Monthly Archives: February 2010
Why frozen orbs aren’t a good investment
Recent [development notes] have announced that in an upcoming patch an NPC named [Frozo the Renowned] will be added to the game. This npc, an item vendor, will trade items for your [Frozen Orb] which up until now people have been either vendoring or auctioning for not much more than vendor price.
Players will be able to trade 6 orbs in for a [Crusader Orb], 4 orbs in for a [Runed Orb] or a single orb in for a [Frost Lotus], [Eternal Air], [Eternal Earth], [Eternal Fire], [Eternal Life], [Eternal Shadow] or [Eternal Water].
A lot of people have read this and had the obvious light bulb go off in their head. I know on my server people are already spamming trade chat with ‘WTB Frozen Orb – 15g/each’. In the auction house the orbs have already normalized at around 20g/each. They’re all wrong if they think this is going to turn out to be a money maker though.
Why? There’s a number of reasons, here are two big ones. First and foremost is that it’s a very obvious one-step change which means everybody is immediately aware of the ramifications and participation in stockpiling frozen orbs will be widespread. This will immediately mean nobody is getting their orbs for 6g off the auction house anymore, there’s increased demand for the orbs which is why the prices are already up.
Secondly the reason for this change is to address the already massive oversupply of frozen orbs in the system. Lots of players were ALREADY sitting on a lot of orbs from the recent random heroics change. Oversupply on such a large scale is going to damage prices and the extra consideration of lost AH deposit costs (due to being undercut) is going to also impact profit margins.
My conservative estimate is that around patch time we’ll see frozen orbs selling for around 17g and the eternals and frost lotus selling for not more than 5g above this. It’s not worth even looking at the Crusader and Runed orbs as I expect their value will be lower than the cost of the frozen orbs needed to pay for them.
What are your thoughts? Leave a comment below and let me know how you think prices will turn out.
Prose before Hoes
Bit quiet for me lately, working away on lots of things for you guys. I came across this post by Archivist recently in, of all places, the wowhead comments section for the [Bang a Gong!] quest. For those of you unfamiliar with this one it was the quest that awarded the Scarab Lord title and mount.
Enjoy!
We often see in these large online games bitter-sweet victories and forgettable events; while it is true that the first time you sever the head of VanCleef you feel a surge of pride, it is sullied by the knowledge of the thousands that came before you and those who will soon follow.
Actual history has many more memorable events because they are truly that, history. While the actions are repeatable, none are equal to that original moment in any way, but merely act as homage to that unique moment. This however is one of those true moments of game history, set in a world where history is usually repeatable.
To most they only knew of it second-hand, a friend of a friend hearing something about a hasty Black Wing Lair run; while to others it was a frenzied pace of night-after-night raids and countless hours of grinding to help form this Champion, to help herald in this event.
You may still be able to grasp at shadows of what this once was, and follow the path of those who did it before you, but in this rarest of quests there are none on par with the champions who broke the seal of Ahn’Qiraj to face the would-be god C’Thun, and quest beside us a Scarab Lord.
They, and only they, opened the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj, and ended the Great War Effort.
The price of insanity?
Have been pulling together some numbers recently and started thinking about this. How much does the [Insane in the Membrane] achievement cost in terms of gold and hours? I’m talking about your average person who pays the average price for all their librams/pristine black diamonds.
I have a habit of recalling achievements completed as being much easier and less time consuming than they were. So keeping that in mind here’s what what I’ve got so far:
Bloodsail Honored
5-10 Hours to grind to honored?
No gold cost
Steamwheedle Cartel
20-30 Hours to grind?
No gold cost
Shen’dralar
84 Librams x 200g = 16800g
84 Pristine Black Diamonds x 200g = 16800g
15-20 Hours to farm mix of 84 stitchings/skins of shadow/blood of heroes?
5-10 Hours of time checking AH?
1-2 Hours of time to turn everything in?
Ravenholdt
1405 Junkboxes = 18 Hours of pickpocket grinding
OR
1405 Junkboxes = 14050g if paying someone else
Darkmoon Faire
120 Epic Decks x 350g = 42000g
10-15 Hours of time checking AH?
1-2 Hours turning in?
OR
How long if herbing and creating cards?
Help me out guys! What needs to be adjusted? Obviously for pricing information we’re looking for cross-server averages rather than specific “well on MY realm” high/low examples.
Posted in Achievements, Insane in the Membrane
Tagged Achievement, gold, hours, insane, price
RNG Stories Winner
Quaras (Winner) – Told us about an interesting addon called Bunnyhunter.
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“The app lets you track “progress” toward getting a better chance of your drop because it lets you know how many whelp carriers you have killed. If you kill 150 mobs, it lets you know you have approximately a 15% chance “so far” of getting the whelp.
This shows a real fallacy in the RNG analysis which is that successive kills actually increase your chance of getting a rare drop. Despite the multiple attempts, you have the same chance of getting the drop on your first kill as you do on your 999th kill which is 1/1000.”
While it’s really just a record keeping addon it has definite potential for people to misinterpret the outputs and how RNG works. This was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for! Send me an email through the contact me option and I’ll send the code your way :)
Xellen – I thought this one was great, a perfect example of an RNGTard!
“People in dalaran sometimes make me think everyone needs to take basic statistics. I was talking to some random dk in dalaran who was riding Barons mount. I asked him how many runs it took and he said 57. I proceeded to call him lucky since I’m up to 264 with no drop, and I was exalted with the runeblade (was my first epic and I got it on my birthday, good old rng) back in classic.
His reply was thats impossible because after 100 runs you’re guarenteed to see a 1% drop. I spent 15 minutes trying to explain thats not how statistics works before giving up and just assuming that some people are beyond help.”
Descar – A classic example of superstition when prospecting titanium. I loved this one!
‘The most epics I have gotten off of 1 stack is 4, 1 stack of 5 gave me 2 and then I got 1 and 1. I usually do not prospect any ore unless I have 5+ stacks, I like doing 20 stacks at a time. But I will put them in my bags side by side, and start with one stack, lets say I get an epic off of the first prospect.
I leave that stack at 15 and move to another, lets say on that stack i get an epic after 3 prospects, I move on to the next stack leaving that one at 5, I continue to do that in that order, and If I get a stack that I got no epic out of, I have a full stack that I already got an epic out of. So I list it on the AH for 300-340g (which is still profit as I only paid 250) or I may prospect it in hopes of keeping it balanced.’
Huge thanks to everyone who submitted there examples. I would love to make these a regular/weekly post so if you have good examples of RNGTards similar to the ones above send them through.
I especially like examples where someone not only ‘doesnt get’ how RNG works but is aggressive about their lack of understanding! Extra points for those ones :p
Zevia: On BG’s and Grouping
Here’s episode two from Zevia! In this one he covers the interesting topic of battleground QQ and why no matter if you’re Alliance or Horde there are always people that claim the members of their side suck.
Do you agree? As always leave your comments and suggestions below!