Forum post of the day: BOE Vortexes
by Amanda Dean 
Feb 17th 2008 at 4:45PM
In a post entitled BOE Vortexes a SLAP in the FACE to CRAFTERS Solarissa of Korgath claims that changes on the public test realm for patch 2.4 would devalue the efforts of crafters. She says that allowing players to purchase or farm their own materials would greatly reduce profits for crafters who have invested vast amounts of time in farming materials for their epic patterns, such as the Belt of Blasting. Instead of hefty auction house prices, they would receive meager tips for their crafting efforts. Disenchanted crafters believe that this change would make it so there is no way at all to earn money with trade skills.
Responses vary from stalwart agreement to arguments that this change would actually drive up the prices for crafted items. Sylindra of Moonrunner is pleased with the change. She feels that it unfair for non-crafters to have to pass on Nether Vortexes since they could only be used by players whose primary characters were crafters. The materials could go into guild banks, or be given to non-crafters to sell on the auction house for a tidy profit of their own.
Personally, I'm excited about the change. As I've mentioned previously, I'm not a raider and never will be, but it thrills me that someday my Lionheart Blade may become a Lionheart Executioner. I've already dumped a ridiculous amount of gold into Blacksmithing just to get my sword, I'd be willing to spend a lot more to upgrade it. As with all changes on the public test realm, there is no guarantee that this will ever go live.
How do you think BoE Vortexes will affect your game?
Filed under: Patches, Items, Economy, Raiding, Making money
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
spamcatcher Feb 17th 2008 4:52PM
The post on the forums is deserving of the Drama Queen tag. The "slap in the face" line is the biggest clue :)
George M. Feb 17th 2008 4:54PM
I think this a great idea. Making Nether Vortex and Primal Nethers available will make more people participate in Raiding. It will also allow some guild to close the "Loot-Gap" for sucessfull 25-man raiding.
TotalBiscuit Feb 17th 2008 8:51PM
And you have what evidence to justify that point? Your argument is ridiculous. If anything it'll make less people participate in raiding (not that Nether Vortexes are ever the primary motivation for raiding) since they'll be more freely available. Why bother going to an instance for it if you can just buy it? Same for Heroics.
This is indeed a slap in the face to crafters and will cause a serious devaluation of Vortexes and Nethers, which up to now, were one of the only ways many crafters could actually make any money at all.
Dabura Feb 18th 2008 6:32AM
Total Biscuit QQ moar. Seriously this change is fine, if anything a good thing, since now in raids the vorteces can be banked and ppl who need them can get them from the bank and not pay DKP like in most guilds.
Gessilea Feb 18th 2008 2:23PM
"Why bother going to an instance for it if you can just buy it?"
1. Fun
2. BOP gear (of which there will always be lots)
3. Reputation
4. Bragging rights
5. Quests
Sure, getting nethers/vortexes are one reason why people go to instances, but by far not the only reason.
Mihn Feb 17th 2008 4:54PM
I really hate crafters who think it is their right to hold a server population hostage because they or 3 others have a rare pattern. They seem th think they can then charge exhorbant amounts for the item.
Sure you invested a lot of time and mats on getting crafting up, does that mean you should get your investment back after 3 sales? You pay 600g for one pattern, and then sell three of the items for 600, you just made a hefty profit.
A cadre of greedy crafter's can hold the economy hostage. I like the change, it levels the playing field.
Pzychotix Feb 17th 2008 5:09PM
It's called capitalism. Get over it, commie.
Rich Feb 17th 2008 5:10PM
Its also called bad game design.
Schadow Feb 17th 2008 6:04PM
You're so right - crafters magically get materials for free, so if they buy a pattern for 600g, they can sell 3 things for 600 and it's all profit.
Why do they get the mats for free? Because people with gathering professions give them away instead of charging heaps of gold for them. Isn't that great?
But that's not really the way things work. We pay heaps for patterns, and then heaps more for materials, and we make a small margin on what we sell.
Or we hope we do anyway - usually the things we can craft get replaced by better items through badge rewards or PvP epics, and our investment in the pattern becomes lost money.
I get the feeling you envision the world in which we pay 600 gold for a pattern just to have people come along and tip us 10g for crafting it. How do you think the math works on that? Do you think crafters will be keen to buy patterns?
I imagine the next thing I read about will be people complaining that the tight-wad crafters refuse to pay a "fair price" for patterns.
What I think you will find is crafters dropping crafting professions that they don't need for their BoP crafted gear. Why buy a pattern and get tipped 10g and let the gatherer make all the money on the deal? Better to do the gathering and make the money. We all know mats are not going to get any cheaper, even if crafters are asked to take a pay cut.
Jason Feb 17th 2008 10:16PM
1/2 the time it costs that much gold just to make the 600g item from the 600g pattern, from some one who has 2 primary crafting professions rather then a gathering profession, i'm going to make my money back + a little bit of profit to go towards bigger and better patterns. What i cant stand is peoplel who complain about prices of crafted items. there have been countless times i have had crafted items in the AH and some random whisper : why is the item in the AH so expensive, i want it but i cant afford that price. response, well if you cant afford it you dont need it. and his reply no one will buy at that price. oh really sold 2 of them already.... blah wake up and spend the gold.
George M. Feb 17th 2008 5:14PM
In five months these plans and the Vortexs will all be obsolete. So stop QQing.
Heilig Feb 17th 2008 5:14PM
Your argument that this is capitalism only holds water if it's a farmable pattern. Random world drops don't fit into that scheme. The whole premise of a capitalistic society is that people with capital can get things accomplished. When acquisition of an item is based ENTIRELY on luck, it's not capitalism. It IS an unregulated free market, which is not the same thing. If all world drops were also purchasable from vendors, then it would be capitalism.
Felwrathe Feb 17th 2008 5:16PM
This does mean gold farmers are going to have a new thing to farm.
Which then means prices are going to plummet.
Which means primals are going to be another common item before long.
But. I'm guessing Blizzard has something even more important planned for when WotLK comes out. We'll see how it goes, I guess.
Jericon Feb 17th 2008 5:44PM
I personally love this idea. My main is a raiding paladin. However, my alt used to be my main. He is a mace spec rogue blacksmith currently using Dragonmaw. This change will make it so that I can pick up Dragonstrike. Granted, I could do that if the nethers were still BOP. I do like this idea though. I've had a few situations where someone wanted me to craft something that required a nether that I did not have. Which required me to go farming for it. Now, the person who I am crafting for can do the farming.
Abhinav Kumar Feb 17th 2008 5:25PM
It pretty much means free epics for me. 12g and 30 badges for my belt of deep shadow? Yes please.
Bearskunk Feb 17th 2008 5:32PM
they had a year to make gold of those patterns, stop the crying
Josef Feb 17th 2008 5:53PM
4. You seem to have a different opinion of "capitalism" to most people, your view is that monopolies of people who have the blind luck to be able to acquire a drop are worthy of making silly money through charging stupidly high prices? Thats not capitalism, thats a bloody monopoly.
Something else that has struck me just now is how people seem so attached to money in this game, before the new daily quests came out I could understand it, but now its a simple test of perhaps a month or two of just doing those quests in order to get large amounts of cash. Why are people so bothered?
Brian Carnell Feb 18th 2008 11:49AM
@13... "4. You seem to have a different opinion of "capitalism" to most people, your view is that monopolies of people who have the blind luck to be able to acquire a drop are worthy of making silly money through charging stupidly high prices? Thats not capitalism, thats a bloody monopoly."
This pretty much took the cake for economic ignorance. We have plenty of real world examples of people who win the genetic lottery and thus are able to charge stupidly high prices for their services. We call them professional athletes.
In act, capitalism in the real world assumes that talents and resources are not distributed evenly. If they were, there would be no reason to trade.
See Adam Smith "Wealth of Nations" for an economics refresher.
rick gregory Feb 17th 2008 6:25PM
well.. because of the way things are now, the Belt of Blasting is 3000g+ on my server and Girdle of Ruination is 1000. That's because the vortexes are BoP and only available in SSC.
So the complaint isn't about crafters... it's about crafters who raid SSC...
theRaptor Feb 17th 2008 7:57PM
Why would those prices change? The guilds who raid SSC will just be selling the vortices for a large markup instead of the finished product.