Guild Wars 2

Please remove the virtual tax. This isn’t the real world I come to GW2 to escape. There’s no need to justify a virtual tax in the name of realism.

BUT there is a need for a tax as goldsink to prevent massive inflation.
/thread.

There could be more gold sinks other than taxes. Stuff which currently cost gems like upgrade extractors, transmuation stones and transmuation splitters.
Anet just took the easy route to also justify why traders and speculators are good for the game.

Another thread from someone who knows nothing about game economic fundamentals.

I don’t think you have thought through the implications of removing the 15% tax.

Malediktus.9250:

There could be more gold sinks other than taxes. Stuff which currently cost gems like upgrade extractors, transmuation stones and transmuation splitters.
Anet just took the easy route to also justify why traders and speculators are good for the game.

which reduces the point of buying gems which isn’t going to happen….

Like to point out that Gold to Gem rate is now at the same point as it was just before Halloween. The dollar to gold rate is once again below 4g for $1.

Behellagh.1468:

Like to point out that Gold to Gem rate is now at the same point as it was just before Halloween. The dollar to gold rate is once again below 4g for $1.

I think we’ll be seeing a lot of “Mr. Sparkles” minis following toons around next month…

tolunart.2095:

Behellagh.1468:

Like to point out that Gold to Gem rate is now at the same point as it was just before Halloween. The dollar to gold rate is once again below 4g for $1.

I think we’ll be seeing a lot of “Mr. Sparkles” minis following toons around next month…

Followed closely by the gold to gem rates skyrocketing again, but this time much higher is my guess.

tolunart.2095:

Behellagh.1468:

Like to point out that Gold to Gem rate is now at the same point as it was just before Halloween. The dollar to gold rate is once again below 4g for $1.

I think we’ll be seeing a lot of “Mr. Sparkles” minis following toons around next month…

Yes, Anet removed any kind of prestige Mr Sparkles had. Some people deemed it a legendary amongst miniatures, now its just another common one.

Dane Claibourne.1379:

Please remove the virtual tax. This isn’t the real world I come to GW2 to escape. There’s no need to justify a virtual tax in the name of realism.

Even the tax wasn’t there, buy/sell orders would be the same… close to a few copper in a lot of flooded markets. You might need less maths in the end though. Fricken hate maths even more then grammor and spellig.

More fun opportunities to make bunches of money would be nice. I do already have the whole “work” and “job” thing in RL to sate my need to feel productive… anything after that’s gravy… heart-desintegratingly delicious gravy.

Dane Claibourne.1379:

Please remove the virtual tax. This isn’t the real world I come to GW2 to escape. There’s no need to justify a virtual tax in the name of realism.

Real world factors do happen in virtual worlds as well. Things like inflation, when there are no checks and balances, will turn GW2 into another game from a company that shall not be named, where in game currency was pretty much worthless after a short time. Imagine playing 1 million Gold for a single Powerful Blood.

You can thank Anet for hiring John Smith. The policies he works on help balance item values to where they’re reasonably priced.

You need taxes in game for the same reason you need them in the real world – to keep inflation in check, so that your currency continues to hold value.

Virtual world or not, that’s just the way currencies work; you can’t just wish it away.

i am personally getting sick of gold sing, its becoming impossible to get something nice without farming the heck out of this game.
the worst part, you have to constantly pay 2X when you die, pay when you travel, pay to get your character to use the trait system, pay to do anything at all.

this is not a gold sink, it’s gold prevention….

And if they didn’t have the gold sinks it would still be impossible to get something nice without farming anyway, seeing as everything would be more expensive due to the higher amount of gold in-game.

Anyone who complains about the gold sinks in video games might want to read up on what happens when gold sinks are inadequate. 

An example is Diablo 3 which had hyperinflation due to insufficient gold sinks and bots farming gold. 

www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-21/diablo-3-case-virtual-hyperinflation

In this article, one player was quoted saying he had 30 million gold but was too poor to buy better gear. Another player later in game said people might have 2 billion in gold but the value of the gold was dropping so fast that investing in anything ingame was impossible. 

(There was a bug involving the auction house on May 7, 2013 which greatly increased inflation but the game already had hyperinflation before then). 

-you’ll have to copy and paste the link if you want to read the article. I’m posting on an elderly iPad and it has issues involving links-

did you that when you add a gold limit (in that you can only make something cost a max amount of gold) things tend to balance it self out, you can’t ask 3K gold for a skin so if you can only ask max 500g you ether ask 500g or lower the price.
not saying the limit should be 500g, i am just saying that a gold cap lowers the overly expensive crap and the full need of gold.

it works perfectly fine in GW1, why does it have to be so enormously annoyingly expensive in GW2?

Ah yes, because in GW1 people didn’t find other sorts of currencies (like Armbracer, Ectos and so on) for high value trades…

I would actually say that in general, the expensive things in GW1 was more expensive (relatively) than GW2.

lordkrall.7241:

Ah yes, because in GW1 people didn’t find other sorts of currencies (like Armbracer, Ectos and so on) for high value trades…

I would actually say that in general, the expensive things in GW1 was more expensive (relatively) than GW2.

one armbrace is equal to 10g, to a regular GW2 farmer, 10g is nothing…….

Oh, I would love to see how you figured out that rate.

Ensign.2189:

You need taxes in game for the same reason you need them in the real world – to keep inflation in check, so that your currency continues to hold value.

Virtual world or not, that’s just the way currencies work; you can’t just wish it away.

No in the real world taxes are used to fund the government and common services. Things like the Central Bank and monetary policy helps keep inflation in check.

Astral Projections.7320:

www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-21/diablo-3-case-virtual-hyperinflation

Aah! Wall of Text.

Behellagh.1468:

No in the real world taxes are used to fund the government and common services. Things like the Central Bank and monetary policy helps keep inflation in check.

On the state and local level, yes. On the national level, no; federal taxes function purely as a ‘dollar sink’ to keep inflation in check. Things function much differently when you are the one issuing the currency.

Behellagh.1468:

Astral Projections.7320:

www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-21/diablo-3-case-virtual-hyperinflation

Aah! Wall of Text.

Looks like someone copied/pasted an article from another source without bothering to fix the formatting errors that came with it. There are subheadings and tables buried in the text that show where line breaks used to be.

tolunart.2095:

Behellagh.1468:

Astral Projections.7320:

www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-21/diablo-3-case-virtual-hyperinflation

Aah! Wall of Text.

Looks like someone copied/pasted an article from another source without bothering to fix the formatting errors that came with it. There are subheadings and tables buried in the text that show where line breaks used to be.

There’s a better formatted version in Business Insider:
Weimaresque Hyperinflation Is Ravaging One Of The World’s Most Popular Video Games

Copying the headline shows a link to the same article on the Ludwig von Mises Institute site which I’m inclined to believe is the “original”.

Ensign.2189:

Behellagh.1468:

No in the real world taxes are used to fund the government and common services. Things like the Central Bank and monetary policy helps keep inflation in check.

On the state and local level, yes. On the national level, no; federal taxes function purely as a ‘dollar sink’ to keep inflation in check. Things function much differently when you are the one issuing the currency.

Never heard of something called the armed forces? Or NASA? CDC? FBI?