Guild Wars 2

Every now and then, I find myself looking at my notes from my Marketing Behavior class. The fun part of this is speculating what happens to consumer demand, when a purposely limited item has its supply increased dramatically. Does demand go up? Does demand fade? These questions led me to want to pick the brains of the BLTP forum experts and John of what they think will happen to the Precursor market when Precursor Crafting comes out?

Right now, even though details of the crafting methods are being kept secret, we’ve gotten a mild taste of what the scavenger hunt for crafting materials will look like. The Mawdrey backpiece had players exploring vast areas that many have never gone before. Mini dungeons, Jumping Puzzles, far corners of maps. Dare I speculate that players will need to do SPvP and/or WvW as part of their Precursor crafting quest.

My Speculations

The way I see it, Precursor Crafting will not be easy. The journey for mats will be long and hard, but that won’t stop players from now farming these items to sell on the TP. Since Anet is now introducing a brand new faucet for Precursors, the market will react accordingly. I’m speculating that high end Precursor prices will drop, but low end Precursors prices will rise.

Why? Here’s my justification. Everyone and their grandmothers know that players will try to craft the most valuable Precursors to sell on the market. That’s a pretty common sense assumption. If you’re gonna go on a long quest, it better be worth it. With the infusion of supply on the top 3 or 4 Precursors (in terms of value), competition will be fierce to get theirs sold on the TP. With the listing fees being so high at that point, it’s a huge gamble to hope enough demand keeps prices high and steady.

But why would low end Precursors rise? Same reason as above. Players will be so focused on crafting the top 3 or 4 Precursors (in terms of value), that no one will be willing to invest all that time and energy for something worth 90 Gold. So with that in mind, players will start buying up the TP supply of cheaper Precursors, which will naturally lead to increased prices. Technically, Precursors like Venom and Rage will be more rare than Zap or Dusk. Subconsciously, players will sense the artificial increase in rarity, and be compelled to grab them while they’re cheap, which leads to a self fulfilling prophecy of increased prices.

I feel that low end Precursors will rise by 25%, and high end will fall by the same percentage. In addition to this, I also speculate that only the high end Precursors’ price drop will be temporary, as players who thought they could never get a Zap or Dusk will now be joining the market, and competing to purchase the new supply. As the cheaper high end Precursors are gobbled up, prices will then begin to rise again.

Player crafted precursors will almost certainly be account bound so I don’t think any of your top arguments apply.

Additionally the low end precursors have been 1000g cheaper than the high end ones for over a year now. I fail to see why this would suddenly make people want to craft the low end ones. They aren’t crafted because they are either crappy weapons that no profession use (underwater weapons) or they are stupidly ugly and no one wants them.

I do think the high end precursors will fall, but I think it will be the middle tier ones that rise in price, with little effect on the low end ons.

the low end ones are generally not created by intent. I dont know if a precursor quest would increase demand much. The fact is right now, popular precursors are purposefully created, (have a higher supply) and their value remains high.

Essentially i would guess cheap precursors will remain cheap as long as they offer the same appearances/functionality that they currently do.
High end may drop a bit, because people scrimping and saving may take a different route.

to be honest though precursor crafting may just be a legend, its been 8 months since the due date. Is it really in the works still? who can say

my speculation is:
Arenanet will bring with Precursor Crafting a complete New Set Legendarys (Tier 2) and stop dropping precursor for Tier 1

so there would be no problem with old precursors and his market (arenanet guyz always said they dont wanna mess with this marked) and i t would be a frech and clean new start^^

phys.7689:

the low end ones are generally not created by intent. I dont know if a precursor quest would increase demand much. The fact is right now, popular precursors are purposefully created, (have a higher supply) and their value remains high.

Essentially i would guess cheap precursors will remain cheap as long as they offer the same appearances/functionality that they currently do.
High end may drop a bit, because people scrimping and saving may take a different route.

to be honest though precursor crafting may just be a legend, its been 8 months since the due date. Is it really in the works still? who can say

That due date was altered in a forum post in around november from what I vaguely recall basically pointed out that the idea they were working on wouldn’t fit with where they saw the game going so it was scrapped and they were starting over from scratch. We’re up to the fourth (?) incarnation of the precursor scavenger hunt/crafting and allegedly none of them have been feasible..with a lack of evidence I’m kind of with you on it being a legend and not something we’ll see soon if ever.

I don’t see prices changing much, if it’s a giant check list of do this/collect that you’ll see an intial rush and various price spikes (like with mawdrey at the moment) and things will settle a bit as supply stabilizes but most people will just craft for themselves and be over doing it again to sell.

How prices move would depend enormously on how the real costs of a precursor have changed. If they introduce precursor crafting with anything near the current resource costs, prices skyrocket.

Lower resource costs? Maybe they drop as the prices on those resources surge. Probably good for everyone. Alternative resources? Those prices surge, mithril and elder wood prices crater.

I think you’re right that in general, the forces that would drive down the price on the most in-demand precursors would also drive up the price on the low demand precursors.

But this is so sensitive to exactly what the material requirements would be that it’s impossible to say how the market would react.

Uh oh. I feel like people are gonna start buying them up now just because you said this. Even though it all makes sense, everyone who might have 100g is going to do that just because you speculated it might happen.

Barring a rework of weapon skills, condition vs. power and/or something to make underwater combat super interesting, there is no reason for the low end ones to rise. Most of the lower end ones are underwater (used infrequently) or are on weapons that are sub-optimal for classes that can use them (e.g. Torch).

I think there is also a something like a “white elephant” effect with the high price of might and magic gifts now and this acts to suppress demand for these inferior weapons. In order to unlock the full functionality of a cheap precursor and make the leg you still need to spend over 1k gold. Yes, it is cheaper than expensive pre plus gifts, but it is still a huge pile of coin.

This is going to largely depend on how precursor crafting would be released (and let’s ignore precursor scavenger hunt)

The demand curve would certainly shift but will the supply curve? It’s a coin toss.

If I were JS and I would try to lessen the shock on the precursor market, here are a few steps I would take:

-Tie precursor crafting into timegates (i.e. Lump of Mithrillium) or a new timegated item to circumvent those who are stocking up on Lumps (like me!)
-Tie precursor crafting with materials that currently maintain a high sustained price so that the precursor will end up costing as much as one bought on the TP. i.e.Lodestones, T6 mats, globs
-Tie precursor crafting with valuable account bound items, such as Essence of Luck (exotic), laurels

Other steps I could take:
-As mentioned by someone else above, release precursor crafting along with the new legendaries and keep precursor crafting available for the new ones. Old legendaries became legacy items and they will still operate under the old system.

I’m unsure if precursor crafting will come next month (the blogposts do not hint at it) but I’m afraid that Anet could very well split the acquisition methods of legacy legendaries and new ones. For the past 4-6 months I’ve been hoarding over 4000g worth of inscriptions hoping to take advantage of the new precursors when they come out (buy orders would have been ridiculously high on the first day) but it seems unlikely they will use the forge. I ended up forging them all end got 2 Dusks & 2 Dawns. Currently brainstorming what items are current safe bets and I’ll dump all that gold on them.

New tidbits on precursor crafting:
http://www.guildmag.com/guild-wars-2-interview-part-1-general-game-living-world/

Devon Carver: So, we don’t really have anything to announce at this time, it is absolutely something that we’re, you know, fully aware of, and it is part of a system that we want to be making improvements upon so it’s something we’ve been putting a lot of thought into and then kind of been trying to figure out what the best solution to that problem is. But we don’t have anything that we can say right now about changes to the precursor system or the legendary system at all, but, like I said, it’s definitely something that is on our radar, it’s something we hope to be making improvements to and to have more to talk about sometime soon.

1, We need to stress the fact that we do not have any information about Precursor crafting. This is all speculation and no one should make buying and/or selling decisions based on speculation. Unless speculating makes your inner kitten purr.

2, Speculation Ahoy!
I agree that the most demanded precursors would drop in price but I do not think the least demanded precursors would rise very much. I think the velocity difference would be comparable to the current velocity difference. (Value change of top demanded move faster than least demanded). I would be more concerned about the overall effect on the economy caused by the capital landscape relaxing. If more players can craft Precursors more players will be shopping for Legendary secondary materials. I would predict very active speculation on those materials and that speculation would occur before the market recorded the drop in demand for those materials in the MF discovery of Precursors.

3, Markets adjust because that’s what markets do.

4, Could anyone offer their opinion on how new Precursor crafting/discovery would effect Arenanet et al’s bottom line? Would a new discovery method increase or decrease RMT?

Vol.7601:

New tidbits on precursor crafting:
http://www.guildmag.com/guild-wars-2-interview-part-1-general-game-living-world/

Devon Carver: So, we don’t really have anything to announce at this time, it is absolutely something that we’re, you know, fully aware of, and it is part of a system that we want to be making improvements upon so it’s something we’ve been putting a lot of thought into and then kind of been trying to figure out what the best solution to that problem is. But we don’t have anything that we can say right now about changes to the precursor system or the legendary system at all, but, like I said, it’s definitely something that is on our radar, it’s something we hope to be making improvements to and to have more to talk about sometime soon.

yeah as i said, the reality is, precursor crafting may as well be a legend, they havent even figured out how its going to work as of that date.

So essentially, forget about it, its a possibility, not a reality. Precursor price spike inc!

I sure hope so, several people undercut my Dusk & Dawn by 100g

Smooth Penguin.5294:

when a purposely limited item has its supply increased dramatically. Does demand go up? Does demand fade?

No to both regarding precursors themselves. Now, I cant remember if anet said it specifically, or another player, or it’s just a logical assumption I reached myself (and it’s possible it was all 3), but if anet introduces a new method of obtaining precursors at a much higher rate than the current MF/drop rates, it’s not going to be existing precursors that will be available with this method. Such a thing, even if they’re account bound, would be one of the unwanted economy shocks JS was talking about.

On the other hand, there are immense benefits to creating new precursors and legendaries. For one, I’d like a legendary staff for my gaurdian, but, and this is important, Bifrost looks worse than a Sarah Jessica Parker nude*. The legendary scepter is even worse than Bifrost. New precursors and legendaries mean more options for looks as well.

*if you dont get the reference, watch Family Guy.

Romek.4201:

my speculation is:
Arenanet will bring with Precursor Crafting a complete New Set Legendarys (Tier 2)

I agree this is the most likely method of introducing this (FULLY Account bound).

…… and stop dropping precursor for Tier 1

I doubt this….what would be the reason to remove this existing source? If the new items were FULLY account bound, then they would not effect the previous Precursor market.

HOWEVER, the material markets (T5, T6, RARE items, etc.) used to make Legendaries would be GREATLY effected by this introduction…..prices would likely spike and then eventually settle to a new (higher) equilibrium price. Make no mistake that every player would be effected in some way.

Vol.7601:

New tidbits on precursor crafting:
http://www.guildmag.com/guild-wars-2-interview-part-1-general-game-living-world/

Devon Carver: So, we don’t really have anything to announce at this time, it is absolutely something that we’re, you know, fully aware of, and it is part of a system that we want to be making improvements upon so it’s something we’ve been putting a lot of thought into and then kind of been trying to figure out what the best solution to that problem is. But we don’t have anything that we can say right now about changes to the precursor system or the legendary system at all, but, like I said, it’s definitely something that is on our radar, it’s something we hope to be making improvements to and to have more to talk about sometime soon.

So basically…

LOL you stupid players will believe anything, we will string you along for 10 more years before you finally catch on that we aren’t actually doing anything about it.