Guild Wars 2

Jrunyon.3012:

Avatara.1042:

Also I love how you just dismiss new players holding onto anything.

It got dismissed because what the hell does it even mean? What do you mean they can’t hold on to anything? They have numerous bag slots available to them, including a few extra bag slots. This conversation could be had if Anet only offered 1 bag slot and the rest you had to buy, but as it stands it is completely non issue.

Your earlier melodramatic post about me daring to question Anet shows it is absolutely pointless talking to you.

I like gem prices being high. That way when I buy gems with $ and convert to gold, I get my moneys worth. The more people convert gold to gems, the higher the price goes.

Avatara.1042:

kokocabana.8153:

Avatara.1042:

kokocabana.8153:

Avatara.1042:

New players do not need extra bag slots…LOL. So new players are not supposed to take crafting (good luck being a chef…), or hold onto anything they like the look of?

NOTHING excuses 20 gold for a single bag slot. I paid less than 3 for mine.

It’s called deposit collectibles to the bank. Those crafting material bank slots already provide more slots of storage than a new player would ever need. If you are actually crafting, then you never need more than a single stack of any material in order to max it out. This only affects players that hoard materials to sell on TP.

It is patently obvious that you have never done any cooking. Hell, it seems like you do not even know how it works on a basic level.

Also I love how you just dismiss new players holding onto anything.

I’ve maxed out all my crafting and made myself a bunch of 20 slot bags. I have never run into storage problems with the default bank spaces provided for crafting mats. I’ve also never spent any gems on bag or bank slots.

What would any new player need with 250 of any cooking ingredients? By the time they reach that point, they wouldn’t be new anymore.

100% confirmation you have never done cooking. The ingredients you MAKE, which are a lot, cannot be deposited. I seriously pity a new player who wants to cook.

Oh and 20 slot bags? You really think new people can afford that?

I have maxed cooking (and all other crafts) without buying extra slots. Seems you are only dumb at crafting and make tons of those ingredients, it is no problem to calculate how much of them you need to make a final product and then sell the product to TP to get little money back and save some space. Even now I have bought couple of extra bank slots during this year (1st in jan and 2nd in april) and it really wasn’t that much of gold for the space you get. Also the reason to by extra slots was mostly dungeon tokens and by the time you have lot them you aren’t exactly new player anymore. Also I still have no extra bag slots and don’t even see any point in getting them

Avatara.1042:

NOTHING excuses 20 gold for a single bag slot. I paid less than 3 for mine.

This statement shows you don’t understand that the buying power of gold in this game is variable. So … yes, it’s not unreasonable it will cost more to buy a bag slot than you paid for it.

The last thing I bought from the gem store was a character slot in 2012, when 20silver was 100 gems. But…..the three quaggan minis made me spend 17gold on them.

Avatara.1042:

Bag and bank space should be bought with gold, not gems. A player at launch buys their space for 1 gold, while a new player has to spend 20. Evidently new players are not supposed to hold onto anything, or take things like cooking…

A player at launch buys their space for the same price as a new player now.

That’s because 1g at launch has the same value as 20g or however many right now. It’s called inflation.

AntiGw.9367:

Avatara.1042:

Bag and bank space should be bought with gold, not gems. A player at launch buys their space for 1 gold, while a new player has to spend 20. Evidently new players are not supposed to hold onto anything, or take things like cooking…

A player at launch buys their space for the same price as a new player now.

That’s because 1g at launch has the same value as 20g or however many right now. It’s called inflation.

Plus the gem price has never changed in regards to the cost in real money, which is the only cost that matters.

AntiGw.9367:

Avatara.1042:

Bag and bank space should be bought with gold, not gems. A player at launch buys their space for 1 gold, while a new player has to spend 20. Evidently new players are not supposed to hold onto anything, or take things like cooking…

A player at launch buys their space for the same price as a new player now.

That’s because 1g at launch has the same value as 20g or however many right now. It’s called inflation.

A new player now earns maybe 20% more gold than a new player at launch. Not 1900%…

kokocabana.8153:

AntiGw.9367:

Avatara.1042:

Bag and bank space should be bought with gold, not gems. A player at launch buys their space for 1 gold, while a new player has to spend 20. Evidently new players are not supposed to hold onto anything, or take things like cooking…

A player at launch buys their space for the same price as a new player now.

That’s because 1g at launch has the same value as 20g or however many right now. It’s called inflation.

Plus the gem price has never changed in regards to the cost in real money, which is the only cost that matters.

And this is why the space system fails.

emmm.. good old 400gems per gold days……

Extra space is still a luxury. For inventory, four 15 slot bags is cheap at around 2.6g~3g and will give you a total of 80. For banking, you just need to stop hoarding things. For example, you don’t really need to hold onto all of those event items.

For chefs, just don’t create tons of intermediate ingredients at once. Only make what you’ll actually be using.

You can also just make yourself a personal guild or two (up to four if you only rep one guild) for cheap storage on non account bound items. The first 50 slots in each guild only costs 5g if you purchase the influence with gold.

Finally, if you do buy more inventory space with gems, get another character slot instead of a bank tab. At the current ~100gems/3.25g, and using the 15 slot bags as mentioned above, that’s 80 slots of storage for 29 gold.

And here we are, few months later – 100 gems for 8 gold. This is getting a bit ridiculous…it’s not really encouraging me to buy gems for real money, but rather not buy anything at all.

Doubt Anet is feeling the loss of your gold :P

And this thread was created back when it was like 10 silver for 100 gems.. facepalm
It’s like 20g for 1 revive orb nowadays, pretty hilarious.

Gem price is exactly the same as it was at launch. It is Gold that looses worth.

Anet will be happy to lay off their employees so you can continue to buy things from the cash shop without dusting off your wallet. Everyone who thinks two week updates are coming too fast will be happy when there are no longer enough devs working on the game to update more than once every other month.

Yoroiookami.3485:

And here we are, few months later – 100 gems for 8 gold. This is getting a bit ridiculous…it’s not really encouraging me to buy gems for real money, but rather not buy anything at all.

If you only bought gems with gold then in ANet’s eyes your no different than someone who never bought gems either with gold or cash. They don’t make money when you buy something with gems, only when you buy those gems with cash.

Behellagh.1468:

Yoroiookami.3485:

And here we are, few months later – 100 gems for 8 gold. This is getting a bit ridiculous…it’s not really encouraging me to buy gems for real money, but rather not buy anything at all.

If you only bought gems with gold then in ANet’s eyes your no different than someone who never bought gems either with gold or cash. They don’t make money when you buy something with gems, only when you buy those gems with cash.

I can understand where you’re coming from, but I don’t think company this big will have issues paying their employees just because they will lower a bit the price of gems for gold. They did fine before, didn’t they? It’s not like it would stop people from buying it for cash neither. I spent at least 50$ so far, but sometimes I’d like to buy some cosmetic item with gold…well atm I can’t really do that unless I spend 24/7 trying to farm gold. (not really fun btw)

Yoroiookami.3485:

Behellagh.1468:

Yoroiookami.3485:

And here we are, few months later – 100 gems for 8 gold. This is getting a bit ridiculous…it’s not really encouraging me to buy gems for real money, but rather not buy anything at all.

If you only bought gems with gold then in ANet’s eyes your no different than someone who never bought gems either with gold or cash. They don’t make money when you buy something with gems, only when you buy those gems with cash.

I can understand where you’re coming from, but I don’t think company this big will have issues paying their employees just because they will lower a bit the price of gems for gold.

Being able to buy gems with gold is a feature that attracts folks to play the game. Folks that haven’t ever spent real money on gems are still supporting the game – they paid for the box copy, and MMOs need plenty of active players to be successful, so I don’t see the folks that don’t spend money in the gem store as somehow supporting ANet less than the folks that do, although it might be more difficult to measure their contribution to the bottom line.

The gold to gem conversion rate got to where it is because players are still buying gems with gold even at the current price – it wouldn’t go up otherwise. Yes it sucks that you can’t accrue gold fast enough to buy limited time items if you haven’t been saving up gems, but that’s the trade-off. Time for money. If you don’t believe the exchange rate of your time is worth what you get in return, whether that is having fun playing, or getting enough items and gold to buy things in the gem store, why continue to participate in a bad deal?

The underlying problem isn’t that the price of turning gold into gems is too high, it’s that not enough folks are turning gems into gold. The exchange is unbalanced and in my opinion the answer isn’t to lower the cost of gems in gold directly, it is to raise the amount of gold that you get from converting gems into gold. Because the gem price in real money doesn’t float, I think the algorithm had to make some assumptions about what the differential in desirability would be and in my opinion, I think the assumption missed the mark a little.

Look at how expensive a precursor is in real money even with the exchange rate being highly favorable to the folks converting gems into gold. Let’s say the rate is currently 6.5 G for $1.25. At around 40G that means that an Abyss dye is about $7.50. If Dawn is about 590 G, that’s about $113. I’d rather just earn the gold in game and spend my money on items in the gem store directly. The things I can buy for money in the gem store are far more attractive to me than the items I would need gold to buy, especially when I can play the game and potentially get any of those items dropped while I’m enjoying myself.

Gold is not nearly as valuable as gems, and the exchange rate reflects that.

Gieniusz Krab.8259:

lynx.6302:

i know that in the market the gem prices can change alot.
but the gem prices have gone up too much and too fast.
even if there is a huge discount on the market items, the prices are now around the same as they were a week ago without any discount on it.

i don’t really know how Anet can do anything about this or if they will even try, but i think that alot of players would like the gem prices to have a limit that will stop the price of gems to get higher and the same so they can get too low (this won’t ever happen tho)
at this rate the gems will keep going up and people will have to buy gems with real money to be able to get them without going broke in the game, i think that the gems should be lowered in price in a certain way and i hope that people will support this idea.

still loving the game, and looking forward to new events/content.

Moderator edit: removed CoC infraction

Exactly!

While I understand that you would like your in-game gold to be worth more on the gem store, when I was gearing up my characters, I wished that gems would give more in game gold. This is exactly the kind of problem that an exchange was meant to solve.

The main issue is there is really no need for gold.

The cost of transmutation stone has always made it so that this game encouraged you to pick a single look for your character that may be refined, but certainly isn’t changed regularly. So there’s no reason to buy different skins.

BiS gear is either not available for gold, or prohibitively expensive, so no one creates more than 2-3 sets. Or plays around with more than 2-3 builds. (you may have one toon with condition and power sets, or you may have multiple 2-3 toons with one set each). Once you have yours you are done.

Legendaries could provide a constant need for gold, but they are (at present) gated by the precusor. To even get started you need to spend $100 for the gold, which is too high an entry price. Depending on how the scavenger hunt is set up, it could increase the demand for gold and bring down the exchange rate.

Farming / Dungeon runs provide more than enough gold for everything else.

If there is no reason to buy gold, then, obviously, the demand for gold is less than the demand for gems and the price rises.

tl;dr: Is there is no reason to buy gold, the exchange rate will keep rising.

Gems are still the Sam price at launch… Gold is worth less.

What’s too expensive is the gem store products.

Cheaper store prices will result in downward pressure on the in game similar trading post items, which will in turn reduce the amount of gold a player must acquire to purchase these trading post items.. Less demand for gold means players will not be farming it as much, which will reduce the expansion of the total gold amount in the economy.

Yes, no?

If you buy gems with gold, I feel that you either 1) mid a fortune on the trading post or 2) have no value for your real life time. Hopefully it’s the former.

MMOs have always had a problem with gold sellers. Here they provide a legal means to buy gold with cash but they chose to pay the gold buyers in gold provided by other players who bought gems with gold. Makes it a closed system where buying gold won’t lead to inflation. Sure there are other gold sources in the game just that buying gold isn’t going to be one of them.

My comment to Yoro was to say threatening to stop doing something which doesn’t affect their income isn’t a threat. That’s like saying you’re going to stop leaching the wifi at the coffee shop while sitting in your car. Doesn’t really matter to the coffee shop since you aren’t buying anything anyways.

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

Gems are still the Sam price at launch… Gold is worth less.

What’s too expensive is the gem store products.

Cheaper store prices will result in downward pressure on the in game similar trading post items, which will in turn reduce the amount of gold a player must acquire to purchase these trading post items.. Less demand for gold means players will not be farming it as much, which will reduce the expansion of the total gold amount in the economy.

Yes, no?

If you buy gems with gold, I feel that you either 1) mid a fortune on the trading post or 2) have no value for your real life time. Hopefully it’s the former.

I buy a little bit of gems with gold everyday because I know that at some point they’ll have something I want but they rarely have multiple things I want over a short period of time. And if I don’t have enough gems for it, oh well. I would like a new car but can’t afford one right now, oh well.

Behellagh.1468:

My comment to Yoro was to say threatening to stop doing something which doesn’t affect their income isn’t a threat. That’s like saying you’re going to stop leaching the wifi at the coffee shop while sitting in your car. Doesn’t really matter to the coffee shop since you aren’t buying anything anyways.

Well the impact is indirect. Coffee shops don’t offer free WiFi out of the goodness of their hearts. They do it to draw folks in and increase the number of folks in and around their shop, which makes it more attractive to certain potential customers.

I agree that just not buying gems with gold would have no impact, but if that was one of the features that drew you to the game and now it’s untenable for you, you might play a lot less or not at all. If population drops significantly, ANet will notice.

Players are the lifeblood of MMOs, even if only a small percentage of them shell out cash.

The real problem here is one currency for all gemstore items. Boosts are too expensive because armors are bought with the same “money”. So I have to always keep in mind that all my other purchases are dependent on new armors released by anet (which I think are the most determining items regarding gem price)….

Pandemoniac.4739:

Behellagh.1468:

My comment to Yoro was to say threatening to stop doing something which doesn’t affect their income isn’t a threat. That’s like saying you’re going to stop leaching the wifi at the coffee shop while sitting in your car. Doesn’t really matter to the coffee shop since you aren’t buying anything anyways.

Well the impact is indirect. Coffee shops don’t offer free WiFi out of the goodness of their hearts. They do it to draw folks in and increase the number of folks in and around their shop, which makes it more attractive to certain potential customers.

I agree that just not buying gems with gold would have no impact, but if that was one of the features that drew you to the game and now it’s untenable for you, you might play a lot less or not at all. If population drops significantly, ANet will notice.

Players are the lifeblood of MMOs, even if only a small percentage of them shell out cash.

Just wanted to correct you. Coffee shops don’t offer free Wifi to draw people in. Customers will come in regardless, because they want the coffee. The free Wifi is a convenience for customers who decide to hang out. Why do I say this? Because nearly all coffee shops offer free Wifi. The only way to differentiate coffee shops is by name recognition (branding), taste/quality of the coffee, customer service, ambiance, etc. Example, I spend tons of money st Starbucks because I like their coffee and the people who work there. If the mom and pop small business down the street sells cheaper coffee and has equal customer service, but the coffee doesn’t taste as good, I personally won’t go.

As for your point on Gold -> Gems as a reason to play the game. Sure there might be a small percentage of the player population who decided to buy GW2 on the fact that you can get virtual currency for free. However, keep in mind that since there are no subcription fees, it doesn’t matter if you stop playing or not. What matters is that NCSoft/Anet continue to sell new accounts, plus continued microtransactions from existing customers. This keeps the company in business.

Just to clarify. All players do matter in an MMO, just some matter more. We all paid the initial cost of the game, so if we stop playing, there’s no real loss. That said, all players are potential microtransaction customers. Anet would like people to do microtransactions, so they’ll continue to bring out different products in hopes that players decide to spend real money. If Gold -> Gems become out of reach, and you really want an item, you need to make the decision of whether to buy Gems or not.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Just to clarify. All players do matter in an MMO, just some matter more. We all paid the initial cost of the game, so if we stop playing, there’s no real loss. That said, all players are potential microtransaction customers. Anet would like people to do microtransactions, so they’ll continue to bring out different products in hopes that players decide to spend real money. If Gold -> Gems become out of reach, and you really want an item, you need to make the decision of whether to buy Gems or not.

Yoroiookami’s comment was since they can’t afford go by Gems with Gold anymore due to the price then they’ll show ANet by not buying any items from the Gem Shop anymore if they don’t fix the Gold to Gem rate. That’s not a threat if you never bought Gems with cash. While your presence in game (note they didn’t say they would stop playing) is a benefit to ANet because more players in an MMO, more likely another player will stay because they have people to play with/against, it doesn’t pay the bills.

Now Nexon’s quarterly reports they do list what percentage of active players in their FTP games buy something from the cash shop every month and that number is around 10% and Nexon’s annual income is around $1 BILLION (/pinkie) dollars. I image our percentage of cash shop participation has to be higher since there’s a higher barrier to join thus a lower number of players to start with but as long as enough players are buying gems with cash, those that aren’t are simply window dressing for those who do.

Getting $1 billion from "micro"transactions is almost like an oxymoron.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Yoroiookami.3485:

Behellagh.1468:

Yoroiookami.3485:

And here we are, few months later – 100 gems for 8 gold. This is getting a bit ridiculous…it’s not really encouraging me to buy gems for real money, but rather not buy anything at all.

If you only bought gems with gold then in ANet’s eyes your no different than someone who never bought gems either with gold or cash. They don’t make money when you buy something with gems, only when you buy those gems with cash.

I can understand where you’re coming from, but I don’t think company this big will have issues paying their employees just because they will lower a bit the price of gems for gold.

Being able to buy gems with gold is a feature that attracts folks to play the game. Folks that haven’t ever spent real money on gems are still supporting the game – they paid for the box copy, and MMOs need plenty of active players to be successful, so I don’t see the folks that don’t spend money in the gem store as somehow supporting ANet less than the folks that do, although it might be more difficult to measure their contribution to the bottom line.

The gold to gem conversion rate got to where it is because players are still buying gems with gold even at the current price – it wouldn’t go up otherwise. Yes it sucks that you can’t accrue gold fast enough to buy limited time items if you haven’t been saving up gems, but that’s the trade-off. Time for money. If you don’t believe the exchange rate of your time is worth what you get in return, whether that is having fun playing, or getting enough items and gold to buy things in the gem store, why continue to participate in a bad deal?

The underlying problem isn’t that the price of turning gold into gems is too high, it’s that not enough folks are turning gems into gold. The exchange is unbalanced and in my opinion the answer isn’t to lower the cost of gems in gold directly, it is to raise the amount of gold that you get from converting gems into gold. Because the gem price in real money doesn’t float, I think the algorithm had to make some assumptions about what the differential in desirability would be and in my opinion, I think the assumption missed the mark a little.

Look at how expensive a precursor is in real money even with the exchange rate being highly favorable to the folks converting gems into gold. Let’s say the rate is currently 6.5 G for $1.25. At around 40G that means that an Abyss dye is about $7.50. If Dawn is about 590 G, that’s about $113. I’d rather just earn the gold in game and spend my money on items in the gem store directly. The things I can buy for money in the gem store are far more attractive to me than the items I would need gold to buy, especially when I can play the game and potentially get any of those items dropped while I’m enjoying myself.

Gold is not nearly as valuable as gems, and the exchange rate reflects that.

+1 from me.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Just wanted to correct you. Coffee shops don’t offer free Wifi to draw people in. Customers will come in regardless, because they want the coffee. The free Wifi is a convenience for customers who decide to hang out. Why do I say this? Because nearly all coffee shops offer free Wifi.

Drawing folks in is different from differentiating. Almost all coffee shops offer free WiFi because it is profitable to do so. It probably affects sales on several fronts, but making the shop a place to hang out is an important aspect.

Restaurants seat folks by the windows first so the folks walking by see a bustling business and will be more interested than if they walked by an empty looking restaurant. Shops go out of their way have full shelves because things sell better than empty looking shelves. A good portion of my time in my younger days was spent “fronting” shelves, where you pull product forward and make a wall so customers don’t see the empty space in the depth of the shelf. They wouldn’t have paid me to do it if it didn’t make a difference. Not everyone is affected by those tactics of course, but enough that it makes it worthwhile to spend real money making sure that potential customers get the appearance of thriving, fully stocked businesses.

How many times have you seen complaints that the game was “empty and dying” because a certain area on a certain server was under-populated? It’s human nature to assume that if there are lots of people in a place, that place must be a desirable place to be. Why do you think some clubs keep a queue outside even though there’s plenty of room for those folks to go inside?

Behellagh.1468:

Yoroiookami’s comment was since they can’t afford go by Gems with Gold anymore due to the price then they’ll show ANet by not buying any items from the Gem Shop anymore if they don’t fix the Gold to Gem rate. That’s not a threat if you never bought Gems with cash. While your presence in game (note they didn’t say they would stop playing) is a benefit to ANet because more players in an MMO, more likely another player will stay because they have people to play with/against, it doesn’t pay the bills.

Now Nexon’s quarterly reports they do list what percentage of active players in their FTP games buy something from the cash shop every month and that number is around 10% and Nexon’s annual income is around $1 BILLION (/pinkie) dollars. I image our percentage of cash shop participation has to be higher since there’s a higher barrier to join thus a lower number of players to start with but as long as enough players are buying gems with cash, those that aren’t are simply window dressing for those who do.

(emphasis is mine)

I think we all agree that an empty feeling MMO with long queues in LFG or PvP is going to cause customers to drift away. “Free” players are not window dressing, they are the population that keeps that 10% around to spend their money. Look at the turn around of SWTOR when they moved to a hybrid model. Even with the draconian limitations on non-subscribers, there are tons of free players and when they weren’t there to keep the flashpoint queues and PvP queues and market moving along at a quick pace, there wasn’t as many subscribers to pay the bills and keep the lights on.

I think that the combination of an unfavorable exchange rate and time-limited gem store offerings could frustrate a lot of folks and cause them to look for something else to play. I have burnt myself out on games going after a carrot that I didn’t really HAVE to go after but was dangled so temptingly that I spent some time “working” toward it before I realized I had gotten to the point where logging in was a chore instead of fun. It’s hard to attract folks back after they hit that wall (I will probably never play WoW again, even if it offers a free to play option), so in my opinion, it’s worth taking a long hard look at things that folks are complaining about and see if something needs adjusting.

I’m not advocating mucking about with the gold to gem rate, but I do think there is an issue here and it could eventually impact the game by driving away those folks that you think are “window dressing”. The solution to some folks’ frustration might not have anything at all to do with the exchange rate. The solution might be to add really cool account bound stuff that can only be bought with gold and don’t hide it behind RNG. Yes, there will always be folks that complain loudly and repeatedly, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that all loudly often repeated complaints should be dismissed out of hand.

Are there any plans to curve the inflation? Why or Why not? If so, how?

If it gets out of hand it could damage the game quite a bit.

Mahonriancur.9462:

Are there any plans to curve the inflation? Why or Why not? If so, how?

If it gets out of hand it could damage the game quite a bit.

Who says there is any inflation to curb? The exchange rate going up does not necessarily equate to inflation.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Who says there is any inflation to curb? The exchange rate going up does not necessarily equate to inflation.

There is inflation with the price of gems. Monetary values have decreased and the gold is not worth as much as it used to be while the prices of items increases and the value of gems increase. It is this issue that I refer to in the game. It is becoming too expensive to buy anything on the market due to this inflation.

Inflation has ruined many games and I do not want to see it ruin this game.

Mahonriancur.9462:

Pandemoniac.4739:

Who says there is any inflation to curb? The exchange rate going up does not necessarily equate to inflation.

There is inflation with the price of gems. Monetary values have decreased and the gold is not worth as much as it used to be while the prices of items increases and the value of gems increase. It is this issue that I refer to in the game. It is becoming too expensive to buy anything on the market due to this inflation.

Inflation has ruined many games and I do not want to see it ruin this game.

There isn’t inflation, there’s a decreasing amount of gems for sale for gold. It can be alleviated by players selling gems for gold. But until selling gems > buying gems in numbers, the rate will continue to increase until the gold for gems price is simply too tempting to pass up.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Just wanted to correct you. Coffee shops don’t offer free Wifi to draw people in. Customers will come in regardless, because they want the coffee. The free Wifi is a convenience for customers who decide to hang out. Why do I say this? Because nearly all coffee shops offer free Wifi.

Drawing folks in is different from differentiating. Almost all coffee shops offer free WiFi because it is profitable to do so. It probably affects sales on several fronts, but making the shop a place to hang out is an important aspect.

Restaurants seat folks by the windows first so the folks walking by see a bustling business and will be more interested than if they walked by an empty looking restaurant. Shops go out of their way have full shelves because things sell better than empty looking shelves. A good portion of my time in my younger days was spent “fronting” shelves, where you pull product forward and make a wall so customers don’t see the empty space in the depth of the shelf. They wouldn’t have paid me to do it if it didn’t make a difference. Not everyone is affected by those tactics of course, but enough that it makes it worthwhile to spend real money making sure that potential customers get the appearance of thriving, fully stocked businesses.

How many times have you seen complaints that the game was “empty and dying” because a certain area on a certain server was under-populated? It’s human nature to assume that if there are lots of people in a place, that place must be a desirable place to be. Why do you think some clubs keep a queue outside even though there’s plenty of room for those folks to go inside?

Coffee shops do not offer Wifi to draw people in. It’s part of the experience they offer. I’m not sure if you’re like me at all, but when I go to Starbucks, I go because 1) coffee is good, 2) people are good, and 3) it’s cool and hip to hang out. The free Wifi they offer is a bonus, not a primary draw. And no, I’m not a Hipster. My wife on the other hand…

You’re spot on with getting seated by windows to make it look full. Supermarkets use the similar strategy with fronting shelves to cover empty holes, but also do it because it makes the store look neater. Of course, we were paid the bare minimum, since it’s a mindless job to have outside of bagging groceries. It’s a no skill job, but a job none the less.

Now back to the game. Anet does want to make sure people are visiting all areas of the world. End game players mainly flock to places with the best drops. But with more content updates, we’re seeing that Anet’s pushing us back to areas that were barren before. It’s a good strategy to spread players out.

Keep in mind that End Game players will do what they want. If you’re an Achievement Point hunter, you’re more likely to follow where ever the Living Story sends you. If you’re a farmer, you’ll stick to Cursed Shore and Malchor’s Leap trains. Because most of them already congregate in similar areas, they’ll pretty much never be alone. A majority of the minority who supplies Anet with microtransactions usually visits the same places over and over.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Coffee shops do not offer Wifi to draw people in. It’s part of the experience they offer. I’m not sure if you’re like me at all, but when I go to Starbucks, I go because 1) coffee is good, 2) people are good, and 3) it’s cool and hip to hang out. The free Wifi they offer is a bonus, not a primary draw. And no, I’m not a Hipster. My wife on the other hand…

I tend toward non-linear thinking, so I’ll try to circle this around and connect it back to my original thought before I completely derail things I have to explore the weeds a little bit before I build the road – it drives some of my co-workers nuts, but I find a lot of cool stuff in the weeds.

Free WiFi is a feature that keeps some people in the store longer, which keeps the store full and bustling. It’s part of what makes the environment a cool place to hang out as much as the comfy chairs and curated music. Yes, if the coffee wasn’t good folks wouldn’t go, but different features appeal to different folks, which makes it a pleasant place to hang out for a larger group of folks, which makes the environment more attractive overall.

This connects back to my point about the folks that don’t spend cash on gems still being important to GW2.

1. The ability to convert gold to gems is an attractive feature to a lot of folks especially in a game with no subscription fees.
2. GW2 would be less fun for most folks if it had fewer active players
3. The folks that use gold to buy gems instead of cash are a significant portion of the active player population
4. If the folks farming for gold can’t buy something they want after a reasonable amount of effort, many of them will go play something more rewarding.
5. If enough of those players hit their frustration wall and quit, the population will drop and the folks that do spend cash on the game will find it harder to sell/buy on the market, find groups for dungeons, world events will go unfinished, etc. etc.
6. The game will be less fun even for the folks that never bought gems with gold, and they will start to drift away.

I’m not saying this is what is happening, or that this is what will happen. It’s something that could happen if buying gems with gold gets too frustrating for enough folks. Will it ever reach that level? I don’t know what that level is exactly, so I can’t say.

If the players that only buy gems with gold all decided to not play for a couple days, I’m fairly sure you would notice their absence.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Behellagh.1468:

Yoroiookami’s comment was since they can’t afford go by Gems with Gold anymore due to the price then they’ll show ANet by not buying any items from the Gem Shop anymore if they don’t fix the Gold to Gem rate. That’s not a threat if you never bought Gems with cash. While your presence in game (note they didn’t say they would stop playing) is a benefit to ANet because more players in an MMO, more likely another player will stay because they have people to play with/against, it doesn’t pay the bills.

Now Nexon’s quarterly reports they do list what percentage of active players in their FTP games buy something from the cash shop every month and that number is around 10% and Nexon’s annual income is around $1 BILLION (/pinkie) dollars. I image our percentage of cash shop participation has to be higher since there’s a higher barrier to join thus a lower number of players to start with but as long as enough players are buying gems with cash, those that aren’t are simply window dressing for those who do.

(emphasis is mine)

I think we all agree that an empty feeling MMO with long queues in LFG or PvP is going to cause customers to drift away. “Free” players are not window dressing, they are the population that keeps that 10% around to spend their money. Look at the turn around of SWTOR when they moved to a hybrid model. Even with the draconian limitations on non-subscribers, there are tons of free players and when they weren’t there to keep the flashpoint queues and PvP queues and market moving along at a quick pace, there wasn’t as many subscribers to pay the bills and keep the lights on.

I think that the combination of an unfavorable exchange rate and time-limited gem store offerings could frustrate a lot of folks and cause them to look for something else to play. I have burnt myself out on games going after a carrot that I didn’t really HAVE to go after but was dangled so temptingly that I spent some time “working” toward it before I realized I had gotten to the point where logging in was a chore instead of fun. It’s hard to attract folks back after they hit that wall (I will probably never play WoW again, even if it offers a free to play option), so in my opinion, it’s worth taking a long hard look at things that folks are complaining about and see if something needs adjusting.

I’m not advocating mucking about with the gold to gem rate, but I do think there is an issue here and it could eventually impact the game by driving away those folks that you think are “window dressing”. The solution to some folks’ frustration might not have anything at all to do with the exchange rate. The solution might be to add really cool account bound stuff that can only be bought with gold and don’t hide it behind RNG. Yes, there will always be folks that complain loudly and repeatedly, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that all loudly often repeated complaints should be dismissed out of hand.

I agree with this to some extent. Although I think that one the individual level a player who doesn’t buy gems provides another body to populate the world while a player who does buy gems provides another body to populate the world + income to ANet. The only thing that makes players who don’t buy gems so important is the sheer number of them.

I also think that the same thing that keeps the people who dislike VP here will also keep those who are upset that they can’t get as many gems with their gold, specifically, there’s not another game like this available right now.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Mahonriancur.9462:

Are there any plans to curve the inflation? Why or Why not? If so, how?

If it gets out of hand it could damage the game quite a bit.

Who says there is any inflation to curb? The exchange rate going up does not necessarily equate to inflation.

What he’s saying is that “inflation” is the wrong term. People on the forums love to disregard your question if you phrase it improperly, it’s easier than thinking.

Inflation is a general increase in prices. What we have there is a decrease in the buying power of gold vis-a-vie gems, but not necessarily across the board.

Starting with the queen’s jubilee ANet made a conscious decision to introduce some inflationary pressures into the world. I suspect this pressure was suppose to be offset by the cost of crafting an ascended gear. If I had to guess, I would suspect that, overall, ascended weapons are not the gold sink they expected. Because people only create one ascended weapon of each type and the onerous crafting to 500 flooded the market with cheap exotics.

TooBz.3065:

Pandemoniac.4739:

Mahonriancur.9462:

Are there any plans to curve the inflation? Why or Why not? If so, how?

If it gets out of hand it could damage the game quite a bit.

Who says there is any inflation to curb? The exchange rate going up does not necessarily equate to inflation.

What he’s saying is that “inflation” is the wrong term. People on the forums love to disregard your question if you phrase it improperly, it’s easier than thinking.

Actually I was trying to gently nudge to see if inflation was just a poor word choice, not disregard. If I was disregarding I wouldn’t have posted at all.

Using the term inflation improperly is a tactic to make the complaint that the price of some item is too high seem more serious or weighty than it actually is. I think his follow-up statement explains that he did in fact want to use the word inflation, and I don’t see much point in digging up that dead horse and beating it again.

And I managed to get through a whole response without tossing in a snarky comment about any other poster. I am actually quite thoughtful about what I post (most of the time, no-one’s perfect).

The follow-up comment I referred to above.

Mahonriancur.9462:

There is inflation with the price of gems. Monetary values have decreased and the gold is not worth as much as it used to be while the prices of items increases and the value of gems increase. It is this issue that I refer to in the game. It is becoming too expensive to buy anything on the market due to this inflation.

Inflation has ruined many games and I do not want to see it ruin this game.

Pandemoniac.4739:

TooBz.3065:

Pandemoniac.4739:

Mahonriancur.9462:

Are there any plans to curve the inflation? Why or Why not? If so, how?

If it gets out of hand it could damage the game quite a bit.

Who says there is any inflation to curb? The exchange rate going up does not necessarily equate to inflation.

What he’s saying is that “inflation” is the wrong term. People on the forums love to disregard your question if you phrase it improperly, it’s easier than thinking.

Actually I was trying to gently nudge to see if inflation was just a poor word choice, not disregard. If I was disregarding I wouldn’t have posted at all.

Using the term inflation improperly is a tactic to make the complaint that the price of some item is too high seem more serious or weighty than it actually is. I think his follow-up statement explains that he did in fact want to use the word inflation, and I don’t see much point in digging up that dead horse and beating it again.

And I managed to get through a whole response without tossing in a snarky comment about any other poster. I am actually quite thoughtful about what I post (most of the time, no-one’s perfect).

The follow-up comment I referred to above.

Mahonriancur.9462:

There is inflation with the price of gems. Monetary values have decreased and the gold is not worth as much as it used to be while the prices of items increases and the value of gems increase. It is this issue that I refer to in the game. It is becoming too expensive to buy anything on the market due to this inflation.

Inflation has ruined many games and I do not want to see it ruin this game.

Sorry. Mia Culpa.

There is a tendency on this forum (especially this sub-forum) to nitpick someone’s argument to death without ever addressing the substance. Most of us don’t have an economics background and as such frequently misuse terms (not maliciously but out of ignorance). People who do understand the correct terms attack the question asked instead of answering the question intended.

I jumped the gun and assumed that’s what you are doing. Which of course, makes me a kitten. I apologize.

I’m confused. Gems are the same price they’ve always been: 800 for $10.

Did you think you were supposed to buy them with gold without excessively farming for gold? You were misinformed.

Not quite sure how they got more expensive, they cost the same amount of Euro that they always did. Buying Gems with Gold does not support the game, so it’s only logical that the more they can get to spend real world cash on Gems, the better.

We should be happy that we can even convert Gold to Gems in the first place. It allows for playing the game completely free—past the initial purchase of the game—while still being able to get stuff in the cash shop. Obviously enough, a larger amount of the playerbase does not spend real-world cash on Gems, and if they do, they do not convert them into Gold. The Gems:Gold ratios are (probably through some tweaking on ArenaNet’s side too mind you) mainly based on how many players that converts Gold to Gems, and how many that convert Gems to Gold. If more players convert Gems to Gold, the Gold to Gems cost goes down, the more that spends Gold for Gems, the more Gold those converting Gems gets. You can probably blame those that are not wanting/able to support the game with real-world transactions for these increasing costs.

Absconditus.6804:

Not quite sure how they got more expensive, they cost the same amount of Euro that they always did. Buying Gems with Gold does not support the game, so it’s only logical that the more they can get to spend real world cash on Gems, the better.

We should be happy that we can even convert Gold to Gems in the first place. It allows for playing the game completely free—past the initial purchase of the game—while still being able to get stuff in the cash shop. Obviously enough, a larger amount of the playerbase does not spend real-world cash on Gems, and if they do, they do not convert them into Gold. The Gems:Gold ratios are (probably through some tweaking on ArenaNet’s side too mind you) mainly based on how many players that converts Gold to Gems, and how many that convert Gems to Gold. If more players convert Gems to Gold, the Gold to Gems cost goes down, the more that spends Gold for Gems, the more Gold those converting Gems gets. You can probably blame those that are not wanting/able to support the game with real-world transactions for these increasing costs.

On the same line of thinking, that 25% hike in price for a one time one piece skin (grenth, reindeer) is absolutely noticeable from anyone’s point of view. That’s a steep increase and yes, I know many guild mates and myself who are frowning upon such a huge increase when we are using real money to help support the game. It kind of leaves a bad taste in your mouth to see such a huge price increase and makes me not want to support Anet if they are going to keep increasing prices.

If they do increase prices then let those who purchase gems with real money get more bang for their buck by giving bonus gems or giving us more gems when we purchase gems using real money. Inflation of gold in game has increased dramatically, and yet the amount of gems we purchase using real money is still the same and yet gem prices for items has increased. It makes me NOT want to use real money to buy gems.

Phantasmal.5631:

If they do increase prices then let those who purchase gems with real money get more bang for their buck by giving bonus gems or giving us more gems when we purchase gems using real money. Inflation of gold in game has increased dramatically, and yet the amount of gems we purchase using real money is still the same and yet gem prices for items has increased. It makes me NOT want to use real money to buy gems.

You realize that the value of in game Gold, and buying Gems with real money are two completely different things. It’s like saying “the sky is blue, because snow rabbits are white.”

In any case, Anet is already offering bonuses for buying Gems with real money. It’s just that the bonuses are items rather than more Gems.

TooBz.3065:

Pandemoniac.4739:

And I managed to get through a whole response without tossing in a snarky comment about any other poster.

Sorry. Mia Culpa.

There is a tendency on this forum (especially this sub-forum) to nitpick someone’s argument to death without ever addressing the substance. (snip)

I jumped the gun and assumed that’s what you are doing. Which of course, makes me a kitten. I apologize.

No apologies necessary. I had a cranky moment which I’m not proud of. I know inflation is a touchy subject in this forum and I could have done better by leaving the quoted sentence out completely. I’d hate to have to start wearing a big scarlet H for being a snarky hypocrite : )

Love how a post on the first page of this says “1g → 77 gems”
That was one year ago.
1g is now 11 gems…and someone please repeat how we don’t have a problem? XD

It will be another 6 months until 1g → 1 gem. We all know, it’s coming.

Firefly.5982:

Love how a post on the first page of this says “1g -> 77 gems”
That was one year ago.
1g is now 11 gems…and someone please repeat how we don’t have a problem? XD

It will be another 6 months until 1g -> 1 gem. We all know, it’s coming.

The $(dollar or euro) to gem conversion has remained the same. How do we have a problem?

Buying gems with gold is an optional feature that ArenaNet has GRACIOUSLY provided to us. To ever complain about it is incredibly poor form.

mtpelion.4562:

Buying gems with gold is an optional feature that ArenaNet has GRACIOUSLY provided to us. To ever complain about it is incredibly poor form.

I disagree. Buying gems with gold has been a feature of the game since its inception and may have influenced some folks decision to buy the game. How do you distinguish features that are graciously provided, and therefore shouldn’t be complained about, and features that are ok to complain about?

I personally don’t have much of an issue with the exchange rate, but I don’t begrudge the folks that do the opportunity to give their feedback on it if they do it constructively.

Pandemoniac.4739:

I disagree. Buying gems with gold has been a feature of the game since its inception and may have influenced some folks decision to buy the game. How do you distinguish features that are graciously provided, and therefore shouldn’t be complained about, and features that are ok to complain about?

I personally don’t have much of an issue with the exchange rate, but I don’t begrudge the folks that do the opportunity to give their feedback on it if they do it constructively.

They put in a system that allows you to convert the time you are already spending enjoying the game into gems, which you can then use to acquire FREE items that normally cost money.

No matter what the conversion ratio of time to gems is, you are getting FREE things. For FREE.

FREE.

Complaining about the rate at which you are gifted FREE things is abhorrent behavior, even for us arrogant Americans.