Black Lotus supply/demand problem

[Dervin20]

[Taladril]

The solution should also not be one where people say if you don't like the price go pick some yourself. We should not all have to take up herbalism only to be able to handle raiding.

And this is a problem that will get worse with time. It will not stabilize, it will continue to get worse. Right now flasking is only useful for speed runs and guilds trying content for the first times. When aq comes out flasking will be used initially by everyone entering (probably) until it is on farm, every tank all the time, plus the above. When naxx comes out the need for flasking gets even worse. If this doesn't get fixed there will come a point where certain content is going to be effectively locked out for all but the richest guilds.

This is a classic case of the tragedy of the commons! We have a fixed finite resource and we are all trying to utilize it as much as possible. At some point this will be unsustainable as the flasking needs will be higher with higher content as well as the basic fact that the population continues to rise.

The best solution would be to decouple black lotuses from world spawning so that farming effort can determine what the price of black lotus should be. If it were to be added to DM E, being inside of an instance, it would hugely help the situation. Make it where it spawns rarely, not every time. Like that the price of it will go down to manageable levels but still be high. But the best thing is that it would allow us to farm more if the need goes up rather than be stuck with how much the server produces in the world in a fixed finite amount.

[Norok]

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.

You are correct. We have both and economic data to verify this conclusion.

BL's "utility value" isn't a bonus, it's the item's main purpose.

The market data and my analysis implied something I will make explicit; Black Lotus is an appreciating asset.

The raiding population consuming Black Lotus will always have utility use for BL. There are still those that do not raid. What it presents then to the entire player base is an asset that will always have value and may appreciate. This appreciative asset can be a hedge against gold inflation. Investing in BL carries the risk that the development team may step in to change the conditions but with all reward comes the acceptance of known risk.

I would advise players to create a balanced portfolio including gold, Black Lotus, Arcane Crystals, and other commodities. This is going to be an unpopular take in a completely different sentiment than that of OP. Investors will have a marginal affect on the price. However, I'm confident it is the correct observation and action of unbiased market participants.

[Taladril]

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.

You are correct. We have both and economic data to verify this conclusion.

BL's "utility value" isn't a bonus, it's the item's main purpose.

The market data and my analysis implied something I will make explicit; Black Lotus is an appreciating asset.

The raiding population consuming Black Lotus will always have utility use for BL. There are still those that do not raid. What it presents then to the entire player base is an asset that will always have value and may appreciate. This appreciative asset can be a hedge against gold inflation. Investing in BL carries the risk that the development team may step in to change the conditions but with all reward comes the acceptance of known risk.

I would advise players to create a balanced portfolio including gold, Black Lotus, Arcane Crystals, and other commodities. This is going to be an unpopular take in a completely different sentiment than that of OP. Investors will have a marginal affect on the price. However, I'm confident it is the correct observation and action of unbiased market participants.

And this is exactly the problem. The fact that black lotus is a viable investment and a necessary raiding item is a very bad combination. A piece of gear or stuff to get that gear is reasonable to have limited resources to obtain. I'm thinking specifically devilsaurs. The price for those goes up and up and up. And it's expensive to get the gear. But once you get it you are good and can move on. Consumables are constantly needed. They are needed today, next week, next year, etc etc.

The need for flasking is only going to rise with future content. This should scare everybody, honestly. I will caveat this and say that I am worried about a few months down the road, not now. I have all I need for AQ already (some people have accused me of worrying about this issue because I am not yet prepared).

[Imbaslap]

has anyone thought about making a black lotus mafia/cartel? maybe queue into AV to get lotus together, camp the spawns in the world.... no? ok...

[Dusith]

Its interesting that the price increase on pve server is from 21 to 42g, which mean that this is a natural trend of content release. Black lotus also went from 100 to 70 after bwl release on pvp server, and to 35 after dynamic system. Conclusion? World goods will increase because its nature of limited supply, and because of upcoming content, it Will Drop when AQ are cleared. Elemental Earth is another example, it was 10s each and many players hold onto them, because they are for limited use at this content.

An idea for guilds is to sell loot they dont need, and help their raiders.

[Dervin20]

The solution should also not be one where people say if you don't like the price go pick some yourself. We should not all have to take up herbalism only to be able to handle raiding.

And this is a problem that will get worse with time. It will not stabilize, it will continue to get worse. Right now flasking is only useful for speed runs and guilds trying content for the first times. When aq comes out flasking will be used initially by everyone entering (probably) until it is on farm, every tank all the time, plus the above. When naxx comes out the need for flasking gets even worse. If this doesn't get fixed there will come a point where certain content is going to be effectively locked out for all but the richest guilds.

This is a classic case of the tragedy of the commons! We have a fixed finite resource and we are all trying to utilize it as much as possible. At some point this will be unsustainable as the flasking needs will be higher with higher content as well as the basic fact that the population continues to rise.

The best solution would be to decouple black lotuses from world spawning so that farming effort can determine what the price of black lotus should be. If it were to be added to DM E, being inside of an instance, it would hugely help the situation. Make it where it spawns rarely, not every time. Like that the price of it will go down to manageable levels but still be high. But the best thing is that it would allow us to farm more if the need goes up rather than be stuck with how much the server produces in the world in a fixed finite amount.

Engineering is required to pvp more efficiently at a high level.

Tailoring is required for a warlock to dps at a higher level.

Herbalism is required to flask at a higher level.

The solution to your problem is already implemented, its just not as easy as you'd like it to be.

Gold is easier to obtain than lotus, thus more gold will be required to trade for it.

[lockpower]

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.

Great contribution to the conversation.

I'm not asking for special treatment, I'm simply pointing out that the supply is not proportional to the population. Should everyone have a flask? No. Should BL be 5g? No. There is a middle ground to normalize it to a retail vanilla level.

[Blib]

The solution should also not be one where people say if you don't like the price go pick some yourself. We should not all have to take up herbalism only to be able to handle raiding.

Yea let's pretend Black lotuses wasn't BoP untill 1.7 in retail vanilla.

I'm not asking for special treatment, I'm simply pointing out that the supply is not proportional to the population. Should everyone have a flask? No. Should BL be 5g? No. There is a middle ground to normalize it to a retail vanilla level.

A lot of things makes this incompareable to retail vanilla, so don't even bother using that buzzword as your main argument.
I'd love to know how you came to the conclusion that the lotus supply isn't matching the population? Black lotus is a scarce resource as it should be, therefore people tend to hold on to them instead of putting them on the AH. You've got absolutely no way of knowing how many lotuses people have piled up.

As I said before, holding all the spawnpoints in 2 zones should be no problem for 40 people, 1 hour of this and you've got your 900gs worth of lotus. Even 20 people should be able to do it since organized lotus farming is not really a thing, unlike devilsaur leather for example.
This "Everyone should have access to everything at any time" mentality is what made retail what it is.

[Konwizzle]

Here's some historic data on Black Lotus prices during retail Vanilla.

TL;DR: Non-Blizzlike population + non-Blizzlike spawn rates = non-Blizzlike economy. Is anyone really surprised by this?

Old Black Lotus page. (Thumb through the dates to see the median prices)
http://web.archive.org/web/200509201509 ... item=13468

Old Black Lotus prices (Note this is shortly after it was made non-bop) (~11g)
http://web.archive.org/web/200601240255 ... item=13468

Another source (again this is shortly after it was made non-bop) (~10-15g)
http://web.archive.org/web/200604071007 ... m/?i=14335

Later in vanilla (~25g)
http://web.archive.org/web/200610280201 ... m/?i=14335

It's like the limited restock vendor items all over again. At a certain point you have to accept the fact that bandaid fixes aren't enough -- the population is simply too big to be managed. You can increase the spawn rate as much as you want, but all you'll do is create a Black Lotus Cartel that controls the whole market.