Guild Wars 2

So yesterday Chaos Gun prices were roughly 744g. Today less than 24hrs later they’re at 1099g. I was told by a fellow guildie a few hour prior that they were nearly at 1.5k.

I’m just flabbergasted by the prices. I mean yes I understand there will always be a demand for them, especially now that legendaries are account bound. But going from 300-400g doubling in price then yet again. It feels more like market manipulation than anything. I’m pretty sure everyone didn’t wake up today and went out to buy a Chaos Gun. I’ve been watching the price waiting for the prices to stabilize after April 15th, sadly it has yet to happen all I see is prices keep rising.

By the time you save up to buy it at that ridiculous price it will triple in price putting it out of reach yet again. Just wondering if this is happening across all the precursors, I’m sure it is but why this ridiculous inflation over such little time span?

Can you please define market manipulation?
All i can see is that some people listed their Chaos Guns at certain prices making a statement of intent to sell at those prices. Some other people post buy orders making a statement of intent to buy at those prices.

This is not market manipulation, its market interaction and working as intended.

Vitaly.3418:

So yesterday Chaos Gun prices were roughly 744g. Today less than 24hrs later they’re at 1099g. I was told by a fellow guildie a few hour prior that they were nearly at 1.5k.

I’m just flabbergasted by the prices. I mean yes I understand there will always be a demand for them, especially now that legendaries are account bound. But going from 300-400g doubling in price then yet again. It feels more like market manipulation than anything. I’m pretty sure everyone didn’t wake up today and went out to buy a Chaos Gun. I’ve been watching the price waiting for the prices to stabilize after April 15th, sadly it has yet to happen all I see is prices keep rising.

By the time you save up to buy it at that ridiculous price it will triple in price putting it out of reach yet again. Just wondering if this is happening across all the precursors, I’m sure it is but why this ridiculous inflation over such little time span?

For a long time, we had relative equilibrium of supply and demand in the previous price ranges — so prices were stable.. The wardrobe announcement changed value and thus demand. It tends to take some time to re-acquire an equilibrium price — which may or may not be the same as it was. (I would bet that prices will come back down to about where they were, but I could certainly be wrong about that.)

There was a lot of discussion, and a few numbers from John Smith, in the thread about Dusk hitting 2k gold. If you look at it now, you’ll see that it’s returned to approximately the range it was in before someone bought the remaining supply.

When precursors cost > 600-700g (I don’t do this, so I’m not sure the exact price point), then it’s profitable to gamble with rare and exotic items in the mystic forge; this drives up prices for those rares/exotics, and eventually provides more supply of the precursors. OTOH, this takes time.

It’s probably (mostly) not manipulation but the effects of high variance.

On the other hand something like Mjolnir costs more than most precursors with even fewer transactions, but is far more stable because it is “chunked” into charged lodestones (and the other mats to a much lesser degree).

I think the issue lies elsewhere beyond the price. Variance has to be lower (precursor crafting should help bring things more in line with things like Mjolnir, even if it doesn’t lower the cost or supply). Additionally the game needs more gold sinks to combat longer term price inflation.

Yeah, the market’s being manipulated… look at Dusk, someone bought out all the Dusks around 1000g and relisted them for 2000g… now you can’t find one for less than 1900g… right?

I just picked up “The Legend” for a price that was about what it would have cost me before the announcement of the Wardrobe. Put in a buy order for a price that is comfortable for you and wait out the current market, in which people are willing to pay 20-100% more to have their precursor now.

A lot more precursors change hands than we can see from looking at Spidy or GW2TP — they only show a moment in time — the prices vary considerably from what it looks like on the historical graphs.

This isn’t actually all that surprising. Precursors basically fall into two buckets – those that are worth forging explicitly (greatswords, daggers, and staves, historically; swords more recently), which have prices that are tied intimately to T5 materials, and those that are not, which reach an equilibrium price less than the cap for the supply from drops and random forging alone.

With the wardrobe introduction we saw the demand for legendaries (and precursors) increase dramatically, with the effect even larger for one handed legendaries that can be dual wielded – Spark surged ahead of the others for a time, and diverting T5 materials to forge more Sparks drove the price ceiling of precursors up across the board.

Chaos Gun is also one handed and dual wieldable, but historically has not been near the cap where you’d want to forge it. It would not surprise me at all to hear that demand for Quip has increased dramatically now that you can dual wield it cheaply via the wardrobe. If the natural supply from drops and random forges cannot keep up with that demand spike, the price will naturally be driven up to the cap – which is where it is now.

You can see the pattern on the TP – when the number up for sale gets low, the price spikes, which sucks some more out of people’s storage and onto the TP, halting the rise – but if fundamentals really have changed and demand is still higher than the background supply at that price, it’ll get chewed through and the process will repeat itself. Apparently, in the case of Chaos Gun, demand is pushing it all the way to the soft cap where throwing rare pistols into the forge makes sense.

the market has been manipulated believe it or not. first dusk to 2000, then the hunter to ~1400 and now chaos gun to 1500.

Ensign.2189:

This isn’t actually all that surprising. Precursors basically fall into two buckets – those that are worth forging explicitly (greatswords, daggers, and staves, historically; swords more recently), which have prices that are tied intimately to T5 materials, and those that are not, which reach an equilibrium price less than the cap for the supply from drops and random forging alone.

With the wardrobe introduction we saw the demand for legendaries (and precursors) increase dramatically, with the effect even larger for one handed legendaries that can be dual wielded – Spark surged ahead of the others for a time, and diverting T5 materials to forge more Sparks drove the price ceiling of precursors up across the board.

Chaos Gun is also one handed and dual wieldable, but historically has not been near the cap where you’d want to forge it. It would not surprise me at all to hear that demand for Quip has increased dramatically now that you can dual wield it cheaply via the wardrobe. If the natural supply from drops and random forges cannot keep up with that demand spike, the price will naturally be driven up to the cap – which is where it is now.

You can see the pattern on the TP – when the number up for sale gets low, the price spikes, which sucks some more out of people’s storage and onto the TP, halting the rise – but if fundamentals really have changed and demand is still higher than the background supply at that price, it’ll get chewed through and the process will repeat itself. Apparently, in the case of Chaos Gun, demand is pushing it all the way to the soft cap where throwing rare pistols into the forge makes sense.

which is somewhat interesting because it almost creates self fulfilling prophecies

The more valuable precursors in general become, the more t5 resources they use up, which increases the cost of t5 materials, which increases the costs of precursors.

So i guess the key is how big the demand for precursors overall becomes.

That said, it also means, if they add new precursors, and they can be attained by the same means, you would be looking at a huge increase in price for all precursors and t5 mats.

But since they would probably introduce that with an alternate method, it might not be so bad, depending on the method.

Jekkt.6045:

the market has been manipulated believe it or not. first dusk to 2000, then the hunter to ~1400 and now chaos gun to 1500.

If by “manipulated” you mean interacted with and working as intended, then yes.

no with manipulated i mean somebody bought all the precursors just to relist them for a higher price. usually 1-3 precursor disappear from the market every day while about the same amount is relisted for a similar price. but when suddenly all the precursors disappear in a short time and in a price range from 700-1000g just to get relisted for 1400g it is clearly market manipulation.

APW.1569:

Jekkt.6045:

the market has been manipulated believe it or not. first dusk to 2000, then the hunter to ~1400 and now chaos gun to 1500.

If by “manipulated” you mean interacted with and working as intended, then yes.

yes working as intended sometimes means, people get screwed.

i think what people mean to say, though they dont really realize it is.

I think precursor prices are too high

Saying precursors are being manipulated, is a bit of a different arguement. Yes players will try to manipulate the market, what market capitilism suggests, is that they will only succeed up to the value of the item.

So essentially, peoples complaints are that precursors are falling out of reach, that their value is quickly becoming unattainable, they need to try not to associate that with controlling the market completely. They can only nudge or try to lead the market, they dont actually “control” it.

Jekkt.6045:

but when suddenly all the precursors disappear in a short time and in a price range from 700-1000g just to get relisted for 1400g it is clearly market manipulation.

It’s an attempt at market manipulation. 99% of these attempts fail because the moment new precursors enter the market (which is much faster than you probably realize) they start to drive the price back to its equilibrium by selling to buy orders, or listing at a lower price to undercut the person selling at a steep price. I don’t know of a single case where someone “manipulated” the precursor market and profited after taking into account listing and sale fees.

ExTribble.7108:

Jekkt.6045:

but when suddenly all the precursors disappear in a short time and in a price range from 700-1000g just to get relisted for 1400g it is clearly market manipulation.

It’s an attempt at market manipulation. 99% of these attempts fail because the moment new precursors enter the market (which is much faster than you probably realize) they start to drive the price back to its equilibrium by selling to buy orders, or listing at a lower price to undercut the person selling at a steep price. I don’t know of a single case where someone “manipulated” the precursor market and profited after taking into account listing and sale fees.

its not really manipulation, but someone is apparetly going around pushing most precursor markets, it has happened to too many precursors recently to be a coincidence.

as far as profit? i would assume someone is profiting in some way

Jekkt.6045:

no with manipulated i mean somebody bought all the precursors just to relist them for a higher price. usually 1-3 precursor disappear from the market every day while about the same amount is relisted for a similar price. but when suddenly all the precursors disappear in a short time and in a price range from 700-1000g just to get relisted for 1400g it is clearly market manipulation.

If you would have checked the supply graph for Chaos Gun, you would have realized that the supply went down from 5 to 0 within 12 hours and not instantly and supply went down 1 by 1, not all at once. It took about the same time for 5 new Chaos Guns to appear on the tp and now there are 8.
If somebody thinks that Chaos Gun was undervalued at 800g, buys them all up and relists at 1400g, he is allowed to do so. Its perfectly fine and no manipulation at all, its just speculation.

The Chaos Gun didnt even gain much in value of buy orders. Before the last one on the tp got sold, it was at 720g, now its at 750g, thats only a 4% price rise and the highest bid even went down to 660g in the meantime.

i dont really care if its manipulation or not. the price will settle again if the players think that it is too expensive. but it is quite a coincidence that all the chaos guns are gone in less than half a day. another thing is that chaos gun wasnt the “only victim” but dusk and other precursors too.

its only annoying if you get all your money together to buy a chaos gun for 700 and something just to see all the weapons gone and relisted for 1500g :P not talking for myself but i think this could be kinda annoying.

You’re arguing about two separate things in this case.

In the case of fluctuating prices, the price should drop down to 700g. Someone who saved 700g will simply have to wait a few days for the price to come back down (or simply put in a buy order which may fill anyways).

In the case the price does not drop back down to 700, then the price was not supposed to be 700 to begin with, and player should save up another 100g or up to whatever the new stable price is.

I don’t think you’re arguing that the fluctuations (point 1) will permanently cause the price to increase (point 2), but I feel like I should point this out and say I don’t think this is true either.

Jekkt.6045:

i dont really care if its manipulation or not. the price will settle again if the players think that it is too expensive. but it is quite a coincidence that all the chaos guns are gone in less than half a day. another thing is that chaos gun wasnt the “only victim” but dusk and other precursors too.

its only annoying if you get all your money together to buy a chaos gun for 700 and something just to see all the weapons gone and relisted for 1500g :P not talking for myself but i think this could be kinda annoying.

Ah, so its really about you not getting gold fast enough to buy what you want.
Just buy whatever gold you need with gems and buy it now, if you really want it. That will save you alot of time, compared to grinding out gold at an equal pace of the price increase.

If you are angry about rising precursor prices, thats fine. Just dont blame other people for it just because they play the game how its intended.

APW.1569:

Jekkt.6045:

the market has been manipulated believe it or not. first dusk to 2000, then the hunter to ~1400 and now chaos gun to 1500.

If by “manipulated” you mean interacted with and working as intended, then yes.

It also demonstrates that these attempts at manipulation fail over the long term. The larger gap in prices creates more opportunities for competition, which lowers prices. There are opportunities for profit in such situations, but usually for those prepared to use the opportunity created by someone else rather than the person(s) doing the manipulating.

It’s a great deal if you want to lose money.

phys.7689:

which is somewhat interesting because it almost creates self fulfilling prophecies

The more valuable precursors in general become, the more t5 resources they use up, which increases the cost of t5 materials, which increases the costs of precursors.

So i guess the key is how big the demand for precursors overall becomes.

That said, it also means, if they add new precursors, and they can be attained by the same means, you would be looking at a huge increase in price for all precursors and t5 mats.

But since they would probably introduce that with an alternate method, it might not be so bad, depending on the method.

This is why they made the announcement that plans for that new method would be pushed back. The situation already affected the market (now every Legendary unlocks a theoretically unlimited supply of skins for every toon on the account) and raised prices, imagine what would happen if there were a new method to acquire the precursors and/or new precursors and Legendaries to create.

Even players who have several Legendaries already and feel less motivation to create more would get back into the market, causing another sharp rise in demand. That has the potential to destabilize multiple markets to the point where every player is affected, not just those who want a precursor.

phys.7689:

its not really manipulation, but someone is apparetly going around pushing most precursor markets, it has happened to too many precursors recently to be a coincidence.

as far as profit? i would assume someone is profiting in some way

Not necessarily, at least not if you measure profit in fake money.

It could be people who were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, bought or received several thousand unidentified dyes and sold them at the peak in price for 10,000g or more… someone who got bored with the game and just wants to stir up the anthill, or other situations where either pure profit is not the motivation or the person didn’t get rich by being smarter than everyone else.

While JS has the real data, from everything we can see, there is nothing to indicate that attempts to manipulate the markets resulted in anything but a net loss in fake money.

Jekkt.6045:

i dont really care if its manipulation or not. the price will settle again if the players think that it is too expensive. but it is quite a coincidence that all the chaos guns are gone in less than half a day. another thing is that chaos gun wasnt the “only victim” but dusk and other precursors too.

its only annoying if you get all your money together to buy a chaos gun for 700 and something just to see all the weapons gone and relisted for 1500g :P not talking for myself but i think this could be kinda annoying.

My wife wanted to buy the “Frozen” DVD a while ago, but couldn’t find a copy because it’s new and popular. Yes, it’s a bother when a lot of people want something and buy up all the supply, but the only thing you can do is wait for the store to restock it.

A (reasonable) maximum ‘sell price’ threshold for certain items might be interesting because it could prevent so-called artificial inflation to a certain degree, but I imagine there would be a great weeping and gnashing of teeth if the TP suddenly had the potential to be less profitable.

And like a number of other precursors, supply dropped to zero which allows the first seller to set the new price. Other sellers come along and undercut that price either be a little or a lot. Buys may increase their bids establishing a new lower range that was as high or higher than the low sell before the supply dropped to zero. As more and more are posted for sale, price should drop to near the old price, but likely still higher than where it was.

It has already dropped 400g from it’s 700g spike in a few days. Still a 300g (38%) spike isn’t nothing to sneeze at.

The notion that people are still chasing Legendaries at all is really the funny part.

If you were looking at it the right way, you wouldn’t be whining on the forums.
Chaos Gun went up 1 gold in the last week.
You have to look at the Buy Listings.
That’s the price people are willing to pay for an Item.
I could buy out all chaos guns in the TP and sell 1 for 9000 Gold.
Does that give the weapon 9000 gold value in the market? of course not.

Illogical.6218:

If you were looking at it the right way, you wouldn’t be whining on the forums.
Chaos Gun went up 1 gold in the last week.
You have to look at the Buy Listings.
That’s the price people are willing to pay for an Item.
I could buy out all chaos guns in the TP and sell 1 for 9000 Gold.
Does that give the weapon 9000 gold value in the market? of course not.

except for the fact that the buy order have gone up, and they have actually sold to sell orders as well.

also, the buy order doesnt tell you what price they are being bought at, it tells you what is left. just like a sell order doesnt mean its being sold, a buy order doesnt mean its getting bought at the price.

unfortunately we can only guess at either statistic, but if you were looking at the data, you would probably look for when the sell order goes up (i means a sell order may have sold, or when the buy order goes down (it means someone may have had their order filled)

precursors and legendarys are the Carrots for Goldsellers

i would not wonder when this guys control this markets with 1000´s of gold and just push the price to make more people buying gold from them

they sell gold to stupid people → stupid people buy precursor or legendary for same gold = Profit + can sell the gold again

i sold in last 2 months 5+ legendarys all in 3k gold range and all was sold in 1-2 days – as long as there are people in the world which dont care to use creditdcard for this the price will go up

even when gold just buyd from arenanet

endirasae.3015:

A (reasonable) maximum ‘sell price’ threshold for certain items might be interesting because it could prevent so-called artificial inflation to a certain degree, but I imagine there would be a great weeping and gnashing of teeth if the TP suddenly had the potential to be less profitable.

This would just lead to less supply, because once its not profitable anymore to forge precursors because the value of t5 mats goes up more than precursors itself (because they are capped in price), people would stop forging them.

Place a buy offer for what you are willing to spend. I got chaos gun a week ago for 550 gold after watching buy offers go up in the 700’s and sell at 800. My buy offer was 480 and as soon as I saw buy offers in the 500’s again I placed a slightly higher bid and got my precursor. If you wait it out, the price should go back down. (While screaming at the TP for people to stop offering 600+ gold for a one handed precursor).

tolunart.2095:

Jekkt.6045:

i dont really care if its manipulation or not. the price will settle again if the players think that it is too expensive. but it is quite a coincidence that all the chaos guns are gone in less than half a day. another thing is that chaos gun wasnt the “only victim” but dusk and other precursors too.

its only annoying if you get all your money together to buy a chaos gun for 700 and something just to see all the weapons gone and relisted for 1500g :P not talking for myself but i think this could be kinda annoying.

My wife wanted to buy the “Frozen” DVD a while ago, but couldn’t find a copy because it’s new and popular. Yes, it’s a bother when a lot of people want something and buy up all the supply, but the only thing you can do is wait for the store to restock it.

Except the only way the store restocks is if you throw: Lion King, Little Mermaid, Pinocchio and Jungle Book into a dumpster full of dvds that is on fire, reach in and hope to pull out Frozen, or Disney plants Frozen in the backpack of a random tourist in the middle of Time Square and you have to blindly pick that person from the crowd.

I am also looking at the Chaos Gun and literally laughed/cried when I saw the price had jumped 300g over the weekend (I didn’t see the 1.5k mark).

Vitaly.3418:

So yesterday Chaos Gun prices were roughly 744g. Today less than 24hrs later they’re at 1099g. I was told by a fellow guildie a few hour prior that they were nearly at 1.5k.

I’m just flabbergasted by the prices. I mean yes I understand there will always be a demand for them, especially now that legendaries are account bound. But going from 300-400g doubling in price then yet again. It feels more like market manipulation than anything. I’m pretty sure everyone didn’t wake up today and went out to buy a Chaos Gun. I’ve been watching the price waiting for the prices to stabilize after April 15th, sadly it has yet to happen all I see is prices keep rising.

By the time you save up to buy it at that ridiculous price it will triple in price putting it out of reach yet again. Just wondering if this is happening across all the precursors, I’m sure it is but why this ridiculous inflation over such little time span?

what usually happens after a spike in prices? kaboom, crash, bang. just wait it out i guess.

Lightsbane.9012:

Vitaly.3418:

So yesterday Chaos Gun prices were roughly 744g. Today less than 24hrs later they’re at 1099g. I was told by a fellow guildie a few hour prior that they were nearly at 1.5k.

I’m just flabbergasted by the prices. I mean yes I understand there will always be a demand for them, especially now that legendaries are account bound. But going from 300-400g doubling in price then yet again. It feels more like market manipulation than anything. I’m pretty sure everyone didn’t wake up today and went out to buy a Chaos Gun. I’ve been watching the price waiting for the prices to stabilize after April 15th, sadly it has yet to happen all I see is prices keep rising.

By the time you save up to buy it at that ridiculous price it will triple in price putting it out of reach yet again. Just wondering if this is happening across all the precursors, I’m sure it is but why this ridiculous inflation over such little time span?

what usually happens after a spike in prices? kaboom, crash, bang. just wait it out i guess.

Yep, even Dusk is back below 1300 gold.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Lightsbane.9012:

Vitaly.3418:

So yesterday Chaos Gun prices were roughly 744g. Today less than 24hrs later they’re at 1099g. I was told by a fellow guildie a few hour prior that they were nearly at 1.5k.

I’m just flabbergasted by the prices. I mean yes I understand there will always be a demand for them, especially now that legendaries are account bound. But going from 300-400g doubling in price then yet again. It feels more like market manipulation than anything. I’m pretty sure everyone didn’t wake up today and went out to buy a Chaos Gun. I’ve been watching the price waiting for the prices to stabilize after April 15th, sadly it has yet to happen all I see is prices keep rising.

By the time you save up to buy it at that ridiculous price it will triple in price putting it out of reach yet again. Just wondering if this is happening across all the precursors, I’m sure it is but why this ridiculous inflation over such little time span?

what usually happens after a spike in prices? kaboom, crash, bang. just wait it out i guess.

Yep, even Dusk is back below 1300 gold.

and that’s what, after less than a week? if only tooth of frost fang would drop :/

Not even a week actually.

Ken DeBoer.9268:

Except the only way the store restocks is if you throw: Lion King, Little Mermaid, Pinocchio and Jungle Book into a dumpster full of dvds that is on fire, reach in and hope to pull out Frozen, or Disney plants Frozen in the backpack of a random tourist in the middle of Time Square and you have to blindly pick that person from the crowd.

I am also looking at the Chaos Gun and literally laughed/cried when I saw the price had jumped 300g over the weekend (I didn’t see the 1.5k mark).

You must have patience, grasshopper.

The attempt to manipulate prices creates opportunities for sellers. More sellers compete with each other which lowers prices. Manipulation attempt will fail in the end because there are too many people willing to put the effort in to get lucky at the forge.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Not even a week actually.

Only takes a few days. Do you have all the Gifts and such ready, lacking only the precursor? Then it may be worth it to convert some gems to gold to afford a higher buy offer. Otherwise, what do you get by rushing to buy an overpriced precursor? It sits in your bank for months while you work on the rest of the Legendary recipe. What difference does a few days make, either way?

tolunart.2095:

Ken DeBoer.9268:

Except the only way the store restocks is if you throw: Lion King, Little Mermaid, Pinocchio and Jungle Book into a dumpster full of dvds that is on fire, reach in and hope to pull out Frozen, or Disney plants Frozen in the backpack of a random tourist in the middle of Time Square and you have to blindly pick that person from the crowd.

I am also looking at the Chaos Gun and literally laughed/cried when I saw the price had jumped 300g over the weekend (I didn’t see the 1.5k mark).

You must have patience, grasshopper.

The attempt to manipulate prices creates opportunities for sellers. More sellers compete with each other which lowers prices. Manipulation attempt will fail in the end because there are too many people willing to put the effort in to get lucky at the forge.

:) I’m just farming and still getting another set of clovers. This will be my 5th legendary, so I’m in no particular rush, except to annoy my guildmates “PEW PEW PEW PEW”. Plus, I have a bad habit of buying some long term investments once I have a few hundred extra gold. I just think to myself, “If I liquidate everything, I could buy it now. But if I wait another month…..”

tolunart.2095:

Ken DeBoer.9268:

Except the only way the store restocks is if you throw: Lion King, Little Mermaid, Pinocchio and Jungle Book into a dumpster full of dvds that is on fire, reach in and hope to pull out Frozen, or Disney plants Frozen in the backpack of a random tourist in the middle of Time Square and you have to blindly pick that person from the crowd.

I am also looking at the Chaos Gun and literally laughed/cried when I saw the price had jumped 300g over the weekend (I didn’t see the 1.5k mark).

You must have patience, grasshopper.

The attempt to manipulate prices creates opportunities for sellers. More sellers compete with each other which lowers prices. Manipulation attempt will fail in the end because there are too many people willing to put the effort in to get lucky at the forge.

While you are generally right, in the case of “manipulating” pre cursor listings (buy out remaining low stock and list at a significantly higher price), the added supply afterwards usually comes from peoples inventories, not from a massive forge wave as a reaction to the new high listing.
People forget that sell listings doesnt equal supply. Especially for precursors, the mayority of supply is stored outside of the tp. I wouldnt be suprised if less than 1% of all tradeable precursors in game are listed on the tp at any given time.

I was one of the people on The Hunter over the weekend, I didn’t make a ton of gold on it but I did make a little bit. I think the best bet you have is trying to manipulate people that are trying to manipulate the market. The question of “why” is because people are willing to buy them for high prices, even if it’s because of speculation. A simple answer, but, that’s all there is to it. I think it was possible to manipulate The Hunter as long as you had a few buy orders filled around 600, but, who knows.

Wanze.8410:

While you are generally right, in the case of “manipulating” pre cursor listings (buy out remaining low stock and list at a significantly higher price), the added supply afterwards usually comes from peoples inventories, not from a massive forge wave as a reaction to the new high listing.

True, I didn’t mean to imply that was the only reason for prices dropping. But it wouldn’t surprise me if many more people are “inspired” to try their luck at the MF over the next few weeks because of these price jumps, temporary as they may be.

I think the cost to craft rare jumped 20% due to mithril and elder wood log. If you are crafting for personal use, you most likely will want to wait after the event is over.

Wanze.8410:

endirasae.3015:

A (reasonable) maximum ‘sell price’ threshold for certain items might be interesting because it could prevent so-called artificial inflation to a certain degree, but I imagine there would be a great weeping and gnashing of teeth if the TP suddenly had the potential to be less profitable.

This would just lead to less supply, because once its not profitable anymore to forge precursors because the value of t5 mats goes up more than precursors itself (because they are capped in price), people would stop forging them.

Theoretically true (I wish we knew the ratio of precursors dropped in the wild vs crafted in MF), but that’s not necessarily a bad thing and it also doesn’t preclude capping the prices of other items, such at mats (note I’m just theorising, not promoting :p).

OTOH it’s hard to tell these days whether people are more ticked off at exorbitant precursor prices or at not being able to acquire a pre any other way than buying one.. If supply truly did dry up, maybe that’d be worse. :p

I think the luck system is unfair and does not reward fair play. It would be much nicer to know that if you work hard (play more that work ) you could craft a precursor and then invest time in gathering materials etc to craft your legendary weapon. A reward for your effort not for your luck. For me this is a value to promote in GW2, not the opposite. GW was far more fair and fun to play, than is being GW2 for me (working adult who cannot expend more than 3 hours per day playing, which is not a bad amount of time, but it seems for GW2)

It gets so boring when you are investing your time in a game to end up having to invest even more time because you are an unlucky player (that didn’t get her/his precursor from a boss or chest) and have to buy the precursor, when prices rise and rise.

With regards to market manipulation. I agree with the point that it seems that some players buy all the offer to list it again 400g more expensive. How they make so much money? who knows, because I know people that plays “full time” and makes lots of money in the game, but still are not able to buy those that often.

fairywal.2159:

I think the luck system is unfair and does not reward fair play. It would be much nicer to know that if you work hard (play more that work ) you could craft a precursor and then invest time in gathering materials etc to craft your legendary weapon. A reward for your effort not for your luck. For me this is a value to promote in GW2, not the opposite. GW was far more fair and fun to play, than is being GW2 for me (working adult who cannot expend more than 3 hours per day playing, which is not a bad amount of time, but it seems for GW2)

It gets so boring when you are investing your time in a game to end up having to invest even more time because you are an unlucky player (that didn’t get her/his precursor from a boss or chest) and have to buy the precursor, when prices rise and rise.

With regards to market manipulation. I agree with the point that it seems that some players buy all the offer to list it again 400g more expensive. How they make so much money? who knows, because I know people that plays “full time” and makes lots of money in the game, but still are not able to buy those that often.

just convert some gems to gold

Easy answer is like Wanze said, convert real cash to gems to gold. If you are restricted into a small amount of play yet make decent real cash, might be easier to just throw down a $100 into gems and convert and throw in a buy order. Is this the right way? In my opinion, no, but hey, if that’s the only option other than just not getting one at all…..or you can sit around for anywhere from 1 month to 10 years to see if Anet puts in an alternate way to get a precursor. My bets is none since precursors is Anets cash cow to get people to spend real cash for them.