Thoughts on the game economy since latest changes

[Larili]

Buyers AND sellers set prices depending on supply and demand ( either in real terms or implied), neither control the market they may only benefit or lose at the time of the trade, and this will be subjective to the value of the trade to either party both at the time of the trade or later with hindsight

[Dragavon]

It is also a fact that as a server gets more mature more players produce more coins, so the relative value of coins go down, as there are simply more coins to go around. It is a well known phenomenom called inflation

[BlueFairy]

I actually like the new changes - I think the development we have seen in the last few months with more than a doubling of the gem log-in bonus, the new Fairy tale adv, the addition of premium and tradeability of gems have inserted new life into the game.

I'm not saying that I think all of the updates are fantastic, but I do like the new dynamic.

Trade and economy has always fluctuated... In my 1st few months of playing the game I could sell a stack of 400 marble for 90gc, I could by a gem noble house for 150-250gc in trade. Playing a VtV to get crossbows, well - that VtV would cost around 5-600gc from trade, and it would take 3 of us joining together 2-3 days to play it, we had to wait for longbows to be made, generals to recover etc etc. If I was unfortunate enough to loose some soldiers, it would cost me 1gc per sword to replace them.

Things change...

With a large proportion of players having reached high levels, resource prices have dropped - making this cheaper for new players. Gem prices have gone up, a disadvantage to new players. However, I'd expect that things like noble's will become cheaper with time as high level players replace their noble's with the new 500 residence (may be this does not make sense from an "economic" perspective, but what's the point of doing those Fairytale adventures if you're not gonna use the beans...)

Some cannot afford to buy gems, some choose not to, other choose to buy them... The game can still be played by all. As has been mentioned above, the main advantage gem's give you is time, which is fine by me. I think it's great that the game is supported by people that can afford it/choose to, without them this game would have ended up in the big MMO graveyard along with plenty of others, and I see no reason to whinge about the people that are part of the reason why we can still play this game, for free if we choose to. Nor do I see any reason to complain about gem prices going up; If spending hard cash on this game is unfeasible for myself, then I cannot see that I should be able to dictate the "value" of the gems in game for those that do buy them.

If buying lootspots have become too expensive for you, then do an adventure yourself, loose some troops and sell the lootspots to those that are buying or swap with friends...

[Dopey]

I see Gem prices as only getting more expensive. Due to the fact Gem’s were not tradable till recently I think there will be those with a large volume of Gems in storage waiting to buy new things when they come out like as a bad example the nords2. Gem pits will only have helped with this. So right now there is a larger supply available since the dam has only just broken. But once the current supply of gems has been sold and more importantly used to buy things from the shop which they previously were not doing, instead just collecting and doing nothing, then Gem sellers will become rarer, especially in larger quantities and push the price up further. Combine that with a constant demand now for lots of free to play players wanting to buy 7-30 day premium tokens on a constantly consuming basis and all newly brought and gained gems will get pumped back into sustaining these accounts with this gem sinking feature. Thus current gem supply will shrink and demand will significantly outweigh the gem production of the server and those spending real cash to buy more gems. Those that do buy more gems will also want to make as much gold coin as they can from their real world purchases so they will keep pushing for the price to go up. Least that’s how I think things will go.

[pipl]

Seems we wanted change and we got it
we wanted more content and we are getting that too
we want pvp , well some of us want pvp, that is apparently available to some of the servers, and we'll get that too eventually
there's going to be the occasional events to get stuck into

coming into the forum only occasionaly it seemed to be common to see someone saying that they were leaving the game as it was boring, and for me bouncing up through the levels I must admit that I wasn't looking forward to arriving at L50 with the quests running out and only the same old advs to do.
blimey how many victors and outlaws could I do before also wandering off to find a new game to play ? even the idea of doing piles of BK's didn't really stir me.

we've got this new gem thingie going on at the moment and that'll sort out too
inflation ?
prices rise and fall
a while back we could buy a stack of fish for a few coins now those fish have real value and are worth farming along with other items.
hell look at what's happened to bow prices.
the fairytale advs need piles of bows and swords so there's more room for some folk to earn some gc there too.
the fairytale castle may not be everyones ideal but the upgrading of those castles that are built will change prices of items too.

I have to say I like how the game is becoming wider, I can go back and play the "ordinary" advs or play the tailors, there's gc to chase down.
there's people to chat with and we still help each other along as best we can.

perhaps some more people will leave because they don't like these changes, that's ok too, as there are still new people joining the game all the time.
I was chatting with a new L16 player yesterday who was trying sort out how to optimise her island, LOL

and looking back up this page I agree with Bluefairy, the game seems to have a new dynamic about it that was seeming to be lost.