Guild Wars 2

I was really looking forward to this since I like to change my look and use the traveler runes. The price on this is too high. I do not know how you decide the prices to use but if it is cheaper for me to buy a new set of runes- any rune available on the tp- then to use this I do not see the purpose. Even if I where to use it to remove a sigil from a weapon for 250 gems it is still considerably more expensive than to buy any sigil on the tp. I am not sure how the prices are determined for these kinds of things but if you are wanting to get cash money from people it should be a some sort of savings.. not cost more to use it.

Just my thoughts on it.

The price of gold fluctuates and is out of the control of Anet. I doubt they consider the price of gold at all, since the items in the gem shop were created months before they appear there. That makes it impossible to say “in six months it will take X gold to buy 100 gems, so the price of the item should be…”

The price in gems would instead be based on what they want to make in real money from the item, according to sales projections over a certain period of time. The ones handed out for free (via gold to gems conversion) are worth $0 so they are probably not considered in the calculations.

In essence, the items you buy with gold are gifts, and people complain that they should get more gifts because they don’t want to have to give Anet money for the content instead.

tolunart.2095:

The price of gold fluctuates and is out of the control of Anet. I doubt they consider the price of gold at all, since the items in the gem shop were created months before they appear there. That makes it impossible to say “in six months it will take X gold to buy 100 gems, so the price of the item should be…”

The price in gems would instead be based on what they want to make in real money from the item, according to sales projections over a certain period of time. The ones handed out for free (via gold to gems conversion) are worth $0 so they are probably not considered in the calculations.

In essence, the items you buy with gold are gifts, and people complain that they should get more gifts because they don’t want to have to give Anet money for the content instead.

Even if you look at it as the gemstore price a skin cost 800 gems – less than the extractors so in essence it is cheaper to buy a new skin then to use these. If you are going to lose that. Over all I think they just made them way to costly for what they are. I don’t know maybe they will sell a bunch.. but I doubt it.

And I was talking about buying these with real money. I can transfer the gems to gold- which is constantly increasing -and buy the runes or sigils for less than this item. Overall in my opinion they did not think the price of this through.

The item is prohibitively expensive. There is very little reason to ever purchase it whether you’re converting gold to gems or buying gems.

Taking current values:
Extractor = 250 gems
Exchanging Gold for 250 Gems = 19g 25s
Converting 250 Gems to Gold = 13g 88s

In the vast majority of cases you are better off just buying another upgrade off the TP than paying for an extractor, you’d even be better off buying gems and converting them to gold rather than using them to get the extractor.

One function of RMT currencies (or real world equivalents too) is to serve to obscure costs. It makes people more willing to spend when they have that extra step in the transactions. If gem store items instead had $ values people would be less likely to buy.

Note, I’m not disparaging this practice. It’s common enough and has many benefits too. My point is that in this case it serves as a trap. The practice relies on the idea that people don’t necessarily ‘do the math’ so players fall into the trap of buying an extractor without realizing just how cost inefficient it is for all but a few circumstances (such as potent infusions).

I would just like to add that this cost on the extractor actually causes them to lose money from me because if I buy something from the tp I use game currency and from the gemstore I use real money. So if I am having to buy the same runes and sigils over again I will use game currency. Had these been a cost effective way to change my look they would have easily gotten real money out of me for the extractors.

It’s a luxury item and not meant for everyday use. They don’t want everyone to suddenly extract all their upgrades rather than buy them. That would only lead to a market crash and a loss of another gold sink.

Eventually however, there’ll probably be a lot more uses for it. There’ll probably be ascended runes and sigils by next year, which will probably be crafted, account bound and cost a lot. Legendary runes and sigils are also a possibility (swap between any rune/sigil), which I imagine would cost a lot more than 20g. For now though, I’m guessing the only valued use is on the laurel and agony infusions.

Healix.5819:

It’s a luxury item and not meant for everyday use. They don’t want everyone to suddenly extract all their upgrades rather than buy them. That would only lead to a market crash and a loss of another gold sink.

Eventually however, there’ll probably be a lot more uses for it. There’ll probably be ascended runes and sigils by next year, which will probably be crafted, account bound and cost a lot. Legendary runes and sigils are also a possibility (swap between any rune/sigil), which I imagine would cost a lot more than 20g. For now though, I’m guessing the only valued use is on the laurel and agony infusions.

This.

In the short term, it probably won’t be a problem. People who bought $50 worth of gems to get the free mini will be looking for things to spend their gems on. You can send one as a gift to a friend and get as many as you want at a discount. Buy them now and keep them until you need them, in a few months there may be improved or more expensive upgrades that make these more reasonable.

In the long term, watch for them to go on sale, or just don’t buy them. Complaining about it now will have little effect – it’s new, and that alone will be enough to make some sales. Six months from now, Anet may have to reevaluate their pricing strategy.

The problem with that is that the cost of gem to gold will be rising as well. I cannot see it ever costing more than changing the gem to gold over. And again.. if I craft a rune or sigil to use and just want to put a skin over that it will be cheaper than these items. The only reason to use it would be to save the skin- which seems would be cheaper to just buy a new one as well.

I highly doubt these will ever be a valuable item. At this cost you may as well just use the trasmutation splitter since they cost the same and seem to give you the same results.

I guess the fractal runners are the target audience for these items since the infusions are the only thing that people seem to be excited about with these. I guess more people run those than I figured if they did not want to even consider the rune and sigils in the cost of these.

If making money is what their plan is which is the whole point of the gemstore, they should have made the price of these items much lower as more people would have bought them. At over $3 a piece or ~19g, most people will never buy this item so they lose a lot of sales. I personally will never buy this item because the price makes it not worth it, I could purchase almost 2 traveler runes at the price of 1 of these items. Lower prices=more sales=more money.

You =/= everyone. Anet has a much better idea of what people are willing to pay for a given item than you do, considering they are the ones with the ability to track gem purchases, gem shop purchases, etc.

I’m thinking they didn’t price it to sell or ever be used – they priced it so we’d stop asking for it.

tolunart.2095:

The price of gold fluctuates and is out of the control of Anet.

Every product is based on inputs (e.g., raw materials, labor) that are not under the control of the sell. Yet, any rational pricing scheme takes into account the alternatives available to the customer.

tolunart.2095:

The price of gold fluctuates and is out of the control of Anet. I doubt they consider the price of gold at all, since the items in the gem shop were created months before they appear there. That makes it impossible to say “in six months it will take X gold to buy 100 gems, so the price of the item should be…”

The price in gems would instead be based on what they want to make in real money from the item, according to sales projections over a certain period of time. The ones handed out for free (via gold to gems conversion) are worth $0 so they are probably not considered in the calculations.

In essence, the items you buy with gold are gifts, and people complain that they should get more gifts because they don’t want to have to give Anet money for the content instead.

It’s absurd to say they don’t have control over the price of gold. The formula that governs the gemstore prices is theirs, they can change it whenever they want. They can also either attempt to inject more gold into the game via rewards or remove more from it via gold sinks whenever they want.

If anet is seriously pricing out items 6 months in advance, and not thinking to adjust the price when the economy has shifted drastically before the item even releases, they lack even the most basic competence. I think it’s quite obvious they aren’t doing that, and if they are, it’s certainly not an excuse for them, as it is honestly even worse than if they just did a bad job setting the price now.

Healix.5819:

It’s a luxury item and not meant for everyday use. They don’t want everyone to suddenly extract all their upgrades rather than buy them. That would only lead to a market crash and a loss of another gold sink.

The thing is it’s not even a luxury item. It’s the equivalent of flushing gold or gems down the toilet. Even if you are buying the gems with cash and not converting, it is still more financially beneficial to gold with the gems and buy a replacement for your upgrade that way.

But why should ANet change the way the gem exchange works? Because you (collective you) think it’s too expensive now? It’s right where it needs to be to start attracting gold buyers.

The Extractor is there purely for people to pull off their expensive (+8 and higher) infusions. Anything else (runes/sigils/jewels) is simply not worth it.

That said, I think it would be nice to be able to obtain these items via, say, Black Lion chests or maybe via an expensive MF recipe. (I’d like something to do with my stack of Mystic Forge stones… Maybe 3 Mystic Salvage Kits + 5 Mystic Forge Stones = 1 Upgrade Extractor?)

I like the concept of the item. It’s been needed for a while. But I intensely dislike how it’s been added to the game. And to make that even worse, I think the price is ridiculous for a single use item. On top of that, there should be an in-game way to obtain similar functionality. Either a Mystic Forge recipe or an NPC that’s only available after a dynamic event (remember when that sort of thing mattered?). Or something. The gem store item can be kept but it should be a convenience item, not a necessity to remove expensive infusions.

Items like this have really started to make me lose faith in ArenaNet especially after they design systems specifically with items like these in mind.

Behellagh.1468:

But why should ANet change the way the gem exchange works? Because you (collective you) think it’s too expensive now? It’s right where it needs to be to start attracting gold buyers.

I would buy this with CASH real money if it was worth it. It is cheaper to buy gems if you really want to go that route and exchange them for gold and buy whatever sigil or rune you were wanting to extract. These, as they are priced now, are for a very niche audience. High end fractal runners that want to get their infusions out maybe laurels.. but really that would be a waste imo.

If that was the intent then good job I guess, but if the goal was to make money off ALL or majority the players in the game then the price is entirely too high for what this is.

In my opinion it should have been close to the cost of a transmutation crystal because the only reason to use these imo, would be to save a skin instead of overwriting it to try out a new look.

Anyway, they are in the game this is the price Anet chose and I will not be purchasing them and just thought it was worth it to point out to Anet that they actually lost a sale (real money) from this ridiculous price. Had they been a reasonable price I would have probably purchased these at least once a month to change my full gear look.

I don’t disagree that it’s a pricey item but there must be both interest in one and evidence that players would pay that much for it.

If it’s too expensive just show them by not buying any. They’ll get the msg.