Guild Wars 2

Where do the community stand? Since the beginning, many people I talk to had the view that market manipulation was unacceptable behavior to the Guild Wars 2 community, in the same league as abusing exploits to get rich.

But after we left the initial period after the public start, peoples stand against market manipulation seems to dwindle. The gold gained from it is getting shinier, and the more legit alternatives of playing the market is getting less and less profitable as more player is entering. The pie slices is getting smaller.

From Anet part, posts recently made here on the forum are all reiterating that this is a player determined market, and what happens happens. Any active stand against market manipulation seems to have been left after the early micro-managing with the forge during the initial months.

As a player, this moral dilemma is now really starting to be felt. Are one just being foolish in not doing market manipulations, leaving the gold to be gobbled up by those player with less scruples? Where do the community stand, and where do Anet stand?

It has nothing to do with morals nor with scruples. All players strive to maximize gold gains in the game. If you give your gold to other players, you’re the one to blame. If items are overpriced … don’t. buy. them. But the thing is …. you are not effected. Give me very clear examples where you, as a player, are negatively affected by “market manipulators”.

I counter your question. Is it morally acceptable to depend on arena.net to adjust prices because you’re not willing to pay the market price for them. Take initiative.

As a very real market manipulator, Microsoft was #1 for decades. Now it’s the third technology company and second browser. Government didn’t fix that … competitors did. If you’re unhappy with a monopoly … attack it, crush it. Create a competitive market. Battle them with their own arms, and make loads of gold in the process.

When we’re talking about breaking people’s hearts over some pixels, I don’t think there is a lot of moral imparitive at work. Certainly when real money and lives are involved no one has much drive to rein in the predator instinct.

The Trading Post is a mini-game. An exceptionally combative bit of PvP. While it does enable folks to profit off of the foolishness of others, its fully consentual PvP. People allow themselves to be stripped of their coin or goods because they are in too much of a hurry.

We have numerous short and useful guides floating around for getting into trading. I have to admit for a week or so I’ve been pondering writing a guide for Adventurers and Harvesters who make only infrequent use of the TP to understand how to better restrict the concentration of wealth and stop acting like day-laborers in the service of our Merchant Lords.

Nothing is wrong with market manipulation. It only works to a certain extent.

There will be a point where the buyer will not be willing to pay the price of the seller.

Market manipulation will only lead to finding equilibrium quicker.

The “Trading Post is PVP” is an argument used to justify market manipulation because it frankly has nothing to do with PVP. It’s supposed to be a tool to create abundance through the exchange of goods from players who don’t need them to the ones that do. You may as well say LFG is PVP and that while it enables some players to be kittens, it is fully consensual because players are in too much of a hurry to find friends who all want to play the same game multiple hours a day.

I’ve been playing for a month and while I’ve gotten a fair number of yellow drops, I don’t think any of them combine together as a reasonable set and I have still never received a single orange drop. If it wasn’t for the TP I would not have access to dungeons or fractals and would probably even be in a bit of a slog without a duo partner in Orr wearing blues and greens.

The problem with the market being inflated (whether by people dumping gems into gold and inflating the supply of currency or by manipulation) is not that someone won’t get their Legendaries in four months instead of six, it’s the rise of prices in ordinary items for casual and beginning players.

Ruruuiye.8912:

The “Trading Post is PVP” is an argument used to justify market manipulation because it frankly has nothing to do with PVP. It’s supposed to be a tool to create abundance through the exchange of goods from players who don’t need them to the ones that do. You may as well say LFG is PVP and that while it enables some players to be kittens, it is fully consensual because players are in too much of a hurry to find friends who all want to play the same game multiple hours a day.

I’ve been playing for a month and while I’ve gotten a fair number of yellow drops, I don’t think any of them combine together as a reasonable set and I have still never received a single orange drop. If it wasn’t for the TP I would not have access to dungeons or fractals and would probably even be in a bit of a slog without a duo partner in Orr wearing blues and greens.

The problem with the market being inflated (whether by people dumping gems into gold and inflating the supply of currency or by manipulation) is not that someone won’t get their Legendaries in four months instead of six, it’s the rise of prices in ordinary items for casual and beginning players.

Wrong. Like Nike said the TP is a Minigame like PvP. In the regards that it is a part of the game that you CAN participate in- you don’t have to.
Go and farm some karma and get the tempel exotics if you don’t like the prizes for exotics in the tp for example. Or run dungeons and aquire the exotics via tokens (No you don’t need exotics for dungeons you can even run them with rares, masterworks or blues).

The tp is the quick and lazy way and it comes with a prize.

In every MMO that has a market you will see people who enjoy PvP, PvE or economies. It is a basic part of the game, again, like Nike said. And like I said noone is forcing you to participate.

The prize of ordinary items is not rising due to market manipulation but due to the fact that the game is growing older and more and more money is flowing into the economy from sources like selling trash to vendors, event rewards etc etc.
Not every prize that increases is due to market manipulation. And if the prize stabilizes after a time, than the old prize was simply too low- if the people are not willing to pay the new prizes manipulation ends very quickly with a hefty loss for the wannabe manipulator

goldi.3129:

Ruruuiye.8912:

The “Trading Post is PVP” is an argument used to justify market manipulation because it frankly has nothing to do with PVP. It’s supposed to be a tool to create abundance through the exchange of goods from players who don’t need them to the ones that do. You may as well say LFG is PVP and that while it enables some players to be kittens, it is fully consensual because players are in too much of a hurry to find friends who all want to play the same game multiple hours a day.

I’ve been playing for a month and while I’ve gotten a fair number of yellow drops, I don’t think any of them combine together as a reasonable set and I have still never received a single orange drop. If it wasn’t for the TP I would not have access to dungeons or fractals and would probably even be in a bit of a slog without a duo partner in Orr wearing blues and greens.

The problem with the market being inflated (whether by people dumping gems into gold and inflating the supply of currency or by manipulation) is not that someone won’t get their Legendaries in four months instead of six, it’s the rise of prices in ordinary items for casual and beginning players.

Wrong. Like Nike said the TP is a Minigame like PvP. In the regards that it is a part of the game that you CAN participate in- you don’t have to.
Go and farm some karma and get the tempel exotics if you don’t like the prizes for exotics in the tp for example. Or run dungeons and aquire the exotics via tokens (No you don’t need exotics for dungeons you can even run them with rares, masterworks or blues).

The tp is the quick and lazy way and it comes with a prize.

In every MMO that has a market you will see people who enjoy PvP, PvE or economies. It is a basic part of the game, again, like Nike said. And like I said noone is forcing you to participate.

The prize of ordinary items is not rising due to market manipulation but due to the fact that the game is growing older and more and more money is flowing into the economy from sources like selling trash to vendors, event rewards etc etc.
Not every prize that increases is due to market manipulation. And if the prize stabilizes after a time, than the old prize was simply too low- if the people are not willing to pay the new prizes manipulation ends very quickly with a hefty loss for the wannabe manipulator

No, the TP is not and should not be a legitimate “minigame”. TP competition is an emergent factor from having an in-game economy. This is something that can be controlled and needs to be going forward to keep the game accessible to new or inexperienced players and ensure that progression in equipment is reasonable and in line with the needs of most players.

You can say all you want that you can run dungeons in blue gear but it’s an unrealistic expectation. Expert players will always be able to trivialize them but those who are less into it need every advantage they can get. Groups will kick players for not having full exotics. You cannot say that blues and greens are valid dungeon gear for most players. And yes, you can say learn2play all you like. You can even justify it by saying that it is generally the highly skilled, superheavy players that pay most of the money to keep the game running, but it’s a poor attitude for the game to take in the long run.

Yes, prices do inflate over time as more money enters the economy. The problem is when the rate of inflation is too high. That is not the same as market manipulation and is just as bad no matter which causes the other. Moreover, you’re forgetting that there is no cost to maintaining goods on the TP and no limit to the number of items that can be kept there. If at any time players are unwilling to pay high prices (whether or not these are caused by manipulation), it is the seller that benefits from waiting.

Sounds like people complaining about others playing the game harder than themselves.

And noone in this thread has attempted to define “manipulation”. Insider trading is manipulation, the libor scandal was manipulation because both examples are about trading a public commodity using PRIVATE knowledge or knowledge that is not evenly accessible. That is cheating.

But ppl buying up items and reselling them for higher prices? That’s called capitalism. They have no advantage that you don’t have or couldnt have with more time put into the game (unless they are buying gold but even then if you really wanted to you could do the same).

It takes resources to corner a market, and they have to BUY the goods in the first place. Sellers can join the tide of inflation and the market should balance. Also we are talking about infinite resources so the market value is really based on ppls unwillingness to farm the stuff themselves. Just because YOU don’t want to do it does not mean ANET should start nerfing the world. Entailment much?

And talking about moral imperatives in an MMO? Puuuuhhh-leeeeease. No its not immoral. Its annoying…but so is whining.

AND ALSO…@marnick…you’re wrong about microsoft and the market: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft

Morally acceptable? In a video game? So it has come full circle. Having lost all arguments of reason, they’re now turning to religion. Shame shall finish the job that entitlement could not! Demonize it all you want, but speculation isn’t going anywhere, and dedicated players will continue to play the market. For science.

Morals and ethics have nothing to do with religions.

And yes market manipulation is bad.

Ruruuiye.8912:

No, the TP is not and should not be a legitimate “minigame”. TP competition is an emergent factor from having an in-game economy. This is something that can be controlled and needs to be going forward to keep the game accessible to new or inexperienced players and ensure that progression in equipment is reasonable and in line with the needs of most players.

You can say all you want that you can run dungeons in blue gear but it’s an unrealistic expectation. Expert players will always be able to trivialize them but those who are less into it need every advantage they can get. Groups will kick players for not having full exotics. You cannot say that blues and greens are valid dungeon gear for most players. And yes, you can say learn2play all you like. You can even justify it by saying that it is generally the highly skilled, superheavy players that pay most of the money to keep the game running, but it’s a poor attitude for the game to take in the long run.

Yes, prices do inflate over time as more money enters the economy. The problem is when the rate of inflation is too high. That is not the same as market manipulation and is just as bad no matter which causes the other. Moreover, you’re forgetting that there is no cost to maintaining goods on the TP and no limit to the number of items that can be kept there. If at any time players are unwilling to pay high prices (whether or not these are caused by manipulation), it is the seller that benefits from waiting.

The problem with all of these arguments is that they are stated as an absolute when they are, in fact, nothing more than an opinion or a preference.

If you were to say “I do not like the way that the TP has become a minigame” or “in my opinion, the emergence of the TP as a minigame is something I am unhappy with” then you would have a point.

Instead, you are saying that this sort of activity is “illegitimate” when this is simply not the case – at all. It may be unpleasant, hostile, uncooperative, inconvenient, troublesome, enviable, or many other things, but to call it illegitimate is, in my opinion, an attack on other players who have done absolutely nothing wrong except to not live up to your personal code of behavior.

Nothing new or novel is happening with regard to the Trading Post. All of the things that people complain about have happened in other games (and to a greater degree) and it would be unreasonable to think that Anet did not conceive of this or build the system in such a way as to accommodate and facilitate the current meta.

So while I appreciate that the activities of other players may be frustrating you or disappointing you, these activities are well within the scope of the game and as such, I think the problem may be that you have expectations that are not well aligned with the current economic meta. We all do this to an extent, but trying to indict others for something that is perfectly legitimate – well, it can hurt peoples feelings.

This is a opinion thread about what people don’t want other people to do when they are playing the game. Unless it becomes a banable offense it really doesn’t matter who thinks its immoral, Hell i think its immoral for people to smoke around me but guess what? they still do.

Just for the sake of argument… what would you actually do to fight “market manipulation” (a generally vague term, to begin with), and what would you do to ensure that said “solutions” are beneficial? What’s the proper metric to say “Yes, this is now an optimal system”?

Dreamslayer.7659:

The problem with all of these arguments is that they are stated as an absolute when they are, in fact, nothing more than an opinion or a preference.

If you were to say “I do not like the way that the TP has become a minigame” or “in my opinion, the emergence of the TP as a minigame is something I am unhappy with” then you would have a point.

The topic of the post asks for an opinion and I have given my opinion. Your proposed corrections would be statements of fact.

Instead, you are saying that this sort of activity is “illegitimate” when this is simply not the case – at all. It may be unpleasant, hostile, uncooperative, inconvenient, troublesome, enviable, or many other things, but to call it illegitimate is, in my opinion, an attack on other players who have done absolutely nothing wrong except to not live up to your personal code of behavior.
…
We all do this to an extent, but trying to indict others for something that is perfectly legitimate – well, it can hurt peoples feelings.

If someone is being unpleasant, hostile, uncooperative, inconvenient, troublesome, enviable, or many other things they shall have to live with me possibly hurting their feelings.

Asthalon.6875:

Just for the sake of argument… what would you actually do to fight “market manipulation” (a generally vague term, to begin with), and what would you do to ensure that said “solutions” are beneficial? What’s the proper metric to say “Yes, this is now an optimal system”?

My proposal would be: “Be prepared, in the intermediate future, to lengthen or do away with the leash between Rare (yellow) equipment and ectoplasms.”

Ruruuiye.8912:

goldi.3129:

Ruruuiye.8912:

The “Trading Post is PVP” is an argument used to justify market manipulation because it frankly has nothing to do with PVP. It’s supposed to be a tool to create abundance through the exchange of goods from players who don’t need them to the ones that do. You may as well say LFG is PVP and that while it enables some players to be kittens, it is fully consensual because players are in too much of a hurry to find friends who all want to play the same game multiple hours a day.

I’ve been playing for a month and while I’ve gotten a fair number of yellow drops, I don’t think any of them combine together as a reasonable set and I have still never received a single orange drop. If it wasn’t for the TP I would not have access to dungeons or fractals and would probably even be in a bit of a slog without a duo partner in Orr wearing blues and greens.

The problem with the market being inflated (whether by people dumping gems into gold and inflating the supply of currency or by manipulation) is not that someone won’t get their Legendaries in four months instead of six, it’s the rise of prices in ordinary items for casual and beginning players.

Wrong. Like Nike said the TP is a Minigame like PvP. In the regards that it is a part of the game that you CAN participate in- you don’t have to.
Go and farm some karma and get the tempel exotics if you don’t like the prizes for exotics in the tp for example. Or run dungeons and aquire the exotics via tokens (No you don’t need exotics for dungeons you can even run them with rares, masterworks or blues).

The tp is the quick and lazy way and it comes with a prize.

In every MMO that has a market you will see people who enjoy PvP, PvE or economies. It is a basic part of the game, again, like Nike said. And like I said noone is forcing you to participate.

The prize of ordinary items is not rising due to market manipulation but due to the fact that the game is growing older and more and more money is flowing into the economy from sources like selling trash to vendors, event rewards etc etc.
Not every prize that increases is due to market manipulation. And if the prize stabilizes after a time, than the old prize was simply too low- if the people are not willing to pay the new prizes manipulation ends very quickly with a hefty loss for the wannabe manipulator

No, the TP is not and should not be a legitimate “minigame”. TP competition is an emergent factor from having an in-game economy. This is something that can be controlled and needs to be going forward to keep the game accessible to new or inexperienced players and ensure that progression in equipment is reasonable and in line with the needs of most players.

You can say all you want that you can run dungeons in blue gear but it’s an unrealistic expectation. Expert players will always be able to trivialize them but those who are less into it need every advantage they can get. Groups will kick players for not having full exotics. You cannot say that blues and greens are valid dungeon gear for most players. And yes, you can say learn2play all you like. You can even justify it by saying that it is generally the highly skilled, superheavy players that pay most of the money to keep the game running, but it’s a poor attitude for the game to take in the long run.

Yes, prices do inflate over time as more money enters the economy. The problem is when the rate of inflation is too high. That is not the same as market manipulation and is just as bad no matter which causes the other. Moreover, you’re forgetting that there is no cost to maintaining goods on the TP and no limit to the number of items that can be kept there. If at any time players are unwilling to pay high prices (whether or not these are caused by manipulation), it is the seller that benefits from waiting.

Like I said in every game where you have a central place for economic transactions (aka TP, AH, GTN or marketplace) there are ALWAYS people who enjoy applying the rules of the real world economy to the ingame economy.
If you can’t accept that than sorry, MMOs are not the place for you.

goldi.3129:

If you can’t accept that than sorry, MMOs are not the place for you.

It’s a good thing Anet does not have that ideology or they would not be able to maintain a healthy game. For us, it’s a question of when and whether action is needed based on the experience of the majority of players.

So how do you define market manipulation?

Is it unethical to flip items within an existing price range (i.e. buying at more than highest buyer and selling at less than lowest seller) to make a profit? The people I’m buying from receive more money and the people I’m selling to get cheaper goods.

How about speculating in a holiday item that I suspect will rise significantly in price after it is discontinued. Is it unethical to buy several thousand of this item and hoard them for sale at a later date?

The TP is made up of transactions between willing sellers and buyers, and while there may be some price manipulation going on in some markets, how much of it is unethical? If I place a low-ball sell listing hoping to get other sellers to “bandwagon” to my new lower price, I’m relying on “lazy” sellers who don’t research price information. While it could be argued that I’m acting unethically by taking advantage of them, I’m not exactly forcing them to sell at the price I’ve set.

There are some trading activities that are truly unethical, such as “pump and dump” schemes, but there a number of others where traders send signals via their TP transactions that they hope have an effect on the market’s movement (e.g. setting up buy walls) that aren’t obviously unethical except as far as these signals may mislead other market participants as to the true state of the market.

The only true way to get rid of market manipulation is to not have a market to begin with.

Make it to where you can only sell items to vendors and not offer any way to trade between players. The price is set by ArenaNet and can only change if they want it to.

This won’t work though. Do you know why? It won’t work because everyone will have the exact same access to everything that everyone else has. So…if you feel something is overpriced now, at least the players are setting the price and not ArenaNet. If ArenaNet was in complete control of all item pricing in the game, there would be a complete outrage. As it is now, items that people feel are valuable….are. They cost a LOT of money to get….as they should.

If you think the players aren’t setting the price, ask yourself a few questions. Do you buy things off of the Trading Post? Do you sell things on the Trading Post? Is the Trading Post the ONLY way to get the item you desire?

If you answered “yes” to the first question, then you are helping to set the price.
If you answered “yes” to the second question, then you are helping to set the price.
If you answered “no” to the first two questions, then you must be getting the items you want from somewhere else, so the answer to the third question is “yes”.

I’m actually getting kind of tired of the complaints about “market manipulation”. All it shows me is that it’s a part of the game that “you” don’t want to play. That’s fine, but don’t hate on the people that do. You have made your choice….others have made theirs. It sounds more and more like people aren’t complaining about the market….but that they aren’t willing to do the work to get an item, so they’re trying to tell other players how they should, or shouldn’t, play the same game they do.

This is called entitlement. Entitlement in MMO’s, and all games in general….even in life, is rampant. Be a part of the solution instead of being part of the problem.

Astraea.6075:

So how do you define market manipulation?

Is it unethical to flip items within an existing price range (i.e. buying at more than highest buyer and selling at less than lowest seller) to make a profit? The people I’m buying from receive more money and the people I’m selling to get cheaper goods.

How about speculating in a holiday item that I suspect will rise significantly in price after it is discontinued. Is it unethical to buy several thousand of this item and hoard them for sale at a later date?

The TP is made up of transactions between willing sellers and buyers, and while there may be some price manipulation going on in some markets, how much of it is unethical? If I place a low-ball sell listing hoping to get other sellers to “bandwagon” to my new lower price, I’m relying on “lazy” sellers who don’t research price information. While it could be argued that I’m acting unethically by taking advantage of them, I’m not exactly forcing them to sell at the price I’ve set.

There are some trading activities that are truly unethical, such as “pump and dump” schemes, but there a number of others where traders send signals via their TP transactions that they hope have an effect on the market’s movement (e.g. setting up buy walls) that aren’t obviously unethical except as far as these signals may mislead other market participants as to the true state of the market.

I think equalizing prices over time (ie the first two ) are fine. I think lowballing, buywalling and other tactics based on misleading people are definitely questionable. To be fair, I think a simple solution is to have buy/sell entries all be easily and conveniently visible whether you are buying or selling.

Ruruuiye.8912:

goldi.3129:

If you can’t accept that than sorry, MMOs are not the place for you.

It’s a good thing Anet does not have that ideology or they would not be able to maintain a healthy game. For us, it’s a question of when and whether action is needed based on the experience of the majority of players.

If ANet wouldn’t follow that route they wouldn’t have introduced a TP- espescially a globally linked one. Every item would be available for a fixed price from an NPC.

And the majority of the players is not on the forums and don’t think every item they can’t afford is being manipulated either. You stated your opinion- nohing more. I stated how the economy works in every single big MMO on the market.

Supply and demand as well as prizing in the “interplayertrades” are completely done by the players.

edit Charismatic Ham did a post in the direction I was going- and put far more effort into it while I was writing mine

You’re wandering a little bit from your own declarations here, so I’m not entirely sure where your motivation lies:

Ruruuiye.8912:

The problem with the market being inflated (whether by people dumping gems into gold and inflating the supply of currency or by manipulation) is not that someone won’t get their Legendaries in four months instead of six, it’s the rise of prices in ordinary items for casual and beginning players.

Ruruuiye.8912

My proposal would be: “Be prepared, in the intermediate future, to lengthen or do away with the leash between Rare (yellow) equipment and ectoplasms.”

There’s two problems with your points here… the first is that Rare items are intended to be, by definition, Rare. The degree to which that is the case is somewhat modified by the sheer quantity of players rolling the loot table at any given time (and then selling them), but on an individual drop basis, they are rare. Consequently, that moves them out of the “Ordinary items for casual & beginning players” category.

Furthermore, as an example, after getting 1 toon to 80, that’s the only one I have Rares on; I’m levelling up my other 4 toons together in chunks of 5 levels. I haven’t seen a Rare drop yet on any of them, but that’s ok, because (in PvE anyway) I’m more than capable enough in the greens I craft from all my drops. So again, Rares aren’t ordinary for beginners.

The second problem is that your solution to what seemed like a complaint of broad reference to the entire market really only addresses one specific item – ectos. New players aren’t looking for ectos. If somebody’s first exposure to the TP is trying to find ectos, they weren’t paying attention, and deserve whatever overpayment they make. Really, it just sounds like you want cheaper ectos, not like you’re offering a solution to “Market Manipulation”.

Astraea: thanks for a good post. This was what I was after, ie, what actions the community accept and what it doesn’t. To expand, Market manipulation for me is intentional actions to change a items prize semi-permanent by methods of deception. Pum and dump method being the popular method used currently.

Flipping an item is not that. Market speculation is also not that. Compared to real world market, the paraells are very clear, but there we have real life laws to define was is ethical and here we only have the community and Anet. Anet is quiet, so that leaves the community.

In GW1, scamming was shunned while “buying low and selling high within -reason-” was acceptable. What would be defined as scamming depended, but buying something for 1/100 of the price, or selling something 100x was considered by most as crossing a line. Where exact the line was drawn depended on the guild, alliance. They point is, actually the very big big point is: There existed a line and after it was crossed, guild kicked members, Guild memberships was refused, people was effectivly “shunned” for bad behavior. The question is, do any such line exist for GW2?

I think it’s far too common for people here to blame market manipulators every time price on something is high.

Like when ectos went up. Bots are banned, new recipes added that wanted ectos (ascended backpieces), and people blame market manipulators for the price increase heh.

T6 mat price goes up, t5 mat price follows suit due to it becoming desirable to do the t5 to t6 promotion before the price on t5 mats reaches a certain point. No, “market manipulation”

I’ve been tracking the cost of howl a bit.. today it rose.. from 30/40 gold to 200. right, of course it did, they improved the animation after all, someone just thought the item will be more sought after and bought it up?

interestingly, the person buying all the howls seems to have known in advance what was to come, as they disappeared from the tp before the patch hit.

I get it, ANet personell have friends, they can’t always keep their mouths shut and others will (ab)use these slivers of information to gain something, usually money.

is this manipulative enough? no, I’m sure some people will claim good instincts or whatever, nothing fishy here, the easter bunny would’ve told you if that were the case…

personally, I can live without a legendary. I just really dislike the incredible inside-trading going on in this game. in the real world, there are limiting factors around, it’s not all just driven by the ‘players’. the lack of such factors is why it doesn’t work well in gw2 and never will. the main problem is the supply of course. in the real world, if something gets too expensive, a competitor comes in an offers it for less. items which players can farm/create whatever do tend to find a more or less reasonable price (except ectos and anything related), but everything that’s a random drop is incredibly bad design, if you combine it with a free market (like runes.. each one several gold.. they should’ve be craftable from the start! those are absolute basic materials everyone needs at lvl 80)

it also not only affects players going for legendaries (that’s actually the least part, compared to the price of other stuff) I don’t even see crafting/buying exotic armor as an option anymore for my alts.. they’ll just get AC stuff, I don’t really mind playing condidamage ;-) as I said, runes are a big problem, I can’t get the ones I want because of the price. basic equipment (stats, not looks) should NEVER be that expensive in a Guild Wars game.

as long as arenanet allows players to buy cheap and resell at a much higher price without any repercussions, most players will suffer from it by having to overpay. ANet wanted to create a free market and they did it. yay anarchy. a few percent of players dictate the cost of everything on the TP.
personally, I’d really prefer a non-free market where casual players don’t get griefed and those few people actually making tons of money would have to play the game instead of manipulating the market (be it with inside knowledge or without, affecting the price of items by buying up supply is still manipulation).
what good does the free market do me as a ‘normal’ player (by which I mean: I just play the game, I don’t min/max everything or farm or grind, I actually just simply play the game)? everything I can create is worthless, nearly everything I gather is worthless (yeah, mithril is still quite good), chest drops? worthless.. I can’t imagine any circumstance, where the free market is to my advantage. maybe for selling rares. but I do need ectos for ascended/infused stuff.. so no selling either.

A large part of the fun in playing a game that tries to create a real market. Is in fact playing that part of the game…. go figure. If Anet didn’t want people to treat the game like a real wold market… they wouldn’t have set it up to be played like one… and they wouldn’t have hired economists to help them set it up. The market manipulation your talking about happens in any economy… in this case we are dealing make belief items, if I want to role play the viking version of Gordon Gekko. Not understanding how that is somehow immoral… its an odd word to choose, when talking about a video game, that allows my Gordon Gekko character to run things through with a sword when I get bored of trading make belief toys.

Husanak.3769:

A large part of the fun in playing a game that tries to create a real market. Is in fact playing that part of the game…. go figure. If Anet didn’t want people to treat the game like a real wold market… they wouldn’t have set it up to be played like one… and they wouldn’t have hired economists to help them set it up. The market manipulation your talking about happens in any economy… in this case we are dealing make belief items, if I want to role play the viking version of Gordon Gekko. Not understanding how that is somehow immoral… its an odd word to choose, when talking about a video game, that allows my Gordon Gekko character to run things through with a sword when I get bored of trading make belief toys.

I agree with most of what you said. it is part of the game and ANet wanted to make it so. that’s the problem… they wanted a free market, when it was always foreseeable, that a free market would lead to people playing the market and by extension griefing other players.. I see no reason any normal player would want a free market, as it will definately hurt him/her sooner or later. the few people who actually profit from the free market, have fun of course. ANets mentality so far was to give everyone something to have fun with in the game (pve, pvp, wvw, jumping puzzles, real puzzles, crafting etc), so far there are only two examples I found where they failed insofar as they promoted griefing: placing the best (designed) jumping puzzles into wvw for griefers to have fun in and the trading post.

morality is something that’s different for everyone. personally, I consider it highly immoral to cheat (not in the sense of gaming, but the trading one) other people out of their money (which in real and game example are a currency for time) by manipulating prices. since your morals might differ from mine, it’s not the best way to make an argument. what can’t be argued about though, is the fact those traders do manipulate prices on a large scale by using their gigantic supply of money to effect change. this does negatively affect all players (even casuals, once they reach 80), to different degrees.