World of motecrafting post 2.1
by Mike Schramm 
May 24th 2007 at 1:40PM
A couple of interesting Mote related changes have popped up in the patch. I was well aware of the Mote of Shadow change-- those babies are now dropping not off of demons, but only off of void creatures (you can find tons of them in the southern part of Hellfire Peninsula, and in small pockets in many instances). Which makes sense, but makes you wonder why they dropped off of demons in the first place-- or why it matters which one they drop off of at all.The other change was a little more hidden in the patch notes, and most players didn't realize it would be happening until they saw the drops: Essences are now dropping in Outland in the same place that Motes are dropping. You remember Essences-- they're the elemental components of many recipes found on the Azeroth side of the Dark Portal. A few players were unhappy that Essences were dropping instead of Motes, until Drysc confirmed that Essences are actually dropping in addition to Motes-- it's not a matter of either/or at all. Essences are completely extra.
And of course that'll have an effect on the economy. Right now, Essences are selling for up to 1g a pop on most AHs (Update: and even higher on other servers, sometimes up to 15g apiece), but they still only vendor for 4s, which is pennies compared to even most gray drops in Outland. And that price will probably drop anyway, considering the market is about to be flooded with them. One solution is to raise the vendor price. And another solution, say a few enterprising players, would be to give Alchemists a Transmute Essence to Mote spell, either at a 2-to-1 exchange rate, or a long-ish cooldown, that would set the economy on these little things right. Clearly there's a need for having Essences around (how else could you enchant firey weapon, right?), but it looks like Blizzard could have put a little more thought into their effect on the economy.
Filed under: Patches, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Making money
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Baluki May 24th 2007 1:49PM
1g for an essence? Wow, it must be nice to play on your server. Most essences go for at least 10g on my server.
someone May 24th 2007 1:50PM
Question: Do you people here at wowinsider.com EVER check your information?
"Right now, Essences are selling for up to 1g a pop on most AHs"
See thats what the OP of the thread said, youll see he was later proved wrong by a blizzard poster saying the lowest they were selling for is 10G(in the very thread you linked). They sell for 10G on my realm too.
I really need to stop reading your website, its nothing but false information.
Seper May 24th 2007 1:52PM
lol Amen #1..
my server essences are very rare on the AH.. and when they do come up its 15g+
so please dont complain about that.. its a dream to have it that low.. hell i would pay 5g for some of the essences.
ben1778 May 24th 2007 1:56PM
The price for most essences on my server (Black Dragonflight) range from 5g (earth) up to around 15g (air).
Another change with the mote farming is that they removed upwards of 12-15 spawn points of fire elementals up in blade's edge mtns in the two Forge Camps that bookend Ogri-La. I'm not sure if they have replaced those somewhere else in the game, but now the other spots for farming motes of fire are a lot more crowded.
They replaced the fire elementals with large felguard-looking mobs that operate cannons to shoot you of your flying mount and drop you into the mobs below.
Mike Schramm May 24th 2007 2:20PM
The fact is that it'll drop even lower then that considering all the essences that are dropping. In my personal experience I've never gotten more than a g or two for an essence, but I've never needed them that badly anyway. Thanks for the news, though-- I've updated the article.
Thallid May 24th 2007 2:29PM
I see only one good point about the Essences dropping with 2.1; it'll make the Force Reactive Disk, a shield built by 300+ Engineers, a LOT more affordable. (The Arcanite situation doesn't change much though, and good luck finding an engineer that still plays WoW and knows how to build one.)
Taueth May 24th 2007 2:33PM
Actually, I think that the impact on the economy is probably the reason behind the addition of essences to the drop table. If you haven't noticed, the drop rate of arcane crystals and the regular gems out of thorium has gone through the roof.
Blizzard seems to be systematically upping the drop rate of the 'rare' materials needed to make the old-world high end items and enchants. It's a move that I heartily approve, given that on my blacksmithing alt I've noticed how pretty much all of the old blue recipes and crafting items required absurd materials. The effect was you could create a weapon that would be tens of gold in material value, but so quickly replaced at 58 that it wasn't worth crafting for the money, despite being a good weapon at the low and mid 50s.
Essentially, you had a 275-300 crafting being made worthless. However, with higher drop rates and subsequent lower materials costs, making these items is now much cheaper, and I'm actually considering making some of them. Increasing the drop rates of old world items has a greater effect than lowering essence prices in the AH. For me, it has effectively revitalized an entire collection of recipes and content. Also, raising the drop rate on arcane crystals and adding essences to the loot table in the Outlands balances out the lack of players farming and killing in the old 55-60 content. If the rates hadn't gone up, there would be an utter dearth of materials for sale on the AH, simply because most people are no longer spending their end-game time in those zones. I'm sure the availability of materials and the viability of old recipes are more of a concern to Blizzard than people's profit margins in selling the formerly rare essences. ;)
Ahoni May 24th 2007 2:35PM
Are you sure you are not confusing Essences with elementals? Elemental Earth, Elemental Fire etc go for 1g a piece on the AH. Essence of Fire is 10g. Essence of Water is 7g. Essence of Air is 15g. These are median AH prices by allakhazam. Essences are green items, elementals are white. We sure were talking about the same things here?
Sylythn May 24th 2007 2:34PM
It's almost pointless to be quoting prices anyhow - every server has a different economy, and the two factions are vastly different as well. "Essences" have average prices over all servers varying from 5g to 18g, depending on which kind it is - but that's all it is, a world-wide average.
Taueth May 24th 2007 2:36PM
A quick addendum: I'm not trying to claim that all of 275-300 Blacksmithing crafting is worthless, the excellent Imperial Plate Armor appears in that range. Rather, that the old blue recipes in that range were worthless on a practical level, due to exorbitant material costs. :)
Mike Schramm May 24th 2007 2:38PM
You're right about that Sylythn-- I've always wanted to do something here on WI tracking AH prices (to show off good deals), but prices are so crazy different, even between factions on the same server, that you either have to generalize a ton, or just be wrong.
crsh May 24th 2007 2:42PM
I'm not too happy about this essence/mote change; I mean it's fine if it's off creatures at a transitional level, like mobs in Hellfire drop runecloth or netherweave, but past lv65 they stop dropping runecloth as it should be.
This is where I'm not happy, if I'm to get essence of water when farming water elementals for -motes- wtf? Yeah, so what if essence of water sells well, I farm specific things for specific needs, not to flood the AH with stuff I don't need.
As I understand it though, not enough people are farming old world Azeroth anymore (especially lv50+ items and mats), which means old mats are crazy expensive, more expensive than they should be, so I can only assume it's to balance things out.
Maeghane May 24th 2007 2:46PM
@ 1,2,3
Well change server cause essences are selling for between 1-2 gold a pop, no matter what flavor it is. Yall should check your facts also it seems
I don't see the mote increase that was promised us.
@4 as little as an hour ago I was farming motes in the scald and did not see these felguard you speak of. If you mean the outer regions of Blades Edge, those guys were already there
tomhennessy May 24th 2007 2:49PM
When was the last time there was a Mike Schramm post without an edit?
Edit: Drow aren't really in the game, so i guess they're not that OP.
Hank May 24th 2007 2:53PM
I went mote farming as well last night, and I don't see an increase in the drop rate. What I do see, is that instead of some mobs dropping 2 or even 3 motes, they are dropping just ONE.
Sylythn May 24th 2007 2:54PM
I'd love to see someone do an economics thesis analyzing the virtual economies and why they're different between factions and across servers. You've essentially got the same game, and I'd assume the same general distribution of people on each server, and yet the economies are so totally different.
ben1778 May 24th 2007 3:03PM
@13
You were farming the Searing elemental mobs, those have not changed - just the ones in Forge Camps: Wrath and Terror
the Vile Fire-Souls http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=22298
and the Fel Ragers http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=22286
were gone, replaced with other mobs that looked like oversized felguards and manned cannons that dismounted people flying over them.
It was a nice spot if the elemental plateau was camped out.
For comedy's sake I should hang out there (dead or alive) and fraps about an hour of people getting dismounted and killed from falling dmg + the sea of mobs below. "Hey look I think I can see Ogri-LaAAAAAHHHHHH!" (-6085 hp from falling dmg). Chomp, chomp, chomp.... corpse.
ben1778 May 24th 2007 3:07PM
@16 I think you could start by downloading the census mod that gives you a nice graphical breakdown of player level, class, and faction. Combine that with scan data from your Auctioneer addon and you're off to a good start.
I read a story several years ago about the everquest economy and translated that into real world dollars (included RL auctions of EQ things, subscriptions, new accounts, and other fees). They concluded that if EQ was its own country it would be 72nd in the world for gross national product. Not too had to do since gold these days has been given a real-world currency value.
As a final note, I would also divide up servers based on the age of the server.
Sylythn May 24th 2007 3:16PM
Yeah, being a mathmatician or economist might help there... I may be an engineer, but my math skills fall short when it comes to money. Besides - although I could likely do a really good job putting the numbers together and making pretty charts...I highly doubt I could properly analyze it and put economic theory to the data to actually draw conclusions about WHY it's the way it is. I'm too jaded about statistics anyhow...I learned long ago you can prove anything with any set of numbers.
Savok May 24th 2007 3:16PM
If essences are extra, why haven't I seen a mote and an essence drop together yet? Note I've been farming for hours upon hours. Spent 30 minutes doing air elementals on the Elemental Plateau, saw 2 fucking motes but managed a stack of near useless air essences.
Blizzard lying to us again? It's almost expected these days.