🚀 go-pugleaf

On Mar 15, 8:22 am, Cryptoengineer <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Shared cooldowns lead to some unexpected economics.
>
> I've been looking at doing 'Vial of the Sands'. As an Alchemist, I can
> make many of the mats, but have come to realize that I should just buy
> some of them, due to opportunity costs.
>
> The required Flasks I *am* making, since they count towards the guild
> achievement "Better Leveling Through Chemistry" which provides a
> cauldron recipe. I'm also making the oil needed.
>
> The flask and sands I just have to buy from the vendor, and they cost
> a lot. Nothing I can do about it, unless I want to wait till the guild
> gets the 10% vendor discount, which will be a while.
>
> But the 12 Truegold I could in theory get at a substantial discount by
> doing the transmutes myself. For each, I'd still have to buy 3 Pyrium
> bars (about 60g), but the volatiles I can get by farming or transmutes
> for free. Truegold goes for about 900g on my server.
>
> But it isn't worth it. Why?
>
> Each Truegold will require an average of 3 transmute cooldowns; (less
> if I can farm some volatiles).
>
> At the moment, I use the daily transmute cooldown to Transmute 15
> Volatile life to V. Air, with frequent bonus procs. The V.L. I gather,
> along with about 3x as many herbs.  All this sells for about 1000g/
> day. It would take me an average of almost 3 days to make each TG the
> cheapest way, during which I could have earned 3000g.
>
> So, its 'save 840g' vs 'lose 3000g potential earnings'. Its no
> contest.
>
> Its just odd to see a pure economics concept such as opportunity costs
> pop up in-game.
>
> pt

"The flask and sands I just have to buy from the vendor, and they cost
a lot. Nothing I can do about it..."

Have a goblin buy them for you :-)

Opportunity cost is a big factor for serious AH play, to be honest,
and is often the dividing line between an AH dabbler and a hard core
AH goblin.  Sure, I could take my pally out to mine obsidium, gather 8
stacks in an hour, and sell it for 80g a stack on the ah for 640g!
Or, I could shuffle (prospect, craft, DE, cut, resell) for 100g a
stack, for 800g!  Woo!  Or, I could pay the 5 guys who went out and
gathered the 8 stacks of ore by buying from the AH, shuffle the ore,
and make the same 800g profit, with a lot less time invested, and half
of it done AFK while watching netflix :-)