Guild Wars 2

Hello. I read somewhere on this forum about the gold selling to the BLTC gold tranfers. The person who wrote said that gold sellers offered more for less. I went to a site and saw the prices they are charging and I would rather buy gold from them then Anet themselves. Anet says that gold sellers are bad people who steal your account. They say that gold sellers are just sucking you into buying their gold and getting money. John Smith from Anet says…
“Supporting gold sellers doesn’t just damage the game, it supports an industry that lives off of stealing from gamers and ruining communities.”
Well then I have to ask, isn’t Anet doing the same thing but worse? I support Anet in everyway for making such an amazing game for no fee, however, I believe that Anet is sucking my money right out of the drain. Let’s be honest here, you need gold to make gold. But the problem is, people in-game on the BLTC sell stuff for 50 silver at least. Then Anet tells us buying gems and turning it into gold is a positive experience. The problem here Anet is that the amount of gold you get for buying gems at the current economy as of today is outragious. 2800 gems gets you 10 gold. When the game started it was 1600 gems gave you 10 gold. Anet I just wanna bring up the point that if you guys had a set amount of gold you get from gems (and make it reasonable) then people might not be turning towards the gold sellers as I am. Now I haven’t bought any gold from them. You guys said in one of your videos that you guys would outsell the gold sellers. By that I mean your buisness would be better than theirs. So what happened to that? Now this brings me up to my final comment. You ban players for buying gold from gold sellers because why? If they want to get their account hacked, so be it. Why do you ban them? Is it because you want them to spend money on you and only you? I think that’s the reason. You guys have done a wonderful job on keeping our accounts safe. I have followed all of the rules you ask of me in regard to changing my password every month. Plus the e-mail authentication, I see my account never getting hacked. So if I want to buy gold from gold sellers, why shouldn’t I do it other than the fact that gold sellers have better buisness than you(ANET) does and you are trapping us (your customers) into buying gems from you only. I think it’s unfair and I don’t like being forced into buying from a certain company when I should have the freedom to choose. Thank you for your responses.

Buying gold from goldsellers is against the ToS.

The goldselling “industry” is purely there to make a profit from the hard work of the developers and is one of the major contributors to the bot problem in this and other games. As well as using compromised accounts to farm and sell gold, they distort the game’s economy to the detriment of regular players.

ANet’s gem → gold exchange allows players with gold to buy gems instead of spending real money and those with gems to spare to convert those into gold. The rates are driven by player demand on both sides of the exchange.

Also, looking at http://www.gw2spidy.com/gem you will note that at 12 September (the earliest data point), the rate of gems to gold was 100 gems → 19 s 49.6c (or 5129 gems for 10g) while the most recent rate is 100 gems → 61s 70c (or 1621 gems for 10g), so the “goldbuying” power of gems has been increasing since the game launched.

Gems were 20s when the game launched. Now they are (I believe) over double that.

Ceronose.6019:

You ban players for buying gold from gold sellers because why? If they want to get their account hacked, so be it. Why do you ban them? Is it because you want them to spend money on you and only you? I think that’s the reason.

Ofcourse they want you to spend your money with them. D’uh!

And, yes, the account thives (aka gold-sellers) sell gold cheaper than Anet. That is for the same reason as a car thief sells the car cheaper than General Motors: they didn’t had to do anything to make it.

Anet made the game. If you don’t want to support Anet and not buy gems, I understand that.

But if you want to support the thieves that steal accounts from other players and steal money from Anet, you are no better than the thieves themselves.

That being said…

I do agree that the gem price should be fixed. People that use gems to get TP items loose money over time because of two trends:
- TP items getting more expensive
- Gems getting more expensive

That is not the way to go in the long run for Anet, I think.

Ooo a thread where someone paints a picture of how they are cornered and have no choice but indulge in a darker path. They are someone forced into a life of crime.

If TOS=Law buying from a GS would be breaking that law.

We need help quick this guy is on the verge of being a GW2 criminal. Him having alot of gold will totally ruin my experience in GW2 because he will haz more stuff than me. I will be jealous because he haz it first.

Oops I sound spoiled and so do you. No one is forcing you to do anything go ahead buy it from the GS run around with twilight it doesnt make or break me or anyone else. Eventually you will get banned and we can all move on. Also you don’t have to have alot of gold alot people want something you want somthing. You think the you need it. Your impatient.

Saying that anything currently in the game is forcing you to contemplate buying from a 3rd party makes you sound like a weak individual. No one is forcing you to do anything. Unless some is there threatening your life while you punch credit card numbers in. You aren’t required by any mission or quest what so ever in game to have alot of gold and or a legendary or whatever. Stop trying to keep up with the joneses or you can try and risk getting banned or your account hacked.

Tallis.5607:

Ceronose.6019:

You ban players for buying gold from gold sellers because why? If they want to get their account hacked, so be it. Why do you ban them? Is it because you want them to spend money on you and only you? I think that’s the reason.

Ofcourse they want you to spend your money with them. D’uh!

And, yes, the account thives (aka gold-sellers) sell gold cheaper than Anet. That is for the same reason as a car thief sells the car cheaper than General Motors: they didn’t had to do anything to make it.

Anet made the game. If you don’t want to support Anet and not buy gems, I understand that.

But if you want to support the thieves that steal accounts from other players and steal money from Anet, you are no better than the thieves themselves.

That being said…

I do agree that the gem price should be fixed. People that use gems to get TP items loose money over time because of two trends:
- TP items getting more expensive
- Gems getting more expensive

That is not the way to go in the long run for Anet, I think.

Thank you a lot for this comment. You are of few who are not judgemental and I appreciate you kind comment. I get what you are saying and I realize what Anet is after here. I don’t get how to make gold. It’s not as easy for me as it is for everyone else. Therefore making my GW2 experience harder to enjoy with tons of people running around my server with commander titles and me? What? nothing…. I stick around 3 gold all of the time and I see people like my friend making 75 gold a day!! And he won’t tell me how he does it. So I feel undercut from all players who are 50x richer than I am because of special gold making methods when I run around, and complete the map. I dont make gold by doing that. So if any of you have any good ways of making gold, I would love to hear them.

And to add to my previous comment. I do not enjoy farming Cursed Shore. The botters their are rediculas and I never get any loot from my kills with them around.

I don’t enjoy the fact that Bill Gates is worth more than some small countries, but I ain’t blaming him for my lack of entrepreneurial skills.

To put it plainly, some people learn and understand the mechanics of this game, and use it to their advantage to make tons of Gold. They find what people want, then they find a way to get/sell it. Yeah that makes me mad, but only because I didn’t think of it first.

You aren’t forced to buy Gems to convert to coin. The game rewards you for playing, and over time, you’ll get money. I made 2 Gold last nite just from playing WvW and a little PvE. I’m not the best PvPer, and I don’t bot, yet I can get modest returns from doing what I love to do. Hint – Defending a keep in WvW rewards you with XP, Karma, and over 1+ silver every 3 minutes or so.

Now as for your need for freedom to purchase from illegal RMT sellers. You DO have the freedom of choice to go to their websites and purchase all the stolen Gold you want. Just like it’s your choice to shoplift candy from the local supermarket. However, Anet has every right to ban your account for doing something that’s against their policies. You have a choice, but you deal with the consequences if you pick a bad one.

Edit – Anet’s been beating me to responses lately. I need to learn to type faster…

Bravo Mr Smith. Terrible that people can’t wrap their heads around the idea of doing something against the TOS is essence illegal in that games laws. Also you aren’t forced to buy gold its just shows people impatience and ignorance in my opinion because none of this is forced upon you to play the game.

Ceronose.6019:

Anet says that gold sellers are bad people who steal your account.

Just to add to the above, it’s not just that they steal accounts, they use stolen credit card information to buy accounts too. Then, when the real owner of the CC finds out about the unauthorized charges, Anet gets a chargeback and they close the account.

So it’s not just your game account, but possibly your credit card (or other electronic payment info), or that of your friends and family that is at risk because of this.

Also, those bots you complained about are one of the ways that they make the gold that they sell, so that’s another way gold sellers affect your game experience.

Basically gold sellers are crooks, you should avoid dealing with them because they hurt other people to make their money. And if that’s not enough of a reason, you risk losing your game account by doing so as well.

I’ve been mostly doing map completion too and you’re right, it doesn’t result in making a lot of money. Concentrate more on doing events and getting to the higher end areas for better paying events and start doing dungeons. Check out doing the daily and monthly achievements too. Someone already mentioned WvW. There are lots of better suggestions on the fan forums for making gold too.

So if I want to buy gold from gold sellers, why shouldn’t I do it

I wouldn’t give a company that advertises doing illegal activities access to my name, address and credit card number. Not only could they max out that card, it’s 3/4 of what they need to hack my identity and seriously hurt my credit rating.

Personally, if you actually went to one of their sites, I would run a very thorough scan on your comp. I have what I like to call anal retentive security on my comp, LOL and it will literally stop me from accessing a page or site if it detects anything on it would could be of hazard to my system. Almost without fail (I tested it on an old “throwaway” comp) my security would spit up on every gold seller site saying they detected potential threats to my system if I connected to the site. Once i went thru to one site and then ran a security scan and sure enough there were very well hidden key loggers, trojans etc placed on my test computer’s system. Not all, not even many, security software will detect all of them once they are on.

So, to the OP I very strongly suggest you do some very serious scans and cleaning of your system and then change ALL information and passwords you have for everything, including your games. If you actually set up an account on one of those sites…I would be sorely tempted to do a factory restart as you have just given them access to your computer info.

I see all of your points. They are good ones that make sence. I wasn’t planning on buying gold from gold sellers. I was mainly complaining about the economy and was comparing it to gold sellers. My friend make 75 gold a day and he told me it’s from botting. Hi friend works for a gold seller and that gold seller gets my friend free gold that he makes. That friend is a hacker that steals accounts and uses them for advertising? I am very upset to see that one of my closest friends get 75 gold a day from a gold seller and he doesnt even pay anything. It sure does ruin my fun. But hey I just need to farm and grind all day to stick out some gold. And in response to mrsrachelm.7618, I have run some tests and found something rather weird on my computer that I havent seen before, found out, its my new seurity system….soooo….I felt embarassed when I called them and yelled saying that they weren’t doing their job when…it was them the whole time…haha i am such a noob :P

Ceronose.6019:

I am very upset to see that one of my closest friends get 75 gold a day from a gold seller and he doesnt even pay anything. It sure does ruin my fun. But hey I just need to farm and grind all day to stick out some gold.

I’ll be completely point blank honest with you, if it were any one I knew, I’d turn their kitten in without hesitation. If this truly upsets you, turn them in to AN.

John Smith.4610:

So I will say this, you have the freedom to choose, you may choose to play the games that the goldsellers spent their lives creating…but I don’t think you want to play those games.

To be honest, economically we’re playing the game that the early karma exploits, BLTC, godskull, speed-COF run, etc. has created. The only items really worth a kitten really in the game are the precursors and other components which go into a legendary. With letting those exploits slide and never really doing anything serious about cleaning up the damage, you have great FUD within the community because 300-400gp in game is a lot of money in real life if you convert through the BLTC.

The problem at hand is that Anet requires you to buy gems then transfer. If they wanted to do it better, they would have an option to buy gold OR gems.

At the end of the day.

You can always go 2 ways. Legal or illegal.
If you go legal way you pay more. You support the game developers, help the content and patches be regular and help the servers to keep running.
Or you do it illegal, have a chance to lose your account. But you do get a little more gold out of your money.
Its like paying taxes. Your either a good citizen, pay your taxes and help your country or you don’t pay your taxes and get a little more cash to spend on yourself. However if you get caught, your screwed. It’s your choice to make.

Ceronose.6019:

oZii.2864:

Bravo Mr Smith. Terrible that people can’t wrap their heads around the idea of doing something against the TOS is essence illegal in that games laws. Also you aren’t forced to buy gold its just shows people impatience and ignorance in my opinion because none of this is forced upon you to play the game.

Yeah….I think your the ignorant one here that can’t get my point.

Lmao backtracking now are we. Now your point has to do something with your friend and how your friend ruined your fun? You first post mentions nothing of your friend what so ever. Now you get called out and go victim route because someone else is ruining your fun?

How is he even messing your fun up? Are you jealous just because he is running around with some cool weapons and armor that you want? Thats the only way you can have ruined fun from someone else having more money than you in this game.

You don’t have to have it!!! You just want it.

Him running around with twilight wont stop you from killing jormag will? He isnt doing more damage than you because he has twilight.

You know for a fact he is getting gold against the TOS I just don’t see how that ruins your fun. Stop worrying about other people so much that is what the problem is. The way this game is set up you shouldn’t have to worry about other people because they really don’t effect you.

People aren’t being excluded from dungeon runs because they don’t have a big bank account. People aren’t linking there gold in map chat.

There are no instances that block you because you aren’t carrying a legendary and 50 gold on you.

That addresses your new made up second point that wasn’t in your first post at all.

First… you got realize that your friend is an exception. Not alot of people make 75g a day.

Second, your friend is a criminal. As in a go-to-prison real-life criminal. He helps thieves that make money with stolen accounts.

You got one thing in your life: you are honest.
He has another thing in his life: he has money. In a game!

Not alot of people would feel good about themselves with being dishonest, no matter how much gold they have in a game.

- These bots and account-selling gold sellers cause alot of emotional pain to people who loose their accounts, accounts the player put their time in. Players who will likely never enjoy a game anymore, out of fear.

Bottom line: don’t say ‘I am unhappy because my friend has more money than me’. Say ‘I am happy because I am honest and do not make other people unhappy’.

And yes, I think Anet should do more about these bots and gold sellers. Not just about the ones that still exist now, but also about the damage that they did to the game.

Almost no honest person can pay 400g for a weapon.

By allowing such items to be so extreem rare and tradeble, Anet rewards gold-buyers.

There is a reason why most MMOs don’t let you buy gold with dollars and why most MMOs don’t let high-end items be tradeble: together, they create the perfect environment for gold-selling.

I am wondering if anyone disagrees that the influx of illegal goldsellers gold in the TP influences the “percieved” player demand for gold and thereby illegally affects the gem value?

Ponder this solution to goldsellers. When do they stop using the “throwaway” account?
Most likely when it is banned. What if it is never banned? what if suddenly and without notice a verified goldseller account is rerouted to a permanent overflow server called …. Purgatory or Desolation and because of their status they never travel back into game. They can keep happily farming away and when they sell their mats …which will still go on the gamewide TP, since no one iswilling to revisit that, their sales tax rate is lets say 75% and legit players gems cost are deferred by the amount of money the goldsellers are now making for you ANET ? How does that sound? Good enough to give the rest of us a real free market economy back?

Ceronose.6019:

So if I want to buy gold from gold sellers, why shouldn’t I do it other than the fact that gold sellers have better buisness than you(ANET) does and you are trapping us (your customers) into buying gems from you only. I think it’s unfair and I don’t like being forced into buying from a certain company when I should have the freedom to choose. Thank you for your responses.

In all respect, but this passage is so incredibly stupid that I had to read it several times to believe my eyes. Please do not take this as an insult, everybody writes stupid things at times (I sure do) – it is also not my intention to offend you, simply point out that your proposition fail on many different levels that I don’t even know where to start.

What makes you even think you are entitled to freedom in this matter? Accusing ANet of monopoly on gems is like accusing McDonalds of monopoly on Big Mac – it simply doesn’t make sense. This is not a product essential to your life – its a computer game, created by a specific company, and the in-game store is that company’s main source of income. If you disagree with their business practice, then just stop playing the game!

Besides, how would ‘buy from others’ even work? The only way I see it, ANet could sell gems to a third party gem reseller. Which also doesn’t make any sense, as the gems will ultimately become more expensive.

Finally, you are not buying gold from ANet. If they were to sell gold, the economy would been inflated already (which does not happen, if anything, we see the opposite). You exchange gems for gold with other players, gold which they earned by playing the game. If you are not getting much gold for your gems, it simply means that a) gold is valuable (given that its rather hard to get) and b) more players are willing to buy gold than buy gems.

As to why you shouldn’t buy from criminal, game-destroying elements which gold-sellers are, many in this thread have given a great explanation, so I won’t repeat it.

Yes, almost no honest person has 400g. And almost nobody should reasonably have a weapon properly called “Legendary”. So that in principle isn’t a problem.

Most of this post points at a serious misunderstanding of how the game and the gaming/RMT industry works. It’s upsetting that you think that going to the goldsellers is 1. your only alternative or 2. acceptable because you encapsulate the risk yourself. I’m not an educator by trade, but perhaps if I can make the issues a little more clear it will help others understand why none of this is true.

Fixed. It hurted my eyes.

Anyway, totally agree that there is no need in getting gold from goldsellers. If they dont get profits, its not worth for them hacking accounts, so everyone will be a bit more secure.

First, I can understand your superficial frustration with seeing people with commander titles and you have “nothing”. Again, I point this is superficial. I also realize you said you didn’t intend to use gold sellers, but your statements make it sound otherwise. Second, all a commander title does in PvE is say you at one point had 100 gold to blow on a commander’s compendium. It doesn’t change your game play nor your quest line, nor should it change your enjoyment of the game – except that you can’t turn it on and go “look at me, I blew 100g on a book” .It’s your statements you made yourself that makes me believe you aren’t ready for a commander title – “Therefore making my GW2 experience harder to enjoy with tons of people running around my server with commander titles and me? What? nothing…. I stick around 3 gold all of the time and I see people like my friend making 75 gold a day!!”Commander is something used to direct huge squads of people in places like WvW. If you can’t enjoy the game without the blue icon, there is something else about your experience in the game or your expectations about the game that is affecting this, not whether you have saved 100 gold or got the title or not.

Now, you say you stick to 3 gold all the time, and you have a friend making 75g a day. While I find that latter number most likely a deep exaggeration either coming from your “friend” to make themselves seem superior to you or because you want everyone to feel sorry for you I’m going to help you out the best I can… Give a man a fish and he eats a meal, teach a man to fish and he eats for a life time…

This is in to respect to what my process is. You will need to find your own way of doing it, but if you follow the same general rules and stick to the basics it will work for you too. There is no real “magic” spot for making money. It’s about what people do with what they find in any spot.

If you are able to always stay at 3 gold, look at how you are doing that. Knowing how to NOT spend your money is a big point to making money.

The best ways to make money are:
Storyline Quests/Events/Hearts/Crafting
The best ways to loose money are:
Waypoints/Crafting/Dying

If you do some Events/Hearts/Storyline everyday and keep your deaths down to as minimal as possible you will make money. It will slowly build up, and you will see each day the amount in your bank increasing.

If you carefully watch of the BLT and craft items in demand that will sell for more than your costs, you will make money. You will have to spend some, so this is why I say careful watch of the BLT. Values change all the time, so don’t make a zillion of widget A now thinking it’s always going to be worth $X, instead check each day, or every couple hours for what YOU can make at the time and do that (lower your overhead, and increase the profit margin)

If you choose poorly what to craft, always use waypoints instead of running through the maps, and you die a lot, you will loose money. It will chip away, and not so slowly.

It’s purely as simple as that.

In one character going from 0-80+ (I have releveled to 80 over and over on my main) I have managed to get over 20 gold in 1 month. Not a massive huge accomplishment perhaps compared to some, but I never had to grind anywhere, and it was all me – I never had to resort to buying gold from a gold seller and I personally have never chosen to sell gems on the currency exchange.

I am currently at 8 gold in my bank and resaving it after I bought my “final” armor for my character.

I have enjoyed almost every moment of the game, and I run with people in my guild who are helpful, fun, and most of them are richer than me.

When I run a good night in WvW, I can come out of there with 50s-1g. When I run a bad night in WvW I come out of there loosing 10s (that is when I call it quits).

It’s like gambling – If you don’t set yourself some controls and limits you can go hog wild and loose it all, but if you are conscious of what you are doing, and how it is impacting your bottom line of $ (or whatever else you might be focused on) then you will be able to work it where you come out ahead.

I usually run everywhere I go. I kill everything in my path. I get loot, and some of that loot is good to sell on the BLT, some of it is good for salvaging, and some of it is good to use on lower characters – the later saving you more money because you don’t have to buy weapons and armor for alts. When I do waypoint, I either know I am going to make that money back, or it is coming out of my “pocket change” that I keep on my character because every once in a while I do want to make a fast leap somewhere without the time it takes to run.

Hopefully some of these suggestions will be helpful and you will be able to find your own path to making gold without resorting to gold sellers.

Just remember, nothing worth having is easy, and nothing easy is worth having.

oZii.2864:

Ooo a thread where someone paints a picture of how they are cornered and have no choice but indulge in a darker path. They are someone forced into a life of crime.

If TOS=Law buying from a GS would be breaking that law.

We need help quick this guy is on the verge of being a GW2 criminal. Him having alot of gold will totally ruin my experience in GW2 because he will haz more stuff than me. I will be jealous because he haz it first.

Oops I sound spoiled and so do you. No one is forcing you to do anything go ahead buy it from the GS run around with twilight it doesnt make or break me or anyone else. Eventually you will get banned and we can all move on. Also you don’t have to have alot of gold alot people want something you want somthing. You think the you need it. Your impatient.

Saying that anything currently in the game is forcing you to contemplate buying from a 3rd party makes you sound like a weak individual. No one is forcing you to do anything. Unless some is there threatening your life while you punch credit card numbers in. You aren’t required by any mission or quest what so ever in game to have alot of gold and or a legendary or whatever. Stop trying to keep up with the joneses or you can try and risk getting banned or your account hacked.

There is no “Law” for buying in game virtual currency. Good luck finding a prosecutor willing to take that on. What it is against is the rules of the developer. That’s it.

They restrict our ability to make gold via DR and other methods plus gold sinks such as WPs etc…go figure.

It doesn’t stop at those sinks. On top of it if you want a legendary the precuror prices are out of control, add in 100 gold for iceyrunes at the vendor plus all the other gold sinks and now you have the skyrocketing prices of lodestones at 3 gold per when you need 100 to make Sunrise. It’s a SKIN. “You don’t have to get it to play” Yea, you’re right. No reason for me to play then. The rest of the game is stale right now. WvW is PvDoor, Spvp is boring at best. Minmaxing in this game??? That involves skins, but really that involves gold.

Does this mean I am running out to buy gold from a farmer? Nope, just means my time in this game is drawing nigh with the release of other games. This could be the most expensive MMO of all time to play if you want to play it to the fullest and minmax everything. Way more costly then a $15 a month game. Way more time spent “Grinding” then doing dailies in another game.

I understand why gold isn’t a flat rate. What I don’t understand is why gems traded for gold are worth 50% less than the other way around. Sure there should be a difference, but 50% seems excessive.

Natural.7013:

There is no “Law” for buying in game virtual currency. Good luck finding a prosecutor willing to take that on. What it is against is the rules of the developer. That’s it.

Pretty much what I was going to say.

I’m in no way condoning it, but it’s not “illegal”.

A breach in the terms of service? Yes. Grounds for a ban? ANet are fully within their rights if they feel it is the way to go. But illegal? No.

Yes I know its not illegal. I was referring to the TOS as Law as in ingame law set by Anet. Not actual law that goes to prosecution and results in jail time. Gotta specify more I suppose.

Odaman.8359:

I understand why gold isn’t a flat rate. What I don’t understand is why gems traded for gold are worth 50% less than the other way around. Sure there should be a difference, but 50% seems excessive.

The difference in rates is about 30%, and while there hasn’t been an official statement as to why it exists, the general consensus is that it is there to discourage short-term speculation. That is, if you buy gems with gold, then you need to wait for the rate to rise by a larger margin before you could sell the gems for a profit than if the difference was 5 or 10%.

I think that what people are really mad about here is the fact that Anet is making so much money off the players right now, a.k.a., Buying Gems, say 50usd for 4000 gems., or the set tax that goes with selling or buying items no matter the item quality on AH.

The real issue is that gold sellers prices being 6 TIMES better than legit prices means the gold sellers are WINNING.

They are able to run their businesses essentially unharrased by A Net. If you guys were doing a better job at stopping all of the botting, gold selling spam, and account hacking, then their costs would be higher, which would drive their prices higher. This in turn would eat into their market share, as fewer would take the risk.

It’s all about numbers, and the numbers say you’re losing, Arena Net. Six TIMES the price is a darn big incentive to take that risk.

And I don’t buy the line about hyper-inflation. The risk of hyper-inflation is the same whether the gold comes from Arena Net, or from botting and gold selling. The origin of extra gold has no bearing on it’s effect on the economy.

I don’t profess to have the answer, but the numbers tell me that whatever you’re doing now isn’t it.

Gold seller sights have a very high risk of identity theft extremely high. Anet has spoken on botting you know they just talked about it like a day ago. Your overreacting honestly. If you read the statement it makes sense.

Anet has a system coming online to improve beating the bots. They don’t want to however jump the gun and ban a ton of legit players then have to drag those people through a possibly lengthy reinstatement process. So that is why they are treading slowly testing this new anti botting software.

Makes sense to me. You wan them to go rambo it sounds like. They are doing it the smart way. Stop being impatient and saying the sky is falling.

Tallenn.9218:

The real issue is that gold sellers prices being 6 TIMES better than legit prices means the gold sellers are WINNING.

No, really it means they are losing, if they can’t make a profit charging any more than a measly 1/6 of ANet’s prices.

And I don’t buy the line about hyper-inflation. The risk of hyper-inflation is the same whether the gold comes from Arena Net, or from botting and gold selling. The origin of extra gold has no bearing on it’s effect on the economy.

When you exchange gems for gold, ANet doesn’t just create a bunch of new gold out of nowhere. It essentially comes from the players who have already spent gold on gems. Which means that all the gold in the game comes from events and vendors and achievements, plus whatever (fictitious) buffer ANet keeps track of so transactions are instantaneous.

Hippocampus.8470:

Tallenn.9218:

The real issue is that gold sellers prices being 6 TIMES better than legit prices means the gold sellers are WINNING.

No, really it means they are losing, if they can’t make a profit charging any more than a measly 1/6 of ANet’s prices.

And I don’t buy the line about hyper-inflation. The risk of hyper-inflation is the same whether the gold comes from Arena Net, or from botting and gold selling. The origin of extra gold has no bearing on it’s effect on the economy.

When you exchange gems for gold, ANet doesn’t just create a bunch of new gold out of nowhere. It essentially comes from the players who have already spent gold on gems. Which means that all the gold in the game comes from events and vendors and achievements, plus whatever (fictitious) buffer ANet keeps track of so transactions are instantaneous.

The transactions aren’t exactly 1:1, they’re just weighted for balance.

Ah, but they CAN make a profit charging a measly 1/6 of ANet’s prices (actually closer to 1/4 now, due to the recent spike in gem prices over the holiday- IF that holds, it’s a step in the right direction, but not sure it will).

If they couldn’t make a profit on that, they’d charge more.

Also, I’m not recommending A Net just create more gold to sell to users in order to increase the gem price. All I’m saying is that the hyper-inflation theory doesn’t hold water, because it doesn’t matter where the gold comes from if it causes hyper-inflation (tip: ALL gold is created from thin air, just like fiat currencies in the real world- the difference is instead of only commercial banks being able to create money, in GW2, anyone that kills a mob, participates in an event, or completes a part of their personal story creates gold.)

Besides, I’ll never be convinced that the gem exchange is absolutely, 100% driven by supply and demand until they put the process out into the open, so we can see the exact exchanges that are being made (i.e. the ability to put in buy and sell orders, just like the TP). Really, there’s no other reason to keep it hidden than to “play around” with it.

I haven’t and never will buy gold from gold sellers. However, given the price at which the BLTC is selling gems, I think the price is way too high.

The fact is that the game has been deliberately engineered to maintain a strangle hold on the economy. And it does so by ensuring that obtaining gold via “traditional” legitimate methods (e.g. farming mobs with the anti-farming code in place) in the game is so very hard work that it cannot be deemed as very rewarding.

Thus forcing people to either consider obtaining gold either by “flipping” or obtaining it via illegitimate (via gold sellers) or legitimate (via the BLTC) means. Thus in theory it might sound like a good idea to strangle the economy to the point whereby people (in theory) would start buying gold via the BLTC, however that doesn’t seem to be working very well in practice. This is one of those “it looked better on paper” concepts.

In the end, Anet you have a measure of responsibility for driving people to consider the illegitimate option. You cannot deny that fact. It is therefore YOUR responsibility to discourage people from using gold sellers by any means necessary. Ranging from “finger wagging” blogs, to ensuring that the price of gold on the BLTC is considered “reasonable” by the playerbase.

The answer to these problems is pretty simple. Just. Don’t. Buy. Gold. From. Goldsellers.

People are inherently weak though, and so we have this black-hat industry that causes a large amount of money needed to be spent on anti-cheats, support, and security in order to keep the game running with any semblance of balance.

I’ve been doing my part to raise the rate of gems -> gold by converting spare gold into gems.

Making money isn’t too difficult in this game. I’m still only level 70 and I’ve got a decent enough gold balance despite buying 700 gems with gold for the Mad King costume.

Back on point though, I don’t think ANet are actively intervening in the currency exchange (although I can’t prove this), but it seems that player demand is raising the gem → gold rates towards being more competitive with the rates available via gold sellers.

fOOD for thought:
On a gold site they sell 100g for 44$
Through ANet gems, you get 26.414g for 50$
The gold site has this whole security system and is a middle man, you pay them, they pay the gold seller AFTER you confirm you got the gold in game. they even use mobile authentication. Anet needs to step up their game to be more competitive.

I won’t be buying any gems with cash till ANet can compete, otherwise it just seems like wasted money

I dont see the food for thought at all. How do you know the securty system Is even legit and not just some banner they put together? Regardless of how they operate the 3rd party site its still against TOS. If you don’t value the possibility of being banned then there is nothing Anet can do to change that at all. Regardless if the 3rd party site was just full of bells and whistles.

Morality, Ethics, and sense of fairness is something that Arena net can’t program into people.

I think one of the main reasons the exchange rate is so bad is because Anet actively takes a percentage on each transaction.. the 15% both ways tends to inflate the issue

Flyfunner.2093:

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The gold site has this whole security system and is a middle man, you pay them, they pay the gold seller AFTER you confirm you got the gold in game. they even use mobile authentication.

This, of course, means you’ve made the assumption that this alleged “middle man” is completely trustworthy, and in fact, isn’t “in the pocket” of the gold seller(s) already.

Dollars to doughnuts they are, and it’s all a “front” scam to reassure people. I’m not saying you won’t get your gold – you may, but the chance of it doesn’t increase because of this alleged “neutral middle man”.

Having said all that, I will say one more thing. Don’t buy gold from any seller, any time. Not only is it against ToS, it’s a bannable offence (as it should be).

If in doubt, on this advice, refer to comments earlier in this thread about buying a boosted (stolen) car versus one from a dealer. Of course the criminal can afford to sell it cheaper – they didn’t have to make it in the first place. Hint: Gold sellers rarely go out in the game world with someone behind the keyboard and “earn” gold… they use bots, and stolen/hacked accounts.

Would you buy a car you know was stolen?

If not, why would you buy gold that you know was stolen? It’s not that different.

RMTs are criminals preying on every dumb MMO player they can find. As said above, click on their ads, visit their sites and they’ll leave some trojans on your PC so they can later rob you blind.

If you do buy gold and get your account cleaned out later, you should not be upset and instead be happy for that other person that bought your gold, because they got a great deal from the RMT!

i’d say it’s not that gold sellers are selling gold which makes me hate them. it’s not the fact that the people who buy them are lazy talentless freeloaders pretending to be gamers. it’s not that it goes against the tos. it’s not that anet (who i love) doesn’t like them.

i don’t like gold sellers because they’re annoying botty spamming kittenkitteners and deserve to have their gaming fingers broken off and fed to seagulls. simple as that, really.

and as for the cheaters who’ve forgotten how to game hard, i want to send them flowers. many many flowers.

because i always feel it’s a sad day when gamers reach that point where they realise they’re just not good enough to game and need to pay someone else to do it for them. honestly. it’s like losing a friend.

Ceronose.6019:

I don’t like being forced into buying from a certain company when I should have the freedom to choose. Thank you for your responses.

Lol. I can tell you have never been in charge of a company before.

If i ran a flower shop, in which i grew my own flowers for selling and someone came in and stole my flowers from me and then sat outside my shop and sold them cheaper..is this morally correct?

Its not the best example, but in this case the ‘original seller’ put in all the hard work to grow and nurture the flowers, and then someone comes in and undermines all there hard work and steals there well earned profits.

To throw a better comparison, if you made a game and sold it on steam for $20 and then someone cracks it and sells it for $1, would you be mad? But that person according to your example should be allowed to chose between who they buy off right?

Apart from the fact its against the Terms and services agreement ( which means its illegal) It is not morally correct to do such a time and thus is wrong.

Oh and who’s forcing you to buy gems >_>

I think the main issue is that it takes quite a while to gather the gold to even gget basic supplies. The amount of gold sinks in the game are huge. And at the same time, some items in the game cost an amount most people would take months to farm.

That in itself is an issue, and something that should be adressed, or at least noted. Of course it doesn’t justify going to gold sellers, but at the same time, the ingame gem rate means a precursor costs around 800 euro. That’s also wrong.

Regardless of the cause and your point of view, the complain has been made, and should either be adressed or dismissed openly by ArenaNet.

Yes, ArenaNet has a log of all mails and chats, they’ve referred to those quite often in the Accounts section of the forum.

It’s most likely something like this: ANet identifies the accounts that have been used by gold sellers (botting/spamming/etc) and traces all gold that has been mailed by those accounts to other players.

If you don’t accept gold from one of those accounts, you have nothing to fear when sending a few gold to a friend.

Secondly, there are several good economic reasons why we shouldn’t set a flat rate and sell gold. The forefront of which is that gold’s value is very relative to the scarcity of gold. With a flat rate and sales of gold we would risk hyper-inflating the economy. This would in turn alienate new players, and make the game much less fun overall.

It can also be said that when a new player comes and sees the ridiculous GOLD to GEM exchange rate, that will actually alienate him or her.