Guild Wars 2

Another example would be: Imagine 2 guys. Both have 10$ and 3 fish each. In a hypothetical economy (for this example neither is money created nor taken out) the overal value are 10$ and 6 fish (let’s asume they are 3,33$ each or any other value depending on their dependance on fish).

Now let’s think about what happens if someone sold the other one 1 fish for 4$ even. Now one has 14$ the other one 4 fish (overall stays the same just an exchange). If the onewho bought the fish now broke it or makes it untradeable (by licking it or w/e) it is taken out of the economy. There are now only 20$ and 5 fish left.

See what i mean? By taking out an item you also take out gold of the economy!

Lucas of the Desert.2165:

Another example would be: Imagine 2 guys. Both have 10$ and 3 fish each. In a hypothetical economy (for this example neither is money created nor taken out) the overal value are 10$ and 6 fish (let’s asume they are 3,33$ each or any other value depending on their dependance on fish).

Now let’s think about what happens if someone sold the other one 1 fish for 4$ even. Now one has 14$ the other one 4 fish (overall stays the same just an exchange). If the onewho bought the fish now broke it or makes it untradeable (by licking it or w/e) it is taken out of the economy. There are now only 20$ and 5 fish left.

See what i mean? By taking out an item you also take out gold of the economy!

In this example, no money was taken out of the economy. An item was taken out of the economy.

What you have in this example is a total of $20 at the beginning and end of the example, but your total of available goods has changed from 6 fish to 5 fish.

If you go further with this example, the value of the fish relative to the total amount of currency has increased because the scarcity of the goods has increased.

See the difference?

The reason that GW2 (and all virtual gaming economies) need Gold Sinks is because the game has Faucets… I’m going to return to your fish example:

Person A has $10 and 3 fish
Person B has $10 and 3 fish

Person B walks around the lake, sits down at a printing press, and produces $5, which he gives to Person A for a fish.

This is what happens in games. You can do a quest (dungeon rewards 26s) for currency that enters the economy via a Faucet. The purpose of a Sink is to funnel that money back out of the economy.

If your sinks don’t keep pace with the faucets, then you get what has happened to every country that has tried to print more money to solve economic problems… the value of the currency relative to the goods declines.

Part of the reason, as an asside, that I ask the question: Do we need more sinks, is because some of the recent changes to the game have produced more faucets….

1) Dungeons have become, on balance, easier and more people are getting the fixed rewards from dungeons
2) Orrian Jewelry Boxes are allowing for conversion of Karma to Coin via the vendor trash that you get from the boxes

and those are the two that come to mind because I see them the most…. but I feel like there are others I’m missing…

Protoavis.9107:

Esplen.3940:

In terms of my inventory, the gold sinks are enough (especially if you count Gem store transactions via Gold). However, I would not mind more gold sinks being implemented.

….that’s not really a sink when gold is simultaneously coming out to people that sell gems for gold.

It’s too late, the people with money will always have money since they aren’t ever going to spend in a way that they’ll lose money, meanwhile the average player will rarely ever have more than 50g. Precursors will always be expensive as a result of this.

The Gems→Gold conversion rate and Gold→Gems conversion rate are separated by a 30% fee. That is a gold sink. However, the gold/gems exchange does not actually match buyers with sellers. It’s all a formula that simply creates or destroys gold/gems at a certain rate.

@CassieGold aaaaah ok i see my mistake now i was kinda calculating the item currency to money and assumed that it would be lost currency in that respect money.

So as for our exampke the simple thing that happened was inflation? Like i said i’m terrible in economics and such words should always be used with caution ^^

Edit: I think the problem with more money sinks is that if they ever consider adding buyable exotics they’d put a price tag on ectos and t6 mats at the same time. I believe that they won’t do this so another idea is to make more awesome looking rare skins availabe for hard coin purchase or buyable lodestones, which in fact would also affect the exotic and legendary market. I guess you can’t introduce more money sinks without infuriating the community :/

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

CassieGold.7460:

Going to split hairs for a second here just because I think it keeps the discussion on track: In this example the Forge is not the sink, the TP is the sink. You got money via method X, that money passed from you to the players selling items via the TP (15% sink) and you take those Goods out of circulation via the Forge.

Goods enter the market via a Faucet (crafting from gathered mats, loot drops, etc.) What the Forge is doing here is maintaining the value of the Goods by removing them from circulation. The fact that those rares can be salvaged for Ecto also preserves the value of those goods, the same way the forge does, but that’s not a sink either.

The purpose of a Sink is to take currency out of circulation.

Well, it is a two fold gold sink. You need to fetch input items for output items.

Besides farming, you rely on the TP for input items for the mystic forge. I can argue that without the mystic forge I wouldn’t be shelling out coins that get caught up in the tax process.

You’re relying on the assumption that items put into the forge would otherwise be vendored. In that case you could possibly technically argue that it’s a sink, but I don’t think most people would agree with you. It’s not “sinking” gold in that situation, it’s preventing a gold tap from functioning. While some of the effects are the same, they’re definitely not the same thing.

The forge itself is not a sink as it never directly removes currency from the economy. It encourages the use and effectiveness of other game features which are sinks, but the forge itself does not perform that action.

When purchasing items from the TP to put in the forge, the TP is the sink. The forge encourages certain uses of the TP, but is not itself destroying gold.

When doing things like core promotion (i.e. elonian wine recipes) Miyani’s sale of elonian wine is the sink. The only reason anyone buys the wine is to put it in the forge, but the forge is not destroying the currency, the purchase of wine is.

When “gambling” with vendor trash items, no gold is ever destroyed. The forge is preventing a gold tap, not creating a sink. Consider for a moment an economy without other gold sinks. If the forge is the only thing representing a sink in the economy, how many taps can be utilized without causing the supply of currency to rise? The answer is none because the forge does not destroy currency.

Lucas of the Desert.2165:

@CassieGold aaaaah ok i see my mistake now i was kinda calculating the item currency to money and assumed that it would be lost currency in that respect money.

So as for our exampke the simple thing that happened was inflation? Like i said i’m terrible in economics and such words should always be used with caution ^^

Exactly so

To try get back on topic for a moment and address the OP, I believe the game currently has sufficient sinks. I’m sure it’s something that John Smith monitors very closely on a near continuous basis, but I haven’t seen any effects that would make me think things are getting out of hand. As the gem store adds items, that sink becomes more and more powerful as well, so there’s not exactly a static number of sinks at the moment either.

Lucas of the Desert.2165

Edit: I think the problem with more money sinks is that if they ever consider adding buyable exotics they’d put a price tag on ectos and t6 mats at the same time. I believe that they won’t do this so another idea is to make more awesome looking rare skins availabe for hard coin purchase or buyable lodestones, which in fact would also affect the exotic and legendary market. I guess you can’t introduce more money sinks without infuriating the community :/

What if you put a rare skinned exotic for purchase on an NPC for an amount of gold that far exceeded the return value of salvaging it? 50g for an exotic weap, and you’re not going to impact the value of ecto over much.

Also, I would say putting anything that drops in the open world on a vendor for a fixed price is usually a bad idea, it introduces a hard price cap, and that can be a bad thing. I’m good with gamble boxes, because there’s some RNG there to keep you from having a 1:1 gold to item conversion, but would be opposed to being able to buy lodestones from a vendor directly.

CassieGold.7460:

Lucas of the Desert.2165

Edit: I think the problem with more money sinks is that if they ever consider adding buyable exotics they’d put a price tag on ectos and t6 mats at the same time. I believe that they won’t do this so another idea is to make more awesome looking rare skins availabe for hard coin purchase or buyable lodestones, which in fact would also affect the exotic and legendary market. I guess you can’t introduce more money sinks without infuriating the community :/

What if you put a rare skinned exotic for purchase on an NPC for an amount of gold that far exceeded the return value of salvaging it? 50g for an exotic weap, and you’re not going to impact the value of ecto over much.

Also, I would say putting anything that drops in the open world on a vendor for a fixed price is usually a bad idea, it introduces a hard price cap, and that can be a bad thing. I’m good with gamble boxes, because there’s some RNG there to keep you from having a 1:1 gold to item conversion, but would be opposed to being able to buy lodestones from a vendor directly.

Putting a hard cap on prices isn’t necessarily a bad thing as long as it’s well designed in the first place and the devs are willing to adjust that price later if market behavior dictates. The more important part there is the latter. If items are made available that way, they need to be monitored and maintained.

Syeria.4812:

When doing things like core promotion (i.e. elonian wine recipes) Miyani’s sale of elonian wine is the sink. The only reason anyone buys the wine is to put it in the forge, but the forge is not destroying the currency, the purchase of wine is.

When “gambling” with vendor trash items, no gold is ever destroyed. The forge is preventing a gold tap, not creating a sink. Consider for a moment an economy without other gold sinks. If the forge is the only thing representing a sink in the economy, how many taps can be utilized without causing the supply of currency to rise? The answer is none because the forge does not destroy currency.

Except to separate the sale of elonian wine from it’s being used in the mystic forge is unrealistic. The sale of elonian wine and the 10g gift recipes she sells are directly tied to it’s use in the forge. If Miyani = gold sink, then the forge = gold sink. They’re a function of each other.

After running a stack of greens through the forge, why do I feel like I just lost a lot of silver? Because I just did. Those items had silver value until I ran them through the forge, without the forge they would have become currency and attributed to inflation.

Olfinbedwere.5049:

After running a stack of greens through the forge, why do I feel like I just lost a lot of silver? Because I just did. Those items had silver value until I ran them through the forge, without the forge they would have become currency and attributed to inflation.

That’s not a gold sink. That’s a gold tap, because if you sold the greens to a vendor instead of MFing it, you’ve created gold. You’re feeling poorer because of the opportunity cost of putting greens into the MF, buy you didn’t actually LOSE gold.

However if you sold it off to the TP, that would be a gold sink, through the TP tax.

Olfinbedwere.5049:

After running a stack of greens through the forge, why do I feel like I just lost a lot of silver? Because I just did. Those items had silver value until I ran them through the forge, without the forge they would have become currency and attributed to inflation.

The difference between what you did and a sink is that forging those items instead of selling them to a vendor stops currency from entering the economy but does not remove existing currency from the economy.

Again, this is a good thing but is not the same as a sink.

CassieGold.7460:

1) T3 armor at 100g+ / set is a a sink, but there are 8 dungeon looks that provide alternatives to the single T3 set, and the fact that the T3 set must be transmuted onto exotic armor makes it a less appealing sink…

2) 100g for Icey Runestones for the legendary, + the 10g recipies required along the way.

3) Armor repair and waypoint costs, though I feel those are trivial…

4) Listing / selling fees at the TP.

5) Commander

6) WvW Upgrades, here is a small example of the costs (these have to be paid for many times each day – people farm PvE dungeons to buy these – gameplay they wouldn’t choose to play given the option):
(Costs quoted for a regular keep)
Tier 1 – Build Cannons 30s0c
Tier 2 – Build Mortars 45s0c
Tier 3 – Build Waypoint 75s0c + 500karma
Tier 1 – Reinforce Walls 37s50
Tier 2 – Reinforce Doors 75s0c
Tier 3 – Fortify Keep 1g50s0c

So i thought a lot about this topic because it’s really interesting for me. I came to the conclusion that the gem conversion and the influnce conversion are major gold gold sinks!
If i take my gold and convert it to gems (which doesn’t give them to other players) and spend my gems on one of those cute quaggan bps i actually destroyed money didn’t i?

As of buying influnce for your guild. If i spend 2g on influnce for my guild i destroyed my own money aswell. It’s kinda unuseful because there’s nothing you would actually need it for but it might be a possibility :P

Lucas of the Desert.2165:

So i thought a lot about this topic because it’s really interesting for me. I came to the conclusion that the gem conversion and the influnce conversion are major gold gold sinks!
If i take my gold and convert it to gems (which doesn’t give them to other players) and spend my gems on one of those cute quaggan bps i actually destroyed money didn’t i?

As of buying influnce for your guild. If i spend 2g on influnce for my guild i destroyed my own money aswell. It’s kinda unuseful because there’s nothing you would actually need it for but it might be a possibility :P

That gold is given to other players. But they do not receive all the gold that you had spent converting to gems, due to the tax, which is the gold sink.

Vol.5241:

Lucas of the Desert.2165:

So i thought a lot about this topic because it’s really interesting for me. I came to the conclusion that the gem conversion and the influnce conversion are major gold gold sinks!
If i take my gold and convert it to gems (which doesn’t give them to other players) and spend my gems on one of those cute quaggan bps i actually destroyed money didn’t i?

As of buying influnce for your guild. If i spend 2g on influnce for my guild i destroyed my own money aswell. It’s kinda unuseful because there’s nothing you would actually need it for but it might be a possibility :P

That gold is given to other players. But they do not receive all the gold that you had spent converting to gems, due to the tax, which is the gold sink.

How is it given to other players? I always thought that the more people confert gold —> gems the more the prize of gems is rising? It would make it more expensive for everyone O.o

Lucas of the Desert.2165:

Vol.5241:

Lucas of the Desert.2165:

So i thought a lot about this topic because it’s really interesting for me. I came to the conclusion that the gem conversion and the influnce conversion are major gold gold sinks!
If i take my gold and convert it to gems (which doesn’t give them to other players) and spend my gems on one of those cute quaggan bps i actually destroyed money didn’t i?

As of buying influnce for your guild. If i spend 2g on influnce for my guild i destroyed my own money aswell. It’s kinda unuseful because there’s nothing you would actually need it for but it might be a possibility :P

That gold is given to other players. But they do not receive all the gold that you had spent converting to gems, due to the tax, which is the gold sink.

How is it given to other players? I always thought that the more people confert gold —> gems the more the prize of gems is rising? It would make it more expensive for everyone O.o

If you have two players in this economy, the person who bought 1000 gems for 10G would send about 7g to the person who bought and sold 1000 gems (with 3G lost in taxes as a gold sink)

On the topic of gem purchases and weather or not things are produced from thin air….

John Smith.4610:

There seems to be some confusion:
The currency exchange has a supply of Gems and Gold.

If players are converting Gold to Gems, then the Amount of Gold player will receive for their gems goes up.
If players are converting Gems to Gold, then the amount of Gems players receive for Gold goes up.

The exchange rate changes based on the scarcity of each supply. You cannot inflate it, it’s an exchange rate. As players purchase in one direction, it entices purchases in the other direction.

Weather the exchange is a Sink or a Faucet I suppose depends on which direction a person is moving currency…. at best, I think the ‘fee’ in the conversion is the only sink here.

Protoavis.9107:

Oglaf.1074:

Charming Rogue.8071:

Oglaf.1074:

With the price of Precursors, Legendaries definitely need less gold sinks. The Icy Runestones should be removed.

Good idea, give players wanting a legendary 100g more to spend on a precursor. That won’t raise the price of precursors at all. /sarcasm

Yeah because supply/demand is how Precursors are priced. Not like you have a few players having monopoly on them or nothing.

Oh wait…

People are buying them at the current price, there is demand there. We also know the drop rate for them is tiny. Whether they are being manipulated or not is irrelevant when the supply is tiny and people are STILL buying them at the current price…still supply/demand, the only thing the possible manipulation does is get it to the max price a buyer will pay (ie the highest demand)

That’s funny. You know who probably buys them? People who buy them out to re-list them for higher prices!

Oglaf.1074:

That’s funny. You know who probably buys them? People who buy them out to re-list them for higher prices!

You’ve said this in another thread. I’ve yet to see you provide solid evidence to justify your claim though.

We do know from John Smith’s post that 9/11 Dawn/Dusks sell in a 24 hour period.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Pile-of-Crystalline-Dust/first#post1382211

What, are they all putting them up for higher prices at a loss? Buy orders are at ~510 gold, sell orders are at ~567 G. If you buy/sell, you’re losing on that 15% tax.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/29169

And those precursors moving have to be at somewhere between the higher buy order and lowest sell orders. Which uh, gives you no profit.

It’s highly unlikely that people are buying these precursors (up to ~10 a day) just to resell for no profit.

Ursan.7846:

We do know from John Smith’s post that 9/11 Dawn/Dusks sell in a 24 hour period.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Pile-of-Crystalline-Dust/first#post1382211

What, are they all putting them up for higher prices at a loss? Buy orders are at ~510 gold, sell orders are at ~567 G. If you buy/sell, you’re losing on that 15% tax.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/29169

And those precursors moving have to be at somewhere between the higher buy order and lowest sell orders. Which uh, gives you no profit.

It’s highly unlikely that people are buying these precursors (up to ~10 a day) just to resell for no profit.

Edit: I think is right. There doesn’t seem to be a profit in flipping atm.

Olfinbedwere.5049:

Ursan.7846:

We do know from John Smith’s post that 9/11 Dawn/Dusks sell in a 24 hour period.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Pile-of-Crystalline-Dust/first#post1382211

What, are they all putting them up for higher prices at a loss? Buy orders are at ~510 gold, sell orders are at ~567 G. If you buy/sell, you’re losing on that 15% tax.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/29169

And those precursors moving have to be at somewhere between the higher buy order and lowest sell orders. Which uh, gives you no profit.

It’s highly unlikely that people are buying these precursors (up to ~10 a day) just to resell for no profit.

If more than one Dusk sells, more than the one that’s listed at 670, they’ll be selling at 174 g proffit if they were bought at the current 595 buy order. I think the idea is that they’re not putting them up, they’re holding on to them and selling them one at a time as the price goes up, thus controlling the supply.

It appears Dusk is probably being manipulated where Dawns price is probably more natural.

Did you take into account the 15% TP tax?

Ursan.7846:

Did you take into account the 15% TP tax?

Oh sry I read it wrong, it looked like an 8, instead of a 6, my graphics were low. You’re right, there’s no profit in flipping them atm.

The only gold sink that actually matters is the 15% trading post fee. The rest just encourage/discourage certain behaviors and give a skeleton to the reward structure.

The economy would be fine if the 15% trading post fee was the only sink in the game.

Ensign.2189:

The only gold sink that actually matters is the 15% trading post fee. The rest just encourage/discourage certain behaviors and give a skeleton to the reward structure.

The economy would be fine if the 15% trading post fee was the only sink in the game.

I do wonder! It would be fascinating to see how much gold was removed in the past 24 ours through the TP, Repairs, and WPs.

Ensign.2189:

The only gold sink that actually matters is the 15% trading post fee. The rest just encourage/discourage certain behaviors and give a skeleton to the reward structure.

The economy would be fine if the 15% trading post fee was the only sink in the game.

While I’m sure the TP fee is the largest sink, don’t underestimate the amount of currency taken out by waypoints and repairs. Even tiny sinks like salvage kit prices end up making a large impact.

Syeria.4812:

Ensign.2189:

The only gold sink that actually matters is the 15% trading post fee. The rest just encourage/discourage certain behaviors and give a skeleton to the reward structure.

The economy would be fine if the 15% trading post fee was the only sink in the game.

While I’m sure the TP fee is the largest sink, don’t underestimate the amount of currency taken out by waypoints and repairs. Even tiny sinks like salvage kit prices end up making a large impact.

But is it enough to counter a solid 26silver per 30min on average of hundreds of thousands of players? Can’t imagine they’ll keep those rewards in their game forever without introducing new sinks ^^

Syeria.4812:

While I’m sure the TP fee is the largest sink, don’t underestimate the amount of currency taken out by waypoints and repairs. Even tiny sinks like salvage kit prices end up making a large impact.

Sure, all of the individual sinks matter, but the TP fee is the only sink that scales with the price level and puts an ultimate cap on how high prices can climb. The TP fee alone is sufficient to curb inflation in the long run; all the other gold sinks have a different purpose.

Waypoint fees, for example, exist to encourage people to run around the world and to discourage excessive use of waypoints as the primary mode of in-map travel. More people running around the world to get to their destination makes the world feel more alive and dynamic to other players. Repair bills similarly exist as a way to discourage waypoint zerging (with gear eventually breaking serving as a harder cap). Those fees exist primarily as a way to guide player behavior.

That isn’t to say that those fees don’t impact the price level; they do, and I presume not to a trivial extent. It’s simply that any non-TP fee in the game is serving multiple purposes and needs to be justified on those grounds.

Lucas of the Desert.2165:

Syeria.4812:

Ensign.2189:

The only gold sink that actually matters is the 15% trading post fee. The rest just encourage/discourage certain behaviors and give a skeleton to the reward structure.

The economy would be fine if the 15% trading post fee was the only sink in the game.

While I’m sure the TP fee is the largest sink, don’t underestimate the amount of currency taken out by waypoints and repairs. Even tiny sinks like salvage kit prices end up making a large impact.

But is it enough to counter a solid 26silver per 30min on average of hundreds of thousands of players? Can’t imagine they’ll keep those rewards in their game forever without introducing new sinks ^^

^this^ more than anything else, is why I asked the question. At the upper end of game play, and the people who move and shake the ‘luxury’ end of the economy, WP costs are trivial, and repair bills just don’t happen often. As more reward mechanisms are introduced that involve non-gold methods of acquisition, it takes pressure off gold based luxury sinks (T3 armor, I’m looking at you….) because people have many alternatives.

I think the sinks in place at the low end of the economy are fine (WPs, armor repair), but that once people pass a certain threshhold of wealth, there are insufficient sinks to slow down the steamroller. Just a thought.

If we could trade gold for karma/laurels, that could be a really good sink.

CassieGold.7460:

Lucas of the Desert.2165:

Syeria.4812:

Ensign.2189:

The only gold sink that actually matters is the 15% trading post fee. The rest just encourage/discourage certain behaviors and give a skeleton to the reward structure.

The economy would be fine if the 15% trading post fee was the only sink in the game.

While I’m sure the TP fee is the largest sink, don’t underestimate the amount of currency taken out by waypoints and repairs. Even tiny sinks like salvage kit prices end up making a large impact.

But is it enough to counter a solid 26silver per 30min on average of hundreds of thousands of players? Can’t imagine they’ll keep those rewards in their game forever without introducing new sinks ^^

^this^ more than anything else, is why I asked the question. At the upper end of game play, and the people who move and shake the ‘luxury’ end of the economy, WP costs are trivial, and repair bills just don’t happen often. As more reward mechanisms are introduced that involve non-gold methods of acquisition, it takes pressure off gold based luxury sinks (T3 armor, I’m looking at you….) because people have many alternatives.

I think the sinks in place at the low end of the economy are fine (WPs, armor repair), but that once people pass a certain threshhold of wealth, there are insufficient sinks to slow down the steamroller. Just a thought.

Actually, T3 cultural armor is an example that scales in a sense. With current values of gold, they’re priced pretty steeply. The price for the achievement “The Emperor’s New Wardrobe” is 644.9g. There might be a small number of people pursuing that achievement (and the cultural armors in general) right now, but as the currency inflates, the price becomes more reasonable and far more people will be willing to purchase it. Obviously there’s a cap to its effectiveness, but it’s still an example of a major speedbump.

Also, it’s worth noting that the Gold→Gems exchange scales even better than the TP tax. The 30% spread on the exchange rates is huge. With a seeming long term expectation of the gold price of gems rising, that would also imply that more people are buying gems with gold than selling them, meaning the system is directly destroying currency in that manner as well.

We’re still a long ways off from the cultural armor sink from really scaling up, and I think that might be a reasonable benchmark for the area where we should be concerned. Since price sinks of that specific type are so easy to implement in this game, I don’t think that there’s much need for worry. For the moment it appears there’s no rampant inflation occurring, and a steady low rate is not something truly worth concern at least at this point in the game.

As for potential new sinks, the most obvious is a copy of the cultural armors. Add new, desirable skins, only purchasable with gold from an NPC. A little less obvious is additional gem store content (as it causes the gold→gem exchange to destroy greater amounts of currency). An interesting option that I think would be met with very mixed reviews by the community (let’s be honest, the vocal minority would have a huge fit) would be gold purchased content. Basically, you pay 5g to go into a dungeon type area where mobs drop no items, but there’s a chest at the end with account bound exotics with skins only available from that dungeon. Even just posting the idea on this forum I can imagine the gnashing of teeth that tiny subset of the community would have.

Syeria.4812:

As for potential new sinks, the most obvious is a copy of the cultural armors. Add new, desirable skins, only purchasable with gold from an NPC. A little less obvious is additional gem store content (as it causes the gold->gem exchange to destroy greater amounts of currency). An interesting option that I think would be met with very mixed reviews by the community (let’s be honest, the vocal minority would have a huge fit) would be gold purchased content. Basically, you pay 5g to go into a dungeon type area where mobs drop no items, but there’s a chest at the end with account bound exotics with skins only available from that dungeon. Even just posting the idea on this forum I can imagine the gnashing of teeth that tiny subset of the community would have.

I’m not sure if there will be a backlash, especially if the rewards justify the entrance cost.

Entering FoW/UW required you pay a fee to get in. But I think everyone who’s run it at least once would agree that the reward there far outstrips that 1 plat. (Or was it 5 plats? Don’t remember…)

But I mean, if you paid 5G to get rewards to what you get in one dungeon run (~1-2G, with RNG chest) yea I imagine there’ll be a huge uproar.

Ursan.7846:

Syeria.4812:

As for potential new sinks, the most obvious is a copy of the cultural armors. Add new, desirable skins, only purchasable with gold from an NPC. A little less obvious is additional gem store content (as it causes the gold->gem exchange to destroy greater amounts of currency). An interesting option that I think would be met with very mixed reviews by the community (let’s be honest, the vocal minority would have a huge fit) would be gold purchased content. Basically, you pay 5g to go into a dungeon type area where mobs drop no items, but there’s a chest at the end with account bound exotics with skins only available from that dungeon. Even just posting the idea on this forum I can imagine the gnashing of teeth that tiny subset of the community would have.

I’m not sure if there will be a backlash, especially if the rewards justify the entrance cost.

Entering FoW/UW required you pay a fee to get in. But I think everyone who’s run it at least once would agree that the reward there far outstrips that 1 plat. (Or was it 5 plats? Don’t remember…)

But I mean, if you paid 5G to get rewards to what you get in one dungeon run (~1-2G, with RNG chest) yea I imagine there’ll be a huge uproar.

That’s the problem though, in order to be a new gold sink it would have to be balanced so the vendor value of the rewards was less than the entry cost (on average). Sure it’s 1 plat to get to UW but if you get an ecto drop and sell it to the rare material trader you’ve created a lot more gold than you’ve destroyed.

I think there would be a lot of backlash simply because not everyone comes from that original GW background, and a lot of those people have shown a propensity to scream about anything they didn’t explicitly ask for. Think about the introduction of fractals. Now imagine there was a 10s entry fee per person…

The thing with the original GW economy was that you used your gold for ectos or dyes at vendors!
It was 1 p btw and nobody sold ectos at the vendors xD everyone sold them to other players or gathered them :P

But you can’t introduce this because it would instantly mess up the player driven prizes. So they have to implement a prize cap which could be troublesome in the future…

Lucas of the Desert.2165:

The thing with the original GW economy was that you used your gold for ectos or dyes at vendors!
It was 1 p btw and nobody sold ectos at the vendors xD everyone sold them to other players or gathered them :P

But you can’t introduce this because it would instantly mess up the player driven prizes. So they have to implement a prize cap which could be troublesome in the future…

Weeeeeeeeeeeeell not necessarily. You still needed gold to buy the fancy skins if you didn’t feel like farming dungeons. Like Voltaic Spear/Frog Scepter and stuff. Not to mention other frivilous stuff like purchasing alcohol/sweets from players and that 7IDs for 5plat (or was it the other way around?)

And I also believe (correct me if I’m wrong) but the rare mat merchants actually varied their price depending on how many people purchased/sold that certain mat. Which was a fascinating concept back then, and kinda of a “duh” now with the player-driven economy.

Ursan.7846:

Weeeeeeeeeeeeell not necessarily. You still needed gold to buy the fancy skins if you didn’t feel like farming dungeons. Like Voltaic Spear/Frog Scepter and stuff. Not to mention other frivilous stuff like purchasing alcohol/sweets from players and that 7IDs for 5plat (or was it the other way around?)

And I also believe (correct me if I’m wrong) but the rare mat merchants actually varied their price depending on how many people purchased/sold that certain mat. Which was a fascinating concept back then, and kinda of a “duh” now with the player-driven economy.

So far as I can tell, the GW1 traders used a process remarkably similar to what they implemented for the Gems – > Gold → Gems conversion….. and there were times that the GW1 traders were flat out of supply, you couldn’t get some fine mats out of them no matter what you did.

One of the big differences to me, GW1 vs GW2, is that GW1 had several prestige armor sets that were expensive (gold sinks) where GW1 you only have 1 for each character.

In both games, it’s common for people to have 2 full armor sets with different stats / runes…. In GW1 you might have both of those armor sets be expensive armors, but in GW2, if you want to have 2 different looks, you’re looking at a t3 set, and a transmuted or straight up dungeon / crafted set…. only one sink.

I would love to see more high end armor sets available as gold sinks

CassieGold.7460:

I would love to see more high end armor sets available as gold sinks

Can’t argue with that. Wonder if they’ll leverage the laurel system for armor, actually, in the similar manner for Luxun/Kurzick armors (the rare mats that you could get for faction points). That’ll be neat.

How about put all the lodestone types on a vendor for 1g each – awesome gold sink and wayyy less annoying!

I’m still of the opinion that it would be best for the health of the game to make the gold sink progressive.

In the case where relatively few players effectively pool gold from the masses they could take out all they needed without much detriment.

15 dollars makes a detrimental impact to someone that has 100 when most things cost 20.
30,000 dollars makes an impact to someone that has 100,000, but not really a detrimental impact when most things still cost 20.

When the majority by large only have the 100 you’ll do more harm taking more from them.

Essence Snow.3194:

I’m still of the opinion that it would be best for the health of the game to make the gold sink progressive.

In the case where relatively few players effectively pool gold from the masses they could take out all they needed without much detriment.

15 dollars makes a detrimental impact to someone that has 100 when most things cost 20.
30,000 dollars makes an impact to someone that has 100,000, but not really a detrimental impact when most things still cost 20.

When the majority by large only have the 100 you’ll do more harm taking more from them.

The best Sinks are vanity, not forced. If you try to tax large transactions at a higher rate, prices will inflate to work around the higher tax (people already adjust sell orders around the 15% TP loss) and it puts higher end goods further out of reach of the common man.

But, if you put in pricey armor, say with neat visual effects, and sell it at 50g – 100g per part…. then the wealthy choose to pour their money into a sink, because they get visual bragging rights of their wealth… and it looks bad kitten

A vendor cor lodestones would be exceptionally aweful imagine lodestones costing 1 or 2 gold each… every other item that would be required would increase at an unimaginable rate ^^

Since players would not have to bother for LS anymore they’d start farmjng and buying all the t6 stuff. And many more players that consider lodestones too expensive and too volatile would be encouraged to go for a legendary or an exotic weapon which makes it just worse for the other mats that are not fix priced

I believe we will have many more gold sinks introduced as the game progresses. Like guild halls (converting gold to influence), more armour and so on.

CassieGold.7460:

The best Sinks are vanity, not forced.

I’ll mention it one more time, because you seem to have missed my previous post.

The best sinks in the game are in WvW.

Lucas of the Desert.2165:

A vendor cor lodestones would be exceptionally aweful imagine lodestones costing 1 or 2 gold each… every other item that would be required would increase at an unimaginable rate ^^

Since players would not have to bother for LS anymore they’d start farmjng and buying all the t6 stuff. And many more players that consider lodestones too expensive and too volatile would be encouraged to go for a legendary or an exotic weapon which makes it just worse for the other mats that are not fix priced

I believe we will have many more gold sinks introduced as the game progresses. Like guild halls (converting gold to influence), more armour and so on.

You mean all of the more common T6 materials (blue crafting mats, gatherables, etc) would be more in demand? How is that a bad thing? Everything can be farmed at a reasonable rate except the kitten lodestones… 1 lodestone every 1 to 5 hours is not reasonable when you need 100+

Svarty.8019:

CassieGold.7460:

The best Sinks are vanity, not forced.

I’ll mention it one more time, because you seem to have missed my previous post.

The best sinks in the game are in WvW.

WvW has the fewest, and likely least effective sinks in the game. Sure 2g for some upgrades sounds like a lot, but those upgrades are on very forced time limits (maximum theoretical expense per location is something like 10s per 4 minutes or 1.5g per hour). Just the trading of Dusk (assuming 7 trades per day, don’t remember the quote exactly and not going to bother looking it up) destroys nearly 700g per day. One item’s real TP tax impact is about equal to the theoretical maximum for two WvW locations. When you factor in towers rarely flip more than 2 or perhaps 3 times per hour (although supply camps can flip faster) and oftentimes things go unupgraded after a flip (especially supply camps) Dusk trades alone almost certainly exceed the gold sink impact of EB for a single matchup, and plausibly exceed all the WvW gold sinks for a single tier.

A lodestone for gold vendor would be a very bad idea unless the prices for lodestones were set at a rate significantly higher than the current TP rate. Gold sinks are not inherently good. If the inflation is being more or less kept in check at the current level, the addition of another gold sink would be harmful to the economy. Deflation is a very real threat, and should be avoided at pretty much any cost. While the negative effects of deflation are reduced in a video game economy, they still are problems. With the fixed prices for so many things in GW2, there’s also issues unique to games that arise.

Essence Snow.3194:

I’m still of the opinion that it would be best for the health of the game to make the gold sink progressive.

(…)

In a sense I agree with you. Not that I’m sure on how the implementation would look like, but I can’t help comparing this to similar scenario’s seen in other games – being done with the final raid etc in – for argument sake – a third of the time then anyone else.

Now – imagine a system like our last dungeon – FotM. Specifically designed for people who like an ongoing challenge, something they can sink their teeth into.

Translate this to the topic at hand – add a system, create a “gold earning challenge”, in a positive way.

Syeria.4812:

Deflation is a very real threat, and should be avoided at pretty much any cost. While the negative effects of deflation are reduced in a video game economy, they still are problems. With the fixed prices for so many things in GW2, there’s also issues unique to games that arise.

I’m not seeing an issue. Please expand -what are these “negative effects”?

azurrei.5691:

Lucas of the Desert.2165:

A vendor cor lodestones would be exceptionally aweful imagine lodestones costing 1 or 2 gold each… every other item that would be required would increase at an unimaginable rate ^^

Since players would not have to bother for LS anymore they’d start farmjng and buying all the t6 stuff. And many more players that consider lodestones too expensive and too volatile would be encouraged to go for a legendary or an exotic weapon which makes it just worse for the other mats that are not fix priced

I believe we will have many more gold sinks introduced as the game progresses. Like guild halls (converting gold to influence), more armour and so on.

You mean all of the more common T6 materials (blue crafting mats, gatherables, etc) would be more in demand? How is that a bad thing? Everything can be farmed at a reasonable rate except the kitten lodestones… 1 lodestone every 1 to 5 hours is not reasonable when you need 100+

I actuall don’t find it hard to acquire lodestones O.o Just do a guild CoE run and let them sell those charged cores to you. There are almost always 2 cores/1 run/ 5 people. I can say that after every CoE run i can inherit one lodestone… neither cheap nor deasy to get but relieable!

And it is a bad thing because prices would jump for at least 10 silver… that means crafted exotics and rares would too… almost every cool MF skin requires them partly. It would be even harder to complete your legendary btw :P

Too much gold in the economy, so inflation is rampant. Therefore we are going to need more goldsinks i believe. Im just not sure how to go about it.

Ive got a terrible idea….

A progressive taxation system.

For example (these numbers could be adjusted if needed) all gold on an account less than 100 is not taxed. Gold between 100-200 is taxed at 20% gold between 200-300 is taxed 50% and gold greater than 300 is taxed 70%. taxation happens daily at the same time daily quests reset.

All tax is removed from the game (not redistributed to other players).

Lore and in game fluff excuse can be that your chosen affiliation with one of the three orders requires you to contribute to the war effort.

Benefits include but not limited to, dissuading people from messing up the auction house in their pursuit of gold for the sake of gold instead of as a medium for transactions to get things they want. Yeah I know that’s deep but it’s a real problem.

After all its not a “real” economy right guys…