Guild Wars 2

I think its an indication of bad math – since the split is supposed to be fixed at 15%.

My sense is the amount of gold you get for gems slowly goes up because ANet has to entice people to give them cash for the gems. If the rate isn’t appealing enough people just wait until they feel it is. When someone does buy, the rate goes down a bit – they don’t want to over shoot the mark, they want it to hang in that region and see if anyone else bites. Meanwhile people are aways spending the monopoly money from inside the game on gems to get bank slots and bag slots and backpacks made from real Quaggan skin, and that pushes the coin-per gems up each time a buy occurs with in game currency.

Death Reincarnated.3570:

The inflation on gold/gem is getting worse. The prices are constantly going up and the ratio between gold-to-gem and gem-to-gold is slowly moving appart.

Also I have, on several occasions, observed that mystical plot based on ‘y=mx+c’. If this is not an indication of market manipulation then please correct me if I’m wrong.

You’re wrong on two issues.

1) Inflation happens over time. The dollar in 1970 is not the same as a dollar in 1975, 1980, 1985, etc. It’s not getting worse, it’s just running it’s normal course.

2) There is no market manipulation.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Death Reincarnated.3570:

The inflation on gold/gem is getting worse. The prices are constantly going up and the ratio between gold-to-gem and gem-to-gold is slowly moving appart.

Also I have, on several occasions, observed that mystical plot based on ‘y=mx+c’. If this is not an indication of market manipulation then please correct me if I’m wrong.

You’re wrong on two issues.

1) Inflation happens over time. The dollar in 1970 is not the same as a dollar in 1975, 1980, 1985, etc. It’s not getting worse, it’s just running it’s normal course.

2) There is no market manipulation.

0_o ???

1) Have you ever wondered what is causing the dollar value to change? One or several aspects of the economy get manipulated by individuals/groups and eventually, over time, the economy has to ‘adjust’, or as you said “…it’s just running it’s normal course.”.

2) Refer to 1)

Also, I’m still waiting on an awser to this – “On several occasions I have observed the mystical plot based on ‘y=mx+c’. If this is not an indication of market manipulation then please correct me if I’m wrong”

So please, anyone, prove me wrong this is not part of market manipulation.

Death Reincarnated.3570:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Death Reincarnated.3570:

The inflation on gold/gem is getting worse. The prices are constantly going up and the ratio between gold-to-gem and gem-to-gold is slowly moving appart.

Also I have, on several occasions, observed that mystical plot based on ‘y=mx+c’. If this is not an indication of market manipulation then please correct me if I’m wrong.

You’re wrong on two issues.

1) Inflation happens over time. The dollar in 1970 is not the same as a dollar in 1975, 1980, 1985, etc. It’s not getting worse, it’s just running it’s normal course.

2) There is no market manipulation.

0_o ???

1) Have you ever wondered what is causing the dollar value to change? One or several aspects of the economy get manipulated by individuals/groups and eventually, over time, the economy has to ‘adjust’, or as you said “…it’s just running it’s normal course.”.

2) Refer to 1)

Also, I’m still waiting on an awser to this – “On several occasions I have observed the mystical plot based on ‘y=mx+c’. If this is not an indication of market manipulation then please correct me if I’m wrong”

So please, anyone, prove me wrong this is not part of market manipulation.

So… you’re saying inflation in the real world is cause by a person or a group of people manipulating the market? Must be them Illuminati eh?

So, two more factors to consider in long-term MMO economics (not to be confused with our young game, which is still growing in population).

The two biggest money sinks: Expansions and Retirement.

Expansions in MMO’s are notorious for changing the thought on money. Every time 10 levels are added, money is earned at an exponentially faster rate for players, making the gold pile that took 100 hours now only take 10 hours to gain. This DOES raise prices, but also greatly raises availability. Anyone can become level 80 rich now that level 90 drop rates occur. This changes the rules for everyone, and someone may have a starting advantage, but it’s not as heavy as it was 1 expansion ago. I personally believe that EverQuest’s economic downfall after Kunark was due to the god-tier items that wouldn’t be replaced in the expansion (no level requirements) mixed with the lack of “soulbind”. Once the rich became powerful, they would always be the rich and powerful.

But, the greatest reduction to inflation in MMO’s are players who quit. Those who get bored and stop playing (let’s call them dead) and never give away their cash (their inheritance). Although Anet (Let’s call them the government) never collects this unclaimed cash, it does not circulate into the economy, letting the available money dwindle. If you want to see a strong example of this, look at the web based game Kingdom of Loathing. Billion’s of it’s currency came into the game due to an exploit, but as players got bored and moved on, that currency was effectively lost. To this day, there are likely accounts that have enough of this illicit currency to RUIN the economy, but they haven’t really touched it.

Like any MMO, it’s about time. Time will settle our economy and markets and one day (sadly) enough players will quit that the currency will stabilize or even deflate.

Death Reincarnated.3570:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Death Reincarnated.3570:

The inflation on gold/gem is getting worse. The prices are constantly going up and the ratio between gold-to-gem and gem-to-gold is slowly moving appart.

Also I have, on several occasions, observed that mystical plot based on ‘y=mx+c’. If this is not an indication of market manipulation then please correct me if I’m wrong.

You’re wrong on two issues.

1) Inflation happens over time. The dollar in 1970 is not the same as a dollar in 1975, 1980, 1985, etc. It’s not getting worse, it’s just running it’s normal course.

2) There is no market manipulation.

0_o ???

1) Have you ever wondered what is causing the dollar value to change? One or several aspects of the economy get manipulated by individuals/groups and eventually, over time, the economy has to ‘adjust’, or as you said “…it’s just running it’s normal course.”.

2) Refer to 1)

Also, I’m still waiting on an awser to this – “On several occasions I have observed the mystical plot based on ‘y=mx+c’. If this is not an indication of market manipulation then please correct me if I’m wrong”

So please, anyone, prove me wrong this is not part of market manipulation.

and this is why it is pointless to try and argue with these people.

On several occasions I have observed the mystical plot based on ‘y=mx+c’. If this is not an indication of market manipulation then please correct me if I’m wrong

That’s. . .that’s just the standard formula for a line. . .

What in the world are you talking about?

Inflation tends to effect much more than just the price of goods, though. It usually is coupled with increased wages to compensate for cost-of-living.

Thing is, the game doesn’t really pay you more for playing it now than it did months ago. You still get the same amount of silver for finishing a dungeon or event. Sure, the prices of some goods are going up, but those are almost entirely t6 mats (such as Lodestones), which are not readily available for just playing the game. You have to farm them with copious amount of Magic Find gear.

Whether or not inflation is happening in GW2 is immaterial: at the end of the day, premium items are becoming harder and harder and harder to afford to your average player. When the price doubled from 200g to 400g, I shrugged it off and figured I’d get there eventually. But when the price doubles again to 800g, how on earth is your casual player supposed to keep up with that rate of cost increase?

Iures.2894:

On several occasions I have observed the mystical plot based on ‘y=mx+c’. If this is not an indication of market manipulation then please correct me if I’m wrong

That’s. . .that’s just the standard formula for a line. . .

What in the world are you talking about?

Go to the gem/gold exchange rate on the TP. This is where i’ve seen this in several situations, and this is abnormal.

Vecuu.2018:

Inflation tends to effect much more than just the price of goods, though. It usually is coupled with increased wages to compensate for cost-of-living.

Thing is, the game doesn’t really pay you more for playing it now than it did months ago. You still get the same amount of silver for finishing a dungeon or event. Sure, the prices of some goods are going up, but those are almost entirely t6 mats (such as Lodestones), which are not readily available for just playing the game. You have to farm them with copious amount of Magic Find gear.

I found this very interesting when I analogised it with the real world example of rising cost of living compared with widespread wage stagnation. What this meant for the economy, I don’t know, since there is no cost of living in GW2. There are no basics.

Vecuu.2018:

Whether or not inflation is happening in GW2 is immaterial: at the end of the day, premium items are becoming harder and harder and harder to afford to your average player. When the price doubled from 200g to 400g, I shrugged it off and figured I’d get there eventually. But when the price doubles again to 800g, how on earth is your casual player supposed to keep up with that rate of cost increase?

They are some of the most rare items in the game. Thus, they are hardly targeted at “your casual player”. Who cares if Joe Schmoe can’t afford them? It is, in fact, a GOOD thing for Arenanet to make them impossible to attain for 99% of players. They are a carrot on a stick. Keep grinding those mats, suckers.

Svarty.8019:

Vecuu.2018:

Inflation tends to effect much more than just the price of goods, though. It usually is coupled with increased wages to compensate for cost-of-living.

Thing is, the game doesn’t really pay you more for playing it now than it did months ago. You still get the same amount of silver for finishing a dungeon or event. Sure, the prices of some goods are going up, but those are almost entirely t6 mats (such as Lodestones), which are not readily available for just playing the game. You have to farm them with copious amount of Magic Find gear.

I found this very interesting when I analogised it with the real world example of rising cost of living compared with widespread wage stagnation. What this meant for the economy, I don’t know, since there is no cost of living in GW2. There are no basics.

More or less like this. In Belgium, wages are tied to the index, which means for the average person, inflation has no tangible effect. In Germany this leads to strikes every few years to demand a 10% wage correction (which is not an increase in wage!). Some employers do both, giving a wage correction with a personal extra % based on achievements. But these are mostly exceptions to the rule where inflation is mostly coupled to income.

Vecuu.2018:

Vecuu.2018:

Whether or not inflation is happening in GW2 is immaterial: at the end of the day, premium items are becoming harder and harder and harder to afford to your average player. When the price doubled from 200g to 400g, I shrugged it off and figured I’d get there eventually. But when the price doubles again to 800g, how on earth is your casual player supposed to keep up with that rate of cost increase?

They are some of the most rare items in the game. Thus, they are hardly targeted at “your casual player”. Who cares if Joe Schmoe can’t afford them? It is, in fact, a GOOD thing for Arenanet to make them impossible to attain for 99% of players. They are a carrot on a stick. Keep grinding those mats, suckers.

Why can’t you state that in a non-insulting way? Sure they’re carrots on sticks, but not impossible. It takes a year … sure. But I’m neither Joe Schmoe nor a sucker. I’m actually the person paying taxes for your RL welfare.

Svarty.8019:

Vecuu.2018:

Inflation tends to effect much more than just the price of goods, though. It usually is coupled with increased wages to compensate for cost-of-living.

Thing is, the game doesn’t really pay you more for playing it now than it did months ago. You still get the same amount of silver for finishing a dungeon or event. Sure, the prices of some goods are going up, but those are almost entirely t6 mats (such as Lodestones), which are not readily available for just playing the game. You have to farm them with copious amount of Magic Find gear.

I found this very interesting when I analogised it with the real world example of rising cost of living compared with widespread wage stagnation. What this meant for the economy, I don’t know, since there is no cost of living in GW2. There are no basics.

More or less like this. In Belgium, wages are tied to the index, which means for the average person, inflation has no tangible effect. In Germany this leads to strikes every few years to demand a 10% wage correction (which is not an increase in wage!). Some employers do both, giving a wage correction with a personal extra % based on achievements. But these are mostly exceptions to the rule where inflation is mostly coupled to income.

Vecuu.2018:

Vecuu.2018:

Whether or not inflation is happening in GW2 is immaterial: at the end of the day, premium items are becoming harder and harder and harder to afford to your average player. When the price doubled from 200g to 400g, I shrugged it off and figured I’d get there eventually. But when the price doubles again to 800g, how on earth is your casual player supposed to keep up with that rate of cost increase?

They are some of the most rare items in the game. Thus, they are hardly targeted at “your casual player”. Who cares if Joe Schmoe can’t afford them? It is, in fact, a GOOD thing for Arenanet to make them impossible to attain for 99% of players. They are a carrot on a stick. Keep grinding those mats, suckers.

Why can’t you state that in a non-insulting way? Sure they’re carrots on sticks, but not impossible. It takes a year … sure. But I’m neither Joe Schmoe nor a sucker. I’m actually the person paying taxes for your RL welfare. I would imagine a base level of respect would be appropriate.

Go to the gem/gold exchange rate on the TP. This is where i’ve seen this in several situations, and this is abnormal.

You’re still going to have to do a better job explaining yourself, preferably using real-number examples and logic; because I fail to see how being able to plot things to a line is bad or “abnormal.”

Not seeing an edit button, sorry for double-post.

So, just went to the exchange section on the TP. Worked out the formula for gold to gem conversion to

GemsOut=.00512*CoinsIn+0

What does that mean? It means that 1 gold gets you 51.2 gems. . .and that’s it. Nothing remotely abnormal about that.

@ Iures.2894 & Iures.2894

The abnormality is actually observing the staight line graph. The economy is a quasi-chaotic system and one can plot a trendline to predict economical outcomes in the (near) future, however at no point should a simple trend like this line be observed from the data output, especially over such lenght of time. Furthermore, the market is never steady because variables fluctuate constantly.

Also, the gem/gold exchange ratio is exactly the same as converting real currency. The ratio increases as a country (which you are converting to their currency) becomes wealthier and thus inflate the price of living – and vice-versa.

Another thing. Many of the items bought with gems have static values, yet due to the exchange rate going up it becomes more difficult to acquire those general items. Many of these are not upper class (only for the rich) items.

Gem price is inflating, IMHO.

. . .

Nothing you’re saying about this graph makes any sense. Why would I not be able to plot a straight line that shows the conversion rate? I mean, that’s exactly what a straight line should be able to do.

Yes, it’s costing more and more gold to get gems. You knew that was going to happen from day one. The only way to make it cost less is for more and more people to dump their gems.

@ Iures.2894

Let me rephrase. You should be able to plot a trend line (i.e. linear line of best fit), however this should not actually appear in the graph (i.e. straight line). Once again, economical data is based on a quasi-chaotic system. If you remove this from the equation then realisticly speaking you should get zero gradient, however this is not the case here, hence there is an underlining factor added to the gem/gold exchange which can be associated to manipulation.

Death Reincarnated.3570:

@ Iures.2894

Let me rephrase. You should be able to plot a trend line (i.e. linear line of best fit), however this should not actually appear in the graph (i.e. straight line). Once again, economical data is based on a quasi-chaotic system. If you remove this from the equation then realisticly speaking you should get zero gradient, however this is not the case here, hence there is an underlining factor added to the gem/gold exchange which can be associated to manipulation.

I believe that you don’t understand the conversion rates for Gems to Gold and Gold to Gems. These two conversions, while they have similar conversion rates, are not the same. They are separated by a 30% buffer. As the price of Gold to Gems rises, the price of Gems to Gold also rises…..but more slowly. The gap between them when the price is low is small, but as the price rises, the gap increases….but always remains at 30%. This 30% is not a tax though. It’s meant to discourage players from converting from one to the other and back again quickly.

There’s no market manipulation going on in the Gems market. It’s simply easier and faster for some people to buy Gems with real money, then convert them to Gold so they can buy their in-game “shinies”. I’ve seen MANY posts where players are implementing their own subscription fee and buying a certain amount of Gems each month. I don’t know what those players are doing with them, but I’d venture a guess that some of them are converting them to Gold.

Ursan.7846:

I’m confused at what you mean “beats.” You mean have a larger impact on prices of items? I guess, but it’s pointless to compare to two like that.

Anyways, if inflation was truly occuring, you should see prices of commonly-traded commodities trend upward. You don’t see this though.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19699

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19747

Just some random examples. You don’t see any of these prices trending upward.

So if prices of some luxury items are trending upwards, it means the demand is there. Not inflation!

As an aside, I really wish people would stop using the term “prices of ____ is inflating!”

First off, that’s not what the economic term “inflation” means.

And the word implies that there’s a static, “proper” price and that the new prices have deviated from. There’s no such thing in a free economy like this.

I would propose, instead of looking at individual items, to create a tyrian consumer index basket. This is the only thing we could do, unless someone would know of a way to look at the increase in money supply as well.

I would remove the most common low level items as well as precursors/legendary weapons from the basket. For rare and exotic weapons/armour we could go with a couple of picked items in the lower, middle and upper price range or find a medium for each.

Death Reincarnated.3570:

@ Iures.2894

Let me rephrase. You should be able to plot a trend line (i.e. linear line of best fit), however this should not actually appear in the graph (i.e. straight line). Once again, economical data is based on a quasi-chaotic system. If you remove this from the equation then realisticly speaking you should get zero gradient, however this is not the case here, hence there is an underlining factor added to the gem/gold exchange which can be associated to manipulation.

LOL! I love how you Google stuff and try to make baseless arguments by comparing apples to oranges.

So from your “expert” options, should I convert 1,000 Gems into Gold, that creates an abnormal movement in a straight line, causing inflation, and thus meaning I’m a market manipulator?

Are you a professor? Because I think I’ve just been schooled.

Death Reincarnated.3570:

@ Iures.2894

Let me rephrase. You should be able to plot a trend line (i.e. linear line of best fit), however this should not actually appear in the graph (i.e. straight line). Once again, economical data is based on a quasi-chaotic system. If you remove this from the equation then realisticly speaking you should get zero gradient, however this is not the case here, hence there is an underlining factor added to the gem/gold exchange which can be associated to manipulation.

Wow, this post has to be one of the greatest examples of using a lot of fancy words and not actually saying ANYTHING.

Really glad that I’m not the only one wondering what he thinks he’s saying. >_>

Vecuu.2018:

Inflation tends to effect much more than just the price of goods, though. It usually is coupled with increased wages to compensate for cost-of-living.

Thing is, the game doesn’t really pay you more for playing it now than it did months ago. You still get the same amount of silver for finishing a dungeon or event. Sure, the prices of some goods are going up, but those are almost entirely t6 mats (such as Lodestones), which are not readily available for just playing the game. You have to farm them with copious amount of Magic Find gear.

Whether or not inflation is happening in GW2 is immaterial: at the end of the day, premium items are becoming harder and harder and harder to afford to your average player. When the price doubled from 200g to 400g, I shrugged it off and figured I’d get there eventually. But when the price doubles again to 800g, how on earth is your casual player supposed to keep up with that rate of cost increase?

There are several major issues with this post.

First of all, if there is “inflation” occurring in game, “wages” are rising. Why is this? Because a non-trivial portion of a player’s “wage” is earned through items sold on the TP. If the value of those items increases, the player is earning more for the same in game “work.” Even if a player is hording these items instead of selling them, they are still receiving that increased value. They’re just choosing to retain them in the form of a commodity instead of currency. Now, this wage might not be rising at the same rate as any theoretical inflation, but that’s immaterial as the wage is certainly still rising.

As for your comments on rising prices for “premium items” you’re making an (inaccurate) assumption that all current trends must continue. There is no justification for this assumption. The fact that “item x” doubled in price over the past 3 months does not imply that it will double in price over the next three months. It does not imply that it will increase by 50% either. It doesn’t indicate the item will increase at all. We’re still looking at a very young economy that has not come anywhere near full equilibrium. This is a market that has dealt with some rather severe “production” changes. Many price increases have been the result of bot bans, which drastically reduced the supply of various items. The rich orich vein in Southsun was removed, causing the price of T6 ore and ingots to jump. A karma to lodestone conversion was introduced which caused a major change in those markets. All of those were one time events, that should not be projected forward. The fact that lodestone prices fell by 25% in the past 2 weeks doesn’t mean we should expect them to fall another 25% in the next 2 weeks. None of these “trends” can be projected upon unless you somehow completely isolate the effects of those one time incidents.

Now on top of all that, you’re begging the question. You question how a casual player can keep up with supposed price increases in premium items. But you haven’t established that they should be able to. Maybe they should, maybe they shouldn’t. I can guarantee there’s not consensus either way on that point, but you’re basing an entire argument off the assumption that everyone agrees they should.

tl;dr

If there’s inflation, wages are rising. Current trends cannot be projected forward. You’ve failed to establish that there’s actually an issue.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

LOL! I love how you Google stuff and try to make baseless arguments by comparing apples to oranges.

So from your “expert” options, should I convert 1,000 Gems into Gold, that creates an abnormal movement in a straight line, causing inflation, and thus meaning I’m a market manipulator?

Are you a professor? Because I think I’ve just been schooled.

You don’t know the rate and volume of exchanges occuring at a particular time, therfore, 1000G might well be equivalent to a pebble in an ocean. As for presuming I google stuff, sorry, but my statement was actualy knowledge in a nut shell; however, it sounds like you could not comprehend it?

Oh, and to answer your schooling related question: I’m not a professor, however, I do hold a Bachelor in Physics (Hons.) and Ph.D in Chemistry/Solid State Physics. In the future I would not be so eager as to presume that every person in this forum is not educated and instead just googles stuff. Just out of curiosity, did you google the word quasi?

Ursan.7846:

Death Reincarnated.3570:

@ Iures.2894

Let me rephrase. You should be able to plot a trend line (i.e. linear line of best fit), however this should not actually appear in the graph (i.e. straight line). Once again, economical data is based on a quasi-chaotic system. If you remove this from the equation then realisticly speaking you should get zero gradient, however this is not the case here, hence there is an underlining factor added to the gem/gold exchange which can be associated to manipulation.

Wow, this post has to be one of the greatest examples of using a lot of fancy words and not actually saying ANYTHING.

Do you even know what a trend line is? The only remotely fancy word in my entire post was quasi-chaotic, which describes the vast number of variables and their impact on economical data. 0_o

I’m still waiting for an answer/response as to why these short-term linear related data were observed in the TP’s gem/gold graphs. If it has nothing to with manipulation then prove it.

Death Reincarnated.3570:

You don’t know the rate and volume of exchanges occuring at a particular time, therfore, 1000G might well be equivalent to a pebble in an ocean. As for presuming I google stuff, sorry, but my statement was actualy knowledge in a nut shell; however, it sounds like you could not comprehend it?

Oh, and to answer your schooling related question: I’m not a professor, however, I do hold a Bachelor in Physics (Hons.) and Ph.D in Chemistry/Solid State Physics. In the future I would not be so eager as to presume that every person in this forum is not educated and instead just googles stuff. Just out of curiosity, did you google the word quasi?

Well my degree in Economics says that your Physics degree means you likely know even less than the average person about how markets work.

The post you’re being so heavily criticized for used a lot of pseudo-intellectual words, but didn’t actually make a coherent point. In essence, you “used a lot of big words to try sound smart.” It’s important to note that your actual intelligence is completely irrelevant to that point.

Now, to translate your statement into real language, I believe you are essentially stating that since the gems to gold conversion is demonstrating a positive linear trend both “prove” inflation and market manipulation.

This statement is completely false. In a healthy market, we should expect the gems to gold conversion rate to rise, regardless of inflation (unless there’s significant, prolonged deflation). We should expect this because as the market matures, players become relatively more wealthy. Items purchased with gems are all luxury goods, and as player wealth increases, their willingness to purchase luxury goods will rise. As their demand for luxury goods rises, unless there is an offsetting increase in supply, the price will rise. Now, if we look at supply, we find that as player wealth increases, the incentive to convert real money to in game money falls. Essentially, the more wealth players have in game, the less incentive they have to increase their wealth through outside means. This means that as players become more well off in game, they will supply fewer gems to the gem-gold market. This reduction in supply causes prices to rise.

Now, such a market left completely alone over a sufficiently long period of time may reach a market equilibrium rate and begin to cycle about that equilibrium. However, there’s two preconditions which must be satisfied for that to happen: 1) a sufficiently long time period must be observed and 2) no market shocks may have occurred within that time period. Looking at each of these:

1) This game has been out for less than 6 months. Even if the market had been stable at launch (it wasn’t) this would not be a sufficiently long period of time.

2) Market shocks have been, and will continue to be the rule, not the exception.

Specifically addressing the latter point, Anet has continued to add additional items to the gem store. Every time a new item is added to the gem store, we should see an increase in the gold-price of gems because the things which gems can be spent on have increased in value. Looking at the graph of gem prices, price spikes have occurred at specific, expected intervals. Namely, the addition of Halloween items in October, the Consortium items in November, the leadup to Wintersday and item release in December, the New Years deals in early January, and the Quaggan Backpack release in late January. There’s a few other small spikes which have been noted as being reporting errors from gem store maintenance.

So, after all that, it turns out that you just popped a few buzzwords together to try convince people you actually had some knowledge on the topic. But the reality is that you’re not just uniformed, you’re actually quite misinformed.

Death Reincarnated.3570:

I do hold a Bachelor in Physics (Hons.) and Ph.D in Chemistry/Solid State Physics. In the future

What, did they not teach you how to communicate your ideas properly in your PhD?

If you communicate coherently, you might get a response actually addressing your points.

I know it is easy to get mixed up with all of the in-game currencies.

Gold has been losing value in terms of gems. You might think of it as gem inflation but gems are pegged to real money and token-denominated items are also fixed in price so it is gold that is moving down in value taking labor with it. For a while, gold-denominated items on the TP were also deflating in terms of gold. That gave items a double-tap on their value for months until gold sellers started getting the boot and drops were adjusted to be more at the character’s real level so that some of the over-supply was reduced; particularly in what I think of as animal parts and ecto/ori/goss donors necessary in crafting and forging. A little inflation on the TP is good until Arenanet figures out how to remove more gold from the market. However, that issue is independent of the growing gap in the gem exchange.

Arenanet needs income. Income comes from sales of the client and RMT for gems through the BLTP. Revenue can also come from direct sale of, or licenses to produce, real-world merchandise like backpacks shaped like monster books or plushie quaggans. (I’d fire anyone who missed obvious opportunities to make real money.) Conversion of gold into gems or taxing sales on the TP buys them only a measure of control on game-gold.

Game gold and real gold may have the same name but derive their value very differently so understanding how GW2 gold works is not intuitive. Gold in-game is more like a paper currency loosely based on the inverse of GDP instead of a somewhat limited natural resource. The game economy is not transparent and not a truly free market either so assuming a chart on “inflation” means anything other than “whim of the game gods” at this time is pointless. The PRC is a more transparent, free market than the BLTP. For me, all that chart does is plot Agony.

@Syeria.4812 Like I said before, explain what is pointed by the red arrow in the picture I have added. This is not the first time I have observed this. Furthermore, I have seen the gradient change.

Generaly speaking, one would never observe a straight line in real life market data in any time frame because there are too many variables which constantly fluctuate the value – you should know this, you’ve done economics. Hence why trend lines are used to “predict” (near) future outcomes by considering all of the possible factors.

Death Reincarnated.3570:

@Syeria.4812 Like I said before, explain what is pointed by the red arrow in the picture I have added. This is not the first time I have observed this. Furthermore, I have seen the gradient change.

Generaly speaking, one would never observe a straight line in real life market data in any time frame because there are too many variables which constantly fluctuate the value – you should know this, you’ve done economics. Hence why trend lines are used to “predict” (near) future outcomes by considering all of the possible factors.

1. I highly doubt you understand what the word “gradient” means, from the way you used it.
2. I imagine that straight line is due to maintenance on the BLT.
3. I still have no idea what you’re saying. Yes, you see a straight line on this plot. What does that have anything to do with trend lines and extrapolating? What is your original point? After reading and re-reading your posts I still can’t comprehend your writings.

Time for an Engineer to join the economics debate!

Assuming the chart provided by Death Reincarnated is accurate, that straight line on the graph between approx Thurs 10pm and Fri 8am is more than just unusual. Seeing this chart, I can understand the OP’s speculation that something may have been manipulating the market during this period.

The graph shows a persistent level of noise which appears to be absent during teh period from ~10pm Thurs to ~8am Friday. There is a chance that this could be a statistical anomaly, but that chance is extremely low, given the noise exhibited across the rest of the chart (and all the other BLTP market data charts I’ve seen) and the number of data points involved.

The chart also shows 1) that the price jumped approx 15s at or immediately to ~10pm Thurs, and b) from there the price increased at an apparently regular rate of ~0.5s/hour until ~8am Fri. After that period the price (which was now ~20s higher than the evening before) jumped by a further ~8s and traded at that level for a couple of hours before correcting back to the level it was teh day before.

Assuming the chart is correct and the data presented is not a statistical anomaly however unlikely, the following inferences that can be made from the data presented:
1) at around approx 10pm Thurs something caused the market price to jump approx 15s
2) between ~10pm Thurs and ~8am Friday something overrode the noise normally exhibited in the market data
3) while the noise was absent from the market data, something caused the price to climb at a steady rate of ~0.5s/hour
4) at ~8am Friday noise returned to the market data at which point the price jumped by a further ~8s for a couple of hours, before dropping ~28s to the level of the day before.

Which begs the following questions:
1. What caused the price to jump by ~15s around 10pm Thurs?
2. What caused the normal trading noise to be absent from the data from ~10pm Thurs to ~8am Friday?
3. What caused the price to increase by ~0.5s/hour during that same period?

[Begin speculation] If anything, it looks like something overrode the market that night, driving the trading price up by ~20s, and the market responded the next morning by trading ~8s higher still for a couple of hours, before collapsing back to the price levels of the previous day. [End speculation]

(Disclaimer: No, I’m not an economist. Then again, economists generally don’t get much training on signal processing which is the basis for the assessment above.)

Ursan.7846:

1. I highly doubt you understand what the word “gradient” means, from the way you used it.

0_o You really want to go there? Ok, as simple as I can be so you can (hopefully) comprehend it. Gradient=M=Rise/Run=(y2-y1)/(x2-x1).

Ursan.7846:

2. I imagine that straight line is due to maintenance on the BLT.

Ahhh and here comes witness number one – ‘Mr. Maintenance’. Assuming this means that no trading is going on on the TP then the exchange rate should either a) hold steady, or b) drop to zero. It should not result in a straight line with a positive gradient (see what i did ther?). This anomaly, IMO, is a TP manipulaton factor added by ANet to increase their profit due to the economy improving (i.e. more people get richer, buy more luxurious items etc etc etc, what you said).

Ursan.7846:

3. I still have no idea what you’re saying. Yes, you see a straight line on this plot. What does that have anything to do with trend lines and extrapolating? What is your original point? After reading and re-reading your posts I still can’t comprehend your writings.

Go look up any market data such as shares and show me one graph that has a perfect straight line at any point in time – you will find none. Hence why the only straight line you will ever see from such data is when you actually plot a trend line.

@Zenguy.6421 Exactly, that noise, as you say, is there because of the many variables affecting it – i.e. they make the “noise” constantly fluctuate. Remove these variables and you should hear no “noise”, however this is not the case here. This is why I speculate that gem/gold is being manipulated.

Is Anet willing to provide information as to what causes that straight line in the TP gem/gold exchange rate?

Really? Its that complicated?

The primary function of the Gems Market is to entice the purchase of gems with real money. Is it so hard to guess that the system automatically gradually increases the gold given per gem when the current price is failing to entice buyers? To me that slope looks like a maintenance period where no one could buy gems and the automated process ran undistorted by market action. Its possible that there was zero activity over that span and it just drew a straight line between the end points of a null activity gap. Market closes at A, reopened at B, and the slope was drawn between them.

Market closes at A, reopened at B, and the slope was drawn between them.

That would be my guess, as well.

Thanks for posting on this forum so often John Smith.

Been playing MMOs for as long as there were forums for them and I can’t recall a major one where an employee diligently replied to as many threads on a daily basis as you do.

John Smith.4610:

The oddly straight lines we see sometimes are caused by bugs in the graphing, not a lack of trading.

• tips head to one side *

Interesting…

John Smith.4610:

The oddly straight lines we see sometimes are caused by bugs in the graphing, not a lack of trading.

So were gems actually trading at around that price? or is that giant spike just a total bug with the actual price being more in line with the rest of the graph? Because it still seems odd that the price jumped 15s in under an hour.

John Smith.4610:

The oddly straight lines we see sometimes are caused by bugs in the graphing, not a lack of trading.

Thanks, John. I was wondering if that was the case.

Death Reincarnated.3570:

0_o You really want to go there? Ok, as simple as I can be so you can (hopefully) comprehend it. Gradient=M=Rise/Run=(y2-y1)/(x2-x1).

Or you can call it a “slope.” A word that more people will understand than “Gradient.” You can choose to communicate your ideas in a clear and concise manner, or you can choose to use fancy words to sound smart…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slope

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradient

Death Reincarnated.3570:

Go look up any market data such as shares and show me one graph that has a perfect straight line at any point in time – you will find none. Hence why the only straight line you will ever see from such data is when you actually plot a trend line.

@Zenguy.6421 Exactly, that noise, as you say, is there because of the many variables affecting it – i.e. they make the “noise” constantly fluctuate. Remove these variables and you should hear no “noise”, however this is not the case here. This is why I speculate that gem/gold is being manipulated.

Is Anet willing to provide information as to what causes that straight line in the TP gem/gold exchange rate?

Oh man, after all this, that’s your original point? That straight line is unnatural? How the KITTEN did that lead into a discussion of trendlines?

You’re assuming that what you see on the graph is what’s actually happening. What you see is obviously not something that’s really happening.

As a person who works with sensor signals all the time, my first reaction in seeing that line is just “oh, there must be something wrong with the display/BLT.” No way in hell do I see that straight line and think “Oh, that must be actually happening!”

And John, as always, has the answer. Thanks John.

Ursan.7846:

Or you can call it a “slope.” A word that more people will understand than “Gradient.” You can choose to communicate your ideas in a clear and concise manner, or you can choose to use fancy words to sound smart…

Gradient means a very specific thing when doing vector analysis of a function in multiple dimensions. It is distinct from a slope because it specifies magnitude and direction.

Specifying direction is pointless in a one-dimensional x/y scatterplot.

Ensign.2189:

Ursan.7846:

Or you can call it a “slope.” A word that more people will understand than “Gradient.” You can choose to communicate your ideas in a clear and concise manner, or you can choose to use fancy words to sound smart…

Gradient means a very specific thing when doing vector analysis of a function in multiple dimensions. It is distinct from a slope because it specifies magnitude and direction.

Specifying direction is pointless in a one-dimensional x/y scatterplot.

Basically this. Thanks for explaining in place of lazy ol’ me.

John Smith.4610:

The oddly straight lines we see sometimes are caused by bugs in the graphing, not a lack of trading.

Really? It’s a bug? A bug that lasts several hours – 12+ hours in the image I provided above.

I don’t buy it.

Ursan.7846:

Or you can call it a “slope.” A word that more people will understand than “Gradient.” You can choose to communicate your ideas in a clear and concise manner, or you can choose to use fancy words to sound smart…

So now I have to use particular lingo in order for the not so educated to understand me? You learn about “gradient” in early highschool years – it is hardly a “fancy” word. The fact that you seem to be confused by the term ‘gradient’ makes me assume that a) you haven’t learned about it, or b) struggle(d) in highschool maths. The forums are filled with people from various educational backgrounds – perhaps instead of criticising me you could have learned something here.

As for gradient in vector analysis (a.k.a. vector calculus):

If y=f(x)=mxi+c is a vector in the ‘i’ direction,

then by taking the derivative of f(x) we use the following equation,

grad(f(x))=Del operator=x’(d/dx) + y’(d/dy) + z’(d/dz)=x’(d/dx) (because no direction in the ‘j’ and ‘k’),

which ends up giving the value of ‘m’ and (not so) coincidently it is the gradient, or slope, of a straight line.

Gradient of a 1, 2 or 3 dimensional vector (expressed by ‘i’, ‘j’ and ‘k’ unit vector notation,) gives a a scalar value.

Enjoy some pre college maths.

Really? It’s a bug? A bug that lasts several hours – 12+ hours in the image I provided above.

I don’t buy it.

He said it’s a bug in the graph, not a graph of a bug. That is, the values shown in the graph are not the actual values during that time, because the graph is inaccurate as a result of a bug.

The bug need only last a few moments (long enough to shoot out a bad graph) in order to provide you with the screenshot in question. And, really, a bug whose only feature is to occasionally shoot out a bad graph would be pretty low priority, to me, anyway.

I think i kinda lost track of what happened to my thread. I don’t want to rephrase everything that has been said or try to understand some of the more economical things discussed in this thread.

Maybe my usage of words was incorrect. Maybe some of my assumptions were incorrect. Maybe most of the arguments I said were incorrect. I’m no specialist, I’m just trying to talk about what is a big deal to many ppl I know and – of course – to me.

The basic idea of this thread was correct tho. “Casual” or “not 24/7 grinding events and playing the TP” players will never get a legendary due to the precursor.

That’s exactly it. You can read up about that in a lot of threads in this forum. I think I can’t be that incorrect with that statement.

Death Reincarnated.3570:

So now I have to use particular lingo in order for the not so educated to understand me?

1. You must be the only one who would reference a Rise/Run equation as a “gradient” instead of a “slope.” I do understand what a gradient is, but I’m confused as hell as to why you would use that word instead of “slope,” when you’re trying to communicate your idea in a clear, concise way.
2. So your original point is that straight line without noise is quite strange. A very valid point. But you bring in a bunch of random ramblings about trendlines and slopes while not explaining your point very clearly at all, leading to a bunch of very confused people. You can show off how much you know all you want about math, but it’s not helping with the communication of your ideas/concerns (why is the slope constant for a stretch on the plot?), which (hopefully) is your objective.

TL;DR: Learn to communicate in clear, concise manner please.

Death Reincarnated.3570:

Really? It’s a bug?

It’s what common graphing applications do with missing data when plotting a time series. GW2Spidy does the exact same thing when it has downtime (like, well, earlier today).

Death Reincarnated.3570:

“gradient”

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Noerknhar.3826:

I think i kinda lost track of what happened to my thread. I don’t want to rephrase everything that has been said or try to understand some of the more economical things discussed in this thread.

Maybe my usage of words was incorrect. Maybe some of my assumptions were incorrect. Maybe most of the arguments I said were incorrect. I’m no specialist, I’m just trying to talk about what is a big deal to many ppl I know and – of course – to me.

The basic idea of this thread was correct tho. “Casual” or “not 24/7 grinding events and playing the TP” players will never get a legendary due to the precursor.

That’s exactly it. You can read up about that in a lot of threads in this forum. I think I can’t be that incorrect with that statement.

Which is why there is a scavenger hunt oriented achievable precursor coming soon.

Additionally, what most people don’t understand, is that inflation is not caused by bots or manipulators or even exploiters. Inflation is caused by money going into the economy by any means. This includes but is not limited to…

• Dungeons (reward gold in addition to champion gold)
• Events
• Chests
• NPC’ing
• Buying Gems —> Gold

So, please, let’s stop throwing around bots are ruining the economy. If anything, the bots have been keeping a lot of (rare/fine) material prices down and they typically spike up when a large portion of the bots have been banned. Most bots don’t farm for precursors.

As for your OP [opening post], the main grawl exploiter was banned, the rest were severely punished.

Lastly, most exploits do ruin the economy, but an exploit like doing more damage with a skill versus being able to finish 2 dungeon paths in one run mean two drastically different things when talking about the economy and inflation.

If you don’t want inflation, spend more of your gold getting things from NPC’s and don’t introduce more gold into the economy by not NPC’ing things and not salvaging. Simply drag and break.

Excuse me, but where exactly is that scavanger hunt information from? It’s 2 months ago that a dev stated something like that was in development, do you really think it’s coming “soon”?

Noerknhar.3826:

Excuse me, but where exactly is that scavanger hunt information from? It’s 2 months ago that a dev stated something like that was in development, do you really think it’s coming “soon”?

Your definition of soon and mine are vastly different. I’ve been an avid GW player since before 2009. I was waiting for GW2 to come out ‘soon’ since 2011. It came out faster than I expected and better than I expected, even though a lot of it’s mechanics are still half-baked, by my own standards, however I am studying to get into game development, so I would do things a lot differently if I was there, and then it wouldn’t be GW2, it would be Esplen Wars 1.

If 2 months is not enough time for you to wait, then you should not be playing a game that was released less than 6 months ago. A game gets polished at least 6 months after release and GW2 is getting polished, but every person complaining about something new is making it harder and harder to find the right thing to polish.

Think about that. In addition to thinking about it, I want you to realize that Arenanet isn’t a high-end high-budget company like Blizzard or Valve, where they CAN allocate the resources and manpower to pump out fixes and new content every so often. Arenanet is a small company that prides itself in making something great over time. In addition to that, they’re doing great events while slowly fixing and improving their released game.

If this is not enough information to counter your argument, please give me a game that is perfectly balanced, has enough content, and is perfect in any other regard (your discretion is used in this one). Please tell me that game, and then tell me why you are here on GW2’s forums and not that game.

Thank you for your time.

My answer would be Tetris as it was the only perfect balanced game I’ve ever seen. I get your point while I also guess you misunderstood me. Of course, GW2 came out 6 months ago. That makes those 2months look pretty short in comparison. I also hope that the polishing will make this great game even better, but in the mean time it’s about grind, grind, grind or playing the TP.

I think it is also important that enough people complain about those facts in the forums. I also think that it is more important to fix bugs and get your hands on broken things, mechanics or design principles than to implement new events every 2 weeks or so. But that is my personal thinking about priorities and I guess it won’t affect the devs’.

But I guess we’re a bit off topic right now.