Black Lotus supply/demand problem

[lockpower]

Forward: As Nano said in another thread, keep it civil. I honestly think the community needs to discuss this issue as it will effect all of the raiding guilds in one way or another.

GM's: If this thread devolves into name calling, please delete the comments so we can keep the actual dialogue flowing. I want a real discussion and there is no place or need for ad hominem attacks.

The Black Lotus Problem: supply/demand

There seems to be a lot of strong feelings on both sides of the issues, but mainly it boiled down to there is not a problem because our guild has a ton stocked up.

That's great for those who have been on the server for the last year, and have had months and months to farm and collect their black lotus. Good on you. However, those of us who more recently came to Nostalrius are left kind of screwed. There are basically four zones they spawn in (Burning Steppes, Eastern Plaugelands, Silithus, and Winterspring.) They spawn ONE per zone per hour. That means that in a given hour only 4 spawn on the server with a population of 13,000 people.

For AQ40 your raid will want 4 tanks. If your raids last 4-5 hours that is 2-3 flasks per tank. That means for one raid, you're looking at 8 to 12 flasks / Black Lotus. That equates into 12 hours spent just getting the flowers and that's IF you're lucky enough to find them and be the one to pick it. If you end up with a 50% pick rate (and that's a very liberal rate) you're spending 24 hours waiting and picking flasks for a 4-5 hour raid.

Since I don't have that kind of time, I'd go to the AH. Our guild would need to shell out 900g on lotus for ONE raid for just the tanks. The price is only going to increase as AQ draws closer, and the amount of people attempting to gather them will increase, meaning that 24 hours will turn into 48, then 72.

People are welcome to their opinions, but honestly, our guild has them and is hording them and is causing the price to go up, so there is no problem, is NOT an answer to the issue.

[varth]

The spawn rate is actually 12-15minutes now for the last ~2 months or so. The issue is that most of the people that pick them bank them for aq40/naxx. Since we don't know if there will be another fix that increases the supply to actually meet the needs of the server, there's no way in hell people will sell them since the demand ONLY goes up while the supply remains static.

[Blib]

What are you trying to achieve here? You're presenting a "problem" without suggesting any solutions or options to discuss.
Only things you've brought up is false numbers and "those of us who more recently came to Nostalrius are left kind of screwed". My opinion is, no special treatment for new players. You can put in the work like anyone else, or wait untill everyone else got AQ on farm so you can buy your lotuses once the prices drop again.
Black lotuses was designed to be scarce.

Let's be honest here, If your 40 man raid can't control 2 zones spawnpoints for 1 hour or farm 22,5g each (900g) for those black lotuses then flasking is not for you.

[chookchan]

I don't understand how there is a supply/demand problem.
Players are limiting supply and demand is going up, driving up price.
The supply/demand framework seems to be working just fine.

[Norjak]

What are you trying to achieve here? You're presenting a "problem" without suggesting any solutions or options to discuss.
Only things you've brought up is false numbers and "those of us who more recently came to Nostalrius are left kind of screwed". My opinion is, no special treatment for new players. You can put in the work like anyone else, or wait untill everyone else got AQ on farm so you can buy your lotuses once the prices drop again.
Black lotuses was designed to be scarce.

Let's be honest here, If your 40 man raid can't control 2 zones spawnpoints for 1 hour or farm 22,5g each (900g) for those black lotuses then flasking is not for you.

tl;dr go back to Hello Kitty Island Adventure, aka retail wow...you are not special, if you demand special treatment then Vanilla is not the game for you.

[Norjak]

another fix that increases the supply to actually meet the needs of the server

In Vanilla, not everyone is entitled to flask, and that's by design. "The server" is fine with its needs at the present spawn rate.

[sojs]

there is no problem it's almost a good thing since it will make the upcoming content slightly harder

[Norok]

I started playing on the PvE server a month ago and as an extension of my real life occupation I enjoy playing the Auction House market. To do so I compile extensive spreadsheets of prices of the major commodities. Before I even came to the forums I noticed something very odd going on Nostalrius that did not happen on Live. In the one month I had been playing Black Lotus prices have doubled.

Here is a relevant chart with some commodities compared (Black Lotus, Arcanite Bar, Arcane Crystal, Dreamfoil):


Arcanite Bars and Arcane Crystals are trending up in a highly coorelated fashion. The coorelation is to be expected due to the dependent nature of how Arcanite bars are made. The consistent increase in price suggests increased demand as more players reach max level, inflationary pressure, or both.

Black Lotus is demonstrating a massive demand trend in a short amount of time. However, I am speculating it will level off at some point in the future. The best basis for comparison would be the PvP server with the same coding. However, PvE players may be more inclined to heavy raiding and thus create more demand. My prospectus on the future price would be 90g due to that being the market rate of the PvP server currently which has the most mature economy with the same base supply conditions.

Dreamfoil was used as a baseline as it is a commonly used commodity and used in the creation of some flasks which would allow for influence of the same demand pressures that Black Lotus would be under. As you can see the price of Dreamfoil is nearly static suggesting a price equilibrium of supply and demand.

The equilibrium of Dreamfoil suggests that not only the market for Dreamfoil is stable but that gold on the server as a whole is only slightly rather than extremely inflationary. The price of Dreamfoil is not showing coorelation to Black Lotus as is observed between Arcane Crystals and Arcanite bars. This confirms that Black Lotus is indeed under completely different market pressures.

I get the inclination to complain but there is another way to look at it. As gold will be produced in greater and greater quantities the server will experience the omnipresent 'MUDflation' of MMO's. Black Lotus is a fixed supply, divisible, durable item with utility value as a bonus. It fits all definitions of money by itself.

For any Diablo 2 players out there; what you're looking at is this EMU's Stone of Jordan.

[Ana]

Well, SoJs don't have a fixed supply, and they aren't a consumable... so no, not really.
BL's "utility value" isn't a bonus, it's the item's main purpose.

[Dusith]

To Norok:

Very interesting observation, but there is a logical explanation for it.

This is because of Dire Maul east, all other herbs than Plaguebloom and Black Lotus can be farmed there. In other words, crystals, dreamfoil, etc are all not limited supply - more players can just go farm them if the price go up. Black Lotus can never go up, the server always produce a certain amount. Even if they increased spawnrate again, this trend would happen again and again.