again and drove down the value of their investment. That said, limited re-releases are okay, and we have some ideas on how to get some of the older items circulating in the marketplace again AND make them good goldsinks. Recolors / variants are a possibility (although even on recolors we get a lot of complaints from the original owners). We'll be taking a look at a bunch of different grants and tweaking them; we haven't looked at the page view grants yet. @WideEyed: The zOMG curve kicks in a little bit at 100k, but at 150k the earnings go to 10%. Only 1% of zOMG players earn more than 150k (although if you go to the zOMG forums it seems like 110% of players earn more than 150k, sigh). It was the simplest curve we could implement for the weekend as an experiment. We'll be changing it / tweaking it over time, along with everything else. @GrafinGothicwar: nominally, but a) event items tend to have low sellbacks, and b) items purchased from the store sell back at 50%, so it's really not a big issue. @Shadey Kitty: in the end the user decides if it's worth it, and it's entirely dependent on the item itself. Let's say we have a RIG that has a 5% chance of giving out either of the following two items: - angelic cat halo katana: greatly desired! - something i found in my pocket I don't know what it is: not desired at all The prices for the two items will be very different because the first one is innately more desirable -- that is, more people and more gold is trying to acquire it. Now, you'll concede, I think, that if we were selling the items individually in the Cash Shop that we should price the first one higher than the second, right? It's a better item, much cooler. The RIG percentages are actually a reflection of that. If we think users would like the katana 5x better than the random something, then we should make the percentages say that. @Man_I_Jizzed2: Jigsaw first, I think. The payout you get for the hard puzzles is ridiculously low. But we'll be looking at the games in turn. @WhiteTiger15: we pretty consistently have been doing gold shop updates every month or so. @Not Glowing: yeah, fish in the marketplace are horribly inflated. It's complicated, though, because there are about four or five things going on there: a) fish being the first line of virtual items hit by BG-generated gold, b) pricing based on the lifespans of immortal fish, c) lack of fluidity in the marketplace due to fish being frozen in the aquarium, d) first and second-order repercussions from the large number of bots, and e) tons of other smaller factors that are influencing behavior. @Gabriel Faust: Yeah... maybe... I can talk to the writers. It's a tricky subject. The problem is that economics is so complicated, and there are a lot of misconceptions, and if we make an announcement then SF will be pelted with complaint threads.

Panagrammic
Community Member

Offline

Rabid-Turtle
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sun Mar 13, 2011 @ 02:22am


	Gaia Wants To Reduce Gold Grants to Force People To Buy Gaia Cash I know every business needs money to operate but this statement really irks me and makes me not want to purchase cash in the future. We shouldn't have to be forced to buy gaia cash. We should buy it because we want to obtain items while making a contribution to the site. This statement establishes the feeling that gaia only wants whats in our wallets and not our customer loyalty. In regards to zOMG! In my opinion a lot of users are upset about the granting adjustment to zOMG! not necessarily because of the lack of profit (the economy does need balancing) but because the entire community has a shared feeling that Gaia has left the game neglected for far too long and that we will never see any new content. Many users have stated that the grant adjustment is "just another attack on the community". From our perspective we feel that the Dev team was completely dismantled in favor of a facebook application and in the past 3 years of its existence it has not received any substantial updates aside from the most recent boardwalk which is still not finished and the Coliseum which was not as well received as one would hope. A common thought amongst the zOMG! community is that if we had received more updates (newer areas etc..) then the game would have more value, a larger player base and that the same quests would not be repeated over and over and over again as we would be busy with new quests, new recipes and one would hope an expanded storyline. I know we are a small percentage of the over all user base, but we are still your customers and you have left us feeling very hurt and undervalued. I'm aware that my opinion may not be taken into consideration but therein lies part of the problem. I'm aware this is a comment not a question but I felt it needed to be said none the less. If you actually took the time to read this then thank you. - Rabid-Turtle

Commented on: Sun Mar 13, 2011 @ 02:38am


	I think there wouldn't be such fuss in the Zomg community if it was stated that only people making over 100k a day would be affected. The vagueness scares people. Also some people are paranoid that gaia is trying to kill zomg activity to justify cutting off development of it altogether later.

kota12
Community Member

Offline

Panagrammic
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sun Mar 13, 2011 @ 02:56am


	@Rabid: please read the text immediately following; I am trying to explain why that viewpoint is not valid.

Commented on: Sun Mar 13, 2011 @ 02:59am


	Crafting/various exchange things (trash, bugs, fish) are deflationary, right? They're all about making something desirable out of crap, to exchange for Gold or keep. Why is it not more supported/widespread/common? Can haz Epics?

gataka
Community Member

Offline

kota12
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sun Mar 13, 2011 @ 03:17am


	Swarf mentioned that zOMG was originally planned to be a gold sink. What was the plan for that? Recipes?

Commented on: Sun Mar 13, 2011 @ 04:43am


	I'd like to thank you for taking the time and energy to sort out a problem not caused by you. You, in a way, have signed yourself up for war and taken a few bullets in the chest in order help the community not only try to come to an agreement of sorts but also an understanding of how things work. Gaia HQ better be giving you either a pay raise or a REALLY big bonus for Christmas!

SS2-SITH LORD
Community Member

Offline

David2074
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sun Mar 13, 2011 @ 07:26am


	Pan, Thank you for this update and the other information you share. Would you please address the future of booty grab? Does Gaia plan to introduce any fish and/or rebalance things in such a way tank owners can earn a modest profit? I'm not saying huge gold but enough the tank owner can at least afford replacement fish from MP for his/her efforts. One solution that has been suggested is adjusting the percentage of gold tank owners receive in conjunction with reducing the total overall amount of gold given out. The alternative is likely booty grab fading away and Gaia only selling fish to decorative tank owners. I'm guessing that represents significantly less fish sales cash for Gaia. Most HT tank owners I have spoken to about it say they do not intend to keep supporitng fish if they can't at least pay for themselves. That may be Gaia's intent but I'd appreciate clarification on whether it is or isn't.

Commented on: Sun Mar 13, 2011 @ 02:54pm


	Pan - I was specifically thinking about re-releasing RIG items. Like, take Warmth of Apollo. It was the super-cute, super-rare RIG pet...when? So long ago that I cannot remember! That's the sort of item that could be released in other RIGs a bit more frequently, I think. There was never any promise about those items staying rare, as I recall. Actually, when RIGs were first released, I was under the impression that they were going to work like that (with rare items becoming more common as time went by) and was disappointed to learn that wasn't the case. Can't wait to see this goldsink plan of yours! smile

armadillodreamer
Community Member

Offline

Uriel Ledon
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sun Mar 13, 2011 @ 04:02pm


	Oh timid sky, I walk alone. I think what you're doing with the inflation and all is great. My only suggestion is that you don't add /too/ many gold sinks before seeing how things pan out. If everything works as well, or better than you hope, then it's possible there won't be a need for more gold sinks. I could be wrong. All I'm saying is don't nerf things unnecessarily. And you haven't so far. You have my trust! Oh deadly sky, I walk along this path to heaven.

Commented on: Sun Mar 13, 2011 @ 05:55pm


	Dood, were just gonna boycott, that or just quit. but yeah why the zOMGers we like getting our vast amount of gold and looking at the prices and being all like"donate and help me spoil myself" thats kinda why alot of people have friends on gaia. also the prices coming down might be bad becuase the person can miss out on the chance of getting that item they want to some one who's just gonna sell it for a crazy price. people wont really lower the prices becuase of those who wont bigger gold. so give us back our zomg gold pwease. or face my army......... remeber vote rogue for facist president. if i crawl into a shell, would you follow me? if i fell from the sky, would your nurse me? if i love you, would love me back? because the answer to all this from to you would always be yes. i also battle pm or comment me

rogue illusions
Community Member

Offline

Mus maddie
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sun Mar 13, 2011 @ 06:42pm


	Thank you, Pan, for taking the time to write this up and clarifying it where necessary. 3nodding heart

Commented on: Sun Mar 13, 2011 @ 07:43pm


	I still think instead of punishing farmers for finding a way to get gold because it's hard enough to get gold that you should cap the market. A 20mil cap isn't too bad in all honesty. The price of teh sash, the price of the d-tail...things of that nature? Are unobtainable now for some of us who can't afford to give you money because, hey, maybe some of are older and have kids to take care of. shakes head At this point, you're gonna lose a LOT of people. Sasha.30. mommy to Laela Rose. your art there <<<. always like arts. I am a mule. My main is Little Stormy Kitten Rela status: single. Lesbian. white body dye 5/1000 questing an Agate Ticket

Stormy Whispers
Community Member

Offline

Tasn Zheng
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sun Mar 13, 2011 @ 08:29pm


	Many thanks, Pan, for making this entry and explaining what exactly was done. I for one support this nerf as the marketplace prices for items have been driving me batty lately. The complainers in z!F can get stuffed for all I care; there was just far too much gold being introduced into the system. Could it be possible for more gold shop items to be made rather than cash shops, though? I mean, as I understand it, buying items from gold shop immediately removes that bit of gold used to purchase from the user economy, correct? And as suggested in an above comment, perhaps more desirable items that require crafting will also be a good gold sink.

Commented on: Sun Mar 13, 2011 @ 09:11pm


	You're talking about adding more virtual items to prevent inflation in the economy. Now, by this, are you talking adding more and more cash shop items? This is a typical argument I know you've heard. I'm a college student. I can't afford to pay real money for gaia cash. Any virtual item I buy is from the marketplace with gold only. The high gold prices for gaia cash items limit what I can buy, and it discourages me from buying them because they're not in a range of my budget. So, my question is, how will adding more virtual items help those who cannot afford to buy gaia cash or afford to pay the high amounts for the items in the marketplace?? Secondly off, what will happen with gold shop updates? I know they happen about once a month, but there's never any set schedule to them as they are now anyway. The last one wasn't actually items, anyway. It was strictly a gold sink thing: hair and eyes. I feel like the desire for wig items is greater than disposable hair, and the desire for items over either wigs, hair, or eyes, is definitely greater as well. Are you just going to stop updating the gold shops and focus more on the cash shop updates? Or... make them less frequent? or what? I generally like gold shop items, and have the ability to purchase them, unlike the virtual items. I would like to be sure that you will still be releasing these items for users who don't have the time to sit on booty grab all day long and spend 200k+ on tens and hundreds of desired virtual items. I think the gold shops are a good way to suck money out of the economy, and feel there need to be more items released more frequently as well.

dizziedobsession
Community Member

Offline

MaskedImposter
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Sun Mar 13, 2011 @ 09:41pm


	I guess this is a question for Sagger-AT3, but does this mean now is the time to sell all our super high gold items then buy them back in like half a year? xP

Commented on: Sun Mar 13, 2011 @ 10:07pm


	If you really want to kill inflation you should re-release some of the popular RIG's and monthly collectibles. Granted you will just probably ignore me and I might get flamed to death but seriously, why cant Gaia re-release some popular monthly collectibles. Introduce more items to the limited supply, that should do the trick.

Testicular Diabeetus
Community Member

Offline

Fenix_Professionals mule
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Mon Mar 14, 2011 @ 12:37am


	Hi, your chances made me together with other players of gaia more of 120 millions golds. For example i hoarded 4 or 5 turbo packs for 320ks, when i check 3 days later the item cost only 200ks, 3 weeks later the item that i bought for 320ks cost only 75ks in the marketplace. What will happen to those who hoarded when they where in 2,3, 4 millions and months later you can find it for 500ks and less? What happen with: more time you hold more value your item take? You have to think in your old players that play the marketplace and hoard. I can say more how this will affect old players that sell and buy every weeks in this game. (Please quote )

Commented on: Mon Mar 14, 2011 @ 08:16am


	As to the cash shop, mp and rig's I couldn't agree with you more but as far as "unattainable items" there are only really a handful. 90% of items are attainable if you work hard enough for them... just my opinion though. Most of the people who complain about inflation are the ones who don't want to work for the item or don't have the time to dedicate to such cause (which is prob a good thing... for them wink ). I had never had any problem giving my hard earned money to Gaia until the aquarium nerfings and have not since. If you guys can fix that issue I'm (as well as others) back on board with G-Cash. wink The problem with fish inflation is the increasingly lack of high trigger fish due to ther cash shop removal. All profitable (desirable) fish have been removed and the rarity of said fish have made them impossible to attain at a price that is profitable for the owner. If the owner has zero chance of profitability then they will cease to buy leading to the eventual "death" of BG. I'm not saying owners deserve huge profits from their investment but a moderate gain should be attainable. As BG stands now its future is very bleak and full of uncertainty... a lot of us are just waiting to see if changes are for the better or worse just so we can decide to go ahead or jump off a sinking ship. xd On the subject of "Immortal" fish I have no problem with you killing them off as long as its done accurately taking care to not kill fish that are glitched but have not lived out their lifespan (barrets tank fish). Anyone who says that they "deserve" immortal fish is in the wrong as it was an unintentional glitch (which happened to 90% of the tanks during the strike... i do feel kinda bad/responsible about that sad ). As to the curve on zomg I don't think its all that bad but i do think it will drive off a large portion of longtime users from a game that was already loosing a substantial amount of players due to lack of updates. I don't think yer picking on BG. I think yer trying to do right by us but we've been messed with so long with all the "secret" nerfings and such that were frustrated and sometimes you take the bulk of it. Don't take anything we say personally just keep yer head up and keep doing what yer doing. wink

Lord Uesugi Kenshin
Community Member

Offline

Critically Ashamed
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Mon Mar 14, 2011 @ 03:57pm


	^_^

Commented on: Mon Mar 14, 2011 @ 10:05pm


	You said these 1% of zOMG players are earning like 30% of the gold a day. That might be true, but in the same way don't these 1% make up for an equal percentage of the activity in zOMG? Take them away and Gold Beach will be deserted... I'm not basically against the gold drain, but then again zOMG is already doing hard with attracting people and now you are even giving the core players reasons to play less. I really hope the curve will be fixed in some way to prevent this.

Akuyi
Community Member

Offline

Rabid-Turtle
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Tue Mar 15, 2011 @ 03:04am


	Thanks Pan that makes more sense now. I appreciate you taking the time to read my comments I know your getting a lot of mixed emotions thrown at you over the whole thing and your taking the time to explain it all is very beneficial. I know you guys have the sites best interest at heart. - Rabid-Turtle

Commented on: Tue Mar 15, 2011 @ 04:08am


	So I get the fact your trying to lower inflation and I appreciated greatly. I have a question you see I bough a fortune ring so I could earn more gold then my fellow team mates or anyone that doesn't have that ring but I instead of getting more gold I am earning the same amount sometimes even less. Is it because of the trying to lessen the gold zOMG gives out?

Quesby
Community Member

Offline

-Vampire_of_Nyx-
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Tue Mar 15, 2011 @ 07:19am


	Why wont you add a MarketPlace cap tho

Commented on: Tue Mar 15, 2011 @ 08:39am


	I think making the grant on booty grab 1:1 will cause more inflation.. How manytimes in a day would they glow? They'd even make more gold... and I agree with Arma re-releasing the expensive rigs will prolly lessen it's demand thus inflation might be controlled. Remembered what her teacher told her...about the law of supply and demand.

chiisai-akanbo
Community Member

Offline

Coniglietto
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Tue Mar 15, 2011 @ 12:04pm


	Completely support the changes. Keep up the good work. heart

Commented on: Tue Mar 15, 2011 @ 02:40pm


	I understand that Gold Shop updates are pretty consistent. But like I was saying, if they were bigger or better quality then the price for them could be jacked up a little bit which would help get rid of gold. Not everyone wants to, or can afford to, spend Gaia Cash. So focusing a little more on an original feature - the gold shops - would be pretty nice

Semper Tigris
Community Member

Offline

integer01853
Community Member

Offline

Commented on: Tue Mar 15, 2011 @ 09:02pm


	Pan, I was wondering if you could address the reason the reduction of players to 9 for a full game with a 1:1 split was so short-lived, (less than 24 hrs). I'm wondering if you were able to see something in the numbers you tracked that made you revert back to the original gameplay or if complaining from gaians caused that. It just didn't seem like a long enough trial to really evaluate strategies for players/owners.

Commented on: Tue Mar 15, 2011 @ 09:11pm


	@David2074: yeah, hopefully we can make it so that the more advanced tanks earn the most profit, but even a small tank can earn profit with some work. We'll see if we can get all the numbers to work out. @integer01853: yeah, we got enough information. It didn't appear to help mid-level tanks very much, so we reverted it so that we could set up for another experiment.

Panagrammic
Community Member

Offline

User Comments: [91] Viewing page 0 of 2 · Goto Page: 1 2 » [add]

Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

View User's Journal

More Information