Quote Originally Posted by Analytical View Post
Take the above with a grain of salt for whoever reading the above comment, as well as what I'm about to embark on.
(Note: If you are lazy to read something that took me quite some time and effort to put into picture, feel free to ignore but don't expect me to reply to your salty comments about how long this is)

Like that u cited what the dev said to strengthen your views on the recent price rise being caused SOLELY by inflation. That's what I took away from your comment. Feel free to correct me if I misunderstood it. That said, I don't see an attempt to explain HOW exactly adding billions of gold caused inflation, maybe your intention is to reiterate what has already been said by the dev which for some reasons I felt is somehow a bit redundant although extremely resourceful.

Personally, I'm just a normal guy, and I believe a vast majority of us may not have a sound economical background let alone a PhD in Economy. Fancy economical terms like "inflation" to a lay man like me, just seems too mumbo jumbo that it does not provide me with a constructive understanding. Checking Dictionary did help a little, but still it doesn't explain the MECHANISM of AL "inflation". At best, using the word itself only put the blame of the price rise to a mumbo jumbo word and expecting people to just accept it as a valid reason to shut their mouths from asking any further questions.

To start with, "Inflation" simply means the "value of money has dropped" because its getting abundant. Money has supply and demand too, when it has little to no value, people do not hold their money and prefer holding items like gold bars instead (in game these are the expensive vanities). So demand for items will rise, hence causing the rise in price.

Now, question is, to what extent does the value of money (Gold coins) drop? Or in another words to what extent does "inflation" causes price of items to rise?

It depends on two things.
1. Supply of money (Pirate booty, Blotoo party event, plat players buying gold etc)
2. Demand for money (Gold coins needed to buy awake gems in store to awake gears, expansion needing gold to buy new gears)

I'm wondering why the dev didn't disclose how much gold was SINKED/items being Liquidated during awake events as well as during expansion (or they actually did?) but so happily revealed the amount of gold ADDED to the game when people were asking why was the pirate booty event not as profitable as expected. What's the intention behind this? I will leave it to you.

Without both info, we can't be sure if the recent rise in price of some items is indeed caused by the ADDING of gold (supply of gold) AND/OR the lack of gold SINKED (demand for gold).

If the supply of gold > demand for gold:
"Inflation" happens, value of money falls, people keep items(hoarding whether in large or in small quantities) instead of gold, quickly causing a shortage of supply of items

If the supply of gold < demand of gold:
"Deflation" happens, value of money rises, people want money more than items, hence they sell the items they have causing prices to fall.

At the moment, it seems the AL community is still speculating what actually happened at this point with all sorts of possible factors causing the price rise of certain items not just limited to explanations/assumptions like "inflation" but also with "hoarding", "price manipulations", "faking offers" or even the combined effect of all the mentioned factors. And its funny to me how some of these responses in this thread are being so subjective and pointing fingers at one another, arguing who's right and who's wrong.

Finally, I will leave you all with these to think about.

Does items rise in price solely because of one of the following OR all of the following OR something else?
1. Inflation? (Too much Supply of money)
2. Lack of Deflation? (Lack of Gold Sink)
3. Hoarders? (Fake supply in the market)
4. Price manipulators? (Setting a personal price hoping that the market price will rise up to it, usually by tricking ignorant players that that's the normal price)
5. Offers fakers in forums/game? (A bit controversial, as its hard and time consuming to tell which offer is real and which offer is not real, other than testing the validity of those offers by yourself)
I’ve read your comment, I’ll be trying to explain and answer your last question of:

“Does items rise in price solely because of one of the following or all of the following”

1.) Inflation: Inflation played a huge role in why item prices are so high. Roughly Half a Billion Gold has been newly generated into the game. What most people don’t understand is that this happened in an ‘Extremely Short Period’ of 14 days! And to add more wood to the fire, Party Crasher probably added another 25+ billion gold in a time span of 7 days.

This is what causes major inflation! A huge amount of gold added into the game in a short amount of time. I’ll give you an example;

Ex: Say you only had 20m, and your goal was to buy Kershal Vanity Weapon that was worth 60m. Now imagine 50 players in the same situation as yourself. Then ‘Pirate Booty’ and ‘Party Crasher’ event(s) hit. Now after both events you managed to save up and get 60m, congratulations. But wait... there are now 50 other people who now have 60m as-well who all want kershal.
(I hope you understand what this leads too)
One of the 50 players offers 65m for the kershal to try and 1-up the other 49 players, so then someone else offers 67, then another offers 70, then 75, then 89, and then 95 and then 100m, etc... which causes the Value if that item to rise. I hope you understood this example.


2.) Lack of Deflation: Yes, this is also a reason why item prices are so high, because there isn’t enough Gold-Sinks in game to catch up with the newly amount of gold generated.

3.) Hoarders: This is also true, although this doesn’t cause a major change in the value of an item. Especially one you can loot... for example, the arcane vanity weapons such as maul,kershal,bb hooks. *This is not what caused the prices of items to rise*

4.) Price manipulators: Sure, this could be a reason why item prices rise. This doesn’t really do much, I’ll explain; let’s say Player X wanted 30m for a Bonesaw vanity, and said C/O: was 25m. And the actual value is worth around 8-10m. No one will buy for 25m, so if no one buys it for 25m, he will lower the price, why? Because no one has been offering anything close to that, so he tried 20m, and still nothing, so now he goes for 15m, he gets a few bites from other players but there’s always going to be that 1 person who will over pay and buy his Bonesaw for 15m. So again, this doesn’t play a huge role, but I guess you could say it plays a part?


5.) Fake offers are the same as Price manipulators. So I have the same response there.

In conclusion, going back to 1.) Inflation. Is the true reason why item prices are so high, sure the others you mentioned played a part but that part is extremely small. AL inflation is caused by adding a huge amount of gold in a very short amount of time, to mention supply and demand of a certain item.

We were already going through inflation without these past 2 events, with EVG and DM gold farming maps. 4-6 months ago maul vanity was 35-40m, and then 1-2 months ago, maul vanity went up to 50-53m. You can see the difference, EVG and DM probably added a few billions of gold into the game in a 6 month time span, while during Pirate Booty event and Party Crusher added half a trillion gold during a time span of 3 weeks. You can see the difference in results, of what happens during a long term stable inflation and a short term massive gold inflation.

Think of it like a balloon. If you inflate it too quickly it pops(which is what happens when you add half a trillion gold into the game in 3 weeks)

But if you take your time puffing it(EVG and DM) you can stop it from popping.


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