Guild Wars 2

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1djssi/upcoming_gemstore_items/

tldr:
lots of new gemstore items, including the unlimited use sickle and harvesting tool, as well as something similar to the mystic forge conduit. Sell your conduits asap

You know back when the conversion was at 1.4G I thought that it would never go any higher than that.

Now I don’t know what the ceiling can be.

Didn’t want to have to, but I think I’ll be buying some Gems with cold hard cash fairly soon.

permanent dance moves… sweet

Ooh, confirmation that the next step of the living story is taking place on Southsun. (or well, more or less confirmation at least).

Good. The higher it goes, the tighter the squeeze on the profits of gold sellers.

If they sell the sickle and axe at the same time the gem exchange will become outrageous.

I know the goal is to get people to spend RL $ on gems, but I feel at some point even the occasional gem store purchase for gold is going to become out of reach for the average player.

Lane.3410:

If they sell the sickle and axe at the same time the gem exchange will become outrageous.

I know the goal is to get people to spend RL $ on gems, but I feel at some point even the occasional gem store purchase for gold is going to become out of reach for the average player.

I don’t think it would ever be out of reach, since you can always use real money.

DarkSpirit.7046:

I don’t think it would ever be out of reach, since you can always use real money.

Which is why I specifically said “for gold”. Not everyone has the disposable RL income for gem store purchases.

One of the great things about GW2 in addition to no subscription fee was you didn’t need to have RL $ to buy things, you could use gold. Both items were draws to those who lack the excess funds to spend on a video game. However, at some point the only people who are going to have enough gold will be the TP traders and CoF runners.

Lane.3410:

DarkSpirit.7046:

I don’t think it would ever be out of reach, since you can always use real money.

Which is why I specifically said “for gold”. Not everyone has the disposable RL income for gem store purchases.

One of the great things about GW2 in addition to no subscription fee was you didn’t need to have RL $ to buy things, you could use gold. Both items were draws to those who lack the excess funds to spend on a video game. However, at some point the only people who are going to have enough gold will be the TP traders and CoF runners.

I would give you one guess why this game doesn’t have a subscription in the first place.

If the price of gems is too high, it is only because too many people have already bought them using gold, so the system balanced the currency exchange up. The system is working as intended.

I’m so glad I bought thousands in excess back in the day and got everything I could’ve possibly wanted. It’s amazing that I have somehow gone through something like 19k gems since release, though. I bought 20k way back when thinking it’d be enough, but 8 character slots, 7 bank slots, innumerable bag slots, mining pick, and God knows what else later, I’m down to a mere 1k and there’s no way I’m buying more with gold at these prices. I may have to dip into that disposable income at long last.

Lane.3410:

If they sell the sickle and axe at the same time the gem exchange will become outrageous.

I know the goal is to get people to spend RL $ on gems, but I feel at some point even the occasional gem store purchase for gold is going to become out of reach for the average player.

You have to remember though if people are not giving them money they have no money to pay their staff or pay for a building or anything business related.. so if everything you wanted in the game was easy to get with gold then no one would use money. Cannot have the game without them making real life money to pay people making content and things for you to enjoy in the game.

And really most things they add are under 10.00 worth of gems so unless you just go full out crazy then that is less than most subscription games.

Also before you think they get tons from box sells.. just remember ncsoft gets most of that money.. they get their money from the gems store.

jazzllanna.1278:

Lane.3410:

If they sell the sickle and axe at the same time the gem exchange will become outrageous.

I know the goal is to get people to spend RL $ on gems, but I feel at some point even the occasional gem store purchase for gold is going to become out of reach for the average player.

You have to remember though if people are not giving them money they have no money to pay their staff or pay for a building or anything business related.. so if everything you wanted in the game was easy to get with gold then no one would use money. Cannot have the game without them making real life money to pay people making content and things for you to enjoy in the game.

And really most things they add are under 10.00 worth of gems so unless you just go full out crazy then that is less than most subscription games.

Also before you think they get tons from box sells.. just remember ncsoft gets most of that money.. they get their money from the gems store.

Arenanet operates under NCSoft, so NCSoft gets the money no matter what. Money doesn’t get sent to Arenanet’s bank account.

jazzllanna.1278:

so if everything you wanted in the game was easy to get with gold then no one would use money.

Which is why I said “occasional” gem store purchase. I never expected people to buy everything to their heart’s content via gold (although, that certainly seems to be plausible for some).

The best strategy for buying gem store items with gold is to buy gems before the exchange rate spikes with the introduction of new items. Personally, I buy a few gems every day with gold in order to build up a reserve of them I can call on when I want to buy something in the gem store.

I’ve only been here since the start of December so I have no idea what kind of exclusives or sales they had before then but I’m now noticing a trend of testing, identifying and then releasing items or establishing sales frequently enough that the Gem prices no longer drift down as they had in the past, if you look at GW2Spidy. We are being hit by monthly or twice monthly popular items that ratcheted the Gold->Gem price upwards, which of course either drain the gold coffers of players or forcing them to now spend real cash. That is a “good” thing since that’s what’s keeping the lights on but if you had been hooked on buying gems with gold cheaply it’s a shock to your system.

It’s as if they’ve now have enough data to tune their release strategy to the Gem Store to encourage Cash for Gem sales.

Behellagh.1468:

We are being hit by monthly or twice monthly popular items that ratcheted the Gold->Gem price upwards, which of course either drain the gold coffers of players or forcing them to now spend real cash. That is a “good” thing since that’s what’s keeping the lights on but if you had been hooked on buying gems with gold cheaply is a shock to your system.
.

Yes that means that ArenaNet is becoming smarter in making us part with our money, which is why people who are used to the easy cheap deals of buying gems with gold are now complaining.

You can’t, in good conscience, say that ArenaNet is wrong to start introducing items in their gem store that people would want to buy. That has always been their goal in the first place, and if I am ArenaNet I would say well done and keep up the good work.

Having a high gold price for gems is good for ArenaNet because:

1. It edges out profit margins of gold sellers.

2. It encourages players to spend more real money on the gem store.

Both of these points are good for ArenaNet, so why should they stop and go the opposite way? I have not heard any good justification why they should stop besides the understandable and usual player-selfish reasons of having the best deal for themselves regardless of the needs of the economy or the company. Futhermore, it is not like ArenaNet never have discounts on promotional items.

jazzllanna.1278:

You have to remember though if people are not giving them money they have no money to pay their staff or pay for a building or anything business related.. so if everything you wanted in the game was easy to get with gold then no one would use money. Cannot have the game without them making real life money to pay people making content and things for you to enjoy in the game.

Or… they could make paid expansions with tons of new content, which they aren’t doing now only because they’re earning so much money from the gem store for doing practically nothing. Money ruins art, every time.

Leablo.2651:

Or… they could make paid expansions with tons of new content, which they aren’t doing now only because they’re earning so much money from the gem store for doing practically nothing. Money ruins art, every time.

They aren’t coming out with tons of new content?

They have been pushing out tons of new additions to this game since launch, all for free, if you haven’t noticed.

DarkSpirit.7046:

Behellagh.1468:

We are being hit by monthly or twice monthly popular items that ratcheted the Gold->Gem price upwards, which of course either drain the gold coffers of players or forcing them to now spend real cash. That is a “good” thing since that’s what’s keeping the lights on but if you had been hooked on buying gems with gold cheaply is a shock to your system.
.

Yes that means that ArenaNet is becoming smarter in making us part with our money, which is why people who are used to the easy cheap deals of buying gems with gold are now complaining.

You can’t, in good conscience, say that ArenaNet is wrong to start introducing items in their gem store that people would want to buy. That has always been their goal in the first place, and if I am ArenaNet I would say well done and keep up the good work.

Having a high gold price for gems is good for ArenaNet because:

1. It edges out profit margins of gold sellers.

2. It encourages players to spend more real money on the gem store.

Both of these points are good for ArenaNet, so why should they stop and go the opposite way? I have not heard any good justification why they should stop besides the understandable and usual player-selfish reasons of having the best deal for themselves regardless of the needs of the economy or the company. Futhermore, it is not like ArenaNet never have discounts on promotional items.

One of the arguments ArenaNet used in favour of the gem store is that the ability to buy gems with gold (and vice versa) meant that players would be able to access cool things they added to the store even if they didn’t have a way to spend real money on gems. If gem prices keep increasing the way they are going, only the most hard core players (or those who are the best at flipping on the TP) will be able to buy gem store items with in-game gold. The current design is pushing players towards farming the game like a second job. People hate CoF runs but are doing them because that’s their best shot at earning gem content.

Also note that a large amount of the aesthetic content this patch is gem store content. There is an increasing disparity between the kinds of rewards you can earn in game (and a lot of them have intense grinds behind them) and the kind of rewards you simply buy. The non-gem players are increasingly being left out in the cold.

A lot of the people who end up buying gems are spending more than a monthly fee now. To buy all four weapon skins, and lets remember than you only get one copy of each, would cost you more than $20. In WoW, with a monthly fee, these skins would be awarded as boss drops from the new dungeon instead of being sold in the store. The tunnelling tool, mining pick and the spring mini pets would be awarded as quest rewards from a seasonal quest chain. Instead ArenaNet wants players to spend $20 for four mini pets and they create a bunch of content that rewards nothing but achievement points (the same content would have mini pets or item rewards in WoW). The in game rewards are becoming increasingly desolate while the gem store content is becoming far more fertile. The tide is turning more and more in favour of the gem store and the value of your time in game vs the rewards you can earn is becoming a thing that this MMO simply doesn’t do.

Rather than a game supported by a gem store, this game is becoming a gem store supported by a game.

Shiren.9532:

One of the arguments ArenaNet used in favour of the gem store is that the ability to buy gems with gold (and vice versa) meant that players would be able to access cool things they added to the store even if they didn’t have a way to spend real money on gems. If gem prices keep increasing the way they are going, only the most hard core players (or those who are the best at flipping on the TP) will be able to buy gem store items with in-game gold. The current design is pushing players towards farming the game like a second job. People hate CoF runs but are doing them because that’s their best shot at earning gem content.

I am sure that they did not promise that you can buy unlimited amount of gems with gold otherwise they wouldn’t have kept just a limited supply of gems for currency exchange.

Furthermore, if the gold price of gem is low, I for one wouldn’t pay for gems with real money, why should I when gems are cheap with respect to gold? And if I can think of this, I am sure many other players would think of this too.

This means that ArenaNet wouldn’t be getting much real money and would have to pay their staff with peanuts which would cause the quality of the game to drop.

Also note that a large amount of the aesthetic content this patch is gem store content. There is an increasing disparity between the kinds of rewards you can earn in game (and a lot of them have intense grinds behind them) and the kind of rewards you simply buy. The non-gem players are increasingly being left out in the cold.

Well rewards are a different thing and I have my own gripes about the way ArenaNet does rewards in this game. But that is a huge topic for a different thread.

Look at it this way, 99.9% of the items in the game can only be bought using gold or other in-game currencies like karma, laurels, tokens, etc. Only a small percentage of the items in the game can be bought using gems (and real money of course). Why shouldn’t these 0.1% of the items be used to support the company?

A lot of the people who end up buying gems are spending more than a monthly fee now. To buy all four weapon skins, and lets remember than you only get one copy of each, would cost you more than $20. In WoW, with a monthly fee, these skins would be awarded as boss drops from the new dungeon instead of being sold in the store. The tunnelling tool, mining pick and the spring mini pets would be awarded as quest rewards from a seasonal quest chain. Instead ArenaNet wants players to spend $20 for four mini pets and they create a bunch of content that rewards nothing but achievement points (the same content would have mini pets or item rewards in WoW). The in game rewards are becoming increasingly desolate while the gem store content is becoming far more fertile. The tide is turning more and more in favour of the gem store and the value of your time in game vs the rewards you can earn is becoming a thing that this MMO simply doesn’t do.

Rather than a game supported by a gem store, this game is becoming a gem store supported by a game.

If those people can’t control their purse strings then so be it. Perhaps they are filthy rich in real life and they dont need to worry about money so why do you care?

I know that personally, your statement is false and that I did not spend more money in their gem store than I could have on a WoW subscription. And I am sure many more people are in that position too.

Most of their gem store items are merely cosmetic and not a must-have. This is why I have only spent a total of $50 in their gem store ever since release. I don’t know how you would equate buying a cosmetic weapon skin to paying a game subscription that is required to play the game.

Ursan.7846:

They aren’t coming out with tons of new content?

They have been pushing out tons of new additions to this game since launch, all for free, if you haven’t noticed.

Let’s make sure we are using the same “ton”. What we’ve seen thus far in terms of expansion content is Fractals, maybe guild missions if you are in to that, holiday festivals, and a few other talking points. I would note that what we’ve seen in terms of free updates is on par with the rate of free additions that we saw in Prophecies (Sorrow’s Furnace, Titan quests, etc) or for that matter any active MMO. This is not what I’d call “tons” of new content.

But in addition to all of that, at GW1’s 1-year mark we had Factions which was basically a whole new game’s worth of content. That is what I mean by “tons”. The free updates to GW2 are nowhere near that, and Anet has said they aren’t even working on one. It’s 4 months to the anniversary.

Leablo.2651:

Let’s make sure we are using the same “ton”. What we’ve seen thus far in terms of expansion content is Fractals, maybe guild missions if you are in to that, holiday festivals, and a few other talking points. I would note that what we’ve seen in terms of free updates is on par with the rate of free additions that we saw in Prophecies (Sorrow’s Furnace, Titan quests, etc) or for that matter any active MMO. This is not what I’d call “tons” of new content.

What other non-sub MMO comes out with this much free content?

We’ve had, so far

Halloween (And with it a variety of new jumping puzzles, mini dungeons, and events. Costume brawl too!)
Wintersday (And its mini games)
Lost Shores/Southsun
2 new PvP maps
Fractals
Guild Missions
SAB
Flame & Frost

Even GW1 pales in comparison to what we got. In Prophecies within the first 7 months, I believe we got…

Halloween
Wintersday
Titan Quest
Sorrow’s Furnace

And Wintersday/Halloween/SF is far smaller in scale compared to GW2’s Wintersday/Halloween/Fractal updates. (GW1’s first Wintersday was a few quests going through maps that already existed. GW2’s Wintersday was a jumping puzzle, a dungeon, and 2 minigames. Completely new areas.)

Feel free to add more to the list, but based on my memory GW2 has offered far more content updates than GW1 has (not to mention being far more complete on release).

lordkrall.7241:

Ooh, confirmation that the next step of the living story is taking place on Southsun. (or well, more or less confirmation at least).

I smell something….. legendary…..

The amount of content added to GW2 far exceeds what was added to GW1 in the same time frame. Just because an individual doesn’t care for a particular content patch (I avoid most PvP stuff outright) doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply to the discussion. In GW1, I didn’t get into Sorrow’s Furnace stuff until well into Year 2. And I never finished the titan quests because I hated PUGs, and henching it was painful and ineffective.

I love the idea of a living story where the world changes constantly, so newbies may not be able to experience what happened before but can still hear/read about it as history to a living world. Still, this can alienate new players from feeling like they’re getting the “full” game. Fortunately, nothing’s been eliminated yet in terms of ongoing accessibility. The ancient karka might be dead, but that hasn’t changed anything significant.

I just hope they don’t decide to go all Cataclysm and remake the world due to the story. It was bad enough knowing I couldn’t go back to visit Pre-Searing with my beloved elementalist main (Shing Jea Island and Istan just weren’t the same), I don’t need a repeat in this new beautiful world.

Aurelian Omenkind.2470:

Didn’t want to have to, but I think I’ll be buying some Gems with cold hard cash fairly soon.

And THAT is what Anet has been working overtime on: thinking up new ways to separate people from their cash (rather than virtual gold) for gems.

Leablo.2651:

jazzllanna.1278:

You have to remember though if people are not giving them money they have no money to pay their staff or pay for a building or anything business related.. so if everything you wanted in the game was easy to get with gold then no one would use money. Cannot have the game without them making real life money to pay people making content and things for you to enjoy in the game.

Or… they could make paid expansions with tons of new content, which they aren’t doing now only because they’re earning so much money from the gem store for doing practically nothing. Money ruins art, every time.

They said they won’t be making paid expansions like GW1, they depend on the gem store to make expansions etc.

The gem exchange rate keeps growing more and more favorable to the gem side of the transaction because the new ‘rewards’ are all priced in gems.

When new item rewards are introduced that require a large amount of gold (or materials that trade for gold on the TP) you will see a spike in the gold/gem exchange favorable to gold – as people rush to buy gold in the same way they’re rushing to buy gems now.

We simply haven’t seen any new rewards with a mass appeal purchasable for gold in a long time; certainly nothing since Fractals, and the Mist Essence requirements gated those pretty hard.

Ensign.2189:

The gem exchange rate keeps growing more and more favorable to the gem side of the transaction because the new ‘rewards’ are all priced in gems.

When new item rewards are introduced that require a large amount of gold (or materials that trade for gold on the TP) you will see a spike in the gold/gem exchange favorable to gold – as people rush to buy gold in the same way they’re rushing to buy gems now.

We simply haven’t seen any new rewards with a mass appeal purchasable for gold in a long time; certainly nothing since Fractals, and the Mist Essence requirements gated those pretty hard.

This makes me wonder if the exchange rate would have remained lower had the fused weapon tickets not been account bound. Not knowing how rare the tickets were or how many who received them would have sold rather than kept it’s hard to say, but theoretically some of the people who spent lots of RL $ on keys could have simply bought gems to exchange for gold to buy the tickets off the TP. Just a thought.

Lane.3410:

This makes me wonder if the exchange rate would have remained lower had the fused weapon tickets not been account bound.

Shouldn’t make a difference to a first order approximation. You get more people cracking chests to gamble for skins for sale (buying gems), but also more people just buying the skins for gold (and not bothering to transfer). All that really matters is whether people buy more gems for account bound skins from chests, or for unbound skins from chests; and I don’t have any data from which to guess which is actually better.

Ursan.7846:

What other non-sub MMO comes out with this much free content?

Non-sub wasn’t one of my stipulations, nor should it really be since subs and stores accomplish the same thing for the companies. You’ve a strawman. And still the answer is GW1.

Even GW1 pales in comparison to what we got. In Prophecies within the first 7 months, I believe we got…

Halloween
Wintersday
Titan Quest
Sorrow’s Furnace

Firstly, we just started month 9 in GW2, and Dec is month 8 for GW1. The 7 month-mark is not in your comparison or mine. And you’ve completely ignored my point which is that Factions progress is now at 8/12 (67%) completion at this relative juncture, whereas according to Anet GW2 is currently 0% of the way to an expansion-magnitude update.

And Wintersday/Halloween/SF is far smaller in scale compared to GW2’s Wintersday/Halloween/Fractal updates. (GW1’s first Wintersday was a few quests going through maps that already existed. GW2’s Wintersday was a jumping puzzle, a dungeon, and 2 minigames. Completely new areas.)

New areas don’t imply more content and it’s exactly due to this illusory thinking that people just don’t “get” why so many GW1 players consider it to be the superior game. But to illustrate the first part of that sentence I give you Southsun Cove, an entire zone of nothing. Content is calculated by play time, and divided by a subjective factor of repetition (grind). Wintersday’s dungeon for example was a half-hour instance that you were forced to repeat daily for a week. So for me, it was 30 minutes of content + grinding because I found the instance to be quite boring, and out of it you had to work hard to get only a limited number of reward minis. Fractals is probably the best and only example of improved content in GW2 – 9 different mini dungeons with challenging and varied gameplay, several solid hours of legitimate gameplay experience, and the grind gives you decent rewards. So it has a pretty good content:grind ratio. Whereas Southsun Cove basically has no content and only grind. The rest of GW2, outside of dungeons and including the post-release additions, tends more toward the grind.

Let’s make a detailed comparison.

Here are significant content updates in the first 8 months of GW1 (not counting end of April, May-Dec2005):

• Introduction of FoW quests (May) – permanent
• New FoW and various world quests (June) – permanent
• Sorrow’s Furnace (September) – permanent
• Titan quests (September) – permanent
• Wintersday quests (December) – seasonal
• And all of the above are character-based activities, each earns and is eligible to receive their own rewards
• Halloween – I’m not even counting this because early Halloweens had no content
• On release – varied maps with highly customized terrain and unique quests, all content designed specific to that zone

And 8 months for GW2 (not counting end of Aug, Sep2012-Mar2013):

• Halloween (October) – seasonal
• Southsun Cove – permanent zone with no content to speak of
• Fractals (November) – permanent
• Wintersday instances (December) – seasonal
• Flame and Frost chapters 1-3 – temporary
• And all of the above are mostly or entirely account-based activities, with shared rewards and except for Fractals have little replay value
• SAB was added on the last day of March and falls more into April for all intents
• On release – lazily designed heart quests copy/pasted throughout each map, each map copy/pasted rectangle with flat, wide open terrain, change the level of mobs and that is what passes for “more complete” content in GW2

To summarize: GW1 had 5 major content additions, 4 of which represent permanent expansion of the game. GW2 had 6 major content additions, 1 of which permanently expanded the game. This is what I mean by illusory content – most of it is in your head, because it’s certainly not in the game. In terms of actual, non-grinding play time accrued/accruable by a player for each of these additions however, the GW1 quests probably far outrank everything in GW2 except fractals, for which the dungeon quests are on par. We can go back and forth all day about which block of updates might subjectively have “more” content than the other, but in the context of my original post I see no head-and-shoulders winner here, and unless Anet has a big, expansion-magnitude surprise coming in the next 4 months, the development of Factions will have clearly outpaced whatever else GW2 is going to release, despite GW2’s revenue seeming to far outstrip that of GW1. If they are using that extra money for something, then we either haven’t seen it yet, or if we have, then I rest my case.

Leablo.2651:

Content is calculated by play time, and divided by a subjective factor of repetition (grind).

Why are somehow denigrating content if you think it’s a “Grind?” What? That makes no sense?

Content is content. Whether you take 30 minutes to do it once or 30 hours to grind its reward has no bearing on its length.

Leablo.2651:

On release – varied maps with highly customized terrain and unique quests, all content designed specific to that zone

Leablo.2651:

On release – lazily designed heart quests copy/pasted throughout each map, each map copy/pasted rectangle with flat, wide open terrain, change the level of mobs and that is what passes for “more complete” content in GW2

Your bias clearly shows through. GW2’s terrain is highly unique depending on which zone it is (Are you saying Frostgorge is somehow copy/pasted from Caledon?). GW1’s maps were flat-er, considering we had no jumping. Also, GW1 had its fair share of “collect X collectible item” “Kill X creatures” quests.

Leablo.2651:

Introduction of FoW quests (May) – permanent
New FoW and various world quests (June) – permanent
Titan quests (September) – permanent

Guild Wars 2 added over 30 new events. New jumping puzzles and new mini-dungeons have been added. Are we going to ignore them? Add in Fractals, and GW2 has added FAR more permanent content.

Leablo.2651:

To summarize: GW1 had 5 major content additions, 4 of which represent permanent expansion of the game. GW2 had 6 major content additions, 1 of which permanently expanded the game. This is what I mean by illusory content – most of it is in your head, because it’s certainly not in the game.

What, because it’s seasonal it’s less significant? Content is content. It’s something to do, and I’ve spent countless hours of fun with seasonal content. Just because you don’t agree with temporary content, it doesn’t change the fact that GW2 has introduced us a TON more stuff to do than GW1.

“In my head?” I’ve spent over 10 hours with the Halloween stuff (4 hours for the JP itself). Maybe 20~30 hours in Wintersday (most of it in the Snowball fight.) Hundreds of hours in Fractals. A solid 20-30 hours on SAB. And I don’t know how much time I’ve spent doing the other random jumping puzzles/mini dungeons.

I spent 3 hours on Sorrow’s Furnace in my first run, and never repeated it again. Maybe 10 hours doing all the Titan quests. Maybe 5 hours to clear everything in FoW? I didn’t repeat it either because I had absolutely no reason to grind it.

It’s not in my head. I’ve literally spent a TON more time on the new content GW2 has given us than GW1.

GW1 eventually evolved into a great game. There’s also many great reasons to like GW1 over GW2. The amount of content however? There’s absolutely no contest. GW2 has given us far more to do than GW1.

Lane.3410:

I know the goal is to get people to spend RL $ on gems, but I feel at some point even the occasional gem store purchase for gold is going to become out of reach for the average player.

It depends on how you define “average” player, but we’re generally at this point already. It’s honestly not out of reach, just insanely hard to justify with a gold:gems ratio of 3:100.

Not many will pop off 18g for a bank slot. I sucked it up at 10 and feel fortunate. That’s a lot of cash, even for a serious player, and downright unheard of for casuals.

Most of us are past the tolerance threshold. We’re looking for sales and weighing RL money, which is exactly what will earn real company profits. That’s a generally good thing…

…but what isn’t right is the simultaneously lucrative gold farming going unanswered. I’m all for fresh, awesome additions to the TP, but it’s getting awfully convenient to allow things like CoF to continue with ever-increasing gem demand. Of course people have a lot of in-game spending to do, but it would be naive to think that gold isn’t sucking up gems.

I think the generic MMO player’s definition of grind is the following.

1) I want item X
2) I can only get item X with “currency” Y
3) I can only get “currency” Y by doing activity Z
4) I never wanted to do activity Z before, I don’t like doing activity Z.
5) Therefore I have to “grind” activity Z just so I can get item X.

Now activity Z can by anything that the player wasn’t looking to do. Fractals, Dailies, Dungeons, PvE, PvP, WvW, DE, TP, Orr, etc. Now yes there are a lot of equivalent rewards in the game but often it’s the cosmetic/convenience that ANet are rewarding in these events and the Gem store.

Now if you want items from the Gem store for no real life cost, you pay in gold. However earning gold in this game isn’t easy unless you do activities that you may find “distasteful”, repeatedly. In a game where formal parties/groups aren’t required, having to run dungeons with a party of five is almost like requiring formal attire for the bar after 5pm at an hedonistic Caribbean beach resort. It sticks out like a sore thumb, but dungeon speed runs is the widely accepted way to earn gold quickly in this game by at least an order of magnitude over normal means.

As long as A ) the gem store keeps offering new popular items or but existing ones on sale and B ) players don’t want to spend real cash to get gems; we will have players being “forced” to play aspects of the game that they see as “grind”.

OrianZeta.1537:

It depends on how you define “average” player, but we’re generally at this point already. It’s honestly not out of reach, just insanely hard to justify with a gold:gems ratio of 3:100.

I know it seems unlikely now, but as the game ages, gold will only devalue more. As more and more gold is farmed and added into the economy, i only see this ratio getting much worse, & probably going to 10:100 in a year or maybe 2. I’ve seen this in other games that use this same type of gold/gem trading system. When a server is new the ratio is always very low and best time to buy up gems, and as grows older it gradually goes up, & it never goes down much. Of course it spikes up and down a little, but i really doubt we will see a 2/100 ratio ever again, unless anet intervienes to lower gold deflation.

Hi, just wanted to thank vol for the warning!
i bought my gems over the past couple of days after reading this thread
and it seems the ratio has gone up from ~3g/100 to ~3.60/100

thanks for letting us know about such things, you rock ;D