-The "online only" aspect, which has a backbone of most of the core data being serverside is what will prevent the majority of bots, hacks, etc; not the AH.
Spend time / Work hard in real life, get real life stuff. Spend time / Work hard in virtual world, get virtual world stuff. Keep them separate. You want to get better in virtual world? Spend less time in real world. If you have money to burn for the virtual world, that means you have time to actually play the game.
"OMG my ePenis isn't as big as the person who has a real life.... fuck .... now I can't satiate my insecurites by drawing my welfare check while i sit on my fat ass all day playing diablo 3 and then log on and pwn some noobs who didn't spend the 200 hours to grind their gear...."
Hit the nail on the head.
I have a job, i have a career, I play games in my free time because I enjoy them. Personally, I think it's the work-the-minimum-possible-at-my-dead-end-job-then-bitch-about-it types who will spend their (little) free cash on items because they are too lazy to actually play the game for an extended time. The same people who get suckered into credit card debt then cry for a rescue. The same people that believe everything that advertisements tell them.(the following italics is offtopic ranting) The same people who hop from game to game, feeding companies $60 at a time and encourage them to put out inferior products that now also have the "added" feature of micro-transcations to further suck the idiot masses dry. It might seem like a far stretch, but this is the same mindset that leads to (at least in the US) a widening gap between the rich and poor.
Funny how it always comes down the the "Chinese farmers" when China will be in their own region and most people will not encounter them ever any ways.
That video is nearly unwatchable. Just because you learned how to pan and turn the view doesn't mean you should do it constantly. (And of course the awful music.)
So lets just ignore all my theories (because most of you are anyways) and just look at the hard data, taken from:
Current Analysis and Future Research Agenda on "Gold Farming": Real-World Production in Developing Countries for the Virtual Economies of Online Games - Richard Heeks, Development Informatics Group IDPM, SED, University of Manchester, UK - 2008
There is no direct data on investment levels but one can estimate a fixed investment of around US$800 for hardware and operating software per two workers (given many gold farms seem to work a two 12-hour shift system) (Nystedt 2007).
Taking an average, we can say that pay appears to be about 1,000 yuan/US$145 per month. There is no clear trend within the data over time: other than the single-sourcing for 2004, yearly source averages are: US$137 (2005); US$139 (2006); US$130 (2007).
Taken from Page 21's chart, the total operating cost for a company with 10 employees, working 10hr shifts, for one month is $2,640 USD or for a single employee ~$264.
Assuming only a 5 day work week (more likely 6-7), he works 200hrs a month.
So, for a single person to turn a profit in Diablo 3, he will need to make $264 in 200hrs played time, or: $1.32 per hour
If you choose to nitpick, you could add in the one time expenditure of buying hardware, which according to the article, is $800 per two people (as many farming houses have the pc shared between two people on opposite shifts). So a modified number for that hardware lasting (only) one year is ((264x12)+400)/12/200 = $1.48/hr. Realistically that hardware will last more than one year, but it's a moot point.
(Also in case you don't bother reading the source material, the cost to operate includes a US-based proxy server, which would mean they aren't restricted to their region)
Compared to wow, cost wise, a farmer in this game has several key benefits: No subscription fee; they can sell EVERYTHING they get (there are little to no BoP or BoE items) and they have zero cost in advertising/hosting a website. Service fees for CC transactions are balanced out against the AH's service fee, making them equal or nearly equal in cost per transaction.
This is real data + simple math, there are no lies, assumptions, made up stuff from some magical land. This is reality. A farmer needs to make $1.32/hr to turn a profit. Got that? There is no rebuttal to this, none. So don't bother trying to make one.
Ok, now we get into the grey area again. What can one person ( or several farmers working together?) do in one hour to guarantee they get item(s) of value that exceed $1.32 ? We should all know these, but I'll give a few examples:
Farm gold from a known good source, Farm harder bosses in hopes for a high value item, Farm easier bosses in hopes for several low/mid value items in the same time it takes to kill a single harder boss.
I'm sure each has their merits, and I'm also sure each farming house will try/research each one.
So now the question comes. Do you really think, that even with "real" players "controlling"the market (something I disagree with being true), that a farmer will be able to sell an hour's worth of wares for $1.32 ?
Going by a single instance from Diablo 2, where the player farmed for ~3 hours : http://www.diablofans.com/topic/754-item-drop-rates/ . He got 4 set items, 2 unique, a bunch of gems and a handful of runes (as well as gold and other misc stuff). Do you think that the combined value of all that is $1.32 ?
I tried (well 20min of googling) to find a simple, plain number to describe the chance per kill on a random monster to drop a "rare" (set, unique, higher value rune, etc) item, but found nothing concrete, but I did find this site which has the core algorithms used by Diablo 2. It's pretty beefy. http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Item_Generation_Tutorial
With all of that, it is in my opinion that it will certainly be possible, regardless of "player influence" that farmers will be profitable in the game economy... especially with my belief that there will be a significant portion of the player-base that will be buying only, as well as significant portion that won't bother with "trivial" items that still hold value (such as low end set items, low/mid runes/gems, etc). There are other factors I mentioned in previous posts but this one is long enough.
Will the economy become such that a farmer won't be able to break that $1.32 mark?
Some other misc things I couldn't find a proper place for in this post:
-The cost to operate for a chinese player is less than a US player, the key areas being electricity, internet, food, and rent. You simply couldn't turn a profit with a us based operation, unless the prices per item were outrageously expensive.
-This example contains people playing "legitimately", we haven't even crossed into the realm of botters (all of a sudden a single person can run 2, 4, 8? clients at once, cutting costs by a gigantic portion), hackers, etc. Lets *hope* these don't become anywhere near as rampant as D2 was.
Going back to the original question of this thread, I believe that because farmers will be able to turn a profit, regardless of player's effect on the economy, that my experience will be effected by their presence, which is aided by the inclusion of the RMAH.
WeirdOne, I did not have time to directly address your response post and I feel that I shouldn't bother because you keep talking like what you say is fact, against my statements which I openly (and purposely) admit are opinions, believes, and educated-guesses.
I have summarized why the RMAH is better/cheaper/easier for the farmers (and most of it is fact, not opinion), but I also contend that the farmers will be the ones undercutting the real players. From the tiny amount of money they need to turn a profit, I forsee players frequently being undercut by the farmers, as they will be able to turn a profit even at rock bottom prices... prices that many players will simply refuse to sell their items at. Furthermore, it has been a common practice in AH economies for "powerplayers" to buy out all the undercutter's products, then immediately repost them at the price they set. This is of course one of those careful balance things, but it is restrictive as the person/company willing to do it must be 1. willing to put upfront costs of buying out the competition at no guarantee that their own stock will sell and 2. they must factor in the service fee associated with the buying+reselling.
As an absolutely final statement to this post, I apologize to the OP for somewhat going off topic... BUT this is a highly complex issue and it simply cannot be boiled down into a few words.
1
Spend time / Work hard in real life, get real life stuff. Spend time / Work hard in virtual world, get virtual world stuff. Keep them separate. You want to get better in virtual world? Spend less time in real world. If you have money to burn for the virtual world, that means you have time to actually play the game.
I have a job, i have a career, I play games in my free time because I enjoy them. Personally, I think it's the work-the-minimum-possible-at-my-dead-end-job-then-bitch-about-it types who will spend their (little) free cash on items because they are too lazy to actually play the game for an extended time. The same people who get suckered into credit card debt then cry for a rescue. The same people that believe everything that advertisements tell them.(the following italics is offtopic ranting) The same people who hop from game to game, feeding companies $60 at a time and encourage them to put out inferior products that now also have the "added" feature of micro-transcations to further suck the idiot masses dry. It might seem like a far stretch, but this is the same mindset that leads to (at least in the US) a widening gap between the rich and poor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server
amen
1
1
Current Analysis and Future Research Agenda on "Gold Farming": Real-World Production in Developing Countries for the Virtual Economies of Online Games - Richard Heeks, Development Informatics Group IDPM, SED, University of Manchester, UK - 2008
edit: the link to this article http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/idpm/research/publications/wp/di/di_wp32.htm
Taken from Page 21's chart, the total operating cost for a company with 10 employees, working 10hr shifts, for one month is $2,640 USD or for a single employee ~$264.
Assuming only a 5 day work week (more likely 6-7), he works 200hrs a month.
So, for a single person to turn a profit in Diablo 3, he will need to make $264 in 200hrs played time, or:
$1.32 per hour
If you choose to nitpick, you could add in the one time expenditure of buying hardware, which according to the article, is $800 per two people (as many farming houses have the pc shared between two people on opposite shifts). So a modified number for that hardware lasting (only) one year is ((264x12)+400)/12/200 = $1.48/hr. Realistically that hardware will last more than one year, but it's a moot point.
(Also in case you don't bother reading the source material, the cost to operate includes a US-based proxy server, which would mean they aren't restricted to their region)
Compared to wow, cost wise, a farmer in this game has several key benefits: No subscription fee; they can sell EVERYTHING they get (there are little to no BoP or BoE items) and they have zero cost in advertising/hosting a website. Service fees for CC transactions are balanced out against the AH's service fee, making them equal or nearly equal in cost per transaction.
This is real data + simple math, there are no lies, assumptions, made up stuff from some magical land. This is reality. A farmer needs to make $1.32/hr to turn a profit. Got that? There is no rebuttal to this, none. So don't bother trying to make one.
Ok, now we get into the grey area again. What can one person ( or several farmers working together?) do in one hour to guarantee they get item(s) of value that exceed $1.32 ? We should all know these, but I'll give a few examples:
Farm gold from a known good source, Farm harder bosses in hopes for a high value item, Farm easier bosses in hopes for several low/mid value items in the same time it takes to kill a single harder boss.
I'm sure each has their merits, and I'm also sure each farming house will try/research each one.
So now the question comes. Do you really think, that even with "real" players "controlling"the market (something I disagree with being true), that a farmer will be able to sell an hour's worth of wares for $1.32 ?
Going by a single instance from Diablo 2, where the player farmed for ~3 hours : http://www.diablofans.com/topic/754-item-drop-rates/ . He got 4 set items, 2 unique, a bunch of gems and a handful of runes (as well as gold and other misc stuff). Do you think that the combined value of all that is $1.32 ?
I tried (well 20min of googling) to find a simple, plain number to describe the chance per kill on a random monster to drop a "rare" (set, unique, higher value rune, etc) item, but found nothing concrete, but I did find this site which has the core algorithms used by Diablo 2. It's pretty beefy. http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Item_Generation_Tutorial
With all of that, it is in my opinion that it will certainly be possible, regardless of "player influence" that farmers will be profitable in the game economy... especially with my belief that there will be a significant portion of the player-base that will be buying only, as well as significant portion that won't bother with "trivial" items that still hold value (such as low end set items, low/mid runes/gems, etc). There are other factors I mentioned in previous posts but this one is long enough.
Will the economy become such that a farmer won't be able to break that $1.32 mark?
Some other misc things I couldn't find a proper place for in this post:
-The cost to operate for a chinese player is less than a US player, the key areas being electricity, internet, food, and rent. You simply couldn't turn a profit with a us based operation, unless the prices per item were outrageously expensive.
-This example contains people playing "legitimately", we haven't even crossed into the realm of botters (all of a sudden a single person can run 2, 4, 8? clients at once, cutting costs by a gigantic portion), hackers, etc. Lets *hope* these don't become anywhere near as rampant as D2 was.
Going back to the original question of this thread, I believe that because farmers will be able to turn a profit, regardless of player's effect on the economy, that my experience will be effected by their presence, which is aided by the inclusion of the RMAH.
WeirdOne, I did not have time to directly address your response post and I feel that I shouldn't bother because you keep talking like what you say is fact, against my statements which I openly (and purposely) admit are opinions, believes, and educated-guesses.
I have summarized why the RMAH is better/cheaper/easier for the farmers (and most of it is fact, not opinion), but I also contend that the farmers will be the ones undercutting the real players. From the tiny amount of money they need to turn a profit, I forsee players frequently being undercut by the farmers, as they will be able to turn a profit even at rock bottom prices... prices that many players will simply refuse to sell their items at.
Furthermore, it has been a common practice in AH economies for "powerplayers" to buy out all the undercutter's products, then immediately repost them at the price they set. This is of course one of those careful balance things, but it is restrictive as the person/company willing to do it must be 1. willing to put upfront costs of buying out the competition at no guarantee that their own stock will sell and 2. they must factor in the service fee associated with the buying+reselling.
As an absolutely final statement to this post, I apologize to the OP for somewhat going off topic... BUT this is a highly complex issue and it simply cannot be boiled down into a few words.