Guild Wars 2

Bolts of silk and cured thick leather sections.

Wait a bit.

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The problem is that the exchange rate for silk scraps and thick leather with the new traders was based on the pre-patch prices. Even at the depressed prices, they are not the most efficient mats to exchange, so don’t expect much new demand for either.

If “the economist” had been thinking, it might have been a good opportunity to readjust mat prices to reflect the given tier. Of course, that would require a willingness to actually manage the economy, rather than just grasping onto the ideology that a completely free market, free of regulation, is the holy grail of economics that can’t even be tainted when tasked with managing a closed virtual market where no real work was done prior to release to ensure that demand/supply would naturally direct prices into appropriate tiers.

IMO, if a game is to have an economist, a primary responsibility should be the fine tuning of supply and demand in order to create a sustainable economy where costs reflect power/quality with out prices for many goods being hopelessly depressed due to a badly thought out strategy for scarcity.

Recipes for armor/weapons/trinkets at different tiers should have been fine tuned in the opening months to push prices towards appropriate goals. Gluts of resources and items should also be regularly addressed via short or long term Mystic Forge recipes tailored specifically towards achieving desired results.

We saw this with Butter and one or two other mats that were made too abundant via mat containers/bags, but this tool seems to have been completely abandoned.

GW2 has one of the most broken economies I’ve ever seen in an MMO, which is even harder to fathom because it actually has a dedicated economist who is supposed to ensure otherwise.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19729

From, 9.7 million leather in supply to ~840k.

kitten !

Fiontar.4695:

GW2 has one of the most broken economies I’ve ever seen in an MMO, which is even harder to fathom because it actually has a dedicated economist who is supposed to ensure otherwise.

Personally, I find it hard to fathom that you struggle so much with the fact that people hold different definitions of what a “broken economy” is. From many other metrics (volume of trade, efficiency of transactions, stability of currency value) this economy is incredibly successful and robust.

An economy akittens core is production, transaction, and consumption of goods (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy). The flow of goods is what makes for a healthy economy. When that stops, the economy is not healthy because people aren’t producing/selling/buying/consuming goods.

And this is absolutely not the case in GW2. There are billions of items being produced, sold, and consumed. Even oversupplied items such as blues/greens have (small) value, and are produced and consumed through NPC vendors with floors specifically designed to give price floors for oversupplied goods (And it works too, as my ~20s vendoring trash from CoF run shows). The value of currency is remarkably stable, leading to active exchange of goods using it.

GW2’s economy is incredibly healthy and robust right now. Far from “broken” unless you want to apply your own narrow definition of it.

When have you ever seen an MMO where the vendor price provided the actual floor for such a large portion of items in the game? Usually the vendor prices are a small fraction of the market value. This is not the case here. That higher tier mats/goods are often cheaper than lower tier shows exactly how broken the economy is.

Fiontar.4695:

When have you ever seen an MMO where the vendor price provided the actual floor for such a large portion of items in the game? Usually the vendor prices are a small fraction of the market value. This is not the case here. That higher tier mats/goods are often cheaper than lower tier shows exactly how broken the economy is.

Again, you’re applying your rather narrow definition of a “broken” economy (prices of certain goods are at the vendor floor. Thus economy is broken.). Using most commonly accepted economic metrics such as consumer spending (consumption) and rate of inflation, GW2 is a very healthy economy.

Has the fact that blue/greens are vendor trash halted the transactions of billions of items in this game? Is it destabilizing the value of currency? Are they not being consumed?

And because you’re not using standard economic metrics to judge the GW2 economy, most economists simply will disagree with your assessment that the economy is “broken.” Hence I find it mystifying to observe you struggle to understand that not everyone uses your own arbitrary definitions of a “broken” economy.

Now that it costs so much more to craft those refined goods yourself, that supply will start to drop and at some point prices will start to rise. It took 80% of the silk scrap supply to be depleted before that price started to rise.

Ursan.7846:

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19729

From, 9.7 million leather in supply to ~840k.

kitten !

Refined materials (silk and leather that has been processed) is still too cheap. Look at bolts of silk and cured thick leather sections.

Cured thick leather sections are starting to move upwards as it’s supply starts to drop.

Bolts of silk, give it time, eventually supply will start to drop. But if crafters get enough cheap/free silk scrap for their personal use from opened bags and salvaged armor drops, it may take a while to make a dent in the supply of bolts of silk.