QuestHelper and the economy

[TheElf]

For a lot of troubles Blizzard tend to blame gold sellers, but their impact might be limited compared to the problems created by some addons and web sites. Why?

If an addon, guide or web site would suggest some location for farming some items, more and more players will choose that place. Even in the old times most people visited a few zones for gathering iron and ignored the rest. While they could say that place has more nodes to farm, it also had more competition. But that competition weren't visible on Thottbot maps.

In fact more competition: more gather data appears on the web site, and can make the location even better, even more efficient and more and more people will visit it.

The same is true with addons that suggest a nice nearby place for getting quest items (like QuestHelper) and any guide that sends players to a specific location. If a source of information is popular enough it can make one area overcrowded and the other area "empty".

Lack of competition in one area, and overcrowded nature of another area can lead to an interesting scenario: Time requirement for farming some items can be influenced by the your sources of information.

If you can farm some tradeable quest items two times as fast as people who follow guides, you can also offer a tempting price on these items. A very tempting one. Since for you it costs less time to make the same items.

If you going to AH the quest items, you don't have to farm close to the quest giver for 3 reasons: You don't need the quest giver. You farm far more items and the travel time will be less important (while wait time in overcrowded area stay important). And whats worse: You will prefer locations close to a mailbox / bank / AH.

[zergnase]

In fact more competition: more gather data appears on the web site, and can make the location even better, even more efficient and more and more people will visit it.

i guess blizzard needs to code more realistic.
more folks result into more resources to farm on is not very realistic.

realistic would be ammount X per periode no matter how many farmers farm around...

[TheElf]

zergnase: The key isn't how many resources / hour are generated. It is about how data is gathered by third party addons. The key is: if noone goes to check a place, no items will be gathered. So the addons won't see "you can gather x here" and won't list that place, etc...

You see the point?

Authors of such third party addons don't have access to the actual quest database, loot tables, etc. and their datamining technique is based on a simple thing: When you use the addon, it records what have you done. Where have you found chilled meat, cobalt, frost lotus, etc... and they use this data to suggest a place to gather things.

[zergnase]

sure thats a bit problematic

but that can be counteracted (if they see the need / if they see custoumers quiting due distortions) by sending out scouts (paid) those values could get higher modifier for the datamining since they come from a trusted source. those scouts could go into corners from which you dont have much data...

[TheElf]

Not that easy. Most addons (alone) are free.
With wowecon you pay for some extra functionality on their web site, and interaction between their database and the addon (so an online service).
Curse charges for a service too

[zergnase]

are those services worth it ?

[TheElf]

That depends on a few things.

I think when you pay for a game, you want to have fun, and when you are "frustrated" because "everyone else has an epic flyer" you would get surprisingly low value for your money. You pay a lot for the game and subscription. But you might stay for friends, etc.

You buy either a guide for money making, or use wowecon, and some free addons (updated by your curse client with curse premium) you might have fun for a bit more money. Is it a good deal?

[zergnase]

yep,

but maybe your friends on epic flyers might have a hint for you how to also get such a fancy mount (..then they also dont have to wait ages for you when you travel "togather" between locations)

[TheElf]

Often they spent weeks with farming gold... Not the best idea

[zergnase]

hm... maybe you folks should work togather?

some run around as scouts see what other folks farm, while other do the farming if a good spot is located. the overall revenue is then later split between all.