SW:TOR will experience the first ever overnight ecomonic crash of an MMO.

[mokkh]

I think you are overestimating how many people will actually mess with GSH let alone burn all their credits on it.

 

Even if there was a collapse. Who cares? This is a game.

 

Perfectly stated.

[RandomXChance]

I apologize. I didn't read the wall of text. As someone who has studied economics, I didn't really feel the need to read something by someone who has obviously not.

 

Something I don't think you've realized is that a lot of this money being "sunk" from the game is earmarked for that sink. People have been saving. This is not money that would have been used for another purpose anyway. Other people have had this money for a long time and would not have spent it on anything else. Many others will probably be buying the strongholds with cartel coins.

 

In short, think of this money being spent as surplus money. It's money people have earned specifically for the stronghold or who wouldn't have used it for anything else anyway. Prices may dip a little but it won't last long. If anything, the introduction of a vast array of new items will probably increase economic activity. I'm even willing to go as far as to say that we're currently playing in a SWTOR with an artificially high level of credits because of people saving for the strongholds and this will correct itself with their introduction.

 

Remember that it isn't how much money is in supply that's important. It's how much is flowing. The 2008 Crisis didn't occur because money "disappeared". It occurred because the flow of credit shutdown almost overnight. The money was still there but it stopped moving. The introduction of strongholds will not do this.

 

Finally, this game's economy is nothing like real life.

 

 

This. This right here.

 

This is almost exactly what i was going to post. The OP has completely missed a very important part of economics, prediction. Crashes happen when the unexpected happens or market predictions are wildly off.

Think of when a company posts a big loss and the stock rises. Why? The prediction was for an even bigger loss.

 

Since the announcement of GSH people have been running dailies in much larger numbers and pumping large amounts of credits into the economy and are just sitting on it waiting for GSH. My personal wealth was about 20 million before announcement, now 40 million. Guild has doubled funds to almost 200 million in preparation. This is all "extra" credits that were generated to spend on GSH.

 

It is easy to earn credits in this game. Just before, there was nothing to really spend it on so why grind and amass a lot of credits.

[LordArtemis]

I expect that folks that sat on credits will spend them, but they will not be introduced into the economy....they will disappear. Those that have very little in credit pools (myself included, I usually hover around 2 or 3 mil at most) will likely hold on to that credit pool and try and find every way possible to avoid spending any credits to decorate.

 

That's just me, but I expect that strongholds will have little to no impact at all. Just my slant.

[Rafaman]

Hmm... well, when players run out of credits, they will make some more. As previously mentioned, there is no debt and making creds is easy. There will not be an interruption of cash flow because people can't spend beyond their means.

 

So just like with anything else, after a flurry of activity, and then things will stabilize. Not everyone will spend every credit they have earned, and many guilds already have the credits they need.

 

If nothing else, people will make more creds to get what they want, guild or not.

[OddballEasyEight]

So the grand total cost of unlocking all four strongholds completely (and buying them of course) is a "whopping" 17.5 million credits in round terms.

 

That's not going to hurt most people who can afford it.

 

But the other thing that the OP is missing is that most people, in fact the vast majority, won't unlock much at all.

At most they'll unlock one stronghold completely.

 

And alot of people won't unlock anything at all and just put the mailbox and legacy storage right by the entrance.

 

So the strongholds won't cause an economic crash.

Especially since alot of people have been saving up cash for them, meaning that they've already "paid" for them in a way since that money is earmarked for that particular item.

 

As for guild ships, the guilds that want them have already saved up for them in most cases.

That means that just like with strongholds, that money is earmarked and already "gone".

 

There's not going to be an economic crash.

 

There might be a slight dip in prices/sales on the GTN but that's hardly an economic crash.

 

 

I for one am bookmarking this thread so I can come back here and laugh after those dates.

[Kulyok]

GSH won't influence the economy beyond a short-term rush to buy prefabs/popular CM decorations.

 

Really expensive stuff may drop a bit pre-GSH(heck, it does now), but people will continue buying this expensive stuff to look cool and to show-off in front of other people. GSH stuff, on the other hand - who else will see it? One or two friends, maybe, or some strangers on reddit when you'll publish the screenshots? In short, no one cares, and people will feel it, and GSH economy will... well, not die, but stagnate.

 

On the other hand, people will continue needing augments, raiding gear, the coolest CM mounts and armors, and those lovely hawkeye crystals. Unless Grand Acquisition/Grand Crystal/Grand Mount packs try to kill the high-end economy and drive down the prices yet again.

[mortenpro]

I think you are overestimating how many people will actually mess with GSH let alone burn all their credits on it.

 

Even if there was a collapse. Who cares? This is a game.

 

You don't care, but I do

[Uvirith]

Some faulty assumptions there my friend.

 

1.) you think that people will actually burn their money on GSH, while in truth most will stick to either the free NarShaddaa-Skypalace (subscriberbonus) or the cheap Coruscant/Dromund Kaas-apartments.

 

2.) You didnt factor in the many many people who will unlock things with cartel points. You might not notice it, but most of the transactions in this game aren't with credits.

 

3.) You assume there even is a highend-market in this game where a lot of players participate, when the truth is that the same couple of people shove their millions around between each other. The majority of the playerbase doesnt have that kind of money.

 

In conclusion, there will be a slight dump in highend-prices (you know, the ones we normal people doesnt even look at), other than that, nothing will really change.

[Vodamin]

I feel like every thread similar to this one is started by someone who is holding 2-3 Raven sets and few ramcor mounts, and now they are very concenrned that they wont be able to sell them for 50 million credits each

 

Poor babies.

[jedip_enguin]

 

Plenty of people wont spend a credit on GSH beyond setting up a mailbox/bank/terminals etc in the lobby of the cheapest stronghold they cant get.

 

Calm down Chicken Little.

[Shevaresh]

"This just in... the economy of SWToR will collapse overnight. Save yourselves! Invest your fortune in rakling pets and Huttball practice jerseys, as these items are surely recession-proof! Then be sure to run away as fast as you can to another MMO, becaurse surely this game is doomed and will be taken down permanently becourse of this most assuredly disaster of the economy. It is most surely not just a simple "wax and wane" of a simplistic MMO-economy, tied in to the introduction of a most wanted feature in the game, that "Trolls united" are attempting to disawow and use to predict the comming doom of society, as with pretty much all other introductions of new features"

 

Unlike its real-life counterpart, the economy of SWToR isn't dominated by an intricate web of hedgefonds, capital ventures, international rules and regulations set in motion to protect the already rich and a myriad of other mind-blowingly complex factors. All of which seek to increase the amount of wealth as represented in monetary value, which unfortunately isn't always matched by an equal grow of actual value of goods and services, providing the basis for recessions and collapses of economic infrastructures (Putting an extremely complex system in overly simplistic terms) In SWToR we can simply chose to work (dailies/questing/grinding etc) and thereby create both monetary value(as per the credits we make) and actual value(as simply adding more credits to the server), Which we can do forever and ever, if we choose to. This effectively removes the possibility of recession and/or collapse of the economy of a server. Having people spend allot of money on strongholds or any other feature in the game will not collapse the economy of the servers, simply course it to "wane" for a short while, in the WORST CASE SCENARIO! Which is brought on by people over-spending on the strongholds, rather than simply spend an amount of their credits proportional their total wealth, which is really the only way you even CAN go about it. In real life you can take out loans to pay for your spendings beyond your income and wealth and thereby risk the possibility of not being able to pay it back and go broke. This could never happen in a MMO-economy as you always have to option to generate more wealth.

 

Furthermore, that perhaps certain mounts and novelty items aren't sold at their premium value for a short while is not an indicator of recession, as these -rare- items never was and never will be, a main component of the economy and as such, have their pricing as a reliable indicator of server economy (key items). And we could go on and on.

 

But enough of this. The short version: Thanks for providing a not-entirely generic troll thread predicting the invariable forthcomming doom of all MMOs ever. But honestly this whole "Doomsaying" culture got really tiresome and predictable around the time the first multi-user dungeon game was in beta, as the interwebz was already overflowing with predictions of its, and every other games, invariable doom. For future reference though, you do realise that it's entirely okay to simply state to a game-developer that you'd rather want another or a different feature introduce to the game instead? You do not have to predict the doom of the game simply because you don't like something they're adding to the game, or attempt to introduce panic in the playerbase, so that the feature is pre-concieved as a failure. In short, engage in a constructive dialogue about what you'd like to have in the game, while at the same time respecting that your opinion is but one of many, and that ultimately it's the developers responsibility to make the choices -they- feel are the right ones.

 

And last point: Claiming that Bioware is insensitive for putting up the Rakhgoul event while there is an Ebola epidemic going on, is simply moronic and utterly disrespectful. Having a pre-scheduled event in a game, concerning a -fictitious- outbreak of a -fictitious- illness in an -entirely- fictional movie/game universe is not insensitive towards a very real disease plagueing the poorest continent of the world. These two events has nothing to do with each other and connecting them and further using that as a line of argument against events in said fictional universe really shows a level of disrespect towards the people suffering from Ebola, that is distasteful, to say the least. If you want to make a point about Ebola, or help the people suffering from it, write to your local and goverment officials and get them to pressure the medicinal industry to actually research a cure for the disease, instead of just largely ignoring it as they have been since it was first discovered, simply because it rarely affected people from the developed countries and thereby hasn't been seen as profitable disease to attempt to cure

[wainot-keel]

 

Plenty of people wont spend a credit on GSH beyond setting up a mailbox/bank/terminals etc in the lobby of the cheapest stronghold they cant get.

 

Calm down Chicken Little.

 

yeah, lol.... just in front of the entrance where you spawn when you travel there. Legacy store, cargo hold, mailbox and GTN access. That's it for me.

[Kulyok]

yeah, lol.... just in front of the entrance where you spawn when you travel there. Legacy store, cargo hold, mailbox and GTN access. That's it for me.

 

Yeah. Too bad that the spawn point is at the entrance. I'd be happy to unlock the largest and most beautiful room and arrange my GTN/mail/storage there, but I have no desire to rocket boost/run there each time I spawn.

[Orizuru]

I think the weekend forum crew needs to loosen their tinfoil hats a little.

[Horacio]

One of the bedrock precepts of economics is that the people act in their own rational self interest but since we are considering play money, that is hard to achieve. I've made millions purchasing items off the GTN for sub-vendor price and walking over to the vendor. Did it as an economics experiment on one serve, leveled a character to 15, got her to fleet and three weeks later, had 1 million credits.

 

As several others have mentioned, a "crash" isn't people sleeping in the alleys of DK/CS. There are tons of GSH irems obtainable for running content, farming, and not purchaseable, so I think the OP over estimates demand. My guild, with about 8-12 active players has 30M toward a guild ship and I'm sitting on my personal fortune that would buy it outright.

 

It will certainly have an effect. If there is a cool armor set or speeder you have your eye on, wait a couple weeks. Its already happening. I'm trying to get more liquid and make bank space but prices have fallen. Where I make the most money is volume dye modules which, for the crafted basics, doesn't seem to have moved much or at least corrected to appropriate levels and is chugging along. Materials have increased but I use what my comps from multple sources bring me. (as an anecdotal aside, the game must be doing ok in tems of population if I can continue to see dyes by the truckload at a reasonably steady price range.)

 

No, its not going to be a crash that is going to cause any real injury to anyone. Players might see their balances dry up as they spend like crazy to outfit their ship/SH but big deal? There are crashes on individual items all the time. I've sold items for 100K one day and three days later seen 7 copies of it all for sale for 1M +. I've added my second copy to the GTN and sold it more than once at that inflated rate. The reverse is more common as undercutters can spiral a price into the floor. Translated to a systemic event, I don't see how that's a bad thing except for those hoarding equipment (alas, which I do but not for investment, more like "that's cool but I like my current look....maybe when I get tired of this one...")

 

I welcome the new content, I've begged for housing across multiple games. I welcome the economic implications because I've hoarded crafting materials. (Shrewdly purchasing everyting I can off the GTN at below vendor price so I'm never in danger of holding the bag. If I'm totally wrong, eh, I'll vendor it all and make a tidy sum)

 

Wall of text, sorry

 

TL;DR version: Big deal. Its going to be a change/shift but not necassarily a bad one.

[tdmaha]

Geez another doom and gloom Swtor thread...

Well actually both Lotro and Rift...probably others have indeed released player/guild housing after release. And they have all managed to survive.

 

In lotro for example the gold/price ratio for personal and kinship housing is very comparable to Swtor. So if you look at the history of mmos and releasing housing there is no reason to write a long winded, irrational , doom and gloom thread.

[Brewski]

The flaw in your logic is assuming this will last forever. In a real life depression people lose the capacity to make money, and end up poor. In this game, since credits are made out of thin air anytime you complete a quest and receive a reward, no one ever loses the capacity to make money, the only question is how much they have in reserve.

 

The economy will dip as many of those players sitting on massive stacks of wealth for no good reason spend their reserves. After a short while, the economy will rise as the supply of credits rises back up a bit and stabilizes. After that, the economy will stabilize at a new level, and everything will go back to normal, albeit possibly with new "normal" prices.

[Comradebot]

Meh.

 

Let's be honest: all it will do is make people a little less inclined to purchase off the GTN for a few days. Meanwhile, players will still be running dailies and guilds will still be running Ops. The result will be money going right back into the economy, with some nice big new money sinks hanging around to help stave off inflation (which is the real culprit every MMO should be concerned about).

[Comradebot]

To add on... you can't apply real world economics to an MMO. Very, very little of an MMO economy is even remotely like the real world. For starters, you can't just magic more money into the economy by going and killing ten womp rats or out of the economy be purchasing something from a NPC vendor. There's no debt, there's no loans, prices are often completely arbitrary, and even supply and demand doesn't work like real life. MMO economies function on a level completely different from the real world on a fundamental level. It's like trying to apply the strategy for a soccer game to baseball. Yeah, they're both sports, but they're very, very different sports.

 

Yes, people buying sizable chunks of GSH stuff and guildships will see a sizable chunk of credits get funneled out of the economy. But as people who have already saved up for that stuff have shown, it takes almost no time at all to funnel those credits back into the economy. I think we're look at, at most, two or three days where a few prices drop slightly on the GTN or just a slightly smaller amount of stuff gets sold on it. Hardly doom and gloom.

[TUXs]

Meh.

 

Let's be honest: all it will do is make people a little less inclined to purchase off the GTN for a few days.

Nah...I think it'll make players feel less attached to this game.

[CaptainApop]

SWTORs economy has been weird and stupid since launch.

 

I doubt I will even notice the "crash" as anything out of the ordinary.

[Dras_Keto]

Im sure someone has already mentioned this, but Im too lazy to look for it through 50 posts of armchair economics. (not to mention that absurdly long op of bs)

 

Basic point: you cant apply real world economic thought to a game. Its because the game has virtually no cost of living. There is no demand that is really a need. There is only a functionally infinite supply and "want."

 

Thus the whole "OH MY GOD, there will be breadlines on the starter planets! So sad!" falls apart.

Edited August 11, 2014 by Dras_Keto

[Khevar]

Nah...I think it'll make players feel less attached to this game.

Would you mind clarifying your logic, please?

 

If the super-expensive things on the GTN go down in price, because if a significant deflation, than players would feel less attached to the game?

 

Why? Players with less money would be able to afford things they've desired that were out of reach before.

[Jnaathra]

I'm just going to purchase my Stronghold stuff with CC. -shrug-

[hadoken]

I guess I can kind of see some of the concern for regular GTN players.

 

For myself, I likely won't notice anything at all.