Guild Wars 2

Fay.2735:

The first 3 months gaining legendaries was still doable. However if you started now you wouldn’t be able to do it in 2.5 months is the point I’m making. Granted I agree it shouldn’t be as easy as it was at the beginning but it’s taking things too far now.

I did not start in the beginning. I started around the halloween event. And charged lodestone have not moved much since then. In fact I just farmed over 800g and just bought the missing pieces all at once ( Dawn, Lodestones and some other little things ). Sunrise has rose in price since then ( about 100 gold ) and the reason for that is mainly globs of ectoplasmn, mystic coins and some t6-materials – while other things like orichalcum fell. My point is: Did create my legendary with current prices in less than 3 monts without playing the tp. It is possible if you are willing to invest time.

edit: Included a quote since new page and stuff. Also context makes it easier to follow.

Ursan.7846:

cargan.5689:

Yup many of us dont understand

We are for the large part MMO grunts not MMO economists

Our understanding is on the level of i killed 100 skrit yesterday and could afford 10 golden sheep with the drops today i kill 100 and can only afford one sheep what happened.

If you could explain one thing it would help me and perhaps others. Sorry to use a RL example but well its what i know. House prices in my area are 50% over what they were 5 years ago while inflation has been very low.
I see much the same with legendarys ok there is no "inflation " in the economy what do you call it when one section of an economy takes of like Usain Bolt with a habanero in his shorts while the rest of it is stable perhaps if we were all using the same terms people would be less confused.

I’m going to assume you’re asking for an explanation on what inflation means in an MMO economy.

BTW, the concepts aren’t hard. You shouldn’t underestimate yourself, I’m sure you’ll understand the concepts after reading my explanation.

Ursan.7846:

In a MMO, you have gold taps and gold sinks. Gold taps are what introduces gold to the economy, and gold sinks are what removes gold from the economy.

Examples of gold taps are gold drops from mobs, selling items to vendors, etc. You’re creating gold out of nothing essentially, and adding it to the game’s economy.

Examples of gold sinks are waypoints, repair costs, and TP listing fees. They remove the gold out of the economy.

You have inflation is gold taps outweight the gold sinks. Players are creating more money than destroying it. Hence there is more gold around in the in-game economy, gold becomes more worthless, and prices in general of EVERYTHING goes up. That is inflation.

But trading on the TP is NOT creating gold. In fact, with the listing fees, it’s doing the exact opposite. Every time a precursor is sold, a chunk of that gold is removed from the game. Yes, people are getting wealthier, but on the flip side someone just lost all that gold. The net gain in the game’s economy is negative, since gold was destroyed.

TL;DR: Trading over the TP is a gold sink, not a gold tap, cannot cause inflation.

In your explanation someone buying Gems and converting them into gold has the potential to increase inflation. The “Precursor” for players adding more gold to the system via Gem purchases is the price of items in the TP.

It would be interesting to to see how much gold is added to the system vs. how much gold is converted to Gems.

Cost-Push Inflation… are Legendaries our Oil Crisis?

M.

M Ham.7509:

In your explanation someone buying Gems and converting them into gold has the potential to increase inflation. The “Precursor” for players adding more gold to the system via Gem purchases is the price of items in the TP.

It would be interesting to to see how much gold is added to the system vs. how much gold is converted to Gems.

Cost-Push Inflation… are Legendaries our Oil Crisis?

M.

You are right, and that is exactly why their Gems/Gold ratio is based on supply/demand. If more people convert Gold into Gems, the exchange rate (gold → gems) increases.

Seeing as gold → gem prices have been climbing steadily since launch, I’m pretty confident in saying more gold has been destroyed creating gems than other way around.

Dropping theory and just addressing the issue of precursors, offering players other ways to obtain precursors would help to bring the inflated prices back into check.

Honestly, I don’t think that precursors or legendaries should be traded on the TP. In order to give people who get a precursor they don’t want/need some path to getting the precursor they do want, rather than selling one to fund the purchase of the other, I’d add Mystic Forge recipes for converting any precursor into any other precursor. The added ingredients heavy on vendor sold MF items, to act as a gold sink and provide some premium for the swap.

I’d also add precursors as Laurel items, with a high enough cost in Laurels to associate a proper degree of effort to the task of obtaining them. Since they would no longer be tradeable, there would be no concern that offering them as a reward would have a huge gold equivalent attached.

This combination would also eliminate the ability of gold sellers to sell precursors, which is something that is happening now. (If for no other reason than this, the changes should be considered).

The Mystic Forge, via conversion recipes, offers a viable alternative to keep all sorts of overpricing in check, with the added conversion costs being adjusted as needed.

Nozdrum.2894:

I did not start in the beginning. I started around the halloween event. And charged lodestone have not moved much since then. In fact I just farmed over 800g and just bought the missing pieces all at once ( Dawn, Lodestones and some other little things ). Sunrise has rose in price since then ( about 100 gold ) and the reason for that is mainly globs of ectoplasmn, mystic coins and some t6-materials – while other things like orichalcum fell. My point is: Did create my legendary with current prices in less than 3 monts without playing the tp. It is possible if you are willing to invest time.

edit: Included a quote since new page and stuff. Also context makes it easier to follow.

Uhm, I’ve played over 2000+ hours since launch so I’ve played A LOT more than your average gamer. I was mostly doing dungeons all day when I got sunrise and I was lucky with dawn if I hadn’t been I’d still be trying to get it now.

I honestly can’t imagine how you got that much money from playing the game normally because I certainly didn’t and majority of my gold went towards sunrise and I started working towards it well before Halloween. I also had a lot of help from other people.

So I’m baffled how you managed to get 800 gold (which btw, the lover nearly costs now on it’s own). As I certainly don’t make that much from playing the game normally (which seeing as how much I play is hardly called normal).

Either you were very lucky or me very unlucky but from what people tell me they aren’t much better off than I am with gathering gold without using TP or grinding the same content all day (which I also wouldn’t classify as normal gameplay).

I invested a lot of time getting sunrise, A LOT so I’m really confused about your statement.

Fiontar.4695:

Dropping theory and just addressing the issue of precursors, offering players other ways to obtain precursors would help to bring the inflated prices back into check.

Honestly, I don’t think that precursors or legendaries should be traded on the TP. In order to give people who get a precursor they don’t want/need some path to getting the precursor they do want, rather than selling one to fund the purchase of the other, I’d add Mystic Forge recipes for converting any precursor into any other precursor. The added ingredients heavy on vendor sold MF items, to act as a gold sink and provide some premium for the swap.

I’d also add precursors as Laurel items, with a high enough cost in Laurels to associate a proper degree of effort to the task of obtaining them. Since they would no longer be tradeable, there would be no concern that offering them as a reward would have a huge gold equivalent attached.

This combination would also eliminate the ability of gold sellers to sell precursors, which is something that is happening now. (If for no other reason than this, the changes should be considered).

The Mystic Forge, via conversion recipes, offers a viable alternative to keep all sorts of overpricing in check, with the added conversion costs being adjusted as needed.

A guaranteed way to get precursors is already being worked on. It may be several months before it is completed however.

So the big open question is lodestone supply. Speaking of, does anyone have any idea what the mystical binding agent that’s in the laurel vendor does?

M Ham.7509:

Cost-Push Inflation… are Legendaries our Oil Crisis?

M.

Legendaries cannot cause cost-push inflation because nothing in the economy relies on them as a cost; when the cost of oil goes up the cost of doing almost everything goes up, and so the price level for nearly all goods and services increases, not the case here.

Successfully stopping as much botting as they did, did cause a bit of cost-push inflation though. If you look at the spidy charts for t6 mat costs, there’s a big spike on all of them around the middle of November, and November was about when they started the big crack downs; 34,000 accounts were banned, bot reporting went down by a factor of 100. That was a big supply shock. And it shows up in the numbers exactly as you’d expect.

Zaxares.5419:

On the topic of Precursors and Legendaries, I feel that Legendaries are something that every player should have the chance to achieve within reasonable effort during their lifetime in GW2. (My frame of reference is that a casual player who plays an hour or two each day should be able to gain a Legendary within a year or two. I understand that Legendaries are intended to be a long-term goal, not something a player earns within a few months.)

I’m not advocating that a Precursor be handed out at the end of the Personal story, but perhaps one should be handed out as a reward for doing ALL of the following:

1. Complete your Personal Story
2. Complete at least 20 Slayer achievements
3. Defeat a number of unique bosses throughout the game world (the Shadow Behemoth, the Fire Elemental in Thaumanova Reactor, the Blood Witch, the Champion Karka in Southsun Cove, the three Dragon champions, among others)
4. Complete the Weapon Master achievement in the weapon of your choice

After all that is complete, you travel to the Dominion of Winds where you are granted an audience with a Tengu Elder Sensei, who challenges you to a special duel (instanced, so you have to do this alone). Defeat her, and she deems you worthy to wield a Precursor weapon that matches the Weapon Master achievement you have completed.

I think all that would be worthy of granting a player a Precursor, and it would be a lot more memorable (and fun!) than simply grinding gold in the TP or throwing items into the MF.

that actually sounds really fun. Also the boss you mention should be a true skill challenge. The designer of Lupi and Priest of Balthazar (also in arah) should make that boss

John Smith.4610:

We are always adding new items to the gemstore and plan to do so. I have my own plans for the goldsellers, they just don’t know I’m coming for them yet.

As usual, Anet are making the same mistake as most other MMO developers: you’re going for the seller when the REAL ‘bad guy’ are the low-lifes that BUY gold from RMT.

Without a market RMT largely die out, yet Anet along with Blizzard, Turbine, Trion, et. al. refuse to pursue and make examples of the buyers.

Unless the majority of buyers fear for their accounts they’ll carry on supporting RMT, I don’t understand why MMO deves don’t get it: especially devs of games like Anet which aren’t dependent on the subs from those who should be banned for buying gold.

Zaxares.5419:

I understand that Legendaries are intended to be a long-term goal, not something a player earns within a few months.)

Clearly Anet don’t agree (or abandoned that line of thinking when they saw a chance to make $$$) since they allowed them to be traded on the TP and bought buy gold buyers (whether by cashing in gems or directly from RMT).

Erasculio.2914:

• They don’t need to “buy low and sell high” as if the price were out of their control; they are not stock market operators trying to guess how the stock is going to change. No, they can buy all entries of some products and offer them at higher prices, effectively creating a “high” at which to sell. " Flipping" items like this is not limited to precursors.

That only works for items with low supply, which are luxury items though. You could buy all 999 existing Asus Ares II cards and sell them for a higher price, you wouldn’t be able to do that with an AMD 7770 though. Or you could probably buy the complete supply of Culatello ham, but not all bread. So this doesn’t affect the majority. Throughput of normal goods in the BLTP is so high that probably nobody, no matter how rich, can manipulate those prices.

The Choosen, precursor for Flameseeker Prophecies, went from 250g today up to 499g in few hours. Somebody bought them all and now are reselling at double the price.
Yeah, is so much fun for a regular player .. fun indeed.

You kinda need to quit relying on people being nice to you just for the sake of being nice to you.

The TP is hostile country. Don’t think for a moment anyone there does anything that puts your benefit ahead of their own.

Enderr.5416:

The Choosen, precursor for Flameseeker Prophecies, went from 250g today up to 499g in few hours. Somebody bought them all and now are reselling at double the price.
Yeah, is so much fun for a regular player .. fun indeed.

i was 2 days of grind away from Flamseeker, and i was so angry when i saw what happend with the shield precursor, angry enough to buy exotic shortbows with all my money, and lost everything, now i gave up on this whole legendary bullkitten…

Enderr.5416:

The Choosen, precursor for Flameseeker Prophecies, went from 250g today up to 499g in few hours. Somebody bought them all and now are reselling at double the price.
Yeah, is so much fun for a regular player .. fun indeed.

Or maybe that item was undervalued all this time.

Supply and demand, what a novel concept eh?

Ursan.7846:

Enderr.5416:

The Choosen, precursor for Flameseeker Prophecies, went from 250g today up to 499g in few hours. Somebody bought them all and now are reselling at double the price.
Yeah, is so much fun for a regular player .. fun indeed.

Or maybe that item was undervalued all this time.

Supply and demand, what a novel concept eh?

Or maybe that item was bought up to control available supply.

Market and manipulation, what a novel concept eh?

~see what I did there?

I’m still not sure how buying and selling is considered market abuse.

Essence Snow.3194:

Ursan.7846:

Enderr.5416:

The Choosen, precursor for Flameseeker Prophecies, went from 250g today up to 499g in few hours. Somebody bought them all and now are reselling at double the price.
Yeah, is so much fun for a regular player .. fun indeed.

Or maybe that item was undervalued all this time.

Supply and demand, what a novel concept eh?

Or maybe that item was bought up to control available supply.

Market and manipulation, what a novel concept eh?

~see what I did there?

You know, what enable these manipulation is because there’s people willing to pay that price. I.E. item was undervalued. If the game’s population believes the new prices are overpriced, it will drop. But I doubt it.

But nope, those evil, evil manipulators are just raising the price without a care for the average “Joe the Plumbers” that play the game. Woe is me.

I wont buy it for sure at 500g. I’d rather buy exotic shields and throw them in the “mystic toilett”.

Ursan.7846:

You know, what enable these manipulation is because there’s people willing to pay that price. I.E. item was undervalued. If the game’s population believes the new prices are overpriced, it will drop. But I doubt it.

But nope, those evil, evil manipulators are just raising the price without a care for the average “Joe the Plumbers” that play the game. Woe is me.

Exactly. We are still buying it at that price so it’s telling the sellers that we will buy at any price. Anet monitoring the situation is useless if they dont step in and do anything. All they have to do is increase rate in MF and general prices will drop, not crazy drop like that Karka situation but enough for it to be manageable to buy. In a game with probably at least 1m players, the stock for precursors are THAT low? That is ridiculous. I myself am looking to buy a precursor and at one point there was only 5 in stock, but at 310m. Then stock went to 10 and instead of decreasing in price, it went up to 320m. I am not spending over the amount I want to spent so hopefully no one will buy, forcing the sellers to drop price or fill a reasonable buy order.

Ursan.7846:

Essence Snow.3194:

Ursan.7846:

Enderr.5416:

The Choosen, precursor for Flameseeker Prophecies, went from 250g today up to 499g in few hours. Somebody bought them all and now are reselling at double the price.
Yeah, is so much fun for a regular player .. fun indeed.

Or maybe that item was undervalued all this time.

Supply and demand, what a novel concept eh?

Or maybe that item was bought up to control available supply.

Market and manipulation, what a novel concept eh?

~see what I did there?

You know, what enable these manipulation is because there’s people willing to pay that price. I.E. item was undervalued. If the game’s population believes the new prices are overpriced, it will drop. But I doubt it.

But nope, those evil, evil manipulators are just raising the price without a care for the average “Joe the Plumbers” that play the game. Woe is me.

I disagree…laws protect us in rl from this sort of thing. Just b/c someone pays a price does not make it a fair price nor fair practice. When you consider that these are not the only items needed for the recipes and many players work on/obtain the other components 1st, they get pigeon holed.

For example) You are working on a degree exclusive to a certain school. Class credits cost $200 per hour. You have completed all but your cornerstone class which is 5 credit hours. As you go to pay for it with your $1000, they inform you that it’s now $2000. They effectively have you cornered as the surmount of your time/work up to that point will be lost w/o paying the $2000.

There is no part of that, that is fair or just. Note that not all the buyers are necessarily “willing” as much as they are “cornered”.

Essence Snow.3194:

I disagree…laws protect us in rl from this sort of thing. Just b/c someone pays a price does not make it a fair price nor fair practice. When you consider that these are not the only items needed for the recipes and many players work on/obtain the other components 1st, they get pigeon holed.

For example) You are working on a degree exclusive to a certain school. Class credits cost $200 per hour. You have completed all but your cornerstone class which is 5 credit hours. As you go to pay for it with your $1000, they inform you that it’s now $2000. They effectively have you cornered as the surmount of your time/work up to that point will be lost w/o paying the $2000.

There is no part of that, that is fair or just. Note that not all the buyers are necessarily “willing” as much as they are “cornered”.

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

What laws are you talking about? I wasn’t aware there was any laws that prevented sellers of luxury goods from raising their prices. Do you think the prices of Ferraris are fair?

By the way, no one’s cornering you to buy these luxury goods (Legendaries.)

Also please don’t compare education to getting a legendary.

Education is important and almost necessary in getting a well-paid job in today’s economy. Getting a Legendary isn’t necessary to do well in this game. No one is forcing you to get a Legendary, but getting that degree is pretty darn important.

Hmm antitrust laws are one example.

Every good in the game is a luxury good. Do you think there is one that is not?

There is a very large population that would argue that yes a degree (and to lesser extent education) is a luxury good not to mention a “well-paid” job. I digress as the analogy was about the practice and not so much the “good”.

The point I was making is not that they are cornering you into deciding to make one, but rather cornering you after you have progress down the proverbial road.

In terms of this game, when you log in what do you see? Your characters and your account medals, which consist map completion, priory, vigil, and order participation, spvp participation, wvw participation, and wait for it…………..legendary weapon acquisition. I would argue that it is just as important a part of the game as the story is, as map completion is, as spvp, or wvw is. Seeing as none of those are being forced where in-lies the distinction?

Essence Snow.3194:

Hmm antitrust laws are one example.

Those laws are to break up monopolies to ensure competition, not to prevent increase in prices of luxury goods.

Yeaaaa, no. I don’t see the US government stepping in to tell everyone that Ferraris are too expensive.

In the case of Guild Wars 2, a monopoly is impossible because no one can absolutely control the supply of any good. When you say someone bought out all the sell orders and list them at a higher price, you have no idea whether it’s the only supply that exists in the game or not. If buy orders (at a much lower value) are being fulfilled, you don’t see that. Hence if you make an assumption that those 3 The Chosen listed on the TP are the only The Chosen available, that is just that. An assumption that may not be true.

Essence Snow.3194:

Every good in the game is a luxury good. Do you think there is one that is not?

Are you purposefully ignoring the term “luxury” in the context in the game?

You need gear to play this game effectively.

You don’t need Legendaries to play this game effectively.

Legendaries are a luxury good. Rare and high in demand, but doesn’t affect your gameplay.

Essence Snow.3194:

There is a very large population that would argue that yes a degree (and to lesser extent education) is a luxury good not to mention a “well-paid” job. I digress as the analogy was about the practice and not so much the “good”.

So? There’s tons of studies showing that in the past 60 years more and more jobs in the US require college degrees, while the number of well-paid jobs you can get without a degree is decreasing. I think today, around 60% of all jobs require a college degree. You call that a luxury?

But yes, your analogy was exceedingly bad.

Essence Snow.3194:

The point I was making is not that they are cornering you into deciding to make one, but rather cornering you after you have progress down the proverbial road.

But…you’re the one who decided to start going down the road in the first place?

Essence Snow.3194:

In terms of this game, when you log in what do you see? Your characters and your account medals, which consist map completion, priory, vigil, and order participation, spvp participation, wvw participation, and wait for it…………..legendary weapon acquisition. I would argue that it is just as important a part of the game as the story is, as map completion is, as spvp, or wvw is. Seeing as none of those are being forced where in-lies the distinction?

Oh man, there’s a medal in my log-in screen for Legendary weapons, I’m soooo forced to get it.

You have got to be kidding me. Please tell me you’re joking?

But you know what, if you think that medal in the log-in screen is ANet forcing you to get a Legendary, more power to you I guess.

kitten be too expensive

It’s not the matter of it being expensive it’s the matter of why it’s expensive. If (let’s use your example) Ferrari used tactics like Debeers has, then yes the US govt. would probably step in.

While I agree a monopoly in true form is most likely improbably in game, monopolistic behavior surely is alive and well.

I’ll give ya the luxury deal of them ig.

In terms of the analogy..I was not implying the US, rather the more agricultural societies of the world.

The medal (to me) shows that it is a major aspect of the game. Anyone who has or is working on one will attest to what kind of expenditure it really is. It is right up there with completing the story, completing the map, and or achieving titles. Is anyone being forced to do those things? No, ofc not. I never said they were.

Don’t let me get under your skin. It is not my intent. I am merely debating the subject, not you.

I guess less-playing people have to wait for that scavenger hunt quests. With each passing day as the precursors cost more and more, I am further from them even when I am playing regularly. So, I hope that at the time when I finish all gifts there will be scavenger hunt available, but frankly I do not get how it will work.

These guys have a problem with Ferrari’s in RL.

Ferrari example doesn’t fit at all in GW2 at all since sports cars have never been nor will they ever be available for some people for a 35th of a price because they got lucky and bought theirs rly fast when they fist came out OR stole them (godskull thing) and got away with it OR they dropped 75% in price at one point cuz the manufacturers got bored of making profit OR they just found the keys on the sidewalk AND Ferrari’s aren’t 1.5M $ now when they 1st came out at 250k $.

“Hence if you make an assumption that those 3 The Chosen listed on the TP are the only The Chosen available, that is just that. An assumption that may not be true.”

It is for Dusk. 610g 650g same crap.

This post use to be MUUUUUCH worse before I noticed Ursan has over 4k achievement pts and is in a dungeon at 6 am which rendered most of the old post almost certainly wrong. My bad.

Nozdrum.2894:

cough cough kitten seeing dawn is around 600g that leaves you 200g for the t6 mats ectos lodestones etc etc etc plus 100g for rune stones 20g for recipes

100g for the runestones
500g for 8×250 t6 mats
175g for ectos
400g of lodestones
600g for dusk

thats 1775g and thats only the big ticket items

on top of lol of oh i just played a bit and got 800g

Just add a limit for the listed items. Expiration date – 48 hours would be a fine solution considering the listing fees.

Ah, gotta love those manipulators. Axe pre went from 320g to 555g in 2-3 hours. Love it with a passion.

-Throws my keyboard-

Himei.5379:

Ah, gotta love those manipulators. Axe pre went from 320g to 555g in 2-3 hours. Love it with a passion.

-Throws my keyboard-

There were 4 axes on 2 days ago at 318-340 gold, I bought one of them for personal use. I can show you a picture of my character wielding it if you want. Not everything is a conspiracy.

Blix.8021:

Himei.5379:

Ah, gotta love those manipulators. Axe pre went from 320g to 555g in 2-3 hours. Love it with a passion.

-Throws my keyboard-

There were 4 axes on 2 days ago at 318-340 gold, I bought one of them for personal use. I can show you a picture of my character wielding it if you want. Not everything is a conspiracy.

And there was 10 axes a few days ago at ~330g. Just before the supply increase, (in 1 day it went from 5 to 10) it was at 5 axes for 320g then went to 10 for ~330g each. You decide what happened. I check the market for this often since I’m looking to buy.

After that, supply dropped down to ~3 at around 350g so quick. Then at one point there were none and now relisted at 555g….hmmm… All within a few days. Mind you, I’m in no rush but it’s very clear to see if you keep track hours/days after days.

If the sell orders change from 320 to 550g, it isn’t a sign of anything. Anything at all. Not with items of such low supply. The 320g ones were bought, then someone came along to sell one and placed it at 550g, since there weren’t any others, and he wanted as much as possible.

When more comes into the market, players will look at lower buy orders and the 550g axe, and undercut the 550 my a decent margin. It’ll happen several times, until it is back in its regular ballpark.

Happens to Dusk all the time. Use buy orders, not sell orders, when determining value.

Kain Nosgoth.4218:

These guys have a problem with Ferrari’s in RL.

Ferrari example doesn’t fit at all in GW2 at all since sports cars have never been nor will they ever be available for some people for a 35th of a price because they got lucky and bought theirs rly fast when they fist came out OR stole them (godskull thing) and got away with it OR they dropped 75% in price at one point cuz the manufacturers got bored of making profit OR they just found the keys on the sidewalk AND Ferrari’s aren’t 1.5M $ now when they 1st came out at 250k $.

“Hence if you make an assumption that those 3 The Chosen listed on the TP are the only The Chosen available, that is just that. An assumption that may not be true.”

It is for Dusk. 610g 650g same crap.

This post use to be MUUUUUCH worse before I noticed Ursan has over 4k achievement pts and is in a dungeon at 6 am which rendered most of the old post almost certainly wrong. My bad.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but every single thing you listed about Ferrari’s is false. First of all there are lottery’s and drawings where people can win a Ferrari by buying a cheap raffle ticket (exactly the same as gambling in the mystic forge).

Secondly, if you bought a Ferrari really fast when it first came out it would have cost you about $18,000. Now they run for more then 10x that (exactly like when precursors were cheap when they first came out and now they greatly rose in price)

Also I don’t know what country you live in, but in mine people steal cars all the time.

Also the more popular models are now much more expensive then $1.5 million and they were much cheaper then 250k meaning farrari’s are much worse off then precursors (clearly the work of EVIL MARKET MANIPULATORS!!!)

Turns out Farrari’s aren’t a good example to compare to GW2 precursors but only because they are much much worse off then the precursor market in every way.

Kain Nosgoth.4218:

This post use to be MUUUUUCH worse before I noticed Ursan has over 4k achievement pts and is in a dungeon at 6 am which rendered most of the old post almost certainly wrong. My bad.

I think I know where you were going with this but honestly I don’t think it matters in the way you were thinking. And the rest of my post isn’t pointed at you but rather those out there that want a real life example of a player who would like to some day complete the Legendary achievement.

I’ve played for about 900 hours since launch. I have more than 4k pts. I have 2 80’s, a 65, and 5 50’s. I have 1 set of exotic armor and no fancy weapons. I have 1 craft left to do for master crafter. I’m a hoarder by nature and keep most of the mats I get. I buy a few things here and there that seem cheap to me. I sell drops worth selling on the TP. I play dungeons, open world, do my daily every day, and all my characters are at lvl appropriate story. I would say I am what Anet would call a typical player for their game. Perhaps even above average in terms of skill and time spent.

You know what? I don’t even have the gold achievement yet on my account which is 200g.

What bothers people like me is when TP warriors show up in their commander icon and T3 with Legendaries and say how good they are at GW2. They brag at how leet they are and that I should learn to play better.

Players like me don’t want things handed to them. But if the carrot on the stick keeps inching further as they progress it leads to frustration.

It just saddens me that the best way to obtain wealth and acknowledgement in this MMORPG is to not actually play the fun content with others but to play the TP alone.

cargan.5689:

Nozdrum.2894:

I did not start in the beginning. I started around the halloween event. And charged lodestone have not moved much since then. In fact I just farmed over 800g and just bought the missing pieces all at once ( Dawn, Lodestones and some other little things ). Sunrise has rose in price since then ( about 100 gold ) and the reason for that is mainly globs of ectoplasmn, mystic coins and some t6-materials – while other things like orichalcum fell. My point is: Did create my legendary with current prices in less than 3 monts without playing the tp. It is possible if you are willing to invest time.

edit: Included a quote since new page and stuff. Also context makes it easier to follow.

cough cough kitten seeing dawn is around 600g that leaves you 200g for the t6 mats ectos lodestones etc etc etc plus 100g for rune stones 20g for recipes

100g for the runestones
500g for 8×250 t6 mats
175g for ectos
400g of lodestones
600g for dusk

thats 1775g and thats only the big ticket items

on top of lol of oh i just played a bit and got 800g

http://calculator.bravevesperia.com/
Just load sunrise there.

At the time posting the price, if you have nothing and just pull everything out of the tp(which is stupid because you can always just order it and wait a bit to get your stuff 5-25% cheaper ), is 1378g53s43c.
But nice exaggeration of 1700g
But since you quote me wrong : I did not just play a bit to get 800g ( in raw gold, ofc you also get ectos and stuff while playing ), I played a lot and efficient. And now you can say that farming is not fun, but this is just your opinion – get in a group of players who want a legendary, get yourself in skype together and talk while farming. Then all becomes fun. Made about 15g per day with dungeons.

What I don’t understand is why aren’t the account who exhibit these strange behaviours on the tp, why aren’t their accounts flagged for a higher level of attention from the account moderators. To people that don’t cheat this wont be a problem and to those that do… Well we all know what would happen to them.

randomfightfan.4091:

Less than a month ago the Lover bow was a little over 300g. Twice now all the bows on the market have been bought and raised in price. First the guy put them back up for 500g and now they’re 700g.

So my question is will there be something put in place to protect the tp from being abused like this in the future from trolly people who have too much money?

Sighz, as I said many many times before. The supply price can only be sustained if there is a DEMANNNNNNNNNNNDDDD for it. Obviously, there are people who think this is worth that much to buy. It’s like freaking Iphones, they don’t go down in price, they don’t do discounts, they barely upgrade their phone between generations but people KEEP BUYING.

Lafiel.9372:

randomfightfan.4091:

Less than a month ago the Lover bow was a little over 300g. Twice now all the bows on the market have been bought and raised in price. First the guy put them back up for 500g and now they’re 700g.

So my question is will there be something put in place to protect the tp from being abused like this in the future from trolly people who have too much money?

Sighz, as I said many many times before. The supply price can only be sustained if there is a DEMANNNNNNNNNNNDDDD for it. Obviously, there are people who think this is worth that much to buy. It’s like freaking Iphones, they don’t go down in price, they don’t do discounts, they barely upgrade their phone between generations but people KEEP BUYING.

This isnt real liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife..stop comparing it to it.

I’d be making way more gold an hour if it was…

Ursan.7846:

M Ham.7509:

In your explanation someone buying Gems and converting them into gold has the potential to increase inflation. The “Precursor” for players adding more gold to the system via Gem purchases is the price of items in the TP.

It would be interesting to to see how much gold is added to the system vs. how much gold is converted to Gems.

Cost-Push Inflation… are Legendaries our Oil Crisis?

M.

You are right, and that is exactly why their Gems/Gold ratio is based on supply/demand. If more people convert Gold into Gems, the exchange rate (gold -> gems) increases.

Seeing as gold -> gem prices have been climbing steadily since launch, I’m pretty confident in saying more gold has been destroyed creating gems than other way around.

Disclaimer – I don’t believe that there is anything inflationary going on, these are just questions to firm up my understanding.

So, the easiest way for ANet to combat inflation is to keep adding desirable items to the gem store, correct? It seems like this is also a good way for them to generate revenue because some folks will convert gold to gems and some folks will just buy gems to get the new items. Doesn’t the gem-gold conversion track the introduction of new items fairly closely?

And I thought the oil crisis (at least in the US) was primarily caused by government interference with the prices to keep them artificially low. I don’t see legendaries as an essential item – I can do everything in the game without having a legendary. I actually can’t think of anything on the TP that I need and can’t afford. There of lots of things I’d like that I can’t afford, but they’re sort of the difference between buying a reliable used car versus a Silver Shadow… they’ll both get me to work, it’s just a matter of style.

Also the ladies who just want to spend time with you because you have twilight just aren’t long term material.

Ursan.7846:

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

What laws are you talking about? I wasn’t aware there was any laws that prevented sellers of luxury goods from raising their prices. Do you think the prices of Ferraris are fair?

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

heck just read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_the_market and see how many of those ended in massive fines and/or jail time.

There are plenty of laws against market manipulation by monopalies (go go alliteration!)

Imperatora.7654:

Ursan.7846:

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

What laws are you talking about? I wasn’t aware there was any laws that prevented sellers of luxury goods from raising their prices. Do you think the prices of Ferraris are fair?

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

heck just read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_the_market and see how many of those ended in massive fines and/or jail time.

There are plenty of laws against market manipulation by monopalies (go go alliteration!)

There’s a difference between laws preventing monopolies (which is nigh impossible in Anet’s economy) and laws preventing high prices of luxury goods (Which don’t exist) which the original poster was alluding to.

Or I think so. Re-reading it, he may have been talking about market manipulation by monopolies. Regardless, point is moot since monopolies are, again, nigh-impossible in Anet’s economy.

While I agree that supply can never be 100% controlled, that is not required for one to coner the market (at least in the short term).

A price increase of 15%+1 will give a profit, and many of these manipulations are on the order of 100% increase or more. Because supply is so amazingly slow on these items, the risk of having someone undercut you to the point where none of you items are sellable is as near to zero as you can get. By buying up all the items, you have effectively controlled the supply (in the short term) as it could be days until another item is added to the system. This is why we see this kind of “scoop them all up and relist them for twice the price” manipulations on precursors but not loadstones, their drop rate is high enough that one can not sufficiently maintain dominance before the supply undercuts you.

So while I agree that a true monopaly is not possible due to how supply is handled, because supply is so low, monopalistic behavior is both extremely easy, and rewarding.

Imperatora.7654:

While I agree that supply can never be 100% controlled, that is not required for one to coner the market (at least in the short term).

A price increase of 15%+1 will give a profit, and many of these manipulations are on the order of 100% increase or more. Because supply is so amazingly slow on these items, the risk of having someone undercut you to the point where none of you items are sellable is as near to zero as you can get. By buying up all the items, you have effectively controlled the supply (in the short term) as it could be days until another item is added to the system. This is why we see this kind of “scoop them all up and relist them for twice the price” manipulations on precursors but not loadstones, their drop rate is high enough that one can not sufficiently maintain dominance before the supply undercuts you.

So while I agree that a true monopaly is not possible due to how supply is handled, because supply is so low, monopalistic behavior is both extremely easy, and rewarding.

Define “slow.”

We know for a fact that an average of 7-9 Dusks/Dawns get sold in a day. It’s still small, but it’s still quite significant.

Imperatora.7654:

Ursan.7846:

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

What laws are you talking about? I wasn’t aware there was any laws that prevented sellers of luxury goods from raising their prices. Do you think the prices of Ferraris are fair?

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

heck just read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_the_market and see how many of those ended in massive fines and/or jail time.

There are plenty of laws against market manipulation by monopalies (go go alliteration!)

There are laws against the abuse of monopoly power, but I’m not aware of any that would specifically prevent any monopoly from raising prices. (Note, I’m excluding industries with heavy price regulation as those are a special case that could never be replicated in GW2) However, those laws are rather narrowly applied, and not particularly frequently used. It’s also not a particularly useful analogy to this game when the differences between the game economy and real life are taken into account. It might be more relevant to compare certain types of illegal trading, but even that has a lot of issues.

Ursan.7846:

Imperatora.7654:

While I agree that supply can never be 100% controlled, that is not required for one to coner the market (at least in the short term).

A price increase of 15%+1 will give a profit, and many of these manipulations are on the order of 100% increase or more. Because supply is so amazingly slow on these items, the risk of having someone undercut you to the point where none of you items are sellable is as near to zero as you can get. By buying up all the items, you have effectively controlled the supply (in the short term) as it could be days until another item is added to the system. This is why we see this kind of “scoop them all up and relist them for twice the price” manipulations on precursors but not loadstones, their drop rate is high enough that one can not sufficiently maintain dominance before the supply undercuts you.

So while I agree that a true monopaly is not possible due to how supply is handled, because supply is so low, monopalistic behavior is both extremely easy, and rewarding.

Define “slow.”

We know for a fact that an average of 7-9 Dusks/Dawns get sold in a day. It’s still small, but it’s still quite significant.

slow enough that, with only a minor investment of time and a lot of up-front gold, one person is able to keep all sell orders <15% of their newly desired price off the market. Dusk and Dawn are also two of, if not the highest supplied precursors due to the mistic toilet. A quick look on spidy puts the others at 5 or less, anything below 20-50 is easily manipulateable by a dedicated player (and anyone with the funds to do this is going to fit in that category).

Ultimately, this whole “economy” can be boiled down to one, single, goal: a retention mechinism to keep players playing. What really needs to be asked is, is the current time needed to get a legendary precursor aiding or harming retention? Are more players sticking around (and potentially spending money) because of the price, or are more leaving because of the time needed?

That is the question we need to address, not price value, not manipulation, but does the current system help or hinder?

Imperatora.7654:

slow enough that, with only a minor investment of time and a lot of up-front gold, one person is able to keep all sell orders <15% of their newly desired price off the market. Dusk and Dawn are also two of, if not the highest supplied precursors due to the mistic toilet. A quick look on spidy puts the others at 5 or less, anything below 20-50 is easily manipulateable by a dedicated player (and anyone with the funds to do this is going to fit in that category).

Sell orders =/- supply.

Imperatora.7654:

Ursan.7846:

Define “slow.”

We know for a fact that an average of 7-9 Dusks/Dawns get sold in a day. It’s still small, but it’s still quite significant.

slow enough that, with only a minor investment of time and a lot of up-front gold, one person is able to keep all sell orders <15% of their newly desired price off the market. Dusk and Dawn are also two of, if not the highest supplied precursors due to the mistic toilet. A quick look on spidy puts the others at 5 or less, anything below 20-50 is easily manipulateable by a dedicated player (and anyone with the funds to do this is going to fit in that category).

I think you misunderstand Spidy’s supply numbers. The figure we have for dawn/dusk is from John Smith revealing actual transaction data for those particular items. Furthermore, a quick look at spidy doesn’t even put the figures as low as you note:

Spark – 12
The Legend – 8
The Lover – 9
The Colossus – 4
Leaf of Kudzu – 4
The Energizer – 20
Storm – 9
The Hunter – 8
Zap – 16
Chaos Gun – 6
Dawn – 12
Dusk – 7

Of the main hand, non-water weapons, only two have “5 or fewer” on the market, and both have 4 right now. To use Spark as an example, it would currently cost over 8000g to purchase the supply and relist it for a profit. Those items would then need to be priced at at least 942g to turn a profit on each of them (break even for all of them would be 794g). To make a 25% profit, they would need to be posted at just under 1200g each. It is extremely unlikely the market would bear this price, and most likely the manipulator would lose significant amounts of money.