Ghostcrawler deems Gold Making "Odd Behavior"

[Elvine]

I'm kind of sad and a little insulted that he said this. Since when is playing in game economics "odd behavior." It's harder than PvE in my honest opinion. PvE is scripted and has a right way of doing something and wrong way. We've got spreadsheets and websites databases dedicated to in game economics. Communities that specifically target gold making. Because it's an "odd behavior" we as players that enjoy in game economics shouldn't be recognized for our achievements?

[Dibface]

The way I read that, it's not an insult or degrading or anything. It's, honestly, the truth. Making gold is not something a lot of players do. It's a tiny tiny minority of players that actually engage in it, and an even tinier minority that go into it hardcore.

As far as achievements go, something that would be considered "Normal Behavior" would be, yknow, reaching Level 90. That's "Normal". Now imagine you have an achievement that's say, "Reach the Gold Cap on a character through Auction House Sales". Functionally, that's a little odd, right? That's not something the average player would go and do. Much less be able to do.

I get that you want recognition for your gold making prowess, but I think you're taking what GC said out of context. There's only so much you can convey through 140 characters, afterall. You have to remember what/who the majority of the playerbase is. They aren't savvy players like you or myself or anyone on this forum.

Edit: Just saw GC's latest tweet:

@Elvinelol An achievement that recognized e.g. most auctions cancelled would incentivize odd behavior.

So, that's what he meant by "odd behavior". Yes, you didn't mention "Most Auctions Cancelled" specifically, but keep in mind it was just an example. That sort of thing. It's very much a designer-y sort of thing, the kind of thing the average person wouldn't think about. Consequential actions, in other words. See how easy it is to misconstrue things over twitter? I misunderstood what he meant too, so I guess the above part of my post is more or less invalid? Shrug.

[Elvine]

While I agree with you that it's not normal for players to reach gold cap.

Even things like "Post an auction with a local auctioneer at each major city." "Buy an auction from each major city." Silly things. There are so many things they could decide to do to get the player based more involved in the economy in different ways. Hello neutral barely used AH

One can argue, you have gold isn't that enough? How about PvE & PvP? Gear isn't enough? Titles, achievements and some cases mounts ontop? There is already a way to track a lot of info about gold & AH through your statistics tab also. The AH is a major part of most WoW players, and earning gold isn't an easy task within the game to the average player. Average players don't always kill bosses pre nerf or even clear heroic mode, those people get offered feats of strength?

Shall I bring your attention to [Insane in the Membrane] how long did that take? How many people actually have it? How many people actually cared once this was turned into an achievement? More people cared or even bothered to try for it once it was put in as an achievement.

[Zedversary]

I am wondering if he ment odd achievement behavior. For example current achievement will be something like you killed this boss (1) yes or (0) no but tracking individual gold generated through auctions alone might be considered odd behavior because of the way the game tracks it. I know thats vague but i hope you get the gist of it.

[Stede]

Shall I bring your attention to [Insane in the Membrane] how long did that take? How many people actually have it? How many people actually cared once this was turned into an achievement? More people cared or even bothered to try for it once it was put in as an achievement.

Well, that's actually a great example of "If you build it, they will come". Achievements are meant to be achieved. And so achievements like "Reach Gold Cap" are probably fine, but achievements like "Post 10,000 Auctions" or "Cancel 10,000 Auctions" or "Spend 10,000 gold on Auction House Posting Fees" - those could destabilize a lot of Auction Houses. If two people tried farming these on the same weekend, it'd delay search times, clutter the default and even advanced AH UIs, skew metrics based on API data, and more.

Seeing 10k auctions posted at a time for the sake of an achievement is odd behavior. And it's difficult to have an achievement that rewards post counts, cancel counts, volume counts, or even fees paid totals without it resulting in such odd behavior. I don't think Ghostcrawler considers goldmaking odd behavior at all. I don't think he thinks much about goldmaking. I think he's trying to be careful about how folks would react to incentivizing certain aspects of the game.

[Dravvie]

I'll weigh in on this in a bigger way later today but, Elvine and I talked about this a lot last night.

Achivements don't have to be post 10,000 auctions or cancel 10,000 auctions. Most achivements are for doing things that the developers would like players to do in the first place. Which is utilizing the tools and parts of the game they put out there.

Economic based achievements can be post an auction, or sell something on the auction house! ect, ect. People jump to negative things too quickly. A lot of newer players don't really even use the AH except to see what's there and then quickly leave if they're on a sever with over priced items till they hit max level and then they only stop by when they can't find a friend to craft what they need such as gems or stuff for enchants.

[Elvine]

Well, that's actually a great example of "If you build it, they will come". Achievements are meant to be achieved. And so achievements like "Reach Gold Cap" are probably fine, but achievements like "Post 10,000 Auctions" or "Cancel 10,000 Auctions" or "Spend 10,000 gold on Auction House Posting Fees" - those could destabilize a lot of Auction Houses. If two people tried farming these on the same weekend, it'd delay search times, clutter the default and even advanced AH UIs, skew metrics based on API data, and more.

Seeing 10k auctions posted at a time for the sake of an achievement is odd behavior. And it's difficult to have an achievement that rewards post counts, cancel counts, volume counts, or even fees paid totals without it resulting in such odd behavior. I don't think Ghostcrawler considers goldmaking odd behavior at all. I don't think he thinks much about goldmaking. I think he's trying to be careful about how folks would react to incentivizing certain aspects of the game.

While I agree with you that rewarding post counts, cancel counts and volume counts might not work. There are plenty of other ways and ideas that they can come up with based around in game economy.

To bring more example of "odd behavior" already in the game for achievements...

[Double Rainbow], [Kiss and Make Up]

[Hazytea]

Elvine, your behavior is odd. My behavior is odd. Accept it and move on.

[Egillth]

This shows yet again that GC and Blizz as a whole don't seem to give a fuck about the playerbase.

I'm not sure if it's a good idea or if it's something that would be popular, but GC's attitude in that tweet disgusts me.

[Dravvie]

Actually, he wound up responding later with something a bit more positive.