Peace of mind. I’m not a rich player by many measures, but at any day or time I have the liquid funds to buy overpriced gems (or use some from my stockpile), buy a crafted shield for my new alt, or pay for riding skills on an alt. I have the funds to buy a stack of the requisite flavor of flasks (since I don’t want to be rude and ask the guild alchemist to make me cauldrons for free), to wipe all night on new content without saying, “I can’t afford this”. I don’t enjoy dailies – though I know they’re lucrative, so this is my money supply.

Granted, I’m a miser. I bitch about buying overpriced crap on the AH, but having that slush fund ensures that I never have to *worry* about it. In contrast, one of my best friends often feels that he “can’t afford” things. He spends on top-line gems and enchants for his gear, but then stresses over repairs, and doesn’t feel like he can feed and clothe his alts.

A good slush fund lets me enjoy playing the game, without feeling like I have to do “chores”. Somehow, despite it taking time in similar fashion, milling herbs or posting stuff on the AH doesn’t annoy me the way dailies do.

Yes, there’s a large gold/AH blogsphere. Look at the best/earliest posters–gevlon, markco, stokpile, khaas. 2 of them still play WoW, although gevlon doesn’t post about goldmaking anymore.A bunch of copycats have formed, but most of them seem more interested in attempting to monetize their blogs than in writing anything interesting. So perhaps what you see as a perplexing growth in goldblogging, I see as the gradual death through monetization/burnout. This makes the latest real money auction announcement from Diablo3 somehow appropriate.

1) Why would I want this kind of gold? Basically to so I can do what I enjoy in this game.
- I hate farming. Knowing how to make gold and having gold prevents me from having to do that.
- Dailies annoy the heck out of me and I will never do ones I don’t have to (I did grind argent tourney because I loved the charger mount).
- I don’t really enjoy being forced to interact with other people because blizzard wants me to. I bought a level 25 guild with tons of achievements so I can have somewhere to park all my toons without the pressure of crafting things for random strangers, showing up to pointless meetings on vent, running people through dungeons I don’t care about, etc. I’m sure some people enjoy these things, but I don’t. Gold allows me to get the benefits of the perks without the hassles (I keep guild chat off, but I do run a “invite anyone who isn’t guilded” addon… there are about 500 people in the guild now, cash flow = 4k-6k per week for me. No hassle, complete control, and free income!)
- I have all the convenience (i.e. traveller’s mammoth for my level 40 rogue for poison vendor and repair bot whenever) that I can buy without having to stress (why anyone would use 150% flying longer than they have to is beyond me)
- Hire people to do whatever I need. If there is some activity that can be sped up by having help, I can get it. Gold allows me to skip the things in game I don’t like and just do the things I do Iike.

2) Why are people without gold “morons and slackers”? This is a tricky one. I don’t think everyone without gold is a moron or slacker, but there are a decent number that are. Assuming everyone spends time to get gold, you are wasting time when you are wasting gold. Thus, when I see from my bean counter that I have made over 50k gold since cata (I reset my bean counter at 4.1) on VENDOR items (ones that can be found in major cities, not the obscure BC ones that require a 10 minute flight) I can only conclude there are a lot of morons out there. I know not everyone who is low on gold is that way because they spend poorly, but seeing what I sell tells me there are quite a few people low on gold simply because they don’t think.

3) Should the gold be reset each expansion? Well, to some extent it is reset. In vanilla anyone with 1000g+ was filthy rich. In BC if anyone had 25,000g+ they were a tycoon. In wrath, the rich were 50,000g+ toons, and in cata, it seems you’re only rich for 400k+. There has been such a steep in game inflation because of the quest reward/gold sink regulation, that it is obvious blizzard is encouraging inflation. This inflation acts as a soft reset to the gold each expansion.

For me, the game isn’t about all about gold, but I see it as a means to the end of playing the way I want. I love to pvp, I hate people (‘cept for in small groups like arena where I can choose people I can count on), not a fan of repetitive activities, etc. It seems blizzard tries to push me to do the exact opposite of all these things (pve being required for pvp, being social for guild required for perks, RBGS needed to cap PVP points each week, etc). As long as I have plenty of gold I can buy my way out of doing this things I dislike.

Oh, and there is something really awesome about collecting a mailbox filled with 193 sold auctions too

Ultimately, of course, they will leave the game, and if they dump their gold back into the market, that is when inflation will pick up.

Glad to hear you’re planning to keep blogging and good luck with the relaunch.

(Incidentally, qualitative research is still research and even interviewing a small number of people/ reading a sample of blogs can offer useful information if they’re roughly representative.)

For sure, there will be other reasons such as social networks or preferring the gameplay outside the economic sphere (for people who like PvE/ PvP as well as money making) but ‘goblins’ don’t tend to value social ties and actually do often switch servers just for the fun of starting again from scratch. I’d say it’s more likely that EVE has a terrible UI and is actively unfriendly to new players in many ways. But it’s still an interesting question to ask, because the WoW AH crowd is pretty large (likely several thousand players at the very least) and the game itself doesn’t really cater to hardcore economic players by offering extra challenges/ rewards at that level.

And yet people prefer to stay with the game where they have market expertise and know exactly what sells and who buys, even when they have no need for the gold at all. …”

I don’t understand why you ask why more AH junkies in WoW don’t want to try EVE. More than what? Do you really have any idea how many AH junkies there are in each game, and how many of those have switched between the two games? If not, aren’t you basically waving your hands and talking nonsense in these two paragraphs?

The fact that EVE is a deeper and more interesting economic simulation is the only reasonable thing you said here. Nothing else in these two paragraphs even resembles an attempt at a factual statement, or anything that could reasonably be inferred from facts you laid out. As far as I or anyone could tell from your post, you read a bunch of blogs about WoW, and then wondered why they aren’t playing EVE. Well, it’s because you read WoW blogs, not EVE blogs. I’d love to believe that your thought process was other than this, but nothing in your post indicates that it was.

If you did have some solid numbers about WoW ah junkies vs. EVE ah junkies, I would probably reply something about how people prefer to play MMO’s with friends, and WoW has much larger sub numbers, so people stick with their friends in WoW, etc etc. Since you don’t have any numbers, or other standard through which your post could reasonably be interpreted in an objective way, that reply is unnecessary.

To correct a few points – I’ve not finished my goals in WoW. I’m still playing, in fact we have another attempt on Shannox (normal) shortly. What I have stopped is writing about gold making, because I dont feel I have anything left to say which is new or exciting. Writing for the sake of writing is never a good idea.

Since I signed off I’ve spent around 20k. And trust me I’ve been trying. Valor bracers for my priest for 9k. Bargain! The guy was asking 12k, but I refused to pay. So the deprogramming is a work in progress.

Spinks – apologies for the cliches – but the AH is the 5th secondary profession. Like archaelogy or fishing, it is not everyones to everyones taste, but it is a profession open to every troll, dwarf and draenai in the game. However, unlike every other profession, there are no acheivement points which can be gained through it.

This has always been rather confusing to me. We get awarded for looting x gold from y dead bodies – yet unlike other achievement arcs, such as companion pets, we receive nothing for overall wealth milestones.

Many argue achievements for gold cap would encourage gold sellers and associated criminal activities. Maybe it would, but gold can buy you other achievements already so I dont know what makes this any different. The chopper and Vial of the Sands are just two such examples, but there are many many others which can be easily achieved with a whack of cash.

And honestly I think that is all it would take – because people like achievements. And titles. You see them every day – why are people running Heroic LK still? Why are Black Temple runs so popular? For the kudos of the title? For the chance of the useless legendary? Yes, recognition is extremely important in WoW – even for the likes of Gevlon who posts day after day screaming “Looki At Me!” at the top of his fingertips.

But like anything in WoW eventually gold losing its meaning – its mana to use the maori term. Hardcore raiders eventually move into something else (I see a lot of them now casually raiding – serious about it but still casual with likeminded individuals), or PvPing or leaving the game entirely. Goblins are no different.

So like the ex-hardcore raiders, I now consider myself an ex-hardcore goblin. I will find new things to entertain me in game, and when the game stops entertaining I’ll float off to whatever next catches my fancy.

I enjoy writing. The blog will be relaunched when I work out what else I can write about to a standard I expect of myself. And quite possibly the gold posts may start again further into the future if and when I feel I have something new to say.

My emotions are fine, I’m fine. I’m just changing my destination.