Guild Wars 2

From a Rock, Paper, Shotgun interview regarding the upcoming Diablo 3 expansion:

Playing auction houses can be fun – that whole sort of market-cornering aspect can be a cool kind of minigame – but it took away from the core fantasy of what our game is. It’s about killing monsters.

I can’t help but feel that ArenaNet could learn a lot from that kind of thinking.
This is a huge change to Diablo 3. It’s tied in to real-world money changing hands, and Blizzard have been receiving a percentage of every trade made. They are losing a source of revenue by doing this, but they realised that in the long run it was hurting the game rather than helping it.

I read that a week ago and yes, my thoughts were along the same line.
But I also think it might be a bit more complicated in this genre.

Edit: To clarify, I’m talking about the core being “monster slaying”, not to remove the TP, just a little less perceived emphasis on it.

I’m not sure what you are getting at OP?

The equivalent to the AH in this game is the TP… which is the only thing that keeps inflation under control, and actually causes Anet to lose money since when tied in with the gold→gem conversion people don’t need to ever spend money on the game.

Are you suggesting they somehow remove the TP? That would utterly and totally destroy this game overnight.

I suppose they could increase profits by getting rid of the TP and forcing you to buy every item in the game directly from the cash shop with real money… is that what you are suggesting?

I just wish there was something we could do about flipper. While I understand that Anet actually benefices from them (after all, they sink A LOT of gold) ,but for the players that play the game honesty all they do is make gold less valuable, items unnecessarily expensive and force others into taking action or falling behind.

There are still people out there who believe that flippers barely make a dent in the economy, but truth of the matter is; the cumulative actions of thousands and thousands of flippers make the market so unstable, to the point that a guy i my guild has barely ever left LA but has 4 legendaries thanks to flipping stuff around…..

The market in GW2 completly sucks, and most part because of the poorly designed AH. I don’t think it will be removed, though.

I think the TP is pretty vital to the game, and it would require a major re-work of the economy if it was severely altered (or removed).

That said, I think the biggest thing to hurt Diablo 3 is that it wasn’t very good.

The thing I don’t like about Trading Post, is how it has been killing one of the most fundamental RPG features – exciting looting.

Almost every single reward in GW2 revolves around currencies, generic materials or generic salvage fodder. The exciting exceptions are heavily driven by very low RNG values, for the sake of the “in-game economy”.

It’s very satisfying to work for and get, from a loot, a specific skin or a specific weapon that is statistically stronger than what we have, and get to equip it and say to ourselves, “this is the weapon I’ve gotten from finishing this kind of content”. But that barely exists in GW2. Most of the stuff you get is fodder to salvage kits, with generic skins, that can drop pretty much from anywhere and everywhere. Even the rare drops are easily gotten by predictable world boss patterns, and have no purpose but to salvage as well, or to sell for other players to salvage.

You need some kind of trading post in gw2, this game isn’t about gear drops.

DiogoSilva.7089:

The thing I don’t like about Trading Post, is how it has been killing one of the most fundamental RPG features – exciting looting.

Almost every single reward in GW2 revolves around currencies, generic materials or generic salvage fodder. The exciting exceptions are heavily driven by very low RNG values, for the sake of the “in-game economy”.

It’s very satisfying to work for and get, from a loot, a specific skin or a specific weapon that is statistically stronger than what we have, and get to equip it and say to ourselves, “this is the weapon I’ve gotten from finishing this kind of content”. But that barely exists in GW2. Most of the stuff you get is fodder to salvage kits, with generic skins, that can drop pretty much from anywhere and everywhere. Even the rare drops are easily gotten by predictable world boss patterns, and have no purpose but to salvage as well, or to sell for other players to salvage.

What have droprates and concepts like the Mystic Forge have to do with the TP ?
In EQ2 for example we also had a great AH but most of the good Drops where bound on pickup and not even tradeable at all.

The biggest problem in D3 was that there was a Real Money Auction House and not that it existed at all. The other is that D2 was all about endless grinding Bosses for finally getting a good Drop, while in D3 they destroyed the whole concept of Bossruns.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I’m not sure what you are getting at OP?

The equivalent to the AH in this game is the TP… which is the only thing that keeps inflation under control, and actually causes Anet to lose money since when tied in with the gold->gem conversion people don’t need to ever spend money on the game.

Are you suggesting they somehow remove the TP? That would utterly and totally destroy this game overnight.

I suppose they could increase profits by getting rid of the TP and forcing you to buy every item in the game directly from the cash shop with real money… is that what you are suggesting?

The fact that your post reads more like a dry article from the Financial Times regarding economics rather than a game should tip you off as to the meaning of my post.
GW2 is obsessed with currencies, value and rewards, to the detriment of actual gameplay.

YEAH! I play GW2 to get AWAY from the real world where the people who have all the money can buy and enjoy everything while the rest of us work for little to no gains! (Being slightly sarcastic )

This game would not implode overnight if arenanet removed the TP. All that would happen would be people earning their gear and crafting materials through PLAYING the game, rather than funneling real $$ into the game to purchase these items. You would also see an increase in trade chat transactions.

Thats about it. And if you seriously think that removing an AH from an MMO is self destructing, then the developer has failed. The game should not be revolving around economics. They are important, but not at the core. Gameplay, combat, bosses and FUN are the core of the game. Not dollars and cents. If you are willing to have a complex AH and economy at the expense of gameplay, youre doing it wrong.

And no, to reply to someone..GW2 is not necessarily about gear drops. Its about farming and grinding for crafting materials. You can get these by playing the game as well, instead of using the TP.

To me the TP is the #1 problem with this game (almost tied with WP).

Right now this game has a lot of really obvious problems and flaws, however removing the TP from the game would almost completely fix most of the major flaws the game has.

It’d solve the issue of empty maps, people would swarm back to maps to get wood, ores, bloods, fangs etc. This would mean people would also be playing the game more.

It would suddenly make almost all loot valuable, even blues and greens since you wouldn’t be able to just buy them for scrap change. More importantly you wouldn’t be able to just buy the exotic or rares at will, making those higher tier armors even more valuable.

Chests, champ drops, moldy bags, etc would all become very valuable again.

Getting a legendary would actually be the sign of dedication and hard work (with a bit of luck) instead of the sign of someone willing to spend a lot of money.

Runes and Sigils would be extremely rare and valuable. Major runes/sigils would be a big part of people’s builds since finding a complete set of the very rare Superior would be a true feat.

The list goes on and on and on, sadly though I have absolutely no hopes or expectations of this ever happening in GW2.

So… yeah.

Either they remove the TP and fix 75% of the game’s major flaws, or they work like mad men to produce an insane amount of new items, armors, weapons to keep the game rewarding and interesting, or the game dies.

Yeah, no.

Diablo 3 is not an MMO. GW2 is.

MMO’s need gold sinks, and there’s no better goldsink in game than the TP.

cesmode.4257:

This game would not implode overnight if arenanet removed the TP. All that would happen would be people earning their gear and crafting materials through PLAYING the game, rather than funneling real $$ into the game to purchase these items. You would also see an increase in trade chat transactions.

Thats about it. And if you seriously think that removing an AH from an MMO is self destructing, then the developer has failed. The game should not be revolving around economics. They are important, but not at the core. Gameplay, combat, bosses and FUN are the core of the game. Not dollars and cents. If you are willing to have a complex AH and economy at the expense of gameplay, youre doing it wrong.

And no, to reply to someone..GW2 is not necessarily about gear drops. Its about farming and grinding for crafting materials. You can get these by playing the game as well, instead of using the TP.

We do it your way, they would have to massively overhaul the crafting and reward systems. They’d have to remake item acquisition and drop tables. All for what?

I see absolutely no purpose or justification for removing the TP, merely because people are jealous that they do not have the time, fortitude, patience or capability to watch markets and take advantage of the TP.

The work involved for doing this is mind boggling intensive and that you’d be doing more damage to the game. All just to appease a ‘vocal minority’

Delryn.7235:

It would suddenly make almost all loot valuable, even blues and greens since you wouldn’t be able to just buy them for scrap change. More importantly you wouldn’t be able to just buy the exotic or rares at will, making those higher tier armors even more valuable.

How can we talk about ‘valuable’ here when there would be no TP? How exactly can we establish the value of a blue/green? You can’t. So all this talk about ‘valuable’ is pointless because you no longer have a currency to value it.

Delryn.7235:

To me the TP is the #1 problem with this game (almost tied with WP).

Right now this game has a lot of really obvious problems and flaws, however removing the TP from the game would almost completely fix most of the major flaws the game has.

It’d solve the issue of empty maps, people would swarm back to maps to get wood, ores, bloods, fangs etc. This would mean people would also be playing the game more.

It would suddenly make almost all loot valuable, even blues and greens since you wouldn’t be able to just buy them for scrap change. More importantly you wouldn’t be able to just buy the exotic or rares at will, making those higher tier armors even more valuable.

Chests, champ drops, moldy bags, etc would all become very valuable again.

Getting a legendary would actually be the sign of dedication and hard work (with a bit of luck) instead of the sign of someone willing to spend a lot of money.

Runes and Sigils would be extremely rare and valuable. Major runes/sigils would be a big part of people’s builds since finding a complete set of the very rare Superior would be a true feat.

The list goes on and on and on, sadly though I have absolutely no hopes or expectations of this ever happening in GW2.

So… yeah.

Either they remove the TP and fix 75% of the game’s major flaws, or they work like mad men to produce an insane amount of new items, armors, weapons to keep the game rewarding and interesting, or the game dies.

You keep throwing around this word… valuable… if you remove the TP then nothing is valuable because you can’t sell it. Everything is equally worthless. Get a super rare item… too bad you can’t use it, guess that was a waste…

Also runes and sigils are not super rare or hard to get… you can craft 99% of them….

With today’s drop rates no one would ever get a legendary without the TP, period, full stop. Farming the necessary lodestones alone would take 100+ hours. Then you’d have to individually farm all 8 T6 mats… each taking 100’s of hours.

Without the TP there wouldn’t be any players left in the game, nothing that even closely resembles this fantasy world you have constructed for yourself.

Vol.5241:

How can we talk about ‘valuable’ here when there would be no TP? How exactly can we establish the value of a blue/green? You can’t. So all this talk about ‘valuable’ is pointless because you no longer have a currency to value it.

I don’t think he is talking monetary value here. I mean let’s face it, do you really go “yay an exotic drop”, or do you go – check TP value, check the look, decide to sell/salvage?

No doubt this lies deep within the design. The conundrum of not wanting people to “farm” a specific place for drops, but rather sample everything the game has to offer – versus rewarding the players/balancing the economy on a larger view.

I see strides made here towards alleviating some of the problems, mats for laurels, lodestones in champion bags etc. But also the constant need for balancing with new recipes and larger amounts of materials needed coming in new updates.

I unfortunately don’t have an answer or a solution, but I do think that champion farming for example is mostly an answer to the current state – and not the desire for “monster slaying”.

Zerole.7306:

I think the TP is pretty vital to the game, and it would require a major re-work of the economy if it was severely altered (or removed).

That said, I think the biggest thing to hurt Diablo 3 is that it wasn’t very good.

Zing!

I wouldn’t be too hasty to look at D3’s situation and take away from it, “Auction houses/trading posts are inherently terrible.” Diablo is a substantially different kind of game from GW2, and while there might be some useful object lessons in the case of Diablo 3, what works best for one is not necessarily the best for the other.

I’m not an expert on the TP economy, but I do know that I would, personally, enjoy the game less without it. I don’t buy very many high-end goods, but the TP is useful for ensuring I get what I want, and can convert things I don’t want into things that I do over time. If it becomes a struggle to acquire things as basic as crafting supplies and runes, I’m probably just going to skip those parts of the game, rather than invest more time in farming gathering nodes, etc.

People who play the Trading Post might make the high-end items rise in price, with a disparity between the super-rich and the average players, but if I have to go out there and get even basic items myself, I’m not sure I’m going to have the interest in farming areas for rarer drops. So, is the problem the trading post, or wealth disparity, whether caused by the trading post, farming, or whatever else?

(Of course, wealth disparity is going to happen either way.)

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Delryn.7235:

To me the TP is the #1 problem with this game (almost tied with WP).

Right now this game has a lot of really obvious problems and flaws, however removing the TP from the game would almost completely fix most of the major flaws the game has.

It’d solve the issue of empty maps, people would swarm back to maps to get wood, ores, bloods, fangs etc. This would mean people would also be playing the game more.

It would suddenly make almost all loot valuable, even blues and greens since you wouldn’t be able to just buy them for scrap change. More importantly you wouldn’t be able to just buy the exotic or rares at will, making those higher tier armors even more valuable.

Chests, champ drops, moldy bags, etc would all become very valuable again.

Getting a legendary would actually be the sign of dedication and hard work (with a bit of luck) instead of the sign of someone willing to spend a lot of money.

Runes and Sigils would be extremely rare and valuable. Major runes/sigils would be a big part of people’s builds since finding a complete set of the very rare Superior would be a true feat.

The list goes on and on and on, sadly though I have absolutely no hopes or expectations of this ever happening in GW2.

So… yeah.

Either they remove the TP and fix 75% of the game’s major flaws, or they work like mad men to produce an insane amount of new items, armors, weapons to keep the game rewarding and interesting, or the game dies.

Without the TP there wouldn’t be any players left in the game, nothing that even closely resembles this fantasy world you have constructed for yourself.

^ this must be stressed. The TP is like a glorified barter system. Let’s say I like to farm lodestones to sell but I hate gathering plants. But Zudet hates farming but like to gather plants. We are a perfect match and our transaction takes place on the TP.

The TP brings buyers and sellers together so that we can quickly achieve our goals.

If there were no TP, we’d all have to gather everything ourselves. You may want to spin it as “playing the game”, but I would say it would force us to do things we don’t want in order to reach our goals. At least with the TP we have the option of doing it ourselves or buying.

Redenaz.8631:

Zerole.7306:

I think the TP is pretty vital to the game, and it would require a major re-work of the economy if it was severely altered (or removed).

That said, I think the biggest thing to hurt Diablo 3 is that it wasn’t very good.

Zing!

So, is the problem the trading post, or wealth disparity, whether caused by the trading post, farming, or whatever else?

(Of course, wealth disparity is going to happen either way.)

I personally do not view massive wealth generated by the TP as a massive problem, but that’s my own biased opinion. And blaming this on the TP, which is more of a vehicle is unfair to the regular users of the TP.

It’s like blaming stock exchanges for assisting in insider trading schemes. Yeah, you can commit insider trading by buying/short selling stocks and accumulating huge gains, but is that the fault of the stock exchange? No, it’s a vehicle, as is the TP in GW2.

Agreed, Vol. I won’t say the economy is perfect (certainly not,) but I’ll happily take its particular imperfections over canning the whole system entirely. It’s too useful to do away with, even for people like myself who don’t play the market.

Blizzard is blowing smoke, the reason they removed it was the crazy super inflation that they never managed to get under control, in comparison GW2 is a poster boy of a healthy economic system.

Delryn.7235:

This would mean people would also be playing the game more.

This is probably the most laughably wrong statement ever put on the webbynets.

People would be playing the game less because instead of playing the part of the game they like, they are now required to spend hours grinding even basic resources because they have no easy way to quickly obtain them. Farming is only “playing the game” if it is a part of the game you enjoy.

aeneq.1760:

Blizzard is blowing smoke, the reason they removed it was the crazy super inflation that they never managed to get under control, in comparison GW2 is a poster boy of a healthy economic system.

When I stopped D3 after playing for 4 months, I was amazed at the lack of gold sinks. The only gold sink they had was the gem creation, and the gold sink from that was unbelievably tiny.

I just had an amusing thought…

I get off from a rough day at work, where I’ve been squishing bugs and doing battle with trolls and ogres, to log into GW2 and relax with a nice, simple game of “buy low sell high”.

Face some realities people. The Trading Post formalizes an aspect of the game that was present for years in GW1 in the form of grey-market auction houses, accredited traders working high value deals, people selling new items picked up off the ground for 100plat, false advertising, scams, and oh yes, flippers in Spammadan advertising at all hours “WTS 11e for 100k” and “wtb 10e for 100k”. This made the game unpleasant for some. Made Spammadan unbearable for many, and made lives interesting for support, with all the “I got scammed” issues they got.

You can get rid of the interface, but not the market, and the flippers are part of the market.. They make items available out-of-season. They let you get that rare, exclusive, available only 6 years ago dragon mini. Most importantly, they let suppliers dump their goods fast and early. In GW1, I would hand over goods for a low but reasonable price to people who would sell them. Me? I’d go out and get more goods. Them? They’d stand in Spammadan and work to sell them for a best value. I got my money instantly. The flipper, he had to work to sell it. I was not shocked, dismayed, or otherwise annoyed by this. If you are shocked by a transaction I participated in, that is your problem, and quite frankly none of your business. Get over it.

In GW2, I’m working to bring materials prices up (more money to the farmer) and product prices down (yay to the end user). If while doing this I see a brain-dead obvious deal for making lots of gold six or twelve months out, I’ll hop onto it, because if I don’t, someone else will. If seller wants to sell their widget for 10g now when it would go for 300g in a year, that is their choice and none of your business. If I chose a year later to sell it, that is my choice, and none of your business… Unless you want to buy it at my price.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. A gold today is worth ten in a month, and yes, time is money.
//Portable Corpse

Delryn.7235:

To me the TP is the #1 problem with this game (almost tied with WP).

Right now this game has a lot of really obvious problems and flaws, however removing the TP from the game would almost completely fix most of the major flaws the game has.

It’d solve the issue of empty maps, people would swarm back to maps to get wood, ores, bloods, fangs etc. This would mean people would also be playing the game more.

It would suddenly make almost all loot valuable, even blues and greens since you wouldn’t be able to just buy them for scrap change. More importantly you wouldn’t be able to just buy the exotic or rares at will, making those higher tier armors even more valuable.

Chests, champ drops, moldy bags, etc would all become very valuable again.

Getting a legendary would actually be the sign of dedication and hard work (with a bit of luck) instead of the sign of someone willing to spend a lot of money.

Runes and Sigils would be extremely rare and valuable. Major runes/sigils would be a big part of people’s builds since finding a complete set of the very rare Superior would be a true feat.

The list goes on and on and on, sadly though I have absolutely no hopes or expectations of this ever happening in GW2.

So… yeah.

Either they remove the TP and fix 75% of the game’s major flaws, or they work like mad men to produce an insane amount of new items, armors, weapons to keep the game rewarding and interesting, or the game dies.

You are dreaming if you think removing the TP would improve the value of blues and greens. They aren’t worth much because they are only good for salvage fodder.
I don’t need to nor have I had a need to buy exotics.

Also good luck finding a buyer spamming mapchat instead of … playing the game.

The only thing removing the TP is going to do is waste people’s time by forcing them to sit in town trying to find buyers and sellers instead of actually selling the game.

The TP is fine. All the TP botting isn’t.

Remove the market, and appoint John Smith as our central planner.

John Smith.4610:

FirstBlood.7359:

Remove the market, and appoint John Smith as our central planner.

After I’m elected, bribing me will be considered a “gold sink”

:)

This is a initiative I think we can all agree on.

Oh kitten NO!……15 kittens

John Smith.4610:

FirstBlood.7359:

Remove the market, and appoint John Smith as our central planner.

After I’m elected, bribing me will be considered a “gold sink”

:)

Oh dear kitten of kittening kitten, preserve us from this kittened scenario.
//Portable Corpse

The easiest solution to the “problem” of TP flipping is to make all items purchased from the TP account bound. You keep the ability to be able to buy what you need for the casual people so they don’t have to grind and you keep all the flippers out of the mix.

This doesn’t make sense for GW2 because GW2 is not just about killing. GW2 is a community and a market place.

Frankly, it’s a bit rich to compare Guild Wars 2 to Diablo 3. Please…

cranked.3812:

The easiest solution to the “problem” of TP flipping is to make all items purchased from the TP account bound. You keep the ability to be able to buy what you need for the casual people so they don’t have to grind and you keep all the flippers out of the mix.

Easiest thing to do, but not any kind of a solution. Traders would resort to the grey market.

Seriously, why do people always hate the person who makes money off of any transaction? Envy? Greed? Jealousy? Seriously, its a market place. Expect stuff to be bought and sold. If you have problems with that, you do not need to participate in it.

//Portable Corpse
A gold today is worth ten gold in a month.

John Smith.4610:

FirstBlood.7359:

Remove the market, and appoint John Smith as our central planner.

After I’m elected, bribing me will be considered a “gold sink”

:)

I offer you a stack of Silver Doubloons.

Wait, I cant afford that.

John Smith.4610:

FirstBlood.7359:

Remove the market, and appoint John Smith as our central planner.

After I’m elected, bribing me will be considered a “gold sink”

:)

My thought process involved cookies … but I guess not everyone likes cookies …
Cookie?

Redenaz.8631:

Zerole.7306:

I think the TP is pretty vital to the game, and it would require a major re-work of the economy if it was severely altered (or removed).

That said, I think the biggest thing to hurt Diablo 3 is that it wasn’t very good.

Zing!

I wouldn’t be too hasty to look at D3’s situation and take away from it, “Auction houses/trading posts are inherently terrible.” Diablo is a substantially different kind of game from GW2, and while there might be some useful object lessons in the case of Diablo 3, what works best for one is not necessarily the best for the other.

It’s not that D3 is a substantially different genre of game that makes the lessons learned not translate to GW2 – it’s mainly (in my opinion) that it has an auction house and GW2 has a market. Almost every item in D3 was different from every other item because of the random attributes, where all items in GW2 are commodities (which is why I like the TP better than any AH in any of the many many games I’ve played that have them).

Also, D3 had terrible design issues around loot and crafting that were reflected in problems with their auction house, but not necessarily caused by the inclusion of an AH in the game.

I don’t know how many folks calling for the removal of the TP suffered through the early days where issues kept the TP from being available for extended periods of time. It was painful, and I’m not a trader or a farmer. I am not going to enjoy any game where I have to sit in a hub for hours on end with my thumb up my … er nose… trying to find someone that has what I need for a price I want to pay.

Player shops in Lineage 2 if somebody ever played that. Not really anything i want back.

I thought there was a major bug or exploit in D3 which caused so much inflation it destroyed the economy.

You couldn’t remove the TP without redesigning many systems in Gw2 – the loot drops for example are just so low. Can you imagine the amount of pointless grind Gift of Fortune would require – 250 of each T6 mats which drop once a century as it is… Until Anet actually address how little skill based rewards there are in the game and how the most profitable things are farming (often farming whatever Anet accidentally made worthwhile) or playing the market, this wouldn’t help.

Fortus.6175:

I just wish there was something we could do about flipper. While I understand that Anet actually benefices from them (after all, they sink A LOT of gold) ,but for the players that play the game honesty all they do is make gold less valuable, items unnecessarily expensive and force others into taking action or falling behind.

There are still people out there who believe that flippers barely make a dent in the economy, but truth of the matter is; the cumulative actions of thousands and thousands of flippers make the market so unstable, to the point that a guy i my guild has barely ever left LA but has 4 legendaries thanks to flipping stuff around…..

Yeah…you might want to check your economic understanding there. If flippers are causing a gold sink, they’re making gold more valuable. On top of that, they also cause a significant negative pressure on insta-buy prices. In other words, all the things you think are horrible about them are actually just completely false.

John Smith.4610:

FirstBlood.7359:

Remove the market, and appoint John Smith as our central planner.

After I’m elected, bribing me will be considered a “gold sink”

:)

Are you suggesting this wouldn’t work now?

I’m interested in the staff precursor, if you know what I mean.

I think the market fine. To be honest blizzard failed at keeping the bots out, or people had programs set to keep running endless dngs to farm up these items/weapons which did sink it down the hole. Unlike Anet…they don’t allowed other party sysytems/programs.
Which if you do have one.. don’t get your account ban. ;D

I miss good old player to player trading. I think it’s a good aspect of MMO games.

Asuka Shikinami.5462:

I thought there was a major bug or exploit in D3 which caused so much inflation it destroyed the economy.

You couldn’t remove the TP without redesigning many systems in Gw2 – the loot drops for example are just so low. Can you imagine the amount of pointless grind Gift of Fortune would require – 250 of each T6 mats which drop once a century as it is… Until Anet actually address how little skill based rewards there are in the game and how the most profitable things are farming (often farming whatever Anet accidentally made worthwhile) or playing the market, this wouldn’t help.

IIRC there was a bug that allowed certain characters to be immortal so you could farm on the craziest possible difficult without having to worry about dying at all.

As for the Gift of Fortune I don’t really need much imagining for that. I got most of mine on my own although some came from the clover recipes so maybe those do not count. The thing I had the most trouble with was actually Ancient Bones.

Absolutely NOT to the OP’s suggestion. I hatehateHATE getting stuff that I don’t want. Players should be able to sell ANYTHING they get, whether it’s weapons, armors, minipets, back pieces, whatever. Soulbound on equip is fine if you want to keep item consumption in the game, but having account bound gear (outside of gem store purchases) just frustrates me to no end.

The story of Diablo III’s auction house is testament to the difficulty of designing a reward economy without talking to an economist. I think it’s sad that quite a few truly excellent gameplay and system designs they made are going to be forgotten because their game’s economy and reward system designers were incompetent.

John Smith.4610:

FirstBlood.7359:

Remove the market, and appoint John Smith as our central planner.

After I’m elected, bribing me will be considered a “gold sink”

:)

Mr Smith, can you provide us with a list of the correct prices for materials so we can avoid trading either above or below these prices lest we harm our fellow comrades?

I’m sure that many of us are simply ignorant of what true equilibrium prices are. If we can work together to balance the most plentiful markets I’m sure the other markets will be reigned in also.