Gold Farmer Theory

As most of you know, Wildhammer is among the newest PvP realms. What you don't know is there is a fuckton of chinese farmers on both side, usually rogues and hunters. The /w and /t in chinese and break very broken English and it pisses the fuck out of everyone. Now you usually don't hear about farmers on other realms anymore and why is that?

My theory is that farmers rush into new server principally to gather gold. Obviously the gold dealers need actual in-game gold to work with before they can ply their trade. You could try hacking into Blzzard's systems and give certain characters gold, but that's unlikely to work. So gathering gold it is. You get employed farmers who have to met quotas and send their money to a character who serves as the gold repository for the company in question (usually IGE) and then you have freelancers who sell their gold for money to other companies.

But after a certain time the farmers seem to disappear, and why is that? So far we talk of economic ruination at the hands of not only gold farmers but golkd buyers as well. But there is a 3rd faction that completes that process, Gold Sellers. My theory is that the reason gold farmers eventually leave is gold sellers completely support the gold trading business after a time. We're not talking company employees and such, we're talking average people who play to 60 and become bored, but feel they can earn some money on the side while they play. So they sell gold they acquire to IGE and other companies for money. It's these players that manage to support the gold traders enough to justify pulling the gold farmers out. At least the company ones, I'm sure the freelancers still hang out and earn gold to sell to the traders.

If you think about it, there aren't as many farmers needed as the server matures because the gold sellers (IGE, etc) are selling the same piece of gold over and over.

For instance, a farmer is farming and finds a Glowing Brightwood Staff in Tyr's Hand. He puts it up on the AH for 800gold buyout. A regular player sees that staff and wants it, but he doesn't have the money for it. He buys gold from IGE in order to buy the staff. IGE makes $100, the farmer gets his 800 gold. The farmer (or the farmer's company), then sells the 800gold that he made from the staff to IGE. IGE just replenished it's 'gold supply' and made $100. IGE probably profits about $80 on the deal (after paying the farmer $20 for his 800gold), and IGE has not lost any of it's gold.

This is just an example, but I'm sure it happens relatively often.

The worst thing you can do with bought gold, in IGE's eyes, is use it to purchase skills, mounts, or any other non AH items. As that money leaves the market, and there is no possilbility that IGE can get that particular piece of gold back.

I'm also sure that the farmer characters are still there on the more mature servers, there simply isn't a demand for more gold supply at the moment. If you take a look at the larger/older servers you can see that the majority have 5000 gold for sale through IGE, this means there is plenty of gold and the farmers aren't needed. You can also note that 5000 gold costs a different amount on each server. 5000 gold on archimonde is about $430, while 5000 gold on laughing skull is $330. Does this mean there is more demand on archimonde? or does this mean that the archimonde farmers actually grinded out that gold, while the laughing skull farmers got lucky with epics (which drops their labor costs)? or does this mean that the 5000 gold on laughing skull has been around for a while and they are simply looking to move it (inventory reduction)? who knows, hehe.

I find farming and trading in game shit for real money so interesting, it's like a crazy wide open unregulated market, how fun :)

If they play both sides of the field then they dont really need farmers anymore. Once there becomes an established playerbase that uses the AH, they only need to find cheap items buy them out and put them up for a higher price. People that want them either give them money by buying the item, or buy the gold off them and give it back for the item.

Also they possibly dont dissapear but they become harder to find. If they are some of the fastest leveling they can grind all the really high cash areas, however once they have lots of competition from others they would need to move to more consistent types of farming, such as SM. So many times collecting fadeleaf for my rogue i get tells in chinese there.

ACtually that sadly makes sense. I'm come to a defeatist attitude abotu gold farmers. There is no way to get rid of them, and attempting to do so will require more resources than any one company posesses, and like they say people will pay when there's a demand.

Gold buyers usually come from all walks though. The busy office executive that simply doesn't have time to level and wants to have fun, the desperate AH whores that have to have that epic item, to normal gamers who just don't want to worry about saving for a mount.

There is no way to get rid of them, however, realize that there is still a need for influx of in-game gold on high pop, older servers.

You just probably dont notice the farmers as much.

The issue is new vs low/stagnant pop, not new vs old.

Ask yourself where folks BUY gold...

the easiest way blizzard could cut down on gold farmers is remove BOE items like Glowing Bright Wood Staff from dropping off soloable outdoor mobs. Make those items only drop in instances off bosses or hell make them BOP. The thought that some of the best items in the game: stonegrip gauntlets, stockade pauldrons, glowing brightwood even drop off random lvl 50 mobs is stupid in itself.

Luck or Bank Roll = greater rewards than skill

I rerolled and Im actually making a guild dedicated to killing gold farmers. Going to call it <Neighborhood Watch>.

the easiest way blizzard could cut down on gold farmers is remove BOE items like Glowing Bright Wood Staff from dropping off soloable outdoor mobs. Make those items only drop in instances off bosses or hell make them BOP. The thought that some of the best items in the game: stonegrip gauntlets, stockade pauldrons, glowing brightwood even drop off random lvl 50 mobs is stupid in itself.

i strongly disagree.

i dont think GBW is about stopping chinese farmers.

i think such rare items are exceptionally important to the game and not everything should drop off bosses.

rare/epic world drops are a wonderful thing... (and you dont just farm mobs to get a glowing bright wood staff per day... it doesnt work like that)

personally, i dont really have a problem at all with farmers... and it's part of any natural economic system.

I would think one way to put a huge dent in the gold farming industry is to put a max buyout cap on most farmed items on AH, most notably trade goods and blue/purple weapons and armor. That happened farmers would have diminished returns on recycled gold. But I know a bunch fo econi-nazis will come rushing in about how it "doesn't promote a free system" and similar other nonsensical reasons.

lol econi-nazis.

you mean people who arent socialists and believe in basic economics??? *rolls eyes*

no, if people want to pay 2000g for something... then let them. that isnt a "nonsensical" reason.

what's nonsensical is making this relatively minor issue of gold farmers into something so important that you'd fuck up the game for everybody else... pretending you'd stop them.

there is nothing fuckin wrong with making money IN the game.

the problems are: botting, exploiting and selling on the web.