Guild Wars 2

People complain about gems being expensive (for gold) and because of that, they can’t buy the gem store stuff. But these people forget a very important thing. Gem prices rising means the entire game becomes less expensive, money-wise, for time-limited high-income people, the exact people keeping the servers alive.

Yes, I fall under this myself. When I get myself 2000 gems, I get over 20 gold which about doubles the entire amount of money I managed to save up since launch. With increasing gem prices that conversion becomes even better.

OK some things can’t be afforded through gold anymore but the truth is, this gem conversion was intended for the time-limited player to catch up on hardcore gold farmers who don’t want to spend real money. The current gem trend reflects that. If gem stuff is too expensive gold-wise, feel free to support the game instead. Gems are cheap when calculating from a RL money point of view.

Cannot tell if serious or sarcasm.

Oh lookie there, the new GW2 monetization manager is doing a great job at making all the items the people want so expensive that you have to buy gold to afford them.

Gems are way too expensive. As of 10:52PM EST, they average 1-gold 70-silver for 100 gems(and climbing).

That is absurdly high.

After getting my main to level 80, I barely have enough for 100 gems. There is no way I can farm enough gold, to get enough gems, to buy anything other than a single boost that will last me one hour for over 50+ hours of work. As I see it, if I want anything from the gem store, I will need to dedicate my time to gold farming, instead of something fun, or productive in game. This translates to me not buying anything from the gem store. Ever. It is simply not worth it.

You would think that after maxing out a character you might have enough for at least a costume, or a set of minis. That would be a nice way to treat yourself. Sadly, that is not the case.

And no, I will not pay cash for fake gold. Not an option.

Most of the stuff in the gem store needs to be about half the price for me to be interested. I’m sure if it was, I would have spent more RL money by now.

Tabletop Live.8145:

Gems are way too expensive. As of 10:52PM EST, they average 1-gold 70-silver for 100 gems(and climbing).

That is absurdly high.

That’s your opinion. I believe this is a good thing for me. I can make more gold by working 1 hour at the job I love than by neglecting my girlfriend for a week while farming.

And no, I will not pay cash for fake gold. Not an option.

I understand this feeling but that’s not a relevant issue. The mini you want costs gems, not gold. Why not pay cash for gems? The reason being you want it for free (RL moneywise) and because of that, the gemprice is on the rise. Thank you

I’m with OP. Everything sold on the gem store should be thought of as micro transaction items, and people who are unwilling to pay real money for virtual item should just be happy they have the option of getting it with gold AT ALL, rather than complaining that they can’t afford them.

Also, despite having a good amound of disposable income, gem prices are still cheap enough that I easily prefer buying mine with gold rather than real money.

MrGorkajuice.8391:

people who are unwilling to pay real money for virtual item should just be happy they have the option of getting it with gold AT ALL, rather than complaining that they can’t afford them

I am Tallis and I approve this message!

No. Bank and bag slots cost gems, which kills all arguments for this being positive.

Tallis and MrGorkajuice, the problem is that they don’t have the option at all. The gem price is accelerating way beyond anything players could reasonably afford. At the current rate, a player starting today would need to save up about 24G for one bank slot in the next month. If they start next month, they’ll need to save up 48G in the same amount of time. This is assuming a new player is happy to spend EVERYTHING they earn on a new bank slot.

The inflation rate is basically forcing people to play the TP or, if they happen to be level 80 already, farm like crazy (which keeps getting nerfed). The fact that people who play the TP, are already high level enough to farm (a lot), or got lucky with precursor drops can buy things with gold isn’t the same as the option being open to everyone.

I am glad the store is making money, and I want ANet to succeed. But that should be done by having loads of luxury items that people want to buy loads of, not by making it hugely expensive to buy a single bank slot.

What they should do is make extra bank slots, bag slots, and more character slots decrease as the price of gems increases. Or possibly make them cost gold instead of gems, because as it stands the people that pay real money have a big advantage in game over those that can’t afford it.

As for everything else – particularly cosmetic items – I see no reason people shouldn’t have to pay real money to get these things. I’ll admit that I’d love to change my hair with in game gold, but arenanet has to make money and I see no reason I shouldn’t have to pay for it as long as it doesn’t give me an advantage over those that can’t afford it.

marnick.4305:

I understand this feeling but that’s not a relevant issue. The mini you want costs gems, not gold. Why not pay cash for gems? The reason being you want it for free (RL moneywise) and because of that, the gemprice is on the rise. Thank you

As long as players are allowed to earn gems in-game it will absolutely be a relevant issue.

Anet is awful proud of the fact that they give characters an option when it comes to earning money for the gem store. As it stands now, it’s just a gimmick to get people to open their real wallets when they realize the outlandish time investment they will have to make in order to get a single extra bag slot for their inventory.

I don’t disagree on Anet’s right to earn real money with their digital goods. Go for it. But don’t hamstring those of us that choose, or have no choice but to go the harder route.

Oh, and I would hardly call working 20 hours for a pirate costume – “getting it for free.” I don’t want handouts, I want a fair system.

The only reason I’m concerned with the increasing prices of gems is I’ll have to buy 5 box-o-fun for my legendary o.o I’d really like to buy more slots for char and bank, but it’s much cheaper to make an alt guild to store all your stuff (non-soulbound/accountbound anyway). but in any case, I hope alot more people will buy gems to convert to gold so the ratio will go down At the rate, it seems more people are willing to just farm up the extra gold than shell out real life cash.

marnick.4305:

That’s your opinion. I believe this is a good thing for me. I can make more gold by working 1 hour at the job I love than by neglecting my girlfriend for a week while farming.

That’s fair as long as you accept that whales are the reason why gameplay in this generation of games is the worst the industry has seen since the old Atari days.

I for one m very happy at the increase of gold>gem>gold rates.

At the beginning of November I came to the conclusion that the Trading Post is not any way to play the market as it is just way to chaotic. Sure you may be able to make a real big profit occasionally, but most of the times you make only small profit or a loss.

So I decided to invest 90% of my gold into gems. Mind you, this was when you were getting about 120 gems per gold. Right now, I am making profit off those gems, and at the next holiday event, I am sure they will go up even further.

My biggest debate is to skim the profits or keep holding them until this event, but if they keep going up, even if only by a few silver a day, I will hang onto them longer.

You wanna play the market? Avoid the TP and invest in gems with your gold.

ok im a huge Guild Wars fan been that way for over 4 years now. but everyday ive seen the price of Gems climming to hights i never thought possible. the issue is the Gems rum off of of the idea of the stock market. if more people are buying gems then selling the price goes up and if people are selling gems for ingame gold then the price of gems goes down. i remember in the 3 day head start that gems were about 10 silver for 100 gems which at the time i thought it was over priced. just getting 1silver when your only lvl1-lvl10 is not easy especially if you just started the game and half to deal with crash bugs overflow and setting up your guild. sadly the only way i can see the price of gems drop is to sell gems but remember you half to buy gems in order to sell.

Nyakitty.9165:

What they should do is make extra bank slots, bag slots, and more character slots decrease as the price of gems increases. Or possibly make them cost gold instead of gems, because as it stands the people that pay real money have a big advantage in game over those that can’t afford it.

As for everything else – particularly cosmetic items – I see no reason people shouldn’t have to pay real money to get these things. I’ll admit that I’d love to change my hair with in game gold, but arenanet has to make money and I see no reason I shouldn’t have to pay for it as long as it doesn’t give me an advantage over those that can’t afford it.

Extra bank slots, bag slots and character slots do not give you a big advantage over people who don’t have them. I have bought 1 bank slot upgrade (with gold → gems when it was slightly better priced) but while it’s nice to have it, I was managing okay without it by reducing my compulsion to hoard absolutely everything.

Given the current exchange rate, I’m not likely to buy another slot using gold anytime soon, but that’s because there’s other things I want to spend my gold on first. I am more likely going to spend some RL cash on gems for some of these non-essential items, and I will not regret it at all.

The point is that at different points, the gold → gem rate will prompt different people to act, well, differently in pursuing the items they want.

Tabletop Live.8145:

marnick.4305:

I understand this feeling but that’s not a relevant issue. The mini you want costs gems, not gold. Why not pay cash for gems? The reason being you want it for free (RL moneywise) and because of that, the gemprice is on the rise. Thank you

As long as players are allowed to earn gems in-game it will absolutely be a relevant issue.

Anet is awful proud of the fact that they give characters an option when it comes to earning money for the gem store. As it stands now, it’s just a gimmick to get people to open their real wallets when they realize the outlandish time investment they will have to make in order to get a single extra bag slot for their inventory.

In guild wars 1 you didn’t even have the option of buying it with gold. No one complained. It was RL money or no extra bank slot. This thread just proves what cheapskates most elitists are. You want the bank slot, you don’t want to pay RL money for it and you don’t even want to pay gold for it. Seriously???

I don’t disagree on Anet’s right to earn real money with their digital goods. Go for it. But don’t hamstring those of us that choose, or have no choice but to go the harder route.

Last time I checked bank slots were 600 gems. That’s about 10g or 10 euros. Not a big deal, neither of it (although, granted, farming 10g takes far longer than earning 10 euros, even at minimum wage). A bag slot is actually cheaper gold-to-gems than a 20 slot bag.

Oh, and I would hardly call working 20 hours for a pirate costume – “getting it for free.” I don’t want handouts, I want a fair system.

20 hours? Do you live in China? C’mon please do the math before making a fool out of yourself. At minimum wage in Europe it’d be less than a single hour to earn the money for the pirate costume. If you go babysit your nephew for a night you can buy 2 costumes. Working one day in a factory gives you a level 80 alt (through crafting). Working one week at a student job (still minimum wage) give you enough for a legendary and then some. Get your facts straight. These are not extraordinary prices. The only reason I’m not dropping that much cash on guild wars 2 is because I have a partner to support.

Don’t forget the gems prices are so high because people are unwilling to pay money to a company that provides them fun. There’s only 1 way to get the prices down, and that’s buy supporting your favourite video game. In my opinion not really a bad thing since this support is completely voluntary.

Gonna say its just like minimum wage, though the Higher it is the more money the bottem is making the less the top is making so the Top Raises Prices to adjust for loss, Prices go up, and the bottem is not making enough money again….

This same cycle will continue if Gem>Gold keeps rising the poorer will be able to get more gold More gold in the game means more gold to pay for that precursor precursor goes up in price as well as ecto’s and everything else…. so eventually you have to pay if you want that precursor. Buy the way ANet continuelly allowing the Gem>Gold conversion inflation, is going against you manifesto of No Pay to Win eventually it’ll become the only way to win is to Pay.

Well I can afford gems, and have spent about 500 usd on the store. It is us who like the rising gem prices who SUPPORT the game….

Those of you who refuse to pay… do not support the game nor its devs are are basically bleeding the game while we pick up your slack..

This is how the f2p market works even smedly has written on this…

So the higher the gem cost the more happy PAYING players will be =)

Has anyone’s financial support thus far resulted in improved gameplay? What we have received since launch are one-time events, a gear treadmill and more grind. You can buy gems but you can’t buy taste.

I’ll buy gems to show my support once they start properly working on things. At the moment they’re playing favorites with classes (What’s that Lassie? 5 warriors? Sounds great – No I don’t care how bad they are in sPvP), neglecting garbage traits, fixing bugs two to three per patch (out of at least a thousand), taking leagues to ship out new PvP types (OH BOY A NEW MAP – wait, what about the balance and busted skills?).

I will give them that Fractals was a great idea. But then they threw on a gear treadmill (They lied in their statement about ‘not adding more tiers’, because they clearly are going to add better infusions – +5 precision will end up eventually becoming +20 power, +15 precision, and +2% crit damage in a year’s time), one method of implementing said gear, and TERRIBLE balancing of Fractals compared to one another (Get Ocean? Eff yeah. Get Colossus? Kthxbai). It’s like they keep handing out sandwiches covered in antifreeze.

marnick.4305:

20 hours? Do you live in China? C’mon please do the math before making a fool out of yourself. At minimum wage in Europe it’d be less than a single hour to earn the money for the pirate costume. If you go babysit your nephew for a night you can buy 2 costumes. Working one day in a factory gives you a level 80 alt (through crafting). Working one week at a student job (still minimum wage) give you enough for a legendary and then some. Get your facts straight. These are not extraordinary prices. The only reason I’m not dropping that much cash on guild wars 2 is because I have a partner to support.

Maybe I do live in China. Is there something wrong with that, Marnick? Or maybe I live in poverty, and play on a friend’s computer when I have the chance, and can not afford to spare even $5 for lunch, much less $10 for fake currency. It is arrogant of you to assume that everyone who plays GW2 has enough disposable income to pay for even the cheapest of items.

How about YOU close your mouth before you come to baseless assumptions, and make a fool out of yourself, pumpkin.

dimentox.6019:

Well I can afford gems, and have spent about 500 usd on the store. It is us who like the rising gem prices who SUPPORT the game….

Those of you who refuse to pay… do not support the game nor its devs are are basically bleeding the game while we pick up your slack..

And that right there folks is elitism in its purest form.

Obviously this issue is creating a divide in the player base. It is sad, and very bad news for not only the community, but for the game itself.

I am with you OP, it makes people like us with more disposable income can get what enough gold to cover whatever we want. If I was to farm for 18g it will take me a whole weekend and possibly even more, but with the gem to gold, it just an hour worth of work or it is the equivalent of buying 2 long island ice tea at a crappy 2 bit bar. Or is the equivalent of how much it cost to get me drunk in a bar.

Ofc, I should add that this is only good if the inflation (gold) is low.

after reading this game is NOT about farming i decided to save up and buy it as im long term ill and on no money a week, i dont mind the odd hour farm here and thre but needs to be balanced between farming and fun .. i laughed/cried as black market 50% off come around and gem prices went up 75% making items 25% more lol and now as the gem prices are around the 40 gems to the G.. due to my cercumstance im priced out.. i dont have money to pay for vurtual gold i dont even have enough money to pay irl bills.. and i think this has ruiend the game for me personaly .. games are about escapisum and enjoyment fun etc .. so what is this? its not fun or funny .. its not good .. its not enjoyable having to farm 10 days for the equivelent 5 days the week before for the same result is it?… the diminishing returns of fun/enjoyment is halfed each week, if you dont pay money that is ! best of luck. im out.

Darknixon.9327:

after reading this game is NOT about farming i decided to save up and buy it as im long term ill and on no money a week, i dont mind the odd hour farm here and thre but needs to be balanced between farming and fun .. i laughed/cried as black market 50% off come around and gem prices went up 75% making items 25% more lol and now as the gem prices are around the 40 gems to the G.. due to my cercumstance im priced out.. i dont have money to pay for vurtual gold i dont even have enough money to pay irl bills.. and i think this has ruiend the game for me personaly .. games are about escapisum and enjoyment fun etc .. so what is this? its not fun or funny .. its not good .. its not enjoyable having to farm 10 days for the equivelent 5 days the week before for the same result is it?… the diminishing returns of fun/enjoyment is halfed each week, if you dont pay money that is ! best of luck. im out.

What you’re seeing right now is the Gems hiking in prices due to various events.

We had Halloween just a while ago, then the Makeovers arrived. They also recently announced the Wintersday, so the people who hold the Gems are waiting for the Wintersday offers.

In all likelihood, the prices for Gems will stay high until sometime after New Year’s Eve.

marnick.4305:

In guild wars 1 you didn’t even have the option of buying it with gold. No one complained. It was RL money or no extra bank slot. This thread just proves what cheapskates most elitists are. You want the bank slot, you don’t want to pay RL money for it and you don’t even want to pay gold for it. Seriously???

Excuse me, but in Guild Wars, there were no soulbound/account bound items. Every item could be transferred and stored. It was inconvenient to keep things on other characters and for the convenience of having it all readily accessible, it cost real money. The current system artificially inflates the need to use the bank by preventing another character from holding a soulbound item or another account from holding an account bound item. That is a gimmick to drive people to buy gems in order to meet basic needs.

It’s sensible to create incentive for people to buy gems, but when they do things like that it is no longer just about convenience. Consider an engineer’s space needs compared to a warrior. Nobody is demanding free tabs, we’d like the ability to store our stuff without being forced to trash it because of the excessive cost just to have the ability to keep what we earn.

Don’t forget the gems prices are so high because people are unwilling to pay money to a company that provides them fun. There’s only 1 way to get the prices down, and that’s buy supporting your favourite video game. In my opinion not really a bad thing since this support is completely voluntary.

We did pay money to the company. I paid $60 USD for my fun. Read other forums (DE, dungeon and ranger for starters) and take a guess why some of us feel just a bit displeased to face the reality of putting down more cash or dedicate massive amounts of time we don’t have and use so much of our game resources to get a fraction of something we used to enjoy for free.

Is that clear now?

OrianZeta.1537:

marnick.4305:

In guild wars 1 you didn’t even have the option of buying it with gold. No one complained. It was RL money or no extra bank slot. This thread just proves what cheapskates most elitists are. You want the bank slot, you don’t want to pay RL money for it and you don’t even want to pay gold for it. Seriously???

Excuse me, but in Guild Wars, there were no soulbound/account bound items. Every item could be transferred and stored. It was inconvenient to keep things on other characters and for the convenience of having it all readily accessible, it cost real money. The current system artificially inflates the need to use the bank by preventing another character from holding a soulbound item or another account from holding an account bound item. That is a gimmick to drive people to buy gems in order to meet basic needs.

It’s sensible to create incentive for people to buy gems, but when they do things like that it is no longer just about convenience. Consider an engineer’s space needs compared to a warrior. Nobody is demanding free tabs, we’d like the ability to store our stuff without being forced to trash it because of the excessive cost just to have the ability to keep what we earn.

Don’t forget the gems prices are so high because people are unwilling to pay money to a company that provides them fun. There’s only 1 way to get the prices down, and that’s buy supporting your favourite video game. In my opinion not really a bad thing since this support is completely voluntary.

We did pay money to the company. I paid $60 USD for my fun. Read other forums (DE, dungeon and ranger for starters) and take a guess why some of us feel just a bit displeased to face the reality of putting down more cash or dedicate massive amounts of time we don’t have and use so much of our game resources to get a fraction of something we used to enjoy for free.

Is that clear now?

And both bag space and (free) bank storage were more limited in GW1 despite the lack of account/soul bound items… I was always struggling for bank space in GW1, so I definitely didn’t “enjoy” the free storage you allude to.

The reality is that your $60 gets you an account with 5 character slots and a single shared bank tab. This is a lot of storage potential if you’re only interested in having one level 80 character.

If you are having difficulty managing inventory space, then you have the option of spending gems to buy more character slots, bank tabs, or bag slots. These have a fixed cost in real monetary terms and a variable cost in terms of gold (depending on the exchange rate) so it’s up to you to decide which is preferable.

If you don’t wish to pay for these extras at all, then don’t. You can play the game easily enough without them, although you might have to reduce the amount of stuff you hoard if it’s causing you problems.

GW2 pre-release documents stated that even though there is a microtransaction feature, this game will not be pay to win, due to to exchange rate which will not be profitable to use real life money to buy in game stuff. (not exact quote but you get the idea,)
Which is fine, i have no problem paying 10 bucks for a character expansion slot or bag exp etc. These are the microtransactions bought with gems via cash or in game gold. I wouldnt do it everyday since i cant afford it. But i would still support the company i know and love for more than 7 years now as best as i could.
What really annoys me lately is the gem>gold conversion rate. Now before people start barking on about supporting the company ill ask you to stop as i have read all the posts above before posting this. But here is the deal. I will pay as much as i can to support. i would probably not ever buy gemstore stuff with ingame gold. first reason is to support and second reason is that its to expensive with in game gold atm.
And guess what? i have no problem with gemstore ingame gold rise… what i do have a problem is the modifier on the gem-gold conversion.
Example. 2 people in the guild going for same legendary (its not statistically superior but it is superior in social status etc) Person A, spends few hours a day, playing the game, getting the gold, even playing the TP (ingame feature) to raise funds for the said legendary. Person B spends 200 dollars on gems and makes 250g instantly… and is that % on the way ahead of Person A for the same legendary. He will get there first and he will “win” by having a legendary item. simultaneously de-valuating the Person A’s efforts to getting the legendary as its not the first in the guild and is no longer exclusive. (also when you see people running about with them you dont know did they pay rl money or earned in via ingame accomplishments (correct me if im wrong, a legendary weapon is an ingame accomplishment and not your bank statement?)

Proposed solution: and if i could get a dev response to this (pos or neg) that would be great.
1)
100 gems costs 2g to buy now, if demand keeps going up let it rise as it does now pushing players to buy more gems with rl cash for the gemstore items, hence supporting the company.
BUT: do not raise the Gem→Gold conversion! infact nerf it a little! make the ratios smaller! like 100gems=15s and not 1.5g, hence reducing the number of people buying gems with real life cash to convert to ingame gold to pay to win (maybe somone super rich can still afford it but those people are rare and good for anet if they find someone like that) But players who claim they do this to support the company will still buy gemstore items with RL cash since the gemrate for those is constant.

Release more gemstore skins etc that are are awesome like the primeval one from gw2, players who can afford it will still buy it and have the exclusivity of it, but it will be identifiable as “bought for cash, i support anet” which is great! no bad stigma whatsoever.

Meanwhile it leaves faithful players of the game playing happy and progressing! you say you want to pay rl cash for your legendary, you shouldnt be able to and please dont be so arrogant to think that because you have a bigger pocket you deserve the INGAME achievement designed to specify a player who achieved a legendary status by playing the game. This is a game where many people come to relax, escape the real world into the fantasy that is guildwars 2, amazing scenery and artwork and the game is just fantastic.
But as it stands its dragging the real world issues such as “who has more money” into it by allowing gem>gold conversion rate to reach such heights where people dont play the game, and just spend their real life money… real life shouldnt tie into it at all, its a game, a phenomenal game at that. and it deserves respect. I used to argue with my friends defending the GW franchise when the gemstore was announced, i used to say that it will not be a pay to win, unfortunately i cant say that any longer, and i know many that stopped playing.
Apologies for the long post
Thank you

Astraea.6075:

And both bag space and (free) bank storage were more limited in GW1 despite the lack of account/soul bound items… I was always struggling for bank space in GW1, so I definitely didn’t “enjoy” the free storage you allude to.

I’m not sure what these limitations are, but we can contrast further. In addition to having more freedom of where you put your items, Xunlai Agents/Chests were everywhere. What happened to them? In GW2, unless you enjoy sinking silver into waypoints to swap inventory, it’s generally wiser to use your character’s inventory for items they may need infrequently, because the only bank access is in the racial cities and crafting stations. Hurting your character’s space? There’s a gem store for that.

This is about a basic need, and the cost to get that need is perhaps a bit too much. I would buy gems now if I could get a tab for 6-7 gold. It’s double that, and it won’t be the last one I need. The market will see a surge in monetary sales from Christmas but Anet cannot expect people to just pick up their wallets when gold buys them too few gems.

Briefly back to GW, there were plenty of reasons you’d want to buy tabs, even with the freedom to make mule accounts, yet I have only one character in GW2, yet while I start on my first alt I’ve already had to make storage sacrifices (from my main), and I’m obsessive about micromanaging and getting rid of junk. I have four characters left to play around on; if you feel hitting the wall by the first character is fair, I will respectfully disagree to the Nth degree.

We’re not unwilling to pay real money to support our game, many of us simply didn’t feel these tabs are worth extra cost and now we’re saying this (wonderful) gold option is past its range of sanity and indeed hurts trade.

Sales, price cuts or maybe scale the cost for tabs (first costs 250, then 450, then 600 after that). There are lots of possibilities.

OrianZeta.1537:

I would buy gems now if I could get a tab for 6-7 gold. It’s double that, and it won’t be the last one I need.

I would buy a new Mercedes for $10 right now if I could but they are over double that!

Is it reasonable to assume that generally gem prices will go down? Or are they always on an upward scale? Esp after wintersday event? I’m expecting them to go up even more (2-3g+ = 100 gems) but I’m not sure if after the event, will it go back down or retain at that level until we get more people to cash in on gems.

penatbater.4710:

Is it reasonable to assume that generally gem prices will go down? Or are they always on an upward scale? Esp after wintersday event? I’m expecting them to go up even more (2-3g+ = 100 gems) but I’m not sure if after the event, will it go back down or retain at that level until we get more people to cash in on gems.

Announced changes
Content updates, including ones in January and February that will be bigger than previous updates. The February update will include changes to World versus World.

I can see a surge of gems coming into the market as people want to treat themselves (not to mention the Christmas inflow of new players). It still leaves demand sky high, so I wouldn’t hold your breath.

Honestly without major improvements to the game or worthwhile items to buy gems, I just won’t do it, and I know I’m not alone. What I’m concerned about is gold-mining to meet demand for gems; inflation is not good for any economy.

From what I know, it’s not the volume of gems in the market or whatnot, but rather the rate at which gems are traded for gold that affects the exchange rate.

If they changed buying bank slots, character slots and bag slots to a static amount of gold I might agree.

Also in the UK as far as I am aware there isn’t one single retailer that sells the gem cards.

If people want to buy fluff off the BLTC for gems its fine but why should it so seriously influence everyone else’s gameplay.

Last and not least why is there a conversion tax, why should you lose 15% of the gems value. The appeal of buying gems might be a bit more realistic if you didnt have the tax and the market might not be as volatile.

Forgot to add lets have some realistic weekly graphs showing the amount of gold to gems and gems to gold, because atm I’m highly sceptical of the prices. Theres actually no proof Anet doesn’t put a notional figure on it whenever they plz

Bluesavanah.8562:

…lets have some realistic weekly graphs showing the amount of gold to gems and gems to gold, because atm I’m highly sceptical of the prices. Theres actually no proof Anet doesn’t put a notional figure on it whenever they plz

If you can’t trust their integrity now, why would you trust a graph they post? Does an image they create automatically make them honest in your eyes? Trust or don’t trust. A graph doesn’t change anything.

Back on topic:

The conversion of RL cash to gems to in game gold has increased in favor of RL cash. This has allowed me to buy four of the T3 cultural human cosmetic armor pieces, as opposed to the one that I previously bought with in game gold acquired in game. The armor is purely cosmetic, affects my enjoyment of my character, and perhaps makes me a better looking piece of scenery to others. That’s it. These purchases put money directly into Anet’s coffers. Hopefully that money is spent on keeping the game alive and improving.

At launch, I saw this option as quite unreasonable due to the gold cost of the cosmetic armors versus time spent acquiring gold in game versus gem to gold conversion rates. For me, it now is worthwhile. The in game gold cost is the same (still unrealistically high). The prices of ectos have also doubled (from14ish silver back when I started paying attention to 30ish silver now) so it is now easier to earn gold in game than before. However, the biggest change is that the real cash cost has gone down. I could spend weeks in game earning a cosmetic look, or hours IRL. I believe my time is worth money, so for me the trend in conversion ratios is positive.

If others would have their way, I’d be supporting Anet less via my wallet and spending more of my time focusing on pursuing gold in game to gain conveniences and cosmetics. I’d rather be socializing, exploring the map, harvesting, and doing Fractals. Thankfully, I now am.

Tallis.5607:

MrGorkajuice.8391:

people who are unwilling to pay real money for virtual item should just be happy they have the option of getting it with gold AT ALL, rather than complaining that they can’t afford them

I am Tallis and I approve this message!

Word. If you enjoy the game, you could support it now and then by buying a few gems. And if you dont like the game why do you want gems in first place.
Truth is at the game launch the price of gems was ridiculously low and everyone was suddenly so surprised when the price gone up…
And no I am no big spender, I spend like 10EUR per event.

Bartho.7896:

Word. If you enjoy the game, you could support it now and then by buying a few gems. And if you dont like the game why do you want gems in first place.
Truth is at the game launch the price of gems was ridiculously low and everyone was suddenly so surprised when the price gone up…
And no I am no big spender, I spend like 10EUR per event.

Criticism isn’t black and white; it’s healthy to enjoy something yet be able to critique it and see its flaws. If no one spoke up for changes or offered ideas, where would we be? If you care about something you want to see it improve.

marnick.4305:

Don’t forget the gems prices are so high because people are unwilling to pay money to a company that provides them fun. There’s only 1 way to get the prices down, and that’s buy supporting your favourite video game. In my opinion not really a bad thing since this support is completely voluntary.

I’ve bitten my digital tongue through all this thread, but this ‘gem’ just sticks in the craw far too much to be ignored.
Unwilling to pay money to a company that provides them fun, you say? Every single person that plays this game, without exception, has paid money to support the company. Full box price, and quite a few of them above and beyond this to show their support for ArenaNet, as it happens.
Or do you mean they are not paying for their ongoing fun? Does it state somewhere upon the box that this is a requirement? It would seem to be quite categorically stated this game requires no subscription, or ongoing costs whatsoever to fully enjoy it in it’s entirety.
Or, once again, do you mean something different, such as a failure on their part, ethically speaking, to support the ongoing maintenance costs of the game?
A moral obligation to provide fiscal support in an ongoing cycle to the supplier of your fun.
That sounds an awful lot like a subscription.
But I digress.
The sticking point of what you have said here is that the only way to reduce the costs in this game is for everyone to spend more.
You have absolutely made Crystin’s day right here.
This attitude of ‘supporting’ ArenaNet through gem store transactions is scarily misguided, in light of not only where your ‘support’ money is going, but specifically in terms of how they are getting you to part with it.
There are an awful lot of posts about why this issue is irking so many people. You should read around a little.
Oh, and I just adore the Freudian slip in the post: “buy supporting your favourite video game (sic)”
I laughed until I stopped.

Bluesavanah.8562:

Last and not least why is there a conversion tax, why should you lose 15% of the gems value. The appeal of buying gems might be a bit more realistic if you didnt have the tax and the market might not be as volatile.

The conversion tax on the gem-to-gold side is there to prevent people from buying Gems when its low and easily turning over a profit when it hikes due to an event or a discount in the Gem Store.

Basically, the company does not want players flipping currency that has a real monetary value.

Word. If you enjoy the game, you could support it now and then by buying a few gems. And if you dont like the game why do you want gems in first place.

There’s a billion arguments that I could throw at that:

• Players are supporting the game by playing it. With players, comes paying customers
• Players are supporting the game by participating in the gold-to-gem exchange
• Players are supporting the game by buying the game in the first place
• Some players are unable to spend cash on the game for personal reasons
• Wanting change is a healthy thing

Dear people complaining about sky high gem prices.

What do you think, in gold a U.S. Dollar is worth in game currency? That is the primary factor to the price of gems. Gem price will continue to climb as the value of gold diminishes as this game matures. It is undeniable that 1g at release was worth more than 1g now.

People will always seek to get a good bang for their buck, and if gem prices remain low people turn to the ‘black market’ to buy gold. Gem prices need to continue to go up to a reasonable level where it would be sane to transfer $$ → Gold.

One of the major factors to the depressed gem price was that there wernt too many items in the store that people wanted. With these events, and more things getting added to the store people are now ‘wanting’ these items and putting more pressure on the gold→gems side of the market, lifting the price. As the price of gems increases people be seeing the gems→gold side of the market as viable, and might actually buy gems for gold instead of seeking 3rd party sellers.

I thought it was widely accepted knowledge that the “free to play” game model makes up for a subscription “free” model with many small transactions, and that ultimately it is cheaper to play a game with the traditional subscription model to enjoy all the expected perks and conveniences.

If you didn’t know, now you do. The only way “free to play” games are cheaper is if you do without some of the expected convenience (or at least do without them longer), and keep your purse strings tied.

Many players don’t or won’t, which is why “free” has become the new trend in MMOs. Why villify spenders or the f2p game model, when that’s the model of game you chose to play? You still can play for no more cost than the box price if you are frugal and patient. I certainly wouldn’t expect a game publisher who is out to make a profit to change real world cash to game gold exchange rates in favor of players who do not spend real world cash. That expectation seems illogical, no?

I see a trend of supply and demand balancing themselves out as the game matures, and am enjoying the trend. I will continue to enjoy the trend as long as there are no items that fall into a “pay to win” category. No such items exist, so I have no problem with the system.

I always saw the F2P models followed the very similar line as Pay-to-Win models. Having played a number of F2P MMo’s i have found that all of them are the same/similar. You Pay, you Win. making it more of an incentive to have those so called “free” players end up paying in order to gain some sort of advantage than those that spend nothing – i know cos i’ve done it myself in several games.

However i have payed $60 here and without monthly subscription would like to refrain from putting in more RL money due to whatever reason – many to list for all of us. If i wanted monthly subs – i go play with that hacked infested junk they call WoW. However, i would be stupid to say that some part of that $60 is not supporting the dev’s. of course it is, hell theres even some profit in that $60 for anet – their not stupid they price it at $60 to factor everything in – thats how a business selling a product works, it needs profits from their business to survive otherwise bye bye Anet in 1 years time. But hold on, how many copies sold to date? how much $$$ is that? So go have a kitten else where if you think im not supporting Anet when by not putting in RL $$$.

However to get back on topic – i can recall that Anet did say they would “Step in” when they felt that Gold→Gem prices would become out of reach for most casual/normal player not putting in +6 hours a day to farm gold. hey what happened to all the bots! that gold been confiscated or what? or is that jacking up the price too?

Imagine being so excited to have just bought the game, you thought i’ll make my 5 characters and then start playing only to find out, crap i need to farm heaps of gold to get another character slot cos i want to play another profession – oh just delete one and replace it with a different profession. Hell no! i got OCD and cant do that, gotta play them all.

I have played well over 600+ hours and am still going strong with my 7 chars, however if Anet do not step in when it becomes too crazy, then it will be tough for those starting out which always needs to be factored in especially when your giving out free trials…… only problem is when they think its getting out of hand – longer they wait – the better it is, kinda double edge really..

This was bound to happen. I just bought what I wanted with cash (bank space and character slots) and never looked back. But the whole gems for gold exchange option makes me sick. It devalues time spent in an MMO when some rich snot can come along and buy something in an instant that you spent months grinding for.

Don’t care what others think, this is just my take on it. I loathe the whole thing and I have zero respect for people who use their wallets to shortcut in game mechanics.

Corvindi.5734:

This was bound to happen. I just bought what I wanted with cash (bank space and character slots) and never looked back. But the whole gems for gold exchange option makes me sick. It devalues time spent in an MMO when some rich snot can come along and buy something in an instant that you spent months grinding for.

Don’t care what others think, this is just my take on it. I loathe the whole thing and I have zero respect for people who use their wallets to shortcut in game mechanics.

100% agree with message (not so much with delivery).
i have spent 80 euro on the gemstore, and will continue to buy stuff off gemstore, like more char slots etc.
BUT as Corvindi said, the RL Cash>gems>gold conversion rate is far too high and devalues the in game achievements.
I would like to support arenanet the best i can, i believe the company deserves my time and money. But this conversion rate is far too high and has to be fixed.please.
thanks you

Draygo.9473:

People will always seek to get a good bang for their buck, and if gem prices remain low people turn to the ‘black market’ to buy gold. Gem prices need to continue to go up to a reasonable level where it would be sane to transfer $$ -> Gold.

As the price of gems increases people be seeing the gems->gold side of the market as viable, and might actually buy gems for gold instead of seeking 3rd party sellers.

I was with you up until these points which do not make sense. This is the proposition I was given over a month ago:

1 bank tab = 4.6g

And this is roughly what it looks like today:

1 bank tab = 12g.

The exchange rate has seen a 5-fold increase over the life of the game. What was once a favorable proposition turned fair, and since then we’ve seen it go to crazy. If I’m not buying gems directly from Anet, my choices are straightforward: earn it honestly in-game or pay a gold seller.

Yes they are account thieves. Yes they ruin the game. But as the cost to acquire gems using gold goes up, opportunity blossoms. That’s rising demand for gold and they are more than happy to help. By contrast, when the trade rate becomes more favorable, players see that Anet gives them a better deal. In sum, as the buying power of gold goes down, the more that’s needed, the better business gets for gold sellers.

Corvindi.5734:

some rich snot can come along and buy something in an instant that you spent months grinding for.

Does wealth make one snotty or is it an attitude that is independent of wealth?

On topic: What statistical advantage is said “rich snot” gaining instantly for cash that doesn’t already exist in a different, but much cheaper, skin? The answer would be, “None.”

Count Jackula.9028:

Corvindi.5734:

some rich snot can come along and buy something in an instant that you spent months grinding for.

Does wealth make one snotty or is it an attitude that is independent of wealth?

On topic: What statistical advantage is said “rich snot” gaining instantly for cash that doesn’t already exist in a different, but much cheaper, skin? The answer would be, “None.”

Actually I apologize, I was being a bit of a snot myself when I posted that. I don’t care if you work at McDonalds and you’re on food stamps, if you spend money on gems and exchange those gems for gold, I’m not going to like you and I’m going to categorize you as a rich snot.

The thing is, it encourages some really bad behavior from developers when players do this. Although it’s not entirely the fault of developers because players have been cheesing MMOs up by buying gold from farmers for what, a decade now?

In any case, I was snotty about my wording in part because in a game where people feel it’s perfectly okay to break out their wallets to exchange gems for gold and then buy whatever they want (exotic gear or mats for Ascended), players are getting upset that some of us make gold off the TP? Really? What a bunch of hypocrites!

Re: How much $ is a Gem Worth.

Actually, math easily provides an answer.

Arena Net believes that 80 gems (1200/$15) is worth 1 dollar.

Current Price of Gold to Gems for 80 is 1.6568g (1.65 USD). This means to the game, your Gold is worth less than 83 cents,

Furthermore, cashing 80 Gems to Gold is 1.197g (1.20USD), This means that your dollar is worth 20 cents more when buying gold from their shop.

At this exact time, if you were a gold seller and gaming the system, you would make 20 dollars off of ever 100 dollars of real money for offering gold, by legitimately going through the Gem Shop. Even more if you actually used a credit card and didn’t buy game cards. Continuing to game the system, will eventually increase these profit ratios.

My belief is that the Gem Exchange was not meant to be used in such a fashion, and that either ANet will decrease how many gems you get for your dollar, or the system will continue to degrade and only encourage gold sellers. From the Long View, this is bad for the game, and needs to be fixed.

OrianZeta.1537:

Draygo.9473:

People will always seek to get a good bang for their buck, and if gem prices remain low people turn to the ‘black market’ to buy gold. Gem prices need to continue to go up to a reasonable level where it would be sane to transfer $$ -> Gold.

As the price of gems increases people be seeing the gems->gold side of the market as viable, and might actually buy gems for gold instead of seeking 3rd party sellers.

I was with you up until these points which do not make sense. This is the proposition I was given over a month ago:

1 bank tab = 4.6g

And this is roughly what it looks like today:

1 bank tab = 12g.

The exchange rate has seen a 5-fold increase over the life of the game. What was once a favorable proposition turned fair, and since then we’ve seen it go to crazy. If I’m not buying gems directly from Anet, my choices are straightforward: earn it honestly in-game or pay a gold seller.

Yes they are account thieves. Yes they ruin the game. But as the cost to acquire gems using gold goes up, opportunity blossoms. That’s rising demand for gold and they are more than happy to help. By contrast, when the trade rate becomes more favorable, players see that Anet gives them a better deal. In sum, as the buying power of gold goes down, the more that’s needed, the better business gets for gold sellers.

You see but this is why the gem price is inflating. If people can and are buying gold from gold sellers to buy gems at a cheaper rate, that increases the demand on the gems spiking the price, until the price point is reasonable enough that people will stop using gold sellers all together.