Gold Capped: Patch 4.1 and Maelstrom Crystals
by Basil Berntsen 
Mar 28th 2011 at 5:00PM
Is the sky falling? Will patch 4.1 herald the end of the high price for Maelstrom Crystals? The informal communication channels between auctioneers (sharing market analyses with each other in IRC and custom channels or tells in game and on gold blogs) have been abuzz with the frantic analysis that patch 4.1 will drive the price of Maelstroms down to ridiculously low amounts. Personally, I'm not sure I'd blindly buy that.
Buy it? Really?
Okay, I'll stop. But I don't believe that the price move will be as dramatic as is being forecasted, for a few reasons. Firstly, and this can't be overstated: Since everyone thinks it's going to happen, they're all dumping their stock now trying to get their money in before the crash. This has already moved the market quite low and often the effects of this type of speculation will be stronger than the event itself.
Speaking of which, let's take two steps back and look more closely at the facts behind this conclusion. Patch 4.1 will contain a new 5-man dungeon that drops epic loot, and Maelstroms will be available for 3,750 honor or justice points, the same way you can get other valuable trade goods on the live realms. There was some question about "can not be disenchanted" tooltips on the new epics, but I can confirm that on the PTR itself, all the new 5-man epics can be disenchanted and have no such tooltip.
We auctioneers have long memories
In one of the patches in Wrath of the Lich King, Blizzard introduced normal 5-mans that dropped epic loot. This took the price for the equivalent crystal down by a factor of 10 or more on most realms, as anyone who wanted fast easy gold could farm up hundreds of these by chain-running heroics for a few hours. Anyone who had stocked up on mats took a loss, and all the scrolls that people had made became worth much less.
Everyone remembers this and expects Blizzard to repeat itself. Honestly, I suspect that we're being a bit presumptuous in assuming that everything will happen the same way this expansion. I am not a gambling man, and making that assumption is a serious bet. The Trial of the Champion instance was remarkably short and boss-heavy; it had no proper trash, and the drops per hour were much higher than our new 5-mans will be.
Buffering
One thing's for sure: As the price for these crystals decreases, the number being bought will go up. In order for the price to hit some crazy-low price like, for example, 300g each, there would have to be a massive exponential increase to the number being created. The reality is that as the new stock forced people to undercut more heavily to sell their crystals, the best-in-slot enchants would become more and more obtainable to more players, who would snap up reasonably priced stock.
This buffering effect will prevent the price for crystals from plummeting too far.
WoW bubble 4.0
The other sure thing about the economy is that inflation will continue. A rising tide lifts all boats, and the prices for everything are going to continue to go up as the average amount of money you'd find on a player goes up. Let's take a second to define this. Inflation is the increase of the amount of gold available to the playerbase. If you were to go add up all the gold on each player and each guild bank today and compare it to that number from this point in the last expansion, you'd see that it's considerably higher now than it was then.
This is for a few reasons. The organic ones are natural and intended: First, monsters drop more money at level 85. Second, there are more players now than there were then who are looting more monsters. Third, quests reward a lot more money in this expansion. Fourth, a significant portion of players are in a guild with access to the Cash Flow perk.
The possibly unintended, but definitely significant, source of inflation is that right now, 90% of the value of every stack of Obsidium Ore mined will end up coming from a vendor. If all products made out of raw ore had to be sold to players, it would be worth a lot less. As it is, you don't have to undercut to sell 900 cut green gems to a vendor, and all that money you just got didn't make anyone else have to lose any purchasing power.
Sure, there are new gold sinks. Repair costs are higher, and the new vanity mounts cost more than ever. Still, in a couple of months, there will be a significant portion of the population that has access to less expensive, vendor-bought goods for any vendor-based gold sinks. These gold sinks will slow inflation, but they don't balance it.
A rising tide ...
The point is that while Maelstroms will become easier to obtain, the price for everything is going up and will continue to go up as the economy inflates. Combine that with the fact that there's a lot of pent-up potential demand for Maelstroms for BiS enchants normally passed over by players right now due to cost, and I don't see the prices free-falling. They will probably go down, but not to the level they were when we could manufacture them with farmable mats.
All that said, prices for this type of good are supposed to trend downward as the expansion chugs along. More raid drops are sharded, people have more points to throw away, and eventually, it should all settle down to some sort of equilibrium. I'm not betting that they'll go up (at least not right away), but I certainly don't think they'll lose so much of their value that it's worth fire-selling what you have now.
Maximize your profits with more advice from Gold Capped as well as the author's Call to Auction podcast. Do you have questions about selling, reselling and building your financial empire on the auction house? Basil is taking your questions at basil@wowinsider.com.
Filed under: Economy, Gold Capped
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
James Olmstead Mar 28th 2011 5:10PM
Buffering indeed, the price drop will only go so far cause as soon as its acceptably cheap the casual gamer will start investing in it
One also cannot forget the inevitible occurence of 4.2 in which we may see new enchants and materials.
This is a solid trend blizz is developing it would seem and I approve, they're reducing prices, adjusting abilities and adding upgrades over time in order to gradually decrease the difficulty of the current content
The net effect is no different than say giving us 5% more damage every month in each raid
shadowhowl1900 Mar 28th 2011 5:17PM
could not the drops from ZG and ZA become a way to get maelstrom cystals easier?
i heard somewhere it was 359 ilvl which is equivalent to normal raid tier lvl
flawless Mar 28th 2011 5:31PM
He already mentioned the new 5mans dropping disenchantable epic gear...
Rapskallion Mar 28th 2011 5:35PM
The drops from Heroic ZG/ZA will be 353... half a tier lower then Tier 11 359 items.
Anony Moss Mar 28th 2011 5:39PM
They're not ilvl 359. They're still epics, but they're of lower quality than current epics. Somewhere between 346 and 359 (353 iirc, but I may be off a little).
Necromann Mar 28th 2011 5:24PM
I'd like to see the prices fall a bit. I'm a consumer of maelstrom crystals, so that's obviously why.
Daedhir Mar 29th 2011 3:25AM
I know my raid team will certainly be happy. We're using lesser enchants because it simply isn't worth it to use the expensive ones. The maelstrom market is hyperinflated. I, for one, think the enchants are more important than the speculators.
Prices dropping? Cry me a river.
Dr_white Mar 28th 2011 5:31PM
WoW is a joke, and its not even funny anymore.
Arrohon Mar 28th 2011 5:40PM
You are on the wrong website then my friend! It's takes a new kind of having no life to troll a website that talks about something you dislike.
cyanea85 Mar 28th 2011 6:56PM
If it's not funny, then it's not a joke then, is it? :D
Amaxe Mar 28th 2011 7:28PM
I think Massively is where people go to complain about how bad WoW is.
Cyno01 Mar 28th 2011 5:55PM
God i hope so. I'm a bit of a min/maxer, and even with an enormous bank roll i cant justify myself to spring for top end enchants on my stuff, its just not worth it to spend 4-5k on an extra 5 agility on my chest piece. I didnt get rich by spending money. And the difference of a few percent between top and 2nd best enchants isnt really hampering anyones progression, at least in normal modes.
And as a pet collector itll be nice to finally be able to level my alts enchanting and make myself a magic lamp and maybe start trading trading them via the NAH for magic lanterns and make some money, since its not profitable to farm black tabby cats anymore... But as it is, on my servers alliance AH, lamps are 5-6k and lanterns are 10-12k, just not worth it for a craftable pet.
Dimensional Mar 28th 2011 5:56PM
"The reality is that as the new stock forced people to undercut more heavily to sell their crystals, the best-in-slot enchants would become more and more obtainable to more players, who would snap up reasonably priced stock.
This buffering effect will prevent the price for crystals from plummeting too far."
So, the law of demand is now called "the buffering effect"? Ah, those confusing recent economics textbooks!
B1ue Mar 28th 2011 6:41PM
@Dimensional
The "buffering effect" is a description of how demand works, not used as an actual term. Also, this isn't exactly a doctoral thesis, so less formal phrases are perfectly acceptable.
I hadn't realized the justice price point for crystals was that high. Although now that I think about it, with the ability to grind out all fourteen heroics in one day, pricing one item at 3/4's the cap isn't unreasonable.
Lissanna Mar 28th 2011 6:42PM
If he says "law of demand", then he has to define what that means in the context of the post so that people who haven't recently taken an economics course can understand. On the other hand, saying "buffering effect" is something easier to understand if you have zero technical knowledge.
Stardusted Mar 28th 2011 6:41PM
Are we sure the price is set in stone for the maelstrom crystals? I read in the patch notes that the existing trade goods would have their honor/justice points needed for purchased cut in half, and the screenshot above shows them at their current price.
Just wondering if the price (honor/justice points price) will change, although I honestly don't think the price shown in the screen shot is too high.
From the patch notes: "All trade goods available for purchase with Honor or Justice Points from the associated commodities vendors have had their prices reduced by 50%."
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/game/patch-notes/ptr-patch-notes
dethpunch Mar 28th 2011 7:20PM
that is the halfed price in the screenshot.
Stardusted Mar 29th 2011 10:06AM
Only if the prices of items from Justice points were lower than the prices for honor points, otherwise those are the exact same prices that are live for honor points. I'll admit I haven't looked at anything from justice points since I haven't done a dungeon/raid once in cataclysm.
Rusquel Mar 28th 2011 8:49PM
The difference between the new ZA/ZG dungeons and the ToC dungeon that crashed the Abyss Crystal market in Wrath, is that (on top of what Basil noted re: the short, boss-heavy nature of ToC) ToC was released in normal AND heroic modes, that both dropped epic gear. AFAIK ZA and ZG will be heroic only, so that it will be impossible to just spam chain-run them for infinite Maelstroms.
Mondi Mar 28th 2011 9:37PM
They can be chained quite easily, as long as you're not picky of which of the two you get. Since they'll be available on a separate tier of randoms, you can keep running only ZA or ZG over and over just by picking that tier of randoms.
Add in that you can get valor points for the first seven randoms a week with this extra tier giving double what the existing heroics give, then you have even more reason to do it.
I know I'm hoping to get a lot of maelstroms out of these two.