Using the Daily Quests as a way of supplying gold
by Mike Schramm 
Apr 10th 2008 at 4:30PM
We've been talking about this for a little while, but the always insightful Relmstein has a nice summary of what's surely one of the ideas behind Blizzard's daily quests -- they serve as a kind of "Federal Reserve rate" for Azeroth, in that Blizzard can control inflation and gold flow by routinely pouring money into the economy. Before daily quests, Blizzard had big problems with gold sellers -- raiding cost a lot of money, as did the various mounts, reputations, and everything else our characters had to buy. But really the only way to get gold was from farming and grinding, both things almost nobody wanted to do.Enter daily quests -- with just a few minutes effort, players could cash in and pick up a nice chunk of gold. And with the coming of patch 2.4, daily quests are everywhere. Do an hour of quests and you've easily got sixty gold, do even more and the gold starts pouring in. Which means the reasons for gold buying and selling are shrinking. Of course, it won't erase gold buying completely (some people will always cheat, no matter how little effort it takes them to earn the gold legitimately), but the barrier to earning more gold is lowered that much more.
But, says Relmstein, the Federal Reserve's control is a two-way street. Once you start pouring too much gold into an economy, then you have to start dealing with inflation. He expects that the Sunwell dailies will start to disappear from the game as of Wrath, because if not, then Blizzard will have to go the other way to control inflation: raise prices. Think 5,000g is a lot for a flying mount? In the future, if the amount of gold in the game stays the same, it may be even more.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Economy, Quests
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Splink Apr 10th 2008 4:36PM
I'm thinking that the gold reward for the dailies will probably decrease dramatically if you are level 71+, or even get replaced by EXP. It would tie in with how the system for gold instead of EXP at 70 for non-daily quests works now.
Harmun Apr 10th 2008 4:51PM
I imagine that the WOW economy is fairly complex, but there are a few things that they can do to avoid higher prices due to a glut of gold. As long as the things people are willing to spend money on are created at about the same rate money is added to the system, prices won't be drastically changed. Increasing the drop rate for motes, for example, would decrease the pressure applied by everyone having more cash to spend on them. Motes are a good example because their ultimate fate is often to be used in an enchant, and that's a black hole in the economy. An enchant is one of the few final resting places Blizz has for our hard earned money ;)
I don't see them raising the prices for existing mount training skills, but I might see them very carefully deciding on how much they want the next level to cost...
Zarzuur Apr 11th 2008 6:58AM
Like they are listed in wowhead:
"You will receive: 3g 40s (+ 5g 70s at level 70)"
, so they will just revert back to being 3g +XP, which will not be worth it compared to farming Northrend mats.
Freelier Apr 10th 2008 4:40PM
Uh, this may be news to a few of you, but Blizzard has to create some pretty massive inflation for the WotLK expansion.
If they don't, then people who accumulated lots of gold would have an advantage over those who play normally. They have clearly stated that there's supposed to be a reset with the expansion so that everyone's starting from roughly the same place.
In other words, inflation is desired and deliberate. It only hurts people with lots of cash, actually.
Harmun Apr 10th 2008 4:53PM
They don't have to force inflation, they can count on players with hordes of gold to spend much of it on new skills (including flying), new enchants, and new crafted items. Lots of the gold spend on these things falls out of the bottom of the economy, never to be seen again. It does increase character power though, and that's a completely different type of inflation (see: welfare epics)
chris b Apr 10th 2008 4:41PM
With all due respect, Blizz could just as easily reduce the payout on those quests too. That's how the Fed works, raising and lowering interest rates to (theoretically) keep the economy steady. Blizz would probably be better off adjusting the quest pay outs because raising mount prices and such would cause a ruckus amongst the players, many of who, feel the prices are too high already.
Harmun Apr 10th 2008 4:57PM
yeah, but the fed has to deal with fickle, short termed, self interested institutional investors who can destroy massive amounts of value just because they don't like the decisions being made.
Besides, there are easier ways to control the rate that money goes into the system- I'll bet that tons more gold enters the economy as a few coins picked off a mob than through quest rewards.
infection Apr 10th 2008 5:22PM
"Blizz would probably be better off adjusting the quest pay outs because raising mount prices and such would cause a ruckus amongst the players, many of who, feel the prices are too high already."
Like they did from BC? They knew people would complain about 5k gold for a mount. Did it stop them? That's a SERIOUS increase.. from 600g (actually, wasnt it more like 8 or 900g?) mounts to... 6.3k (reg mount PLUS epic)
But see, how they went about it was giving the regular "crappy" flight mounts for 1k. If you wanted the best... well... pay the freakin piper and be broke. ERGO... dumping that money out of the economy completely.
they'll do it again.
chris b Apr 11th 2008 9:37AM
Well Infection, they didn't have daily quests at that time either. It wouldn't make sense to NOT charge a little more for the next superior version of whatever, but now they have other options available to them as well.
Daniel Whitcomb Apr 10th 2008 4:41PM
Yeah, I imagine once WoTLK comes out, they'll find a way to decrease the amount of gold rewarded for 71+ people.
Also, this is another reason I think they need stuff like last names, cosmetic outfits, and player and guild housing: all that stuff could be perfect for draining more money out of the economy!
Oblivion Apr 10th 2008 4:42PM
I don't think that Blizzard will get rid of the current daily quests once WotLK is released. They won't need to. Isn't the only reason we get gold from the dailies simply because we are maxed level? If a level 69 ventured to Quel'Danas, wouldn't they receive experience instead? Once level 71 and beyond is implemented, I would imagine that the current dailies will be unappealing because the gold won't be there.
Furthermore, I suspect that the game will continue to inflate some. Gold will become easier to obtain but everything will get more expensive. Also, Blizzard seems to be doing a nice job of providing us with optional ways to spend our gold in large sums (guild bank tabs, hyppogryph mounts, "of the Shattered Sun" titles, etc.). Those kinds of things seem to be decent tools for regulating the economy and tossing gold back into the system.
Alessondra Apr 10th 2008 4:45PM
The week before 2.4 hit, I had 3 70s, no epic flying mounts, and about 1500g in the bank. I never raided or ran Heroics because I don't have the time (I'm a time-limited casual player - I can play 5 to 10 hours a week, but in 45-60 minute chunks).
Today I have 1 epic flying mount, 3000g in the bank, I plan to have epic flying mount #2 by the end of the month, and I'm heroic-attuning my 70 priest to get started on badge collecting. I may have my first-ever piece of purple gear by the end of April, too. So yeah, 2.4 has been good to me.
In fact, 2.4 has been the thing that single-handedly saved my subscription. I've cancelled before (played since release, till right around August '06, when I took a year off in disgust), but if Blizz keeps this up (progression content for casuals? Next thing you know they'll let us start running those awesome dungeons I've heard so much about - Attunemen, you're on notice!) I may just stay on through WotLK.
Just my rambling thoughts.
-Alie of Silvermoon.
Imbalance Apr 10th 2008 4:51PM
... I'm going to suggest WoWInsider staff refrain from writing about Economics or Financial topics after reading this article. The factual errors in regards to inflation present are horrendous.
The Federal Reserve DECREASES the amount of money in an economy to curb inflation (via short term interest rates). If you increase the amount of money (gold in this case) in a system people have more money to spend on the same amount of goods. Prices rise, and you get inflation.
A simple google search for "inflation federal reserve" can bring you to this website.
http://money.howstuffworks.com/fed5.htm
Heilig Apr 10th 2008 5:24PM
I'm going to suggest forum trolls read the linked articles that are being summarized before posting inanities after reading this post. The factual errors in regards to informational sources are horrendous.
A simple scan of the posted article can bring you to this website.
http://relmstein.blogspot.com/2008/04/daily-quests-federal-reserve-rate-for.html
Matthew Rossi Apr 10th 2008 7:15PM
Did... did you even read the post Mike made, much less the one he linked to?
"But, says Relmstein, the Federal Reserve's control is a two-way street. Once you start pouring too much gold into an economy, then you have to start dealing with inflation." - Mike.
"If you increase the amount of money (gold in this case) in a system people have more money to spend on the same amount of goods. Prices rise, and you get inflation." - you.
Zach Apr 10th 2008 11:59PM
Some people need to stop Googling stuff just to make themselves sound smart. Because if they actually didn't read the thing they're commenting on, they actually come off sounding really stupid.
Imbalance Apr 11th 2008 4:37AM
Please, you flatter me. Im not near enough of a troll to be able to compete with all the fanboys on this site apparently. If youd like to try to follow my logic on why I bashed both articles (and Blizzard if monetary policy was their aim) go ahead and go to page two. I left an open ended question for a fellow fanboy of yours to think about.
Anteia Apr 10th 2008 4:51PM
Also, the reason for gold buying isn't really decreased by daily quests, unfortunately. While I found the article interesting, it fails to point out that alot of people buy gold at -lower- levels in order to afford their first mounts and the like, which can be much more difficult to raise money for. (Not that I'm advocating it. I've never bought gold and never will.) Sure, the gold is nice at 70 to gain epic flying, but that doesn't help a level 60 afford their mount, or even a level 40. When I started out, I wasn't 'savvy' on gold saving ways, so it took everything I had to be able to afford that gold for the level 40 mount when I hit 40. My boyfriend even watched amused as I killed things outside of Theramore in order to get the last tiny bit... and I had all of 2 silver afterwards. When I started on horde, my higher level leatherworker had to borrow from my lower level miner to buy her mount. Now that I have characters on both side to 70, the process is much easier...but for new people, the enticement to buy gold and just make your lower levels easier is still there. Until Blizzard implements low level dailies (besides the battleground) that just give gold and not exp, it'll continue to be a problem. These dailies could be like the relic emanations daily where higher levels couldn't swoop in and do them more easily than a low level, and could reward only 1g with only 5 available. That'd probably be sufficient to really cut gold sellers at the knees, but still not give TOO much gold to the lower levels.
Backstage-Warsong Apr 11th 2008 3:31AM
Well, I think there should be no 40 being unable to get their mount easily in a server full of players with tons of gold. You just simply pick a gatherer proffesion and sell stuff in AH. You'd be surprised how easy you can sell a simple stack of copper ores at high prices. I started a new toon in a server where i haven't even friends, and when i hitted 10 I had more than 20 gold, all bags and only by selling things that lazy rich 70s buy
Anteia Apr 11th 2008 4:43AM
My comment is more geared towards the idea of people who are not merely starting on another server- I had difficult because I was brand new to the game. I didn't entirely understand the AH (I certainly didn't have anything like auctioneer at the time to help me out) and I didn't know what 'sold well'. These are the people who are going to buy gold, because they get a send and it sounds like an easy way to get their mounts- and they're not into the game enough to realize the detrimental effects of buying gold.