The Economic Crisis

Unless you have been living in a bunker (or have not logged off WoW) for a few weeks you would be aware that the US is in the middle of an economic crisis.

You may not however be aware that there is another economic crisis occurring, that is effecting not the US, but the entire World.... of warcraft.

It is comical that both of these things are happening at the same time however they are not caused by the same factors. It is the imminent release of the next World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, that has sent the economics of the game into a complete spin. The question of course is why the expansion is affecting the current state of the game so drastically? Below is a discussion of the major factors of the economic downturn.

1. Fewer people playing

Firstly there are far fewer people actually logging in and playing the game at the moment. Zones such as Isle of Quel'Danas, usually overflowing with characters making gold from the local dailies, are now reminiscent of ghost towns.

People are either sick of the content of WoW and are waiting for the new stuff or they feel that with the world about to change so drastically, their current actions are futile.

This has two important consequences,

1. there is far less money being 'input' into the game
2. there is less potential consumers of goods.

2. Less Raiding

Most people are aware that when Lich King is released there is going to be a 'gear reset' just as there was when the previous expansion was released. This means that most of the uber tier gear that you may have spent months and months raiding to collect is now practically just for good looks.

Since the primary objective of raiding is usually to collect better gear, there has obviously been a downturn in the amount of people raiding because it seems rather pointless. Some people like to raid for the experience and to see new content however as soon as guilds start losing raiders, things can fall apart very rapidly. All it takes is the loss of a few good tanks or healers and the whole guild is crippled.

So less people are raiding but what does that have to do with the economy?
Raiders tend to be the biggest consumers in the WoW economy. They ensure that there is a constant demand for high leveling crafting materials, potions, elixirs, flasks, oils, food and drink, rare item, recipes and designs etc.

As less people are raiding this demand for these things is inevitably dropping off.

3. Liquefying Assets

If you peer into the bank of any high end character or guild you will see a lot of expensive 'assets'. They may include things such as ultra rare patterns, epic gems and crafting materials. These items can be very expensive and people tend to collect them over time because you just never know when you or a friend might need them.

The problem is though that with the release of the expansion all of these items will be replaced with new higher level items thus rendering them almost useless. People have realized this fact and have begun to liquefy their assets into gold to avoid being stuck with worthless materials. This of course leads to the market being flooded.

Result

So we have less gold in the game, a market flooded with people trying to sell stuff and a large decrease in overall demand... the result ... the current economic crisis.

The other day I saw a Nether Vortex (crafting material) which usually sells for in excess of 200g being sold for less than 30g. In general people are going to end up losing a lot of gold.

The interesting thing is this is probably exactly what Blizzard wants, so that the amount of gold in the game is decreased as a whole for the expansion.

What can you do?

There are several options which make sense in the current situation.

1. Look for ways to capitalize on the market low. For example if you want to pick up a new profession in the expansion, buy all the materials now while they are cheap and then you can power level to max.
2. Have a break from WoW. When the expansion comes out you are going to want to be playing 24/7 so take a break now for a few weeks.
3. Do dailies. The dailies remain a reliable source of income and so keep doing them and save money for the expansion. Remember though that gold is the only safe commodity in WoW at the moment.

Do I think too much about WoW... probably :)

Don't forget to register for Path of a Hero my new site if you think it sounds interesting.

Mantle of Tirisfal

I was not planning to talk much about my WoW gaming in this blog for two reasons:

• I wanted to keep it mostly about the development of this site and other interesting topics.
• Once this site is running I will be happily using it to share and express my WoW victories.

What happened then you ask?

Well yesterday in my Tempest Keep raid, we skipped Al'ar and went straight to Void Reaver (Loot Reaver). When his giant mechanical body came crashing down and I opened the loot box I saw not 1, not 2 but 3... tier 5 hunter/mage/warlock shoulder tokens.

Since I was at the top of the EPGP board I only really needed one to drop.

That was my first piece of t5. I have been raiding t5 contents for close to two months now, so I dare say it was deserved. Anyways here it is Mantle of Tirisfal.

Yesterday I also managed to down High Astromancer Solarian for the first time. I was really surprised how easy she was.

I am really happy that I was able to get at least one piece of t5 before Lich King comes out. I am also dissapointed though because we are moving on to t6 raids and thus I will most likely not get the opportunity to get any more pieces and receive that wicked Arcane Blast set bonus :D.

Oh well... I just keep looking forward to being at the forefront of raids in the expansion and hopefully I will be able to get some tier 7, 8, 9?? asap.

The path that led me here

So I have finally taken the leap and begun to build my own web 2.0 site. It is something that I have been wanting to do since I graduated from university last year. What were the factors that pushed me over the edge:

• I read Hacker News religiously and I was sick of seeing other people do what I was too lazy to try.
• My day job was getting a bit mundane and so I wanted a creative release... a project that could be mine... a project that was immune to cancellation... a project where I control the requirements and design.
• I have extensive skills (some may say mad skillz) and experience with a wide range of web 2.0 technologies, my favorites being Django and Flex. I realized that if I was passionate about what I was making, I could pump out stuff with lightning fast iterations.
• I was put onto the online book Getting Real by 37 signals by a work colleague. It was a real eye opener.
• My usual addiction to World of Warcraft was waning somewhat, due to the gear reset and other changes coming with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. I will blog more on this later.
• Most importantly however, I felt that I found an idea that has some real merit. At the very least it will provide me with something that I will enjoy using.
  

So about 2 weeks ago I started designing and implementing this site. I would get home from work and instead of playing WoW for a couple of hours I would program. I have been really happy with my progress and productivity thus far.

I admit that I still go raiding on the weekends in the hope that I will get into Black Temple before the expansion comes out. Actually this weekend I have Tempest Keep on Saturday and Hyjal on Sunday... but I digress.

One thing that is really good about my efforts with Path of a Hero is that I have a very natural hard deadline to work with. It is of course the release of Wrath of the Lich King on November 13th 2008.


Well it appears that I still have a lot to say about a variety of things but in the true spirit of software engineering I will keep things small and modular and use composition to achieve the desired result. Hmm... I wonder where inheritance fits in.

By the way if you want to find out more about me and my two identities, take a look at the About page.