Has anyone seen any graphs somewhere about inflation rates in any of the US servers?

I'm just curious to see if anyone's come up with a reasonable account of what the value of $1m credits back then (say exactly 2 years ago) as opposed to today.

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You wouldn't just need a single item but a whole bunch of items and weigh them accordingly, e.g. necessary items should be weighed higher than pure luxury items. As far as I know many contries have several hundred items in a basket to monitor price development and inflation.

However, some items or services in this game have more or less constant prices:

- Repair costs stay the same (per gear tier at least)

- Travelling costs stay the same (but they are so low that nobody cares about them anyway)

- Costs for crafting materials stay the same (the mission costs are constant, per item level at least)

- Due to fixed costs for basic crafting materials the costs for stims/adrenals (which may be considered necessary equipment instead of luxury) stay more or less the same due to supply and demand balancing each other out fairly well. With no hard limit on the supply prices won't increase, since there will always be someone who is willing to craft and sell with even minimal profit (and some even at a loss).

- Because of the above, I assume that even top level crafted equipment (mods, hilts, barrels) have rather constant prices, because the supply for the materials is endless and can be purchased at constant prices.

Of course, compared to two years ago, the cost for the top level equipment has increased, because of a new gear tier and higher cost of level 9 and 10 materials compared to level 6 and 7.

Luxury items, however, are a completely different topic. Since credits are also limitless and can be generated much faster today than two years ago, people are able to spend much more on luxury items than they would have been back then. Unless we define a specific basket of items there is no point in trying to figure out how prices have changed.

Has anyone seen any graphs somewhere about inflation rates in any of the US servers?

 

I'm just curious to see if anyone's come up with a reasonable account of what the value of $1m credits back then (say exactly 2 years ago) as opposed to today.

 

?

This is an interesting question, but I'd phrase it differently.

What were gold sellers selling 1m credits for this time last year? Has the price gone up or down?

This is an interesting question because it will reveal how popular your game is becoming (or the reverse).

This is an interesting question, but I'd phrase it differently.

 

What were gold sellers selling 1m credits for this time last year? Has the price gone up or down?

 

This is an interesting question because it will reveal how popular your game is becoming (or the reverse).

Surprisingly, it varies, at least on JC. I've seen offers from $8.49 per mil down to $5.99 per mil.

Gold sellers won't help, they will vary their prices based on supply and demand, but you have no real idea of which of those factors is affecting the price.

In theory, $1m creds is worth significantly less today than it was at launch, simply because of dailies. You can make that much in a couple of hours from dailies without breaking a sweat today, but it took significantly longer back at launch.

Also, the Cartel Market has shifted the value of credits as well, two days after a new pack comes out and you will find the value of credits is quite low, with things selling for hundreds of thousands if not millions, when only a few days later they will sell for thousands or not at all.

I think the only thing that remains consistent in value these days is augment kits / augments.

Gold sellers is definately not a good measuring point since in SW:TOR you can pretty much earn in-game credits by buying things off the CM and selling them in-game.

This inherently lowers the value of any "gold seller" services and is also why you only see them on the starter planets more or less.

They try to snag the new and naive players that don't already know you can do this.

After a long haitus (over a year) I came back to find the value of items still similar in respect to the amount of credits you can make. Of course daily/weekly mission money and time spent has increased but the inflated value still seems amazingly balanced.

Take a game like Diablo 3 for example (apples and pears I know) but the inflation in that game was beyond ridiculous thanks to bugs and glitches that the bots and gold farmers used to collect currency. So much so that it ruined the economy in a very short time.

In respect to SWTOR this currency seems very strong in it's variably static nature. Slight increases through the course of time but with appropriate sinks it has done very well for such a game type.

If we went by Credit Sellers then the price has dropped from $11 to $6 over the last year on Jung Ma.

Now if only we could get all those farmers banned, 99% of my ignore list is Bots.

Has anyone seen any graphs somewhere about inflation rates in any of the US servers?

 

I'm just curious to see if anyone's come up with a reasonable account of what the value of $1m credits back then (say exactly 2 years ago) as opposed to today.

 

?

Well, this is something that is really hard to measure objectively inside any MMO. Why? Because player tastes constantly change so the market prices on various items also change in step.

You would need a basket of commonly used commodities, across a range of player tastes, to even begin to measure and create an inflation index.

From my perspective, being someone who plays the GTN and therefore constantly tracks a basket of items for fair market pricing, there has been little real inflation in this game since launch. And for many items in the sub level cap part of the player economy, there has been deflation in many cases since launch.

Now...credit wallets have gotten deeper for many, but the items they spend on has not. There is always a basket of popular items for end gamers.. and that moves with each level cap increase. For the most part, the bulk of credit wealth is IMO, either retained by players (simply nothing to spend it on) or expended on high value end game items of one form or another.

pretty much impossible to calculate without some sort of item that has relatively constant demand and supply.

Stims. Price of the top tier stims has gone down from what they were when they first came out. They're less than 1/3 the value now. (Notably, BioWare somewhere in there tripled the output for the same material input.)

Augments. Price of the top tier augments has gone down from when they were first released. They're less than 1/2, sometimes 1/3 what they were back then.

Inflation, if it's happening, is happening on the highly desired but rare items that come from the Cartel Market. Black/Black and White/White dyes. Many of the mounts. Some of the energy regains and emotes. Those things go for hundreds of thousands to multiple millions.

Stims. Price of the top tier stims has gone down from what they were when they first came out. They're less than 1/3 the value now. (Notably, BioWare somewhere in there tripled the output for the same material input.)

 

Augments. Price of the top tier augments has gone down from when they were first released. They're less than 1/2, sometimes 1/3 what they were back then.

 

Inflation, if it's happening, is happening on the highly desired but rare items that come from the Cartel Market. Black/Black and White/White dyes. Many of the mounts. Some of the energy regains and emotes. Those things go for hundreds of thousands to multiple millions.

2 phenomena working at opposite ends of the spectrum.

1) Supply, given large numbers of players and time, crafted items will inevitably start to drop in price as more and more are made and less are being used.

2) inflation IS happening, especially on the high end items since there are more money going INTO the economy than money OUT of the economy. The way they pull money out of the economy is 1) repair costs (which people continually complain about) 2) travel costs (offset currently by quick travel) 3) unlocks (which have now been done with CC as well). 4) GTN commission (fixed rate).

With new daily areas and influx of credits it is inevitable that people will have more than they did at the start.

first toon at game start million credits was extremely rare and hard to achieve. 2 years into it, almost any new char I start is instantly a millionaire from the multiple chars I have along with GTN speculation and CM sales.

2 phenomena working at opposite ends of the spectrum.

 

1) Supply, given large numbers of players and time, crafted items will inevitably start to drop in price as more and more are made and less are being used.

 

2) inflation IS happening, especially on the high end items since there are more money going INTO the economy than money OUT of the economy. The way they pull money out of the economy is 1) repair costs (which people continually complain about) 2) travel costs (offset currently by quick travel) 3) unlocks (which have now been done with CC as well). 4) GTN commission (fixed rate).

 

With new daily areas and influx of credits it is inevitable that people will have more than they did at the start.

 

first toon at game start million credits was extremely rare and hard to achieve. 2 years into it, almost any new char I start is instantly a millionaire from the multiple chars I have along with GTN speculation and CM sales.

What are you saying prices are going up on? Just vanity items as near as I can tell.

What are you saying prices are going up on? Just vanity items as near as I can tell.

Pretty much yes. There are 4 types of items on the GTN (broad category)

1) crafted items

2) crafted consumables

3) CM consumables

4) CM items

1 and 2 prices will go down as demand drops and supplies increase (category 2 might have a fixed demand but still an increasing supply, on things like stims, adrenals, and health packs).

category 1) will have dropping prices as more items become available (high end mods being a good example of this. As more people are able to get the 72s and don't need to buy off the GTN, prices drop. As more crafters are able to learn the schematics, prices drop).

as for category 3) these are essentially fixed cost items that follow a (roughly) 1000:1 mapping with the CC, these would include buffs, unlocks, as well as packs. As more are added, prices tend to drop, but on average they are relatively fixed.

Category 4) is where the "demand" comes into play as well as inflation. As there are more credits to be had, prices will inevitably go up also. IT was unheard of at times to pay million dollars for rare items, now 4-5 million can be fairly common. Sellers know there are people out there with money, and will price things to match that availability. But in general prices will reflect the maximum that the market can tolerate and over time that price has gone steadily UP.

Has anyone seen any graphs somewhere about inflation rates in any of the US servers?

 

I'm just curious to see if anyone's come up with a reasonable account of what the value of $1m credits back then (say exactly 2 years ago) as opposed to today.

 

?

Inflation of $1m credits relative to what? Inflation is a relative measurement. What are you measuring against?

Asking what the value of inflation is meaningless until you define the other side of the equation.

Category 4) is where the "demand" comes into play as well as inflation. As there are more credits to be had, prices will inevitably go up also. IT was unheard of at times to pay million dollars for rare items, now 4-5 million can be fairly common. Sellers know there are people out there with money, and will price things to match that availability. But in general prices will reflect the maximum that the market can tolerate and over time that price has gone steadily UP.

That demand has always been there, well before the CM in fact. There are a number of items in game that are extremely rare world drops that routinely sell for more then even quite rare CM items. While there are a lot more credits floating in the economy, I see little signs of real inflation pressures in the economy so far.

As for rare CM items.... the market is not inflated by any means. It certainly moves with supply/demand, but the supply/demand pressures on CM content are largely downward, NOT upward. Collections largely nerfed the ability of rare CM items to dominate the economy through inflationary pressures.

Many items that used to command premium prices due to supply demand pressures, are no longer popular and if you are still holding them, you are holding junk. There appears to be sufficient churn from new content influences over supply/demand pressures in this game at this point that inflation is largely a meme used by players who struggle earning in game wealth and need something to blame IMO.

You wouldn't just need a single item but a whole bunch of items and weigh them accordingly, e.g. necessary items should be weighed higher than pure luxury items.

That's true in this game. One item can be enough (PLEX in EVE Online).

What were gold sellers selling 1m credits for this time last year? Has the price gone up or down?

 

This is an interesting question because it will reveal how popular your game is becoming (or the reverse).

Surprisingly, it varies, at least on JC. I've seen offers from $8.49 per mil down to $5.99 per mil.

Irrelevant. The game is set up in such a way that players can purchase and sell CM stuff to generate credits. Gold sellers have had to substantially decrease their prices because people don't need them and because it has always been cheaper to buy and sell CM stuff to generate credits.

Irrelevant. The game is set up in such a way that players can purchase and sell CM stuff to generate credits. Gold sellers have had to substantially decrease their prices because people don't need them and because it has always been cheaper to buy and sell CM stuff to generate credits.

Not entirely correct. It's actually more expensive to get your credits via CM.

You can spend about $11 per million using the CM to get your credits. In so doing, you have to wait out the bind timer, then you have to wait out the GTN sale. On top of that you get an uncertain return on your cash.

With a credit seller, you will pay between $6 and $8, if I recall the spam correctly, for a million credits. The price is fixed. However, because of the way that credit sellers do business these days, you may get your credits immediately but you are more likely to get your credits eventually - a day or two or three hence. Most of these deals seem to go through PayPal so your credit card information is at no greater risk than dealing with your average eBay seller.

You pays your money, you picks your poison.

But, yes, credits today cost far less dollars than they used to. I recall seeing spam for the neighborhood of $17 to $20 per million way back in the day.

That demand has always been there, well before the CM in fact. There are a number of items in game that are extremely rare world drops that routinely sell for more then even quite rare CM items. While there are a lot more credits floating in the economy, I see little signs of real inflation pressures in the economy so far.

Just out of curiosity, what items are you referring to? The only really rare drops I have encountered are the Supreme Inquisitor sets, the Vendetta sets and the equivalent Bounty Hunter ones (forgot the name). I picked up my Supreme inquisitor robe before the mergers for 250k (I gave up after farming it for weeks on Hoth). I will admit this is on the lower side of what they were going for (around 500k), but they seem to be much more now. However, I bought they Vendetta jacket way back for over 500k I believe, and they are much cheaper than that now (maybe the Gree armor caused the value to go down since it's a re-skin of the Vendetta, I don't know).

I just don't ever really remember seeing anything that dropped in the game go for millions like the Revan Mask, white crystal, throne/meditation mounts etc, etc.

That demand has always been there, well before the CM in fact. There are a number of items in game that are extremely rare world drops that routinely sell for more then even quite rare CM items. While there are a lot more credits floating in the economy, I see little signs of real inflation pressures in the economy so far.

 

As for rare CM items.... the market is not inflated by any means. It certainly moves with supply/demand, but the supply/demand pressures on CM content are largely downward, NOT upward. Collections largely nerfed the ability of rare CM items to dominate the economy through inflationary pressures.

 

Many items that used to command premium prices due to supply demand pressures, are no longer popular and if you are still holding them, you are holding junk. There appears to be sufficient churn from new content influences over supply/demand pressures in this game at this point that inflation is largely a meme used by players who struggle earning in game wealth and need something to blame IMO.

I agree mostly.

Would it be true inflation as most would term it, probably not. The value of the credit has not necessarily "diminished" over a time, thus inflation would be flat at best. With this I agree. However, in general I think prices have increased outside the supply/demand curve. Now this can be hidden behind growth or however you want to describe it.

Players are now days are earning more per hour of game play than they were a year ago. Now is that growth or "inflation". They haven't necessarily had to do more to gain those credits. So the standard of living has increased for just about every player. Yes prices havn't necessarily followed outright, but I think in general prices have gone up to a point. a year ago, I think it was extremely unlikely to spend million credits on any single item, now people routinely pay that for many items.

When I first crossed the million credit mark I was amazed, and splurged on some things that quickly dropped me down to the 500k region. Now days toons with 10million credits are easy to have.

Now, is that "growth" hard to say. Next year at this time, we could be seeing things for 4-6million that would sell for 2-4 million relatively today. I'm thinking mainly things like Rancor mounts first hit will probably be more expensive than say what the varactyls cost when they first appeared (CM conversion aside). Mainly due to the increase in player income relative to hours played.

Costs have not necessarily increased with the rate at which they are entering the system. A year ago we would be dumping in 10-20 million a day into the game. Nowdays its probably easily 5x that rate, where as costs have been fairly stagnant. So there is more money to be made, thus the high end luxury items are going for higher prices.

Rare items have always been in demand, prices may not necessarily follow directly, but quantity of items as also increased keeping prices fairly in check.

...

 

I just don't ever really remember seeing anything that dropped in the game go for millions like the Revan Mask, white crystal, throne/meditation mounts etc, etc.

When BiS gear was craftable (e.g. grade 63), unlettered mods / low-endo enhancements sold for ~2 million, with hilts / barrels for ~4 million.

The first player on a server to learn a 63 barrel or hilt could sell it for many many millions until other players learned the schematic.

Note that those prices dropped considerably when PvP gear could be RE'ed for the mats required to craft 63 gear.

When BiS gear was craftable (e.g. grade 63), unlettered mods / low-endo enhancements sold for ~2 million, with hilts / barrels for ~4 million.

 

The first player on a server to learn a 63 barrel or hilt could sell it for many many millions until other players learned the schematic.

 

Note that those prices dropped considerably when PvP gear could be RE'ed for the mats required to craft 63 gear.

Oh yeah, I guess I forgot about those. I was crafting those hilts as well, but I was only seeing a good profit when I was getting the stabilizer drops myself. I was selling them for around 2 mil and they seemed to drop to 1 or 1.2 mil overnight, that's about when I quit crafting them. I was only making 50 to 100k profit due to the cost of mats so I wasn't really thinking of these as a rare drop so to speak.

Oh yeah, I guess I forgot about those. I was crafting those hilts as well, but I was only seeing a good profit when I was getting the stabilizer drops myself. I was selling them for around 2 mil and they seemed to drop to 1 or 1.2 mil overnight, that's about when I quit crafting them. I was only making 50 to 100k profit due to the cost of mats so I wasn't really thinking of these as a rare drop so to speak.

Yeah. As I recall, the gear price drop coincided with the material price drop as well. By keeping an eye out for bargins on stabs, I think I was able to to make about 250k profit per mod / enhancement, and about 500k profit per barrel I knew (never won enough hilt drops to risk an RE, and I didn't have a legacy saber to shlep to my artifice anyway).

I did manage to learn quite a few schematics, and I basically kept one of each on the GTN at all times.

The really weird thing was that I sold more 63 gear right before 2.0 dropped than I would have thought possible. They were moving like water in the desert, right up to the night before the release. Not that I'm complaining or anything, but didn't these people know they would be able to get 66 gear by questing alone?

Go figure.