Guild Wars 2

As i watched all the rangers post about precursors, i really wouldn’t help and laugh really. The truth is, the market is fine, and there are no manipulators. Why? because manipulating items worth huge sums of gold is risky, and anyone who knows anything about the market, high risk = bad investment. It is much easier to simply flip loads of small items with low risk and high reward.

So why did the precursors spike up? Well there are a few possible reasons. First, i know of a few people that sit in lions arch at the TP 24/7 and flip items. (much like the real stock market…very boring) they observer market trends and well…if they get too excited they jump the gun and buy a load of things, as soon as this happens other people follow suit. They see 2 precursors of the same kind sell at the same time and then they buy one, then another watcher byes one, and boom the price just went up 50-100g in a few seconds (let alone 24hrs). This is likely, but there is one more likely reason precursors went up.

The second reason is slower, but relies heavily on circumstance. The people who read these forums are most likely looking to buy their precursors. Some probably have buy orders out. They read all the forums, get worried, and that 1 person who has the money but wants to know if precursors are going down, goes ahead and byes his precursor just so he has his. Now if a few people do this…say on the same day…the price of an item that only has 10-15 listings jumps…a lot…

So all of you who thinks there is this rich guy buying a bunch of precursors and re selling them…your wrong…way too risky. If you think the market is being manipulated…your right…but its not precursors *cough* its mats *cough*

Why am i probably right: I work the market (500k pages of buying history) and i observe trends. Its fairly easy to predict weather an item will go up and down…but in the case of precursors, there really is no predicting, that’s why i stay away from them. If you want my advice, stay away from them so they would go down. The market goes up and down, like any other market.

TLDR, stop raging, market is fine, lemmings are buying precursors cuz they are worried of price increases, K thx bye.

EDIT: If your thinking the scavenger hunt thing A Net said will happen (eventually) might help, id hate to disappoint you. Looking at A Net’s history, chances are getting a precursor will stay relatively the same. Think about it, there not going to make them too cheap…otherwise it would be too easy…i expect it to stay around 500g. : (

EDIT EDIT:: chances are you also played the “outbid the other guy bidding on a precursor by 1 copper game” this also demonstrates people panicking…raising prices…PRO TIP, just leave your bids where they are…that person above you is probably going to take his buy order out, and just buy the thing straight out 5 minutes after he outbids you by 1 copper.

I think you mean 500k items, not pages. Cause that would be 5 million items. Which, while possible, seems mighty high.

Geikamir.6329:

I think you mean 500k items, not pages. Cause that would be 5 million items. Which, while possible, seems mighty high.

Wish you were right…but you are wrong… i really do mean 500,000 pages :/ i really wish they had a delete history button, takes forever to load.

Ok, wow. That is very impressive.

And also very sad.

5 million items bought? Holy lord… just how much gold do you have now?

Does it matter? Even if he currently only has 10 gold, his argument is backed up by experience. And I find his argument credible, ie. the precursor market is mainly dominated by (1) a few people that gamble, and write it on the forum so that (2) a lot people panick, and buy their precursor at an increased price, driving up the price even further, and unknowingly fulfilling the gambler’s prophecy.

It’s a well known phenomenon, I believe. People like Soros made their money like this; He speculated on overvalued currencies. He sold his Pounds, and later, his Bahts, he explained why he did it [these currencies are overvalued!], and people followed him in his speculation. As these people also sold all their Pounds and their Bahts, those currencies literally crashed as a result. Soros is now one of the richest people on the planet.

Now, the precursor people are doing the opposite. They’re saying: look, there’s all precursors that are undervalued. They publicly compare them to the prices of all the other precursors, and buy enough of them so that the price spikes. Now, low and behold! People will follow them in their argument and start buying them too. So the price goes nuts, and stays nuts.

It’s not the speculators that drive up the price, it is, in fact, the people that panick as a result that drive up the price.

And then, one day, a little birdie from arenanet implements a lil’ update in the loot tables…. and everyone is poor again. Except the speculators of course; they have already sold their precursors at top prices long ago, and have moved on to the next market.

No, the supply is the driving force. The supply created by arenanet. It’s all in the hands of arenanet. They control the supply, they know how the prices will be, they also promised fixes that are increased drop rates and Bullkitten Hunt – uhh I mean scavenger hunt(which was nothing but a damage control PR spin that never actually materialized or was actually being worked on at any point. Just something a dev said out of their behind to make people calm. Can’t say it didn’t work.)

It’s ALL in the hands of the creators. This silence or “monitoring” (aka doing nothing) if you will is absolutely disgusting.

Arenanet is the only force capable of fixing this situation. Or if this really does keep up even after todays patch, then I guess we should just all agree this EXACTLY what they want – which also means they unethically straight up lie to their playerbase. Not good business ethics is it.

Gasoline.2570:

No, the supply is the driving force. The supply created by arenanet. It’s all in the hands of arenanet. They control the supply, they know how the prices will be, they also promised fixes that are increased drop rates and Bullkitten Hunt – uhh I mean scavenger hunt(which was nothing but a damage control PR spin that never actually materialized or was actually being worked on at any point. Just something a dev said out of their behind to make people calm. Can’t say it didn’t work.)

It’s ALL in the hands of the creators. This silence or “monitoring” (aka doing nothing) if you will is absolutely disgusting.

Arenanet is the only force capable of fixing this situation. Or if this really does keep up even after todays patch, then I guess we should just all agree this EXACTLY what they want – which also means they unethically straight up lie to their playerbase. Not good business ethics is it.

Yeah….because injecting a bunch of precursors into the market would be a good thing? I don’t think so. All that will do is make Legendaries less legendary because they’ll be too easy to get and SO many people will have them.

You’re upset because YOU don’t have YOURS yet and you want it NOW!!!! I don’t have a Legendary either….but I’ll get one eventually. It’s a long term goal for me….as it’s intended to be.

If everyone an their dog had a Legendary, I don’t think I’d want one anymore….nor would a lot of people.

Making precursors (and by extension…Legendaries) easier to acquire doesn’t help the game. The number of precursors in the game and their prices are fine….which means the methods of acquiring them are fine.

I believe Anet IS still working on a Scavenger Hunt….but we won’t see it any time soon. I fear it will screw up the precursor and Legendary system though by giving a guaranteed way of getting one.

I’ve said this in many threads and I’ll say it again here….

Legendaries are meant to be difficult to acquire. They’re not meant for everyone. They should take a lot of work to get one. Whether that means a lot of farming….a lot of dungeons….a lot of WvW….a lot of time playing the Trading Post…..it doesn’t matter.

Just because other people have them, that doesn’t mean you should have one too. You can still get yours….it’s just going to take you some more time to get one. Be patient. Have fun. Play the game.

If having a Legendary right now is the only reason you’re playing…it sounds like you’re not really having fun anyway. It’s a game…it should be fun.

Ecto prices went down with people mass farming dragon events, precursors went down.

Ecto prices went up due to people realizing dragonfarming is being nerfed, precursors went up.

I do believe that the precursors are being managed by a few individuals. I’ve bought dawn not too long ago and what strikes me as funny is.

the selling price was 530 and the pre orders are from the range of 410 to 490. I played around with the pre order, entering in 430. then my offer got outbid by just 1 copper. Obviously I’ll go and beat it by another copper or at times 1 silver. This went on for quite sometime and the impression i had is, somebody, most likely the owner(s) of these precursors are pushing the pre order to get close or to match the selling price.

after 2 weeks of this dance i decided to just put in 430 and let it sit for 2 weeks. Everytime i login i noticed that my pre order sits somewhere in between cause the lowest is 400 and the highest is 490. One day, I see dawn on my purchased screen, I checked what is the current pre order, and the highest is still 490.

Sooo, this is odd i thought, the guy that sold it to me didn’t sell it to the highest bidder. Interesting.

Sojournion.1847:

I do believe that the precursors are being managed by a few individuals. I’ve bought dawn not too long ago and what strikes me as funny is.

the selling price was 530 and the pre orders are from the range of 410 to 490. I played around with the pre order, entering in 430. then my offer got outbid by just 1 copper. Obviously I’ll go and beat it by another copper or at times 1 silver. This went on for quite sometime and the impression i had is, somebody, most likely the owner(s) of these precursors are pushing the pre order to get close or to match the selling price.

after 2 weeks of this dance i decided to just put in 430 and let it sit for 2 weeks. Everytime i login i noticed that my pre order sits somewhere in between cause the lowest is 400 and the highest is 490. One day, I see dawn on my purchased screen, I checked what is the current pre order, and the highest is still 490.

Sooo, this is odd i thought, the guy that sold it to me didn’t sell it to the highest bidder. Interesting.

or maybe someone else like you wanted to buy it? I would enter bidding wars just upcutting by 1c because I wanted to be the first guy who gets that buy order fulfilled.

Gasoline.2570:

No, the supply is the driving force. The supply created by arenanet. It’s all in the hands of arenanet. They control the supply, they know how the prices will be.

Tell that to Venom =D. Supply & Demand

Vol.5241:

Sojournion.1847:

I do believe that the precursors are being managed by a few individuals. I’ve bought dawn not too long ago and what strikes me as funny is.

the selling price was 530 and the pre orders are from the range of 410 to 490. I played around with the pre order, entering in 430. then my offer got outbid by just 1 copper. Obviously I’ll go and beat it by another copper or at times 1 silver. This went on for quite sometime and the impression i had is, somebody, most likely the owner(s) of these precursors are pushing the pre order to get close or to match the selling price.

after 2 weeks of this dance i decided to just put in 430 and let it sit for 2 weeks. Everytime i login i noticed that my pre order sits somewhere in between cause the lowest is 400 and the highest is 490. One day, I see dawn on my purchased screen, I checked what is the current pre order, and the highest is still 490.

Sooo, this is odd i thought, the guy that sold it to me didn’t sell it to the highest bidder. Interesting.

or maybe someone else like you wanted to buy it? I would enter bidding wars just upcutting by 1c because I wanted to be the first guy who gets that buy order fulfilled.

unlikely because people are in for profits, not for hey i like the number 430, lets give it to him.

the higher pre orders belongs to the same people that is selling the precursors.

Sojournion.1847:

the higher pre orders belongs to the same people that is selling the precursors.

You’re SURE about this? You have supporting data? This isn’t speculation on your part? It’s not a conspiracy theory?

From now on, I’m taking your word over John Smith’s. I mean really….what does THAT guy know?

Btw……

/end sarcasm

Jabberwock.9014:

5 million items bought? Holy lord… just how much gold do you have now?

forinnerspace.7192:

And also very sad.

Geikamir.6329:

Ok, wow. That is very impressive.

Lol you are all correct : P i just like they way the market presents itself so i spend time messing with it, doing so i have made a very large sum of gold ; )

GeoX.5046:

So all of you who thinks there is this rich guy buying a bunch of precursors and re selling them…your wrong…way too risky. If you think the market is being manipulated…your right…but its not precursors *cough* its mats *cough*

Why am i probably right: I work the market (500k pages of buying history) and i observe trends. Its fairly easy to predict weather an item will go up and down…but in the case of precursors, there really is no predicting, that’s why i stay away from them. If you want my advice, stay away from them so they would go down. The market goes up and down, like any other market.

TLDR, stop raging, market is fine, lemmings are buying precursors cuz they are worried of price increases, K thx bye.

I know people who can afford to spend gold on precursors like you can afford spending 2 silver for a repair. Yes, some of them are spending real money to get gold and yes – that makes your topic completely invalid. K thx bye.

Burn.5401:

I know people who can afford to spend gold on precursors like you can afford spending 2 silver for a repair. Yes, some of them are spending real money to get gold and yes – that makes your topic completely invalid. K thx bye.

I think you missed his whole point. It doesn’t matter if you have a ton of gold. Due to the high risk, it’s hard to earn a profit on the precursor market. Unless you know people who enjoy spending money to get gold and lose it by flipping precursors, I’m not sure how your post makes this topic invalid.

Burn.5401:

GeoX.5046:

So all of you who thinks there is this rich guy buying a bunch of precursors and re selling them…your wrong…way too risky. If you think the market is being manipulated…your right…but its not precursors *cough* its mats *cough*

Why am i probably right: I work the market (500k pages of buying history) and i observe trends. Its fairly easy to predict weather an item will go up and down…but in the case of precursors, there really is no predicting, that’s why i stay away from them. If you want my advice, stay away from them so they would go down. The market goes up and down, like any other market.

TLDR, stop raging, market is fine, lemmings are buying precursors cuz they are worried of price increases, K thx bye.

I know people who can afford to spend gold on precursors like you can afford spending 2 silver for a repair. Yes, some of them are spending real money to get gold and yes – that makes your topic completely invalid. K thx bye.

That’s your opinion of course, : P but if they can buy them so easily, why not just buy them all out? Also who are these people : ) i very much would like to meet them.

You were trying to prove how “super risky” it is to play with precursors and I simply explained to you that playing with precursors to some people is like playing with a lower price market to you. Considering there are so few precursors being put on the TP, it’s not a big deal for some people to mess with them.

started working on my precursors. spend about 50G Created 150 Rare GreatSword, got nothing. should just salvaged for GLOB, think they might go up the price after this patch since rare rate is gona drop

Burn.5401:

You were trying to prove how “super risky” it is to play with precursors and I simply explained to you that playing with precursors to some people is like playing with a lower price market to you. Considering there are so few precursors being put on the TP, it’s not a big deal for some people to mess with them.

It is super risky…and anyone that thinks it is not super risky most likely does not have the money to buy a single precursor let alone determine their price. Again, if you can’t name any of these people :/ you gots no proof.

In other words, SS or BS : P

If you are going to lie at least make it believable.

You claim you have 500k bought pages, which equals 5,000,000 items.
Lets do the math shall we.

1440 minutes in a day, average 31 days a month, and 6 months.

In order for you to have 500k bought pages you need to buy one item every 3.2 seconds since release.

Hardscript.3541:

If you are going to lie at least make it believable.

You claim you have 500k bought pages, which equals 5,000,000 items.
Lets do the math shall we.

1440 minutes in a day, average 31 days a month, and 6 months.

In order for you to have 500k bought pages you need to buy one item every 3.2 seconds since release.

This post is so wrong, it hurts.

Order many stacks of 250 and get them bit by bit.

500k pages? Nice. There really isn’t knowing how many items that means, it’s mere 5 million transactions (10 transactions/page), so anything between 5,000,000 and 1,250,000,000 items.

To the topic, nothing really to say. I gave up long time ago “educating” people on forums.

Waitaminit! NO one said, “screenshot or it didn’t happen!”? Why, in my day a lofty claim had to be backed up by pretty pictures in order to stifle waves of challenges and ridicule (and kick off as many claims of Photoshoppenanigans). I must’ve warped into a different universe…sooo straaaangggge….

I believe inflation is hitting hard at the moment. Anet seem to be desperately pumping out stuff through the gem market to get gold out of the system, but I know that I, for one, have hundreds of gold just sitting in my bank. I know, I know I should invest it, but I tried that before and failed, so now I don’t.

The problem with tracking on the TP is we only know the supply and demand. Buy orders get filled much more often than we can gauge. There was a post where John mentioned a bit about movement, i don’t remember specific numbers, but i remember being surprised. I know i’ve pushed buy orders up on items i’ll be listing down the road. It only makes sense to do that.

They’re up because people have more money. People have more money because they have easy ways to farm (CoF 1, etc). People will compete with each other to farm the most.

Agreed with others – no idea how this is still talked about. As if someone could manipulate the market and sell weapons that people couldn’t afford it. People sell precursors for 600g because they can.

Assuming there was no shift in the demand for precursors, price went up because either 1. the price hasn’t reached equilibrium yet or 2. the supply dropped.

TooBz.3065:

Assuming there was no shift in the demand for precursors, price went up because either 1. the price hasn’t reached equilibrium yet or 2. the supply dropped.

I think the assumption that there was no shift in demand might be a big one. I have no evidence, but it seems like demand would climb over time as players start to complete other goals and accumulate materials to craft a legendary.

Pandemoniac.4739:

TooBz.3065:

Assuming there was no shift in the demand for precursors, price went up because either 1. the price hasn’t reached equilibrium yet or 2. the supply dropped.

I think the assumption that there was no shift in demand might be a big one. I have no evidence, but it seems like demand would climb over time as players start to complete other goals and accumulate materials to craft a legendary.

Sure. The third option is that more people want them and the supply stays the same, therefore the price rises.

TooBz.3065:

Pandemoniac.4739:

TooBz.3065:

Assuming there was no shift in the demand for precursors, price went up because either 1. the price hasn’t reached equilibrium yet or 2. the supply dropped.

I think the assumption that there was no shift in demand might be a big one. I have no evidence, but it seems like demand would climb over time as players start to complete other goals and accumulate materials to craft a legendary.

Sure. The third option is that more people want them and the supply stays the same, therefore the price rises.

Supply should have gone up since about two months ago according to Colin.

Precursors. A little while ago there was mention that there were going to be other ways to get hold of precursors, like through the scavenger hunt.

Colin: Someday yes.

Someday. So no plans for the immediate future?

Colin: We’ve thrown in a few more RNG ways to get them, like random chances for places they could go in the game recently, but that’s not the real solution. That’s just a “hey lets just increase the number of places people can earn them at this point”. The fixes for qualifying for loot that will go in the February release will also increase the chances you can get precursors ‘cause it means you have a higher chance of rolling for loot in every creature that you kill. Which means you have a higher chance of getting a precursor. So that will help as well. But long term we’d like to do something that’s a little bit more epic, where there’s a clear path of “here’s everything you need to do and when you complete it, you automatically get a precursor.” We’re not working on that right now, we’re really trying to design what that would be, but yeah certainly at some point we will create a system that allows you to do that.

http://dragonseason.com/Front/tabid/124/EntryId/212/Lunch-with-Colin-Johanson-Part-III.aspx

Rouven.7409:

TooBz.3065:

Assuming there was no shift in the demand for precursors, price went up because either 1. the price hasn’t reached equilibrium yet or 2. the supply dropped.

Pandemoniac.4739:

I think the assumption that there was no shift in demand might be a big one. I have no evidence, but it seems like demand would climb over time as players start to complete other goals and accumulate materials to craft a legendary.

TooBz.3065:

Sure. The third option is that more people want them and the supply stays the same, therefore the price rises.

Supply should have gone up since about two months ago according to Colin.

(big snip)

http://dragonseason.com/Front/tabid/124/EntryId/212/Lunch-with-Colin-Johanson-Part-III.aspx

Well that just means demand is climbing faster than the supply. I also think that we’re talking about precursors in general on one hand and a couple of specific very popular precursors on the other and it muddies the waters.

If there were known mobs that not only had a chance to drop a precursor but also had a higher chance of dropping greatswords or hammers, folks would farm them more and we’d get more supply out of smaller RNG adjustments.

Only one person could answer that.
Personally I would like to express my interest in an update about this, I don’t think that’s too impatient after two months. Not sure if I should imagine that a “design” has been fleshed out so far or if everything is still hold together with pins on the board, be it a real board or virtual

Here’s my opinion on the scavenger hunt / special event to possibly get precursors: There will be some kind of major event that will require achievements, something like Living Story. What will happen is a large majority of people will think the event is stupid and not worth their time so they won’t do the achievements. People like me who like experiencing the content will do it for the heck of it, and then at the very end we will maybe get a chance to choose our precursor and be very pleasantly surprised.

You know what will happen next? Everyone that decided the event was stupid and not worth their time will get in an uproar about how it isn’t fair that they didn’t get a precursor and the people that did the event were able to. They will threaten to quit, say how terrible the game is, etc. etc.

The only way to make these people happy in their minds is to give them a precursor when they want it for very little effort. That’s the world we live in now. Instant gratification with no work.

Draknar.5748:

The only way to make these people happy in their minds is to give them a precursor when they want it for very little effort. That’s the world we live in now. Instant gratification with no work.

That sums up the majority of the discontent of the current situation.

Sojournion.1847:

Draknar.5748:

The only way to make these people happy in their minds is to give them a precursor when they want it for very little effort. That’s the world we live in now. Instant gratification with no work.

That sums up the majority of the discontent of the current situation.

I think most people are willing to work for a precursor, the question is how hard? It’s all a question of investment (either time or risk) vs reward.

I think that people’s issue with the Karka event was there there was a very substantial possibility to get a precursor ( allegedly) but no one was told about it before hand. So when the game started lagging, or things were difficult to find, people said “forget it this isn’t fun” and quit. If they had known that a precursors would drop with such a high rate then more people would have put up with, or tried to put up with, the laggy content.

I lost interest in Flame and Frost when they sent me to find small items in the snow. It was too boring and not the way I want to spend my free time.

I know that this post suggests that bad / boring content is okay if the reward is high enough. It’s not. Playing a game should rarely be a drag or a chore. But it you are going to make me do something unpleasant you should at least reward me for it.

No one’s “making” anyone play content they don’t like. Extrapolating from your words, if someone’s playing given content, either it’s sufficiently interesting to play, or the reward is sufficiently worthy to endure the content. Either way, it’s the choice of the player. I don’t see an issue.