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5/10/2012

Breaking: Multiple Copies of MoP Zones Will Impact Ore/Herb Prices


Breaking News: Mists of Pandaria zones might have multiple copies per server if there are a high number of players. This has huge implications on the amount of materials that miners, herbalists and skinners will be bringing into the game and may have huge impact on those of us who were planning on farming to make gold at the beginning of Mists of Pandaria

Read on for a few excerpts from the official blog post by Blizzard as well as my thoughts on it.


You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

So the important parts of Blizzard's blog post Cross-Realm Zones Coming to Beta are below. (Emphasis added.)

"Q. What about zones that are already overpopulated, like new race starting zones?
With this technology, we can also flag zones to allow for more than one copy of that zone per realm. Players on that realm will be split among those copies in order to alleviate problems due to overpopulation.  Players won’t normally see or interact with those on a different instance of their zone, although joining a party will relocate all party members to a single instance of that zone."


So basically this means that if areas such as the level 85-90 leveling zones are over-crowded (which they will be on launch) Blizzard will be able to spawn "multiple copies" of an area.

While having multiple copies of an area is nothing new in MMORPGs it is very new to World of Warcraft and more importantly means that we could be having ore, herbs and skins gathered from multiple copies of a zone flooding into the auction house.

The Important Bit

If this is implemented how they say it will be the prices people like myself were hoping to get for farming ore/herbs in early MoP will be significantly reduced as there will be far more materials from all the miners/herbalists/skinners farming in all of these copies.

While this instancing of zones will likely be great for not having over crowded zones while leveling I am lowering my expectations for the amount of gold I could have made if this wasn't implemented.

How do you think this addition will change gold-making potential and the early-MoP economy in general?

UPDATE: As a few people have mentioned if multiple servers are sharing lower level zones it could also mean more competition for low level mats thus slowing down people gathering them and ultimately allowing less low-level mats to be brought into the market.

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Posted by iiimjiiim on 5/10/2012 Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

9 comments :

  1. TherulingMay 10, 2012, 4:24:00 PM

    With no information on how they'll change or not change node spawns across instances I can't call doomsday. I see them spreading it thinner for example - like the more instances of a zone the less spawn in each (because fewer people in a zone instance would mean smaller amount of nodes needed)

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  2. ryandMay 10, 2012, 4:41:00 PM

    This is how it is in SWTOR. I discovered it while trying to group up for group quests. I'm sure we can count on Blizzard to throw it out there and "balance" it later on.

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  3. keithMay 10, 2012, 6:34:00 PM

    I'm also worried about the combining of low-level zones among multiple realms. Since there will be significantly more players from multiple realms in one low level zone, chances are fewer of those low-level herbs will actually make it back to YOUR realm's AH. Could this lead to even greater price inflation of low level herbs than expected?

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    1. iiimjiiimMay 10, 2012, 10:01:00 PM

      In the post is states: "Q. What about resources or gathering nodes, will those be shared too?
      Resources and nodes will be available to all parties within the shared area the same as always. We will be keeping a close eye on the impact of area sharing and should an area become too populated, we are capable of adjusting how many realms are able to connect to a shared area."

      So at least they are aware of it.

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  4. ¯`·.¸.×±ËÑ Ð©×.¸.·´¯May 10, 2012, 7:19:00 PM

    ^that's a really good point keith. we might make even more gold on smaller realms.

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  5. TKMay 11, 2012, 9:50:00 AM

    The moon is falling, the moon is falling, quick everyone hide, the moon is falling.

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  6. AchieveMay 11, 2012, 10:37:00 AM

    I think nodes will be over looked, and there will be no chages to spawn rates. To much tech and code for that. It will be an automated process driven by popultion.

    Low pop realms will have more competition for resources. Not not to any great degree. I imagine the system will be set. To automatically adjust how many realms to maintain a population in the zone of 10 to 15 players present or some magic number. Overall the impact will be there, but overall minimal. It sounds like the intent is so that you can /who z"zone name" and find more than 0-2 other question players.

    However high pop realms, its all good. Fast forward to MOP release. Either consider the midnight rush, or the 6-10p.m. prime time. Fighting for quest mobs with 500 other players? Fighting with 200 other farmers who always get the "tapped" on your resource more? Or even the " your position in the que is 254, approximate wait time 22 minutes."

    All of those concerns could go away... Log on, no Que to get on realm since another copy can be made. Multiple copies means you will potentially be able to progress trough quests by getting a shot a "tagging" mobs, drops, nodes etc...

    It's all goodness IMO, except low pop realms or low pop zones will have potentially a couple more players farming with you. I'd that's a problem, learn to turn around and fly/ride/run the other way...

    I would Imagine a simple pair of flags. E.g. 1. level 10-15 zone... Less than 10 level 10-20 players flag for compatible zone search/match. 2. Greater than 200 players in zone. Split copy distribute population...

    Certainly not that simple, however at concept level it is.

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    1. iiimjiiimMay 11, 2012, 11:31:00 AM

      I do agree that these changes will make leveling at the beginning of MoP much more enjoyable as it shouldn't be as over crowded.

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  7. SoonerFanMay 11, 2012, 11:40:00 AM

    I'm not sure it will matter to farmers all that much.

    Let's go back to Wrath: Borean Tundra vs Howling Fjord - the same herbs/ores spawned in both locations and if you were trying to farm in one and it was crowded, you could go to the other. In reality, there were 500 farmers in BT and 500 other farmers in HF (just throwing up numbers, not actual counts). This meant that your ability to pick herbs was directly affected by those other 1000 people.

    In Cata that was changed with Hyjal giving Cinderbloom and Vash giving Azshara's Veil, so if you wanted to farm one or the other, the choice was made for you, but, in a more than likely scenario, the same 1000 from Wrath were farming again, thus impacting your ability to farm.

    With the "copy" idea, it will still be 500 people (per zone...) farming and keeping you from getting an herb/ore, the only difference, you won't be able to rage at them in /2 because they aren't on your server. I think we'll still see the bubble in the mats market, it just might not last quite as long since the copy idea facilitates more people leveling faster (because as a quester and not a farmer, I don't care about nodes, I care about mobs, and those will be easier to come by since I won't be dealing with an entire server worth of people trying to kill 10 monkeys).

    My thoughts (from a gold making standpoint): You'll still need to create a cache of goods for the early month(s) of MoP, but the market will settle a bit quicker than previous expansions.

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