Money, it falls fromthe sky

[Lewis]

So I went ahead and reactivated my account for about 24,000 gold.

I've earned back about 6,000 of that gold in 4 days and that's without
selling anything on the Auction house.

Hmmm. Actually, a bit more than 6,000 since i bought a few things. Maybe
spent another 1000g now that i think of it.

All I've done is some Tanaan dailies, garrison missions, fleet missions,
and the dungeon dailies.

[unknown]

Post by Lewis
So I went ahead and reactivated my account for about 24,000 gold.
I've earned back about 6,000 of that gold in 4 days and that's without
selling anything on the Auction house.
Hmmm. Actually, a bit more than 6,000 since i bought a few things. Maybe
spent another 1000g now that i think of it.
All I've done is some Tanaan dailies, garrison missions, fleet missions,
and the dungeon dailies.

"Once the summer break is over I plan to spend some of my useless gold "
couldn't wait eh? :-)
Every day is summer break now, even in winter. Apart from all the yard
and house work I have to do before the Mistress of Frown and Tsk gets
back next week :-) I have many tokens, 2 offers of 7 free days in the
last month and just can't seem to be bothered.


A couple of K per 100 character per day is about right if you aren't
working at making gold. Of course that just inflates everything else so
you can make or spend a lot on AH as well and it doesn't go anywhere
near as far but it does mean the tokens are actually very cheap.
25k is about 500g 10 years ago 50% annual inflation, there is little
point saving gold unless the accumulation floats your goat.

In actual dollars it would be far short of minimum wage per hour if
the gold for it wasn't just rolling in by-the-way but a 25K-on-AH drop
has a new meaning Ka-ching , a month sub, $15 that was worth 2 hours on
US minimum wage.

[Lewis]

Post by unknown

Post by Lewis
So I went ahead and reactivated my account for about 24,000 gold.
I've earned back about 6,000 of that gold in 4 days and that's without
selling anything on the Auction house.
Hmmm. Actually, a bit more than 6,000 since i bought a few things. Maybe
spent another 1000g now that i think of it.
All I've done is some Tanaan dailies, garrison missions, fleet missions,
and the dungeon dailies.

"Once the summer break is over I plan to spend some of my useless gold "
couldn't wait eh? :-)

I was stuck at home for all of this week, so summer sort of ended early.
At least this week.

I sold some stuff int eh AH and am now up 10K gold.

Post by unknown
In actual dollars it would be far short of minimum wage per hour if
the gold for it wasn't just rolling in by-the-way but a 25K-on-AH drop
has a new meaning Ka-ching , a month sub, $15 that was worth 2 hours on
US minimum wage.

There are still *many* things about WoD I dislike. Tanaan isn't all that
compelling, though it's better than the rest of WoD.

Having a definite goal (make 25K a month so I don't spend money) might
be interesting, but it isn't actually the money for me, It's more an
issue of rewarding Blizzard for what I think was a terrible expansion.

[Catriona R]

On Thu, 30 Jul 2015 07:02:46 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
There are still *many* things about WoD I dislike. Tanaan isn't all that
compelling, though it's better than the rest of WoD.

Agreed - I kinda like Tanaan, but, too little, too late. And even that
only lasted a month...

Post by Lewis
Having a definite goal (make 25K a month so I don't spend money) might
be interesting, but it isn't actually the money for me, It's more an
issue of rewarding Blizzard for what I think was a terrible expansion.

Yeah, know what you mean there, however, Blizz get more money from the
tokens than from regular subs, so doesn't help a lot if we do pay with
gold; it's just someone else paying instead of us!

My usual habits of preordering expansions for both accounts (and one
being collectors edition) are gone now though; I'll digitally buy my
main account at the last minute and wait a couple of months before
buying for my 2nd account, whatever the next expansion may be. Tempted
to cancel my 2nd account, problem is, UK prices went up recently,
only, existing subscribers get to keep the old prices if we stay
subbed... so if I do drop it, I'd be paying more when I reactivated
(that account has my not-rich characters on, so paying for it by gold
would be tricky...)

[unknown]

Post by Catriona R
On Thu, 30 Jul 2015 07:02:46 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
There are still *many* things about WoD I dislike. Tanaan isn't all that
compelling, though it's better than the rest of WoD.

Agreed - I kinda like Tanaan, but, too little, too late. And even that
only lasted a month...

Post by Lewis
Having a definite goal (make 25K a month so I don't spend money) might
be interesting, but it isn't actually the money for me, It's more an
issue of rewarding Blizzard for what I think was a terrible expansion.

Yeah, know what you mean there, however, Blizz get more money from the
tokens than from regular subs, so doesn't help a lot if we do pay with
gold; it's just someone else paying instead of us!
My usual habits of preordering expansions for both accounts (and one
being collectors edition) are gone now though; I'll digitally buy my
main account at the last minute and wait a couple of months before
buying for my 2nd account, whatever the next expansion may be. Tempted
to cancel my 2nd account, problem is, UK prices went up recently,
only, existing subscribers get to keep the old prices if we stay
subbed... so if I do drop it, I'd be paying more when I reactivated
(that account has my not-rich characters on, so paying for it by gold
would be tricky...)

Can't you just mail to a lowby on mutual servers and either leave the
gold or buy a token? Tokens are per account so any lowby on the same
servers should do for gold. It isn't just one token month, it saves you
subs until you resub then that month as well. Even if you only lapse for
a couple of weeks now and again.

When you login when lapsed you now get the option to use account gold to
reactivate or use the token on the lowbies you can play.
Mail afterwards could be a problem, I don't think they can ah or get
mail, although that may vary for battlenet links.

or

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/16952266144

[Catriona R]

On Wed, 29 Jul 2015 01:47:17 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
So I went ahead and reactivated my account for about 24,000 gold.

I'm jealous! 47k last I checked...yeah, I *can* afford it, but I don't
really want to, knowing what your prices are like :-P

Post by Lewis
I've earned back about 6,000 of that gold in 4 days and that's without
selling anything on the Auction house.
Hmmm. Actually, a bit more than 6,000 since i bought a few things. Maybe
spent another 1000g now that i think of it.
All I've done is some Tanaan dailies, garrison missions, fleet missions,
and the dungeon dailies.

Hehe yep, easy to make gold, missions are great. AH is handy as well,
I convert spare resources into ores and sell them (was converting them
to dusts previously, but since Tanaan came out we're all rolling in
low vendor price blues, so everyone's DEing them and dust prices have
gone down to match... ), 500g or so per stack isn't bad money. Soloing
old raids is good gold too, think I got 2k or so from Dragon Soul
heroic the other day.

Kinda wondering what Blizz is going to do about the gold imbalance in
future, there's people with multiple goldcaps with how easy it is to
get gold now, while anyone starting after WoD will be at rock bottom
unless they keep making it stupidly easy to get gold. At which point
they might have to raise the goldcap.... ;-) Well, putting stuff on
the black market more often might help; I want to spend money on
there, but nothing I want is ever up, and when things I want are up,
someone beat me to it and already bid the goldcap lol, the downsides
of being on a large server ;-)

[Urbin]

Post by Catriona R
On Wed, 29 Jul 2015 01:47:17 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
So I went ahead and reactivated my account for about 24,000 gold.

I'm jealous! 47k last I checked...yeah, I *can* afford it, but I don't
really want to, knowing what your prices are like :-P

Isn't it ironic that there was a time when people where paying real money to
gold farmers to get in-game gold and nowadays people have so much in-game
gold that they are using it to pay their subscriptions with it instead of
real money...

Cheers
urbin

[Catriona R]

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
On Wed, 29 Jul 2015 01:47:17 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
So I went ahead and reactivated my account for about 24,000 gold.

I'm jealous! 47k last I checked...yeah, I *can* afford it, but I don't
really want to, knowing what your prices are like :-P

Isn't it ironic that there was a time when people where paying real money to
gold farmers to get in-game gold and nowadays people have so much in-game
gold that they are using it to pay their subscriptions with it instead of
real money...

Yeah, I remember the days when I was scraping and saving to get 100g
for my first mount at lvl 40, now 100g is almost pocket change :-)
Crazy inflation, I find myself wondering if Blizz should try and bring
it down a bit, but not sure what they can do tbh, short of resetting
everyone's gold, which would annoy a lot of people...

[Peter T.]

Post by Catriona R
Yeah, I remember the days when I was scraping and saving to get 100g
for my first mount at lvl 40, now 100g is almost pocket change :-)

I was over the top when Staff of Jordan dropped back in BC despite it
was a vanilla item. I AH'ed it for 500 gold. I... I... I was RICH! :)

Post by Catriona R
Crazy inflation, I find myself wondering if Blizz should try and bring
it down a bit, but not sure what they can do tbh, short of resetting
everyone's gold, which would annoy a lot of people...

True.

[Catriona R]

Post by Peter T.

Post by Catriona R
Yeah, I remember the days when I was scraping and saving to get 100g
for my first mount at lvl 40, now 100g is almost pocket change :-)

I was over the top when Staff of Jordan dropped back in BC despite it
was a vanilla item. I AH'ed it for 500 gold. I... I... I was RICH! :)

Haha yep, still big money back then :-D Can't remember how much I sold
my first ever epic drop for (int necklace, dropped off a Winterfall
Runner - 2 days later another epic dropped off them, only I can't
remember what that one was), wasn't that much though, maybe 100 if I
was lucky. I was never much good at making money in the early days,
only got better at it when jewecrafting came out, and I discovered the
magic of consumables, things that are wanted regularly :-D

[Lewis]

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
On Wed, 29 Jul 2015 01:47:17 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
So I went ahead and reactivated my account for about 24,000 gold.

I'm jealous! 47k last I checked...yeah, I *can* afford it, but I don't
really want to, knowing what your prices are like :-P

Isn't it ironic that there was a time when people where paying real money to
gold farmers to get in-game gold and nowadays people have so much in-game
gold that they are using it to pay their subscriptions with it instead of
real money...

Yeah, I remember the days when I was scraping and saving to get 100g
for my first mount at lvl 40, now 100g is almost pocket change :-)

I didn't buy a mount until level 60, and that was the level 40 mount. It
took me *months* to save up the 1000g for a level 60 mount, and I ended
up getting a loan of 200g from a guildy who was tired of waiting for me
everywhere we went.

Post by Catriona R
Crazy inflation, I find myself wondering if Blizz should try and bring
it down a bit, but not sure what they can do tbh, short of resetting
everyone's gold, which would annoy a lot of people...

What they should do is "stat squish" the money and convert all the gold
to copper.

So, if you have 143,120g you would now have 14g31s20.

No one loses any money, just the money becomes manageable numbers again.

I have a friend who is maxed on gold on TWO toons (assuming the max is
still 999,999g99s99).

[unknown]

Post by Lewis

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
On Wed, 29 Jul 2015 01:47:17 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
So I went ahead and reactivated my account for about 24,000 gold.

I'm jealous! 47k last I checked...yeah, I *can* afford it, but I don't
really want to, knowing what your prices are like :-P

Isn't it ironic that there was a time when people where paying real money to
gold farmers to get in-game gold and nowadays people have so much in-game
gold that they are using it to pay their subscriptions with it instead of
real money...

Yeah, I remember the days when I was scraping and saving to get 100g
for my first mount at lvl 40, now 100g is almost pocket change :-)

I didn't buy a mount until level 60, and that was the level 40 mount. It
took me *months* to save up the 1000g for a level 60 mount, and I ended
up getting a loan of 200g from a guildy who was tired of waiting for me
everywhere we went.

Post by Catriona R
Crazy inflation, I find myself wondering if Blizz should try and bring
it down a bit, but not sure what they can do tbh, short of resetting
everyone's gold, which would annoy a lot of people...

What they should do is "stat squish" the money and convert all the gold
to copper.
So, if you have 143,120g you would now have 14g31s20.
No one loses any money, just the money becomes manageable numbers again.
I have a friend who is maxed on gold on TWO toons (assuming the max is
still 999,999g99s99).

That would mean many changes to lower quest rewards and items. But then
there aren't that many new players anyway.

It should be simple enough to rebuild everything to take larger numbers
in one pass BUT unforeseen events, taking it down, the complaining
should anything go wrong, the breaking of addons and potential exploits
count against it.

Gold cap transactions are very few.
Simpler to introduce a new currency exchangeable back and forth for say
100g or 1000g at a vendor and have the blackmarket and Highroller AH tab
only accept that currency. For mail and trade 1000 stackable 100g or
1000g gold coins. One or the other, so people can't complain about
mistaking them.
Or just figure that goldcap is the games way of saying it surrenders.

[Lewis]

Post by unknown

Post by Lewis

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
On Wed, 29 Jul 2015 01:47:17 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
So I went ahead and reactivated my account for about 24,000 gold.

I'm jealous! 47k last I checked...yeah, I *can* afford it, but I don't
really want to, knowing what your prices are like :-P

Isn't it ironic that there was a time when people where paying real money to
gold farmers to get in-game gold and nowadays people have so much in-game
gold that they are using it to pay their subscriptions with it instead of
real money...

Yeah, I remember the days when I was scraping and saving to get 100g
for my first mount at lvl 40, now 100g is almost pocket change :-)

I didn't buy a mount until level 60, and that was the level 40 mount. It
took me *months* to save up the 1000g for a level 60 mount, and I ended
up getting a loan of 200g from a guildy who was tired of waiting for me
everywhere we went.

Post by Catriona R
Crazy inflation, I find myself wondering if Blizz should try and bring
it down a bit, but not sure what they can do tbh, short of resetting
everyone's gold, which would annoy a lot of people...

What they should do is "stat squish" the money and convert all the gold
to copper.
So, if you have 143,120g you would now have 14g31s20.
No one loses any money, just the money becomes manageable numbers again.
I have a friend who is maxed on gold on TWO toons (assuming the max is
still 999,999g99s99).

That would mean many changes to lower quest rewards and items. But then
there aren't that many new players anyway.

Not much different. Anything 1g or less would be a copper. Anything
over 1g would just be reduced to 1/10,000th. a 200g item currently
would be 2 silver. The 2000g Traveler's Tundra Mammoth would be 20s.

Post by unknown
It should be simple enough to rebuild everything to take larger numbers
in one pass BUT unforeseen events, taking it down, the complaining
should anything go wrong, the breaking of addons and potential exploits
count against it.

It is *extremely* difficult to change the database structure for a
database as large as WoW's.

Post by unknown
Gold cap transactions are very few.

They are more common that you might think.

[Peter T.]

Post by Lewis

Post by unknown
Gold cap transactions are very few.

They are more common that you might think.

What is a gold cap transaction?

[Catriona R]

Post by Peter T.

Post by Lewis

Post by unknown
Gold cap transactions are very few.

They are more common that you might think.

What is a gold cap transaction?

I'm guessing black market sales where people bid up to (almost*) the
goldcap so they can't be outbid. They certainly aren't that few; every
time a rare mount comes on the Draenor black market it goes for the
goldcap; lots of rich people on this server it seems!

* (Since the black market uses a +5% on next bid system, 955k gold is
actually enough to make sure you can't be outbid; 105% of that is over
1 million gold - I usually see 960k bids though, I guess everyone
wants to be certain they've got high enough, and tbh I'd bid that
myself if I ever reached a mount I wanted before some other rich
person got there...)

[Peter T.]

Post by Catriona R

Post by Peter T.

Post by Lewis

Post by unknown
Gold cap transactions are very few.

They are more common that you might think.

What is a gold cap transaction?

I'm guessing black market sales where people bid up to (almost*) the
goldcap so they can't be outbid. They certainly aren't that few; every
time a rare mount comes on the Draenor black market it goes for the
goldcap; lots of rich people on this server it seems!
* (Since the black market uses a +5% on next bid system, 955k gold is
actually enough to make sure you can't be outbid; 105% of that is over
1 million gold - I usually see 960k bids though, I guess everyone
wants to be certain they've got high enough, and tbh I'd bid that
myself if I ever reached a mount I wanted before some other rich
person got there...)

Ahhh fancy! :)

[unknown]

Post by Catriona R

Post by Peter T.

Post by Lewis

Post by unknown
Gold cap transactions are very few.

They are more common that you might think.

What is a gold cap transaction?

I'm guessing black market sales where people bid up to (almost*) the
goldcap so they can't be outbid. They certainly aren't that few; every
time a rare mount comes on the Draenor black market it goes for the
goldcap; lots of rich people on this server it seems!

so thats ...1 occasionally , thats few :-)

I know, other ah, trades, shifting between chars but compared to 60k ah
lodge/buy/mail and every loot/quest reward they are few and carefully
considered so an alternative channel of handling them isn't a great
imposition.

There should be a city wide rain of golden sparkles pointing at the
character every time someone transacts goldcap :-)

[Lewis]

Post by Peter T.

Post by Lewis

Post by unknown
Gold cap transactions are very few.

They are more common that you might think.

What is a gold cap transaction?

I assume things that happen when a character is at or near the gold cap.

For example, my friend with two capped toons has to move 10,000g a week
to other toons just so that gold doesn't vanish.

[unknown]

Post by Lewis

Post by unknown

Post by Lewis

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
On Wed, 29 Jul 2015 01:47:17 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
So I went ahead and reactivated my account for about 24,000 gold.

I'm jealous! 47k last I checked...yeah, I *can* afford it, but I don't
really want to, knowing what your prices are like :-P

Isn't it ironic that there was a time when people where paying real money to
gold farmers to get in-game gold and nowadays people have so much in-game
gold that they are using it to pay their subscriptions with it instead of
real money...

Yeah, I remember the days when I was scraping and saving to get 100g
for my first mount at lvl 40, now 100g is almost pocket change :-)

I didn't buy a mount until level 60, and that was the level 40 mount. It
took me *months* to save up the 1000g for a level 60 mount, and I ended
up getting a loan of 200g from a guildy who was tired of waiting for me
everywhere we went.

Post by Catriona R
Crazy inflation, I find myself wondering if Blizz should try and bring
it down a bit, but not sure what they can do tbh, short of resetting
everyone's gold, which would annoy a lot of people...

What they should do is "stat squish" the money and convert all the gold
to copper.
So, if you have 143,120g you would now have 14g31s20.
No one loses any money, just the money becomes manageable numbers again.
I have a friend who is maxed on gold on TWO toons (assuming the max is
still 999,999g99s99).

That would mean many changes to lower quest rewards and items. But then
there aren't that many new players anyway.

Not much different. Anything 1g or less would be a copper. Anything
over 1g would just be reduced to 1/10,000th. a 200g item currently
would be 2 silver. The 2000g Traveler's Tundra Mammoth would be 20s.

Post by unknown
It should be simple enough to rebuild everything to take larger numbers
in one pass BUT unforeseen events, taking it down, the complaining
should anything go wrong, the breaking of addons and potential exploits
count against it.

It is *extremely* difficult to change the database structure for a
database as large as WoW's.

Shouldn't be , they seem to change stats and fields often enough
although I am very long gone from Oracle it shouldn't be low level bit
bashing for BCD fields.
Not that it matters since I was saying it probably wouldn't be done that
way anyway :-)
"Senior Oracle Database Administrator

Description
Do you consider yourself to be an Oracle guru? Would you like the
opportunity to put your skills and experience to the test in an
environment that is fun, creative and challenging?
We are looking for two Senior Oracle Database Administrators to join the
existing DBA team for our flagship product World of Warcraft (WoW).
These mission critical production database systems support 5.5 million
customers worldwide on a 24x7x365 basis. The database size and
transaction load is also growing significantly on a weekly basis which
will add further challenge to your role.
While performing all duties associated with database administration
including maintenance, tuning and data migration, you will also be
interacting directly with our development teams around the world to
assist in the development and enhancements of World of Warcraft."

http://www.creativeheads.net/job/2219/senior-oracle-database-administrator-in-irvine

[Lewis]

Post by unknown

Post by Lewis

Post by unknown

Post by Lewis

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
On Wed, 29 Jul 2015 01:47:17 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
So I went ahead and reactivated my account for about 24,000 gold.

I'm jealous! 47k last I checked...yeah, I *can* afford it, but I don't
really want to, knowing what your prices are like :-P

Isn't it ironic that there was a time when people where paying real money to
gold farmers to get in-game gold and nowadays people have so much in-game
gold that they are using it to pay their subscriptions with it instead of
real money...

Yeah, I remember the days when I was scraping and saving to get 100g
for my first mount at lvl 40, now 100g is almost pocket change :-)

I didn't buy a mount until level 60, and that was the level 40 mount. It
took me *months* to save up the 1000g for a level 60 mount, and I ended
up getting a loan of 200g from a guildy who was tired of waiting for me
everywhere we went.

Post by Catriona R
Crazy inflation, I find myself wondering if Blizz should try and bring
it down a bit, but not sure what they can do tbh, short of resetting
everyone's gold, which would annoy a lot of people...

What they should do is "stat squish" the money and convert all the gold
to copper.
So, if you have 143,120g you would now have 14g31s20.
No one loses any money, just the money becomes manageable numbers again.
I have a friend who is maxed on gold on TWO toons (assuming the max is
still 999,999g99s99).

That would mean many changes to lower quest rewards and items. But then
there aren't that many new players anyway.

Not much different. Anything 1g or less would be a copper. Anything
over 1g would just be reduced to 1/10,000th. a 200g item currently
would be 2 silver. The 2000g Traveler's Tundra Mammoth would be 20s.

Post by unknown
It should be simple enough to rebuild everything to take larger numbers
in one pass BUT unforeseen events, taking it down, the complaining
should anything go wrong, the breaking of addons and potential exploits
count against it.

It is *extremely* difficult to change the database structure for a
database as large as WoW's.

Shouldn't be , they seem to change stats and fields often enough

They do far less of that than you think.

Just as an axample, Dodge is still in the game. Sure, you cant see it on
anything, but it exists.

And if they no longer use Hit and repurpose that for "new stat" that
isn't changing the STRUCTURE of the database, just a field label.

Changing money from a 32bit to a 64 bit value would change the structure
of the DB and would also require changing (or at least checking) every
single bit of code that accessed that field in any way to make sure it
could handle a 64bit value.

That is a massive undertaking for very little gain. A stat-squish on
gold is much simpler.

[unknown]

Post by Lewis

Post by unknown

Post by Lewis

Post by unknown

Post by Lewis

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
On Wed, 29 Jul 2015 01:47:17 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
So I went ahead and reactivated my account for about 24,000 gold.

I'm jealous! 47k last I checked...yeah, I *can* afford it, but I don't
really want to, knowing what your prices are like :-P

Isn't it ironic that there was a time when people where paying real money to
gold farmers to get in-game gold and nowadays people have so much in-game
gold that they are using it to pay their subscriptions with it instead of
real money...

Yeah, I remember the days when I was scraping and saving to get 100g
for my first mount at lvl 40, now 100g is almost pocket change :-)

I didn't buy a mount until level 60, and that was the level 40 mount. It
took me *months* to save up the 1000g for a level 60 mount, and I ended
up getting a loan of 200g from a guildy who was tired of waiting for me
everywhere we went.

Post by Catriona R
Crazy inflation, I find myself wondering if Blizz should try and bring
it down a bit, but not sure what they can do tbh, short of resetting
everyone's gold, which would annoy a lot of people...

What they should do is "stat squish" the money and convert all the gold
to copper.
So, if you have 143,120g you would now have 14g31s20.
No one loses any money, just the money becomes manageable numbers again.
I have a friend who is maxed on gold on TWO toons (assuming the max is
still 999,999g99s99).

That would mean many changes to lower quest rewards and items. But then
there aren't that many new players anyway.

Not much different. Anything 1g or less would be a copper. Anything
over 1g would just be reduced to 1/10,000th. a 200g item currently
would be 2 silver. The 2000g Traveler's Tundra Mammoth would be 20s.

Post by unknown
It should be simple enough to rebuild everything to take larger numbers
in one pass BUT unforeseen events, taking it down, the complaining
should anything go wrong, the breaking of addons and potential exploits
count against it.

It is *extremely* difficult to change the database structure for a
database as large as WoW's.

Shouldn't be , they seem to change stats and fields often enough

They do far less of that than you think.
Just as an axample, Dodge is still in the game. Sure, you cant see it on
anything, but it exists.
And if they no longer use Hit and repurpose that for "new stat" that
isn't changing the STRUCTURE of the database, just a field label.
Changing money from a 32bit to a 64 bit value would change the structure
of the DB and would also require changing (or at least checking) every
single bit of code that accessed that field in any way to make sure it
could handle a 64bit value.
That is a massive undertaking for very little gain. A stat-squish on
gold is much simpler.

You would be absolutely right if it was hard coded 32 bit, but
214,748g36s47c, signed int as copper, gold cap was exceeded a couple of
expansions ago.

999,999.99.99 looks like a 6 byte BCD database form, so expanding it
would go to 64bit
but
many database engines anticipate field resizing and additions
and do their calculations on extensible data types, most items are only
touched a very few times between the expensive operations of data
retrieval/storage, calculation efficiency is not a big concern so isn't
optimised particularly since that makes data structure management more
flexible.

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E18283_01/server.112/e17120/tables006.htm

wow seems to use oracle

It -should- be fairly simple now unless someone screwed up in the
reorganisation to the new gold cap.

[unknown]

Post by unknown
many database engines anticipate field resizing and additions
and do their calculations on extensible data types, most items are only
touched a very few times between the expensive operations of data
retrieval/storage, calculation efficiency is not a big concern so isn't
optimised particularly since that makes data structure management more
flexible.

There isn't much loss in the 'unoptimised' calculations.
I once wrote a complex arithmetic (x+iy) extension that could handle
2^32 BCD digits and mixed bases.
That is 4294967296 digits vs 9 in the number 4294967296, shouldn't be
much need to expand that , stupid overkill.
For actual calculations on 64 bit=20 digits base 10 numbers it was only
a couple of hundred times slower than the fpu. Which meant it was about
half the speed to read/calculate/write back compared to using actual
64bit fpu operations that would also have needed post processing.
Now you can just use MATLAB on a 3Ghz desktop :-)

[unknown]

Post by unknown
There isn't much loss in the 'unoptimised' calculations.
I once wrote a complex arithmetic (x+iy) extension that could handle
2^32 BCD digits and mixed bases.
That is 4294967296 digits vs 9 in the number 4294967296, shouldn't be

BLUSH !!! 10 in the number 4,294,967,296 :-[

[Peter T.]

Post by unknown
You would be absolutely right if it was hard coded 32 bit, but
214,748g36s47c, signed int as copper, gold cap was exceeded a couple of
expansions ago.
999,999.99.99 looks like a 6 byte BCD database form, so expanding it
would go to 64bit

Its more or less about how its parsed. 32 or 64 bit doesnt matter (or
at least SHOULDNT matter!) in this case. What does matter is the output
we see in gold, silver and copper. But Blizzard will get some "minor"
troubles with the adjusting parts as we have loads of items in the game
which are vendored at 1c (or just below 1s).

Today we empty the mission crates and vendor the armor and weapons for
X-XX gold. the price of those items should scale with item lvl so high
lvl items goes for like 50g while lowlevel items should go for 1g.
Today I can vendor BC green items for 30-50g which is crazy and many
vendored BC green items gives more gold than today's WoD epic gear.
So ideally today's ilvl 675 gear should for for 50g and in next
expansion it should go for 10g, MoP gear should go for 5g, cata gear
should go for 1g, BC gear should go for 50s etc..

But many things are so hardcoded in the game that Blizzard _will_
experience the butterfly effect. And they know that. Microsoft has the
same problem which explains why their windows versions gets bigger and
bigger in raw size. winNT->2k->vista->7->8->10. MS will never be able
to rewrite all the code as way too much software depends on calls to
ancient functions, old libraries and yadda. A full win7 install takes
6-8 gigs of your hard drive, win8 easily takes 25 gigs. Same code with
shitload of modification to the existing code + all the new code.

And apropos hardcoded; Blizzard promised we should be able to change the
default 16 slot bag 2 expansions ago. but it seems they gave up that as
the changes would make a way too serious impact to many other parts of
the code which they had to recode if they mode this change == too
expensive and too risky. :)


I hope you understand what I have written above. Many times I really
wish english was my first language. But it isnt. And above that. Im
also kinda semi-drunk and the clock is ~630am here in Denmark. :)

[unknown]

Post by Peter T.

Post by unknown
You would be absolutely right if it was hard coded 32 bit, but
214,748g36s47c, signed int as copper, gold cap was exceeded a couple of
expansions ago.
999,999.99.99 looks like a 6 byte BCD database form, so expanding it
would go to 64bit

Its more or less about how its parsed. 32 or 64 bit doesnt matter (or
at least SHOULDNT matter!) in this case. What does matter is the output
we see in gold, silver and copper. But Blizzard will get some "minor"
troubles with the adjusting parts as we have loads of items in the game
which are vendored at 1c (or just below 1s).
Today we empty the mission crates and vendor the armor and weapons for
X-XX gold. the price of those items should scale with item lvl so high
lvl items goes for like 50g while lowlevel items should go for 1g. Today
I can vendor BC green items for 30-50g which is crazy and many vendored
BC green items gives more gold than today's WoD epic gear.
So ideally today's ilvl 675 gear should for for 50g and in next
expansion it should go for 10g, MoP gear should go for 5g, cata gear
should go for 1g, BC gear should go for 50s etc..
But many things are so hardcoded in the game that Blizzard _will_
experience the butterfly effect. And they know that. Microsoft has the
same problem which explains why their windows versions gets bigger and
bigger in raw size. winNT->2k->vista->7->8->10. MS will never be able
to rewrite all the code as way too much software depends on calls to
ancient functions, old libraries and yadda. A full win7 install takes
6-8 gigs of your hard drive, win8 easily takes 25 gigs. Same code with
shitload of modification to the existing code + all the new code.
And apropos hardcoded; Blizzard promised we should be able to change the
default 16 slot bag 2 expansions ago. but it seems they gave up that as
the changes would make a way too serious impact to many other parts of
the code which they had to recode if they mode this change == too
expensive and too risky. :)

Which is why I said even though expanding the data shouldn't be a
problem they probably anticipate
other things going wrong. A currency squish is likely to have the
similar problems.

Legacy code can be a problem but 25g is now $1-2 of hd space and that is
the users $1, which they probably weren't using anyway. Why put in a lot
of effort cutting it out? :-)
The days of bit bashing -should- be long gone, Moore's law has made it a
waste of time and money in most circumstances.
I see people carefully culling hundreds of emails to save a few MB when
they have half a TB free and optimised code running on one core while 3
cores are nearly idle.

And Blizzard still can't spare a few kbytes for bigger bags :-)

Post by Peter T.
I hope you understand what I have written above. Many times I really
wish english was my first language. But it isnt. And above that. Im
also kinda semi-drunk and the clock is ~630am here in Denmark. :)

It is fine, I could not tell unless you pointed it out. ESLs (English as
a second language) are often more careful than we lazy EFLs.

Happy party time :-)

[Catriona R]

On Fri, 31 Jul 2015 03:43:22 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R
On Wed, 29 Jul 2015 01:47:17 +0000 (UTC), Lewis

Post by Lewis
So I went ahead and reactivated my account for about 24,000 gold.

I'm jealous! 47k last I checked...yeah, I *can* afford it, but I don't
really want to, knowing what your prices are like :-P

Isn't it ironic that there was a time when people where paying real money to
gold farmers to get in-game gold and nowadays people have so much in-game
gold that they are using it to pay their subscriptions with it instead of
real money...

Yeah, I remember the days when I was scraping and saving to get 100g
for my first mount at lvl 40, now 100g is almost pocket change :-)

I didn't buy a mount until level 60, and that was the level 40 mount. It
took me *months* to save up the 1000g for a level 60 mount, and I ended
up getting a loan of 200g from a guildy who was tired of waiting for me
everywhere we went.

Yep, I got my lvl 40 mount at 40, but having spent aaages grinding
Duskwood orges (grey but decent cash/cloth drops) in the high 30s to
get enough gold. Took me months to get the 1k for the epic mount, but
I didn't like the human epic horse, so wanted another faction, which
meant a load more gold for runecloth turnins... in the end I was most
of the way there (had the 1k, but not the rep) when a friend quit the
game and sent me his gold; that was enough to get it and I was very
grateful to him! :-)

Post by Lewis

Post by Catriona R
Crazy inflation, I find myself wondering if Blizz should try and bring
it down a bit, but not sure what they can do tbh, short of resetting
everyone's gold, which would annoy a lot of people...

What they should do is "stat squish" the money and convert all the gold
to copper.
So, if you have 143,120g you would now have 14g31s20.
No one loses any money, just the money becomes manageable numbers again.

Heh, that could work, yeah, still means there'll be some with very
high numbers and others on peanuts, but better than removing all gold
anyway!

Post by Lewis
I have a friend who is maxed on gold on TWO toons (assuming the max is
still 999,999g99s99).

I can believe it, it's silly easy to make gold this expansion. None of
mine are capped, but I have the cap if I combine 2 of them... and a
fair bit beyond on my other alts. My main is approaching the cap now;
if I don't find something on the black market to buy in the next few
weeks I may have to actually buy a game token or something to lower my
gold before I do hit the cap, else send some to an alt or something
:-)

[Urbin]

Post by Catriona R

Post by Lewis

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R

Post by Lewis
So I went ahead and reactivated my account for about 24,000 gold.

I'm jealous! 47k last I checked...yeah, I *can* afford it, but I don't
really want to, knowing what your prices are like :-P

Isn't it ironic that there was a time when people where paying real money to
gold farmers to get in-game gold and nowadays people have so much in-game
gold that they are using it to pay their subscriptions with it instead of
real money...

Yeah, I remember the days when I was scraping and saving to get 100g
for my first mount at lvl 40, now 100g is almost pocket change :-)

I didn't buy a mount until level 60, and that was the level 40 mount. It
took me *months* to save up the 1000g for a level 60 mount, and I ended
up getting a loan of 200g from a guildy who was tired of waiting for me
everywhere we went.

Yep, I got my lvl 40 mount at 40, but having spent aaages grinding
Duskwood orges (grey but decent cash/cloth drops) in the high 30s to
get enough gold. Took me months to get the 1k for the epic mount, but
I didn't like the human epic horse, so wanted another faction, which
meant a load more gold for runecloth turnins... in the end I was most
of the way there (had the 1k, but not the rep) when a friend quit the
game and sent me his gold; that was enough to get it and I was very
grateful to him! :-)

Yeah, I remember realising somewhere in the low thirties that I would need
100g at level 40 for the mount and I had less than 10g :-) I spent hours
solo farming the Deadmines (close to Stormwind and feasible, Stockades were
just a bit too difficult to solo at the time). Selling greens, blues and
cloth on the AH, vendoring everything else. I must have run that place
hundreds of times. By the time I hit 40 I had my 100g ready but after that I
was back to broke and couldn't even afford some of the new abilities from my
trainer that opened at 40...

On the plus side, this prepared me for epic riding at 60, I started saving
straight away and made sure I hoarded all the gold I possibly could during
the next 20 levels. Still, when I reached 60 I was short a couple of hundred
gold and needed to do some farming. By then the Stockades where a very good
option because they dropped a considerable amount of wool which went at a
premium on my server.

Ah, the good old times!

I think the biggest wow effect in the early days was when I had finished
every quest in Dun Morogh and was sent to Loch Modan. Exiting the tunnel and
finding a whole new world without snow left me dumbstruck. I had thought Dun
Morogh was the extent of the game world and I was close to finishing the
game ;-) Being a total noob to both Warcraft and MMORPGs had its benefits.

Cheers
Urbin

[Lewis]

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R

Post by Lewis

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R

Post by Lewis
So I went ahead and reactivated my account for about 24,000 gold.

I'm jealous! 47k last I checked...yeah, I *can* afford it, but I don't
really want to, knowing what your prices are like :-P

Isn't it ironic that there was a time when people where paying real money to
gold farmers to get in-game gold and nowadays people have so much in-game
gold that they are using it to pay their subscriptions with it instead of
real money...

Yeah, I remember the days when I was scraping and saving to get 100g
for my first mount at lvl 40, now 100g is almost pocket change :-)

I didn't buy a mount until level 60, and that was the level 40 mount. It
took me *months* to save up the 1000g for a level 60 mount, and I ended
up getting a loan of 200g from a guildy who was tired of waiting for me
everywhere we went.

Yep, I got my lvl 40 mount at 40, but having spent aaages grinding
Duskwood orges (grey but decent cash/cloth drops) in the high 30s to
get enough gold. Took me months to get the 1k for the epic mount, but
I didn't like the human epic horse, so wanted another faction, which
meant a load more gold for runecloth turnins... in the end I was most
of the way there (had the 1k, but not the rep) when a friend quit the
game and sent me his gold; that was enough to get it and I was very
grateful to him! :-)

Yeah, I remember realising somewhere in the low thirties that I would need
100g at level 40 for the mount and I had less than 10g :-) I spent hours
solo farming the Deadmines (close to Stormwind and feasible, Stockades were
just a bit too difficult to solo at the time). Selling greens, blues and
cloth on the AH, vendoring everything else. I must have run that place
hundreds of times. By the time I hit 40 I had my 100g ready but after that I
was back to broke and couldn't even afford some of the new abilities from my
trainer that opened at 40...
On the plus side, this prepared me for epic riding at 60, I started saving
straight away and made sure I hoarded all the gold I possibly could during
the next 20 levels. Still, when I reached 60 I was short a couple of hundred
gold and needed to do some farming. By then the Stockades where a very good
option because they dropped a considerable amount of wool which went at a
premium on my server.
Ah, the good old times!
I think the biggest wow effect in the early days was when I had finished
every quest in Dun Morogh and was sent to Loch Modan. Exiting the tunnel and
finding a whole new world without snow left me dumbstruck. I had thought Dun
Morogh was the extent of the game world and I was close to finishing the
game ;-) Being a total noob to both Warcraft and MMORPGs had its benefits.

My big "holy shit" moment was the first time I flew from Stormwind to
Redridge I think it was and saw that I was actually flying IN THE GAME.
There were people on the road, I flew over combat. It was stunning.

[Catriona R]

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R

Post by Lewis

Post by Catriona R

Post by Urbin

Post by Catriona R

Post by Lewis
So I went ahead and reactivated my account for about 24,000 gold.

I'm jealous! 47k last I checked...yeah, I *can* afford it, but I don't
really want to, knowing what your prices are like :-P

Isn't it ironic that there was a time when people where paying real money to
gold farmers to get in-game gold and nowadays people have so much in-game
gold that they are using it to pay their subscriptions with it instead of
real money...

Yeah, I remember the days when I was scraping and saving to get 100g
for my first mount at lvl 40, now 100g is almost pocket change :-)

I didn't buy a mount until level 60, and that was the level 40 mount. It
took me *months* to save up the 1000g for a level 60 mount, and I ended
up getting a loan of 200g from a guildy who was tired of waiting for me
everywhere we went.

Yep, I got my lvl 40 mount at 40, but having spent aaages grinding
Duskwood orges (grey but decent cash/cloth drops) in the high 30s to
get enough gold. Took me months to get the 1k for the epic mount, but
I didn't like the human epic horse, so wanted another faction, which
meant a load more gold for runecloth turnins... in the end I was most
of the way there (had the 1k, but not the rep) when a friend quit the
game and sent me his gold; that was enough to get it and I was very
grateful to him! :-)

Yeah, I remember realising somewhere in the low thirties that I would need
100g at level 40 for the mount and I had less than 10g :-) I spent hours
solo farming the Deadmines (close to Stormwind and feasible, Stockades were
just a bit too difficult to solo at the time). Selling greens, blues and
cloth on the AH, vendoring everything else. I must have run that place
hundreds of times. By the time I hit 40 I had my 100g ready but after that I
was back to broke and couldn't even afford some of the new abilities from my
trainer that opened at 40...

Hehe I never tried Deadmines at that lvl, not sure if a (not at all
knowledgeable) rogue was strong enough for that tbh. I'll find out
when I get that high on my *cough* unofficial server - after asking
you how to join a group in German, I never saw any (wanting dps,
plenty looking for healers lol) over several days till I'd levelled
too high really, so I'll go back and solo it when I can. Won't be for
a while lol, I can just barely solo the elites outside the instance
and I'm 8-9 lvls higher than them... "elite" sure meant something in
those days!

Also as a leatherworker Ill try my luck in Wailing Caverns, and see if
anyone wants to buy deviate scale gear... probably not, it's not so
high pop as to have a thriving twink community, but you never know!

Post by Urbin
On the plus side, this prepared me for epic riding at 60, I started saving
straight away and made sure I hoarded all the gold I possibly could during
the next 20 levels. Still, when I reached 60 I was short a couple of hundred
gold and needed to do some farming. By then the Stockades where a very good
option because they dropped a considerable amount of wool which went at a
premium on my server.
Ah, the good old times!

Can't remember what I did for gold at that lvl; I think I spent the
late 50s farming yetis in Winterspring for leather, as I'd discovered
the existence of the Darkmoon necklaces; I did succeed in getting that
not long after hitting 60, so I guess that worked, but gold wasn't so
plentiful hehe - goldmaking and farming for gold weren't things I was
really any good at :-)

Post by Urbin
I think the biggest wow effect in the early days was when I had finished
every quest in Dun Morogh and was sent to Loch Modan. Exiting the tunnel and
finding a whole new world without snow left me dumbstruck. I had thought Dun
Morogh was the extent of the game world and I was close to finishing the
game ;-) Being a total noob to both Warcraft and MMORPGs had its benefits.

Hehe yeah, I was aware from the map that there was a world beyond
Elwynn, but seeing the gates of SW for the first time was "wow".
Biggest moment I recall from the early days though was being in SW and
seeing someone in general saying everyone should come to the keep to
see dragons (I reckon it would've been one of the first times it'd
ever happened on that server; I was so lowbie that the game was
probably only about a month old) - of course I couldn't resist that
and so got to see the Onyxia chain event with Marshal Windsor for the
first time; that was amazing! :-) It stayed with me for ages
afterwards, and I was so happy when I finally got to that quest myself
(many months later, as I rerolled on a fresh server in between), loved
it :-)

[Lewis]

Post by Catriona R
Can't remember what I did for gold at that lvl; I think I spent the
late 50s farming yetis in Winterspring for leather, as I'd discovered
the existence of the Darkmoon necklaces; I did succeed in getting that
not long after hitting 60, so I guess that worked, but gold wasn't so
plentiful hehe - goldmaking and farming for gold weren't things I was
really any good at :-)

I made most my early money farming cloth. Silk in particular where at
one point I controlled the market for silk for well over a week (or was
it a month?). But that was when I was level 60. I did make oodles of
cash though. Hundreds of gold!

I ended up having to create a mule JUST to hold all the silk in bags,
mail, and guild bank.