I just bought 2 radiant star emeralds for only 11,757,400 each

Lowest price that has been recorded, on the AH tracker at least.

Discuss...

I think people are either hoarding cash so little to no sales are happening or have stopped playing. Gold is rather low also...

Down to 11,263,161

It's down to 10.4M atm. It's also possible some people bought a bunch of them and are having trouble selling them now.

I think the economy is at its worst right now. The buff to 61 and 62 items allowed a lot of people to be able to clear Inferno. The number of people who still can't clear Inferno is probably miniscule. So the only reason to play is to obtain better gear (to farm or to just show off). Since there is a very small set of items that are really, "the best", these items are worth A LOT. The only way to get these items? Get incredibly lucky or obtain gold from selling items. However, no one is buying mid-tier items because they're either not ideal for farming or worse than what people who actually have the gold to buy it have.

I'd imagine it's something like, 0% of people currently playing cannot clear Inferno, 10% of people currently playing need better farming gear, and 90% of people currently playing just want better items to "look good" or boost their DPS ranking on diabloprogress. In terms of keeping people, that's unsustainable.

@Anuiran

That's really surprising. I have gear in my stash that I'm probably going to vendor that can easily solo Inferno Diablo. I'd say with savvy buying, between 500k-1M gold total is adequate in terms of clearing the game.

There are players who haven't hit 60 yet on a single character??? Considering it takes like 20-25 hours to reach 60 and the game has been out for over 4 months, I'd have to disagree with you that it's a "large group" unless you could show me the statistics on that. At any rate, players who are that casual have no effect on the economy. They're not buying items because they're not 60 yet. Additionally, if they continue to play at that rate, they probably won't reach Act 3 Inferno farm for years.

I have not cleared Act 4 inferno. Not even close to being able to do it.

@Metta For one thing, many people didn't buy the game at launch, so they haven't had it for 4 months. Second, 20-25 hours is a gross underestimate for a new or casual player to reach 60, or really for anyone that isn't trying to level or progress at a fast rate. I'm pretty sure I didn't hit 60 with my first character for 50-60 hours. Fully exploring maps/dungeons, replaying low level content with friends, and trying multiple classes all extend this time. And there's also a ton of people with alts that haven't reached 60 yet, either. I'd say 90% of profile's I've been linked to have alts under 60 (ignoring lvl 1 mules of course).

@Baldy The tracker says they're down even further to 10.5 mil now.

me neither, I can't even kill the bosses in Act 2 Solo, I need a monk/barb to tank for me and revive me when I die.
I can manage Act 3/4 in a group but not alone.

@Metta: I initially played very casually, taking my sweet time, exploring every single yard on the map and every secondary dungeon, not using any trick (no Cain Set, no hitting the AH constantly, no +XP gem or gear, just playing casually)
and it took me 70h or so to get to level 60 and finish Hell mode.

looking back, I can't believe it took me that long (I power levelled a wizard in 21h, and my barb is already level 42 in 7h) but it gives you an idea how casual players play the game.

In retrospect, I guess 20-25 hours is pretty fast. I certainly wasn't that quick on my first character (albeit the game was much harder and the markets were not friendly). It probably took me 120 hours to clear Inferno (farming, buying gear, dying a lot) on my first character.

Anyway, my point was that there aren't people consistently grinding for items just to clear the game. The people who haven't cleared the game either quit or are extremely casual. In both situations, they don't have any effect on the economy so I don't really include them. I know there are some exceptions, but I wouldn't be convinced otherwise unless I saw data on it.

I do know a dozen people that have not beaten Inferno Diablo, but most of them don't play at all (in months). The ones that do play are playing less than an hour a week (not really farming, just doing random stuff).

@Anuiran, I encourage off topic discussion on my threads ;-)

@Anuiran

Well that sucks...I just had a good sale and was going to buy a couple more...BAH!