Guild Wars 2

I have decided to put this topic as there were many topics regarding the issue in Black Lion Trading section before.
First of all let me thank you Anet for this wonderful title. It is a pleasure to play it.

Recently I have bought my precursor. I play Warrior so the obvious choice for me was the Colossus as I am going for the Juggernaut.
Now you can read a lot of complaints regarding precursors prices on this and every else GW2 forum. Below are my thoughts regarding, You don’t have to agree with my opinion, you don’t have to share it but at least read it. It may help you.

For those of you who are saying that atm price is to high you obviously haven’t try to craft one have you. I have lost around 200ish gold to the MF before I decided to actually buy it. At that time the Colossus cost about 500ish gold and to be honest its price did not change that much. I mean you got some spikes in price but the average is still the same. I am not saying it won’t rise but it will be natural process rather than speculation.
I was always saying that the price is right when there are people willing to pay for it. When I bought it the lowest selling order was 515ish gold and the lowest buy order was around 450 – 460ish. I got my for 475 gold from a sell order. I was lucky enough to check GWTrade and saw that someone has listed it at such a low price. I suspect someone has just crafted one and listed for lower price hoping for fast sell. And it was a fast sell indeed. You can actually see a drop on GWTrade on Sunday (check by yourself). At that time I was competing with couple of potential buyers. I don’t know exact number but from the changes in buy orders I suspect there was at least 3 other customers willing to buy the Colossus at that time.

It took me around 2 weeks to gain money I needed. It wasn’t a simple task but as you can read for yourself its absolutely possible and I have learned so much in the process.
I knew straight away that simple grind is not a solution here. I am a casual player, hate grinding and I prefer to enjoy and play the game, rather than force myself to focus on one task or goal and do just that.
Having all this in mind I started to think about other possibilities.
Gold sellers? No thank you. Buying for Gems? You will have to spend a lot of money to get just one item. Don’t get me wrong I do support ANet for their work but the amount of gems you need to buy a precursor is just crazy.
I was actually forced to learn the ways of how to make money in GW2. It took some time and effort and a bit of practice but again is totally doable and the further you go the more easy it becomes.
The hardest bit was to get first 50 – 100 gold. After that I had the knowledge required to achieve what I wanted. All I needed was time.
The reason I am telling about this is simple. Because I was forced to expand mu knowledge and try to find different ways or any ways at all to gain my goals I actually learn how to make money in GW2, I have learned how to work around problems, I became a better player.

Why do I think that precursor price is a fair price?
Legendary are supposed to be a unique items. All the other materials are easily obtainable and sooner or later everyone can get them. The only thing that’s not is the precursor. Because of the drop rate and the amount of luck needed to create one I do think that they even are a bit under priced right now. Not all of them, only the less popular one. If you think differently please try to make one for yourself.
I am not saying there is no speculation on the market at all. There is in a real word there is in a game world. That’s normal. I don’t think however that it got the influence people think it have and the price of the precursor is the price of the simple buy-sell relation.
It is completely possible to get amount of gold required but I don’t think one will be able to do it by simple grinding the content. You need to look into different options. It is possible all you need to do is to try.
Craft is a very lucrative and efficient way of getting money and I always smile when people are saying otherwise. You need to look into ways to increase your profit. Globs are to expensive? How can I get them in a different way? Maybe next time instead of selling all my materials on TP I will actually invest them and craft something and sell it for profit? Selling 10 Globs will give you around 4 gold? You can craft 2 items with that and sell them for 8-10 gold. See the difference? T6 materials to expensieve? T5 are relatively cheap and you can transform them into T6 using MF and some of your skill points. You can farm T5. That’s easy.
So please stop complain that something is impossible and try to think how to get the things you want. You would be surprised from the results.

In some ways yes you are correct, it is entirely possible to make enough money to buyout the precursor you desire, I personally have the money to buy a legendary straight off the TP, but the feeling of that would not be of accomplishment. Most people what to have the feeling of opening that mammoth gold sparkly chest and get a freaking epic awesome part of their legendary they have been working so hard towards.
The thought of encouraging people to buy precursors or gamble in the mystic toilet for that much of their gold is just pure rotten.

Margicar.8694:

In some ways yes you are correct, it is entirely possible to make enough money to buyout the precursor you desire, I personally have the money to buy a legendary straight off the TP, but the feeling of that would not be of accomplishment. Most people what to have the feeling of opening that mammoth gold sparkly chest and get a freaking epic awesome part of their legendary they have been working so hard towards.
The thought of encouraging people to buy precursors or gamble in the mystic toilet for that much of their gold is just pure rotten.

^Pretty Much this.

It’s not about the price. It’s about walking a legendary path to get your legendary weapon. The system now is, if you have a ton of money, you can get a legendary weapon… It’s a shame!

Yes, but that’s the different story and personal preference really. Lets not deviate from the topic please.

OZtheWiZARD.2401:

Yes, but that’s the different story and personal preference really. Lets not deviate from the topic please.

No one is deviating from the topic. We are basically agreeing that the price is most of the times (except those which are manipulated by M.M.) “fair” to it’s counterweights Mystic Toilet method and exotics drop rate from mobs/events/chests!

But the simple notion of buy your way into legendary is stupid!

The whole concept of the Precursor is flawed. There should not be a single item like that upon which all your Legendary progress depends upon. At least stuff like T6 materials and Ectos can’t be manipulated; but since the Precursors are so rare and singular, it is gotten really, really bad.

If they really want to keep this idea, the Precursor should be gotten with a fixed Mystic Forge recipe and none of this RNG gamble nonsense.

Ok…. the current precursor prices on the TP are fair (this is questionable)

the way to obtain them is fair?
a huge 0.% RNG chance. fair?
most of the prices are determined by gold sellers. fair?

Which one is fair?

Yes, but with that getting Legendary is a very simple process. It wouldn’t be unique anymore.
I think the rng is the right approach. If you don’t want to take it then you can always buy it from TP. So you have 2 options.
When you decide to craft it however, you will realize suddenly that the price is fair because you’re risking a lot to get one.

I love you you just assume that everyone can just buy it from TP. No. No we can’t because they’ve been manipulated to high heavens when it comes to price.

The prices are not fair and rng is a stupid method, end of story.

I believe they just need to implement a specific recipe for each precursor, like similar gift recipes.
Although with a difference, like a specific set of meta/events to accomplish to receive a part of that said recipe.
At this point I look down on people who buy precursors or even try to flip or even associate with the idea of making gold off them. They are a bad idea which feels like a very lazy concept. However the game needs gold sinks and the mystic toilet is great for this.

OZtheWiZARD.2401:

Yes, but with that getting Legendary is a very simple process. It wouldn’t be unique anymore.
I think the rng is the right approach. If you don’t want to take it then you can always buy it from TP. So you have 2 options.
When you decide to craft it however, you will realize suddenly that the price is fair because you’re risking a lot to get one.

wut? RNG is the right approach?

Neither it should be RNG (cause it penalizes the hard working player in detriment of a lucky player) nor it being able to be bought. Legendary weapons shouldn’t be easy to get either. It should be solely a reward to effort approach. A solid dedication to several aspects of the game and hard achievements.

Of course it is. It what makes the item unique. Otherwise is just farm for half a year o buy gold from gold sellers.
Right now it force you to learn the game and to use that knowledge to your advantage.

you don’t need to learn the game to have a legendary, incase you didn’t notice, your OP basically says you can earn money and just buy it off the TP (in this case playing the TP to make gold) I.E. not learning the game just having a slight interest in a financial market

Thank you OZtheWIZARD,
Wonderful topic and finally some more people who understand that the way it is is the best way right now.
Most people tend to think that Arenanet should create an epic Quest line or incredibly much content around the legendarys and that is just so wrong. Those items are not meant to be endgame. Neither does Arenanet focus on legendarys nor do they want everyone to get one. All people can is complain about the current (not broken) system and they demand an update all around legendarys just for them to get it easier.

What people tend to forget: “Market Manipulation” requires a lot of skill and doing it propperly is not as easy as you think, they should therefore be rewarded… coming fom someone who lost very much gold at trying to play the market.

Best way? There are hundreds upon thousands of better ideas that could of been done.
Quest lines for a legendary…….noway
Massive amount of work to achieve certain parts in different areas, dungeons, champion kill tallys. There is loads of ways it could have been far better and for the word LEGENDARY.
But a RNG related mystic toilet such a cool way to throw away your monies

If they are not meant to be endgame, then what are they meant for? are you supposed to acquire them when you hit lvl 2 after 1st story quest? after you play the TP or buy a fat load of gems cause we all are rich IRL

Anet had a massive speech about how great legendaries will be and you would have to work and master across all aspects of the game to achieve one. FAILS!!!! “I can go on the trade post and buy it K THNX BYE”.

Market manipulation require very little skill more knowledge of the market, it comes especially easy if you caught on early using exploits to get precursors. You can achieve GREAT market manipulation schemes with little over 500g (no I won’t explain how. lol).
The legendaries are intended for everyone that is dedicated enough to go for them, meaning pretty much everyone at some point will consider going for them.

The system isn’t broken it just doesn’t work the way people where told it was, thus making people complain.

Ok. Lets think about Fixed Recepie for precursor.
Imagine what would it be if this recepie required 250 Lodestones from each type and it would be multistage one i.e. you need to craft Colossus shaft and head separately.
Imagine the cost or time required to get precursor this method.
I will take my rng.
Regarding Scavenger Hunt. It won’t necessary means it will be easier to get precursor that way. What if it make it worse to gain?

Really you would take RNG over a sure definate way of working towards and getting your precursor?
Then why have you bought yours off the TP instead of pouring the gold into the Mystic toilet?

I and most other people would be entirely happy with a concept like that of which you mentioned, would rather a more definite chance than an ever rising price or a 0.% RNG chance that you cannot determine or work towards. But this won’t come because the game needs gold sinks and precursors are extremely good ones.

People need to work towards something not just drop it in and hope that luck is coming soon.

The scavenger hunt:
This looks high in probability to be another disappointment, look at karka, mad king, winterday, they all had flaws, all had exploits in which some few got stupidly rich, yeah they did all have very fun aspects etc but lets not get into that.

All I have seen them say about it is you will have a Chance at getting a precursor, yes that’s right that magical word, if anything there will probably be only a small minority that actually get one.
In all honesty I think you might be right, it may make it worst. Still it doesn’t mean to say the prices on the TP for them are fair.

OZtheWiZARD.2401:

Ok. Lets think about Fixed Recepie for precursor.
Imagine what would it be if this recepie required 250 Lodestones from each type and it would be multistage one i.e. you need to craft Colossus shaft and head separately.
Imagine the cost or time required to get precursor this method.
I will take my rng.
Regarding Scavenger Hunt. It won’t necessary means it will be easier to get precursor that way. What if it make it worse to gain?

Your counter argument is laughable. 250 of each Lodestone? That alone puts them over the most expensive Precursor. Why would that make it even stupider than what we have now?

You just refuse to be wrong and make up such ridiculous claims.

Kind of agree with you – but this doesnt stop ANet implementing a way of getting SOULDBOUND precursors that doesn’t involve RNG.

I wouldnt even mind if this was one hell of a grind, at the end of the day, thats the whole point of Legendary.

But tbh, i don’t see tossing X number of weapons in the forge until you finally get a pre-cursor as legendary… More like a precursor to Repetitive Strain Injury.

So – a way of getting souldbound Pre’s would be ideal IMHO

For the most part, crafting isn’t worthwhile. The profits are tiny.

The TP is not just an exchange for gold denominated items, it is also a mini-game for players but there is another way to look at it. To Arenanet, the TP is an economic and behavioral experiment and we are the squishy test subjects. In a very real way, GW2 players are the only currency that matters. As the game matures and client sales decrease, Arenanet must get revenue either from gem store RMT, or institute monthly fees.

“Buying” legendary bling is part of the entertainment package you purchased. If it is more satisfying and fun than the long odds on the RNG, maybe that will, somehow, make you want to trade real money for gems via some fuzzy mechanic I do not understand. Then, again, if you are skilled enough at the TP mini-game, why use real money to buy gems?

Hello, my name is Monte Carlo. Nice to meet you.

Oglaf.1074:

OZtheWiZARD.2401:

Ok. Lets think about Fixed Recepie for precursor.
Imagine what would it be if this recepie required 250 Lodestones from each type and it would be multistage one i.e. you need to craft Colossus shaft and head separately.
Imagine the cost or time required to get precursor this method.
I will take my rng.
Regarding Scavenger Hunt. It won’t necessary means it will be easier to get precursor that way. What if it make it worse to gain?

Your counter argument is laughable. 250 of each Lodestone? That alone puts them over the most expensive Precursor. Why would that make it even stupider than what we have now?

You just refuse to be wrong and make up such ridiculous claims.

Really? What about Mjolnir then. It is only a unique item and it is the most expensive item in the game right now. They will have to make fixed recepie expensive so the Mystic Forge one is still viable. You did not expect to get away with Globes and some T6 materials did you?
Ohh and I am certain that whatever materials would be required in the fixed recepie they would go sky rocket in price.

At this point I don’t even care. I wanted to share my example to show that whenever there is a will, there is a way as well. I gave some tips, some advises (Nothing that you couldn’t reed on this forum before) if you want to use it then its fine for me. If you want to whine about how unfair the precursors are that’s fine for me either. I will be finishing my Legendary instead.
Someone said crafting is crap, well I made 50 gold from it one day. Maybe that is a crapy score. I don’t know.

And I will repeat this once again:
If you think that the price of the precursors is unfair then please try to make one. You will change your mind. I guarantee.

OZtheWiZARD.2401:

And I will repeat this once again:
If you think that the price of the precursors is unfair then please try to make one. You will change your mind. I guarantee.

How many times do I have to repeat this:

Just because both methods of obtaining a Precursor are tremendously bad, they do not somehow justify each other. You either gamble with the RNG (which is bad) or you bend over and take it up the wazoo by the market manipulators (which is also bad).

Two wrongs do not make a right.

Only because you think they are bad doesn’t mean they are.
They are supposed to be rare, and to achieve this rng is the best choice.
I did not do any market manipulation at all. Most of the people that speak about market manipulation don’t have any idea how it works and what is required to do so.

On the side note, in my opinion SH won’t make it any easier.

We’ll see about the Scavenger Hunt though. We don’t know if Anet is happy with the current level of rarity of the precursors. If they are, the Scavenger Hunt is gonna be a KITTEN and a half (AKA very painful to do).

One thing for sure though, it’s not gonna be something easy and done in a day (as many people in the forum seem to be expecting. How wrong they are.)

And the SH is certainly going to make people who don’t like doing things unhappy (and there are many of them in the forums. “I DON’T LIKE DUNGEONS I DON’T LIKE JUMPING PUZZLES I DON’T LIKE WVW”).

I know I am personally hoping for scavenger hunt, and I am definatly not hoping or expecting it to be easy.

I am a old Eq player, and I very much miss the epic journey the eq1 epics were.

I still remeber camping raster for 72 hours in a row without getting my one measly part of the epic, but even so I always felt I had a real chance at getting it, so I could move onto the next piece.

But I do hope WvW is not a part of it, not because I mind PvP, but simply because the WvW optimization is horrible, and it is not a viable place to go for people with the average pc.

Guys, we found our Sparks culprit!

OZtheWiZARD.2401:

Only because you think they are bad doesn’t mean they are.
They are supposed to be rare, and to achieve this rng is the best choice.
I did not do any market manipulation at all. Most of the people that speak about market manipulation don’t have any idea how it works and what is required to do so.

On the side note, in my opinion SH won’t make it any easier.

Look around the crafting forum.

You’re clearly the minority in thinking Precursors are fine.

@OZtheWiZARD I do agree with you that Precursor price is fair, because there are people buying them. However assuming that because you can make 500 gold in two weeks this would be achievable by everyone is kind of a distorted idea of the reality. Not everybody enjoys playing the TP.

I found this particulary interesting:
“I am a casual player, hate grinding and I prefer to enjoy and play the game, rather than force myself to focus on one task or goal and do just that. "

I hardly believe that you can make 500 gold in two weeks by just enjoying and playing the game.

If you look at this from the point of view of the people who do enjoy and play the game, how much time do you think they need to gather 500g? And how much do you think precursor prices will increase in that time?

I personally don’t care about the price of the precursor, because I will not buy it from the TP, I just don’t like paying for the luck of others.

It’s only because people who think the same don’t complain about it on the forum.

I’ll repeat myself once again.
There are only two ways of getting them right now.
Extremely rare drop around the game world or Mystic Forge.
If you actually spend gold and time trying to make them through MF then you will see that 500ish asking price is not much, especially when you can get it in 2 weeks time.

I think they are more affordable now then in September when they were around 80ish gold (the most popular ones) as gold income at that time was terrible. Getting 5 gold was an achievement and you could fully equip your char for about 7-10 gold.

@Apolyon

I spent about 1 hour per day trying to increase my gold income. That’s all. Then I wait for my items to sell.
Speaking of gold making. Lets assume you have some globes and some T6 materials in your bank cos you have farmed them. Now you can sell them all straight away and make some profit, or you could invest them, craft something and then sell it for bigger profit. This is the kind of thinking required to earn money. Think how you could get things you want or need different, cheaper way. When crafting try to minimalize your spending. Crafting rare 80 to get Ectos from them is a good example.
This morning I was lucky in Orr and I got like 10 Ectos from the items. I will invest them to make even bigger profit rather then sell them on TP straight away.
And that’s not all. Think what you can gain with some gamble. I made 10 gold profit flipping Sigils for example. Was lucky and got Bloodlust.

Your point is still invalid because two horrible ways of getting one does not magically make it good.

Really, to me it just sounds like that now that you got your Precursor, you don’t want Anet to implement an easier way for anyone else to get theirs. Sorta… dickish.

No, I thought that before I got it. That’s why I did it instead of complaining about it on the forum.

OZtheWiZARD.2401:

No, I thought that before I got it. That’s why I did it instead of complaining about it on the forum.

is it me? or does this make no sense?

Whatever mate. I said what I wanted to say. You don’t believe me. That’s fine.
I am done with this topic.

Since this topic is about how they are fair I’ll stick to that.

Prices for exotics that go in the forge to make precursors have gone up while ways of making gold have not so yes perhaps it does take an average of 500g to make a Dusk. This does not make it fair even if the price MIGHT be right.

Seeing how there are a large number of ppl that got it for free OR in the 1st try OR Dawn and Colossus in 2 consecutive days from chests in TA and CoF or for 50g back then from Orr nonDR farming OR karka event that we were promised we won’t get more of AND more importantly because (ignoring all that) it already is 2-3 times harder than it was before (and they already miss-lead people twice now to think it’s a good idea to start with the gifts and in the meanwhile precursors became even worse).

About that SH. Anything other than a maximum 100h of /played without any time limit (if you play 10h /day you can get it done in max 10 days) is a slap in the face to everyone that didn’t get lucky or bugged godskull or opened 3 chests in Karka thing.

Ursan.7846:

We’ll see about the Scavenger Hunt though. [..]
And the SH is certainly going to make people who don’t like doing things unhappy (and there are many of them in the forums. “I DON’T LIKE DUNGEONS I DON’T LIKE JUMPING PUZZLES I DON’T LIKE WVW”).

People should not be able to get Legendaries if they don’t do those things. Arenanet have dropped the ball on Legendaries. Massively.

The legendaries are supposed to (sic);

• “show off your accomplishments and symbolise all of the things that you’ve been doing” (Lead Designer Isiah Cartwright – in this video) and,
• “show everyone that you are a true master of Guild Wars 2” (quoted from here).

“Why do I think that Precursors are fair price?”

If I answered that question I’d get at least an infraction.

And no.

“Why do I think that Precursors are fair price?”

“Recently I have bought my precursor.”

What is there more to say :-P

Svarty.8019:

Ursan.7846:

We’ll see about the Scavenger Hunt though. [..]
And the SH is certainly going to make people who don’t like doing things unhappy (and there are many of them in the forums. “I DON’T LIKE DUNGEONS I DON’T LIKE JUMPING PUZZLES I DON’T LIKE WVW”).

People should not be able to get Legendaries if they don’t do those things. Arenanet have dropped the ball on Legendaries. Massively.

The legendaries are supposed to (sic);

• “show off your accomplishments and symbolise all of the things that you’ve been doing” (Lead Designer Isiah Cartwright – in this video) and,
• “show everyone that you are a true master of Guild Wars 2” (quoted from here).

Now it only shows everyone that:

A) You got your bum full of money.
B) Or Your a pro TP flipper
C) Anet gave you pretty precursors for lost shores, “Happy LS DAY!”

So the main “Achivement” that is represented is how well you can play the economy not the game itself, and that is a shame, and it is also the problem

Svarty.8019:

Ursan.7846:

We’ll see about the Scavenger Hunt though. [..]
And the SH is certainly going to make people who don’t like doing things unhappy (and there are many of them in the forums. “I DON’T LIKE DUNGEONS I DON’T LIKE JUMPING PUZZLES I DON’T LIKE WVW”).

People should not be able to get Legendaries if they don’t do those things. Arenanet have dropped the ball on Legendaries. Massively.

The legendaries are supposed to (sic);

• “show off your accomplishments and symbolise all of the things that you’ve been doing” (Lead Designer Isiah Cartwright – in this video) and,
• “show everyone that you are a true master of Guild Wars 2” (quoted from here).

I’m in agreement with you. I wish that making a Legendary included Personal Story completion, Dungeon Master, and all JP puzzle completion, on top of everything we have already.

But alas, imagine the complaints.

The precursor prices are not fair, and are manipulated by people with monstrous money at their disposal. Gold sellers immediately come to mind. The system is terribly flawed, with precursors being so hard to acquire the price can be dictated basically at any level – so long as you can afford to monopolize the market. This happened with Zap today, the price which was around 330 for the last week suddenly skyrocketed to 500. Someone bought out all, let me repeat – ALL available Zap’s and offered them back at almost twice the price. Really sounds fair to you? What stops such people of doing it all over again in a week, and setting the price at 1000 lets say?
Anet promised to make this game fun, but they are terribly failing on this front right now. Something should be changed because the situation is becoming absurd.

Gburzak.7035:

The precursor prices are not fair, and are manipulated by people with monstrous money at their disposal. Gold sellers immediately come to mind. The system is terribly flawed, with precursors being so hard to acquire the price can be dictated basically at any level – so long as you can afford to monopolize the market. This happened with Zap today, the price which was around 330 for the last week suddenly skyrocketed to 500. Someone bought out all, let me repeat – ALL available Zap’s and offered them back at almost twice the price. Really sounds fair to you? What stops such people of doing it all over again in a week, and setting the price at 1000 lets say?
Anet promised to make this game fun, but they are terribly failing on this front right now. Something should be changed because the situation is becoming absurd.

Oh god. Please read around this subforums before you make a post like this. Oh god oh god oh god.

Hint: This is a good place to start.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Pile-of-Crystalline-Dust/first#post1382211

Now that is what I call an intelligent response to my post. No arguments, several invocations to God, and a link to a post which doesn’t clarify anything. So what, about 10 of each kind of precursor “move” every day. Yep. That’s what happened today: one person bought up 10 or 15 available and now sells them twice as high. Or maybe you want people to believe -ALL- sellers somehow got the idea to increase the price by 100% at the very same moment.

Hint: if you take part in a discussion, actually have something to say first.

Gburzak.7035:

Now that is what I call an intelligent response to my post. No arguments, several invocations to God, and a link to a post which doesn’t clarify anything. So what, about 10 of each kind of precursor “move” every day. Yep. That’s what happened today: one person bought up 10 or 15 available and now sells them twice as high. Or maybe you want people to believe -ALL- sellers somehow got the idea to increase the price by 100% at the very same moment.

Hint: if you take part in a discussion, actually have something to say first.

I refuse to. If you haven’t noticed, I and several other posters have discussed ad nauseam why the situation you describe is unrealistic. If you’re serious about actually discussing and learning things (instead of you know, coming in with preconceived notions and yelling about them with a bunch of hyperbole) I suggest you read around this subforums.

But I will say this. One seller puts up an item for 700G. What’s the next seller gonna put it up as? 500G? How about a huge KITTENING no?

Ursan.7846:

But I will say this. One seller puts up an item for 700G. What’s the next seller gonna put it up as? 500G? How about a huge KITTENING no?

You obviously never studied statistics, nor do you understand how market’s work. Pick any precursor you like, and watch how the price fluctuates. To take your example: the next seller is going to put it either at 699, or at 700 as well. The push is to beat the current price by a small margin, not to increase it. I was following the situation with Zap very closely as I was about to buy it. The price was very stable for over a week (after the initial post-patch push upwards, when all sellers realized the less popular precursors are going to get much more attention due to changes), it did fluctuate, but by a spread of no more than 10-15 gold. The change of the price by almost 100% up happened within less than 2 hours of real time (as this is how often I was checking it). The only logical and plausible theory that explains this is market manipulation; statistically speaking, it is all but impossible every seller of this precursor suddenly had the very same idea to push the price upward (and by how much). Statistically speaking, it is not even possible most of them were online during that time.

Gburzak.7035:

You obviously never studied statistics, nor do you understand how market’s

No seriously, please read around the threads in this subforums. They’re quite a wonderful read, and I’m sure you’ll learn a lot about how the economy in this game work. It’s been pretty well established through discussion that market manipulations, while possible, is quite hard in this economy. And it’s almost impossible to monopolize anything, even precursors.

Gburzak.7035:

To take your example: the next seller is going to put it either at 699, or at 700 as well.

Right, exactly. Which is why you see a sudden jump in the price. If one person does it, other people quick follow and post similar prices. It doesn’t have to be all one person, you know (which is what you’re saying)

Gburzak.7035:

The only logical and plausible theory that explains this is market manipulation; statistically speaking, it is all but impossible every seller of this precursor suddenly had the very same idea to push the price upward (and by how much). Statistically speaking, it is not even possible most of them were online during that time.

I like how you talk about statistical impossibility when you don’t even know the sample size.

But regardless, is it really hard to imagine one person putting it up for a much higher sell order, and others following suit? It’s not like suddenly 10 Zaps appeared at a higher price. All I see from GWspidy is all the (2) 300G~ Zaps being bought up and 1 suddenly appearing at 487. And every other seller follows suit and posts prices similar to that.

By the way, how are you getting the “someone bought out 10-15 Zaps and put them up for higher price?” I’m looking at GWspidy, and nowhere does Zap’s sell listings exceeds 3.

Gburzak.7035:

ALL available Zap’s and offered them back at almost twice the price. Really sounds fair to you?

I posted that link hoping to show you that sell listings =/= supply. Dawn/Dusk has like 2/3 sell listings at most, but the actual available supply is much higher than that. So basically what you see on the sell listings is NOT all the Zaps that are available.

This is why it’s almost impossible to monopolize anything

Gburzak.7035:

What stops such people of doing it all over again in a week, and setting the price at 1000 lets say?

The fact that beyond a certain price, no one will buy it for for that price. If prices stays the same/rises, it simply means people can still afford them. And plenty of precursors are still moving around at these current prices.

No but really, read around this subforum. There’s really a ton of really good discussions that goes on. You’ll find many posts detailing why exactly some market manipulator monopolizing the precursor market is hard to believe.

I have no idea. But you make it sound like it is a game of stock market rather than a game of doing dungeons, pvp, or hack and slash mobs.

Playing the stock market and game economy is too much work for me.

Ursan.7846:

Gburzak.7035:

To take your example: the next seller is going to put it either at 699, or at 700 as well.

Right, exactly. Which is why you see a sudden jump in the price. If one person does it, other people quick follow and post similar prices. It doesn’t have to be all one person, you know (which is what you’re saying)

No, this is not why I see a sudden jump in the price. This is why you always see a constant, small (or very small) decrease in the prices until an equilibrum is found between the asking and offered price. The sudden increase of price can only be related to people (or, as I am persuaded was the case here, one person) buying out all lower priced items. Which is absolutely possible in this game due to the relatively small amount of precursors offered at any given time.

Ursan.7846:

By the way, how are you getting the “someone bought out 10-15 Zaps and put them up for higher price?” I’m looking at GWspidy, and nowhere does Zap’s sell listings exceeds 3.

I do not know nor use GWspidy, link please. I have no idea how reliable a source it is, but I know for certain there were at least 4 Zaps offered in the range of 320-350, it has been like that for over a week and different people buying them out all at the same time (as stated previously – within less than 2 hours) seems extremely unlikely, given how stable the market was.

Ursan.7846:

I posted that link hoping to show you that sell listings =/= supply. Dawn/Dusk has like 2/3 sell listings at most, but the actual available supply is much higher than that. So basically what you see on the sell listings is NOT all the Zaps that are available.
This is why it’s almost impossible to monopolize anything.

I am assuming that by “the actual supply is much higher” you mean not all Zap’s in game are offered at the TP, and not that the game information is wrong (or is it? according to TP, on European servers there is currently 3 Zap’s offered).

Assuming the above – why would you keep a precursor instead of selling it? 1) you want to craft the legendary yourself (most obvious case), 2) you hope the price will increase in the future and you will sell it for better profit (I would bet a lot this is a much, much less likely case). So, the precursor’s on offer are those people want to change into cash, and therefore constitute the “market” as it is. It is irrelevant to speak of the rest, imho.

And yes, give the “market” for precursors is extremely small, it is entirely possible to monipolize it. Check the numbers. With the 3 Zap’s on offer right now (again, I assume the ingame data is not wrong) – how hard to monopolize is that?

Ursan.7846:

Gburzak.7035:

What stops such people of doing it all over again in a week, and setting the price at 1000 lets say?

The fact that beyond a certain price, no one will buy it for for that price. If prices stays the same/rises, it simply means people can still afford them. And plenty of precursors are still moving around at these current prices.

You are wrong again, and in real life the luxury goods market is a very good example to prove it. There is always a market for luxury goods, no matter how high you set the price. Some people will always buy it. Some people will spend $2000 in the gem shop, or a smaller amount at gold sellers, and get the cash required even if you offer precursors at 1500 gold +. Millions of people play this game. You think you will not find a dozen ready to pay that much for a Zap? (to stay within the example we’ve been using).

laokoko.7403:

I have no idea. But you make it sound like it is a game of stock market rather than a game of doing dungeons, pvp, or hack and slash mobs.

Playing the stock market and game economy is too much work for me.

And basically, that sums it up. Arena net promised a game that will be about slashing dragons, not about stock markets. OP’s whole point is about the fact it is possible to get such cash. Yep, it is. But is that fun? Not for me.

OZtheWiZARD.2401:

It took me around 2 weeks to gain money I needed. It wasn’t a simple task but as you can read for yourself its absolutely possible and I have learned so much in the process.
I knew straight away that simple grind is not a solution here. I am a casual player, hate grinding and I prefer to enjoy and play the game, rather than force myself to focus on one task or goal and do just that.

…

The hardest bit was to get first 50 – 100 gold. After that I had the knowledge required to achieve what I wanted. All I needed was time.
The reason I am telling about this is simple. Because I was forced to expand mu knowledge and try to find different ways or any ways at all to gain my goals I actually learn how to make money in GW2, I have learned how to work around problems, I became a better player.

So you are a “casual” player dedicated to earning as much gold as you possibly can in a 2 week period (I swear “casual” has no meaning any more)?

The hardest part was getting the first 50-100 gold… the obvious conclusion is that you made the rest from market transactions. Yet, you “became a better player” because you learned to buy/sell on the market?

Sorry, but the whole thing makes no sense. Sure, you can work your kitten off silly for 2 weeks and get 500 gold. How does that support your argument!?