Guild Wars 2

Right now on Yaks bend, the 19 gold is equivalent to 268 gems. That’s not that great for a casual-esk player that doesn’t want to spend real money. I remember when it started out as about 20s for 100 gems. I also remember way way back when Anet had the power to re-regulate the prices of ectoplasm in the original Guild Wars game, so the question is will it ever be regulated, or at least capped. There’s some good stuff in there that I want right now if not sooner, but really it’s either grind a ton of gold, or spend $10 for 800 gems (or 7g10s for every 100 because it went up while typing this head shake) on one, count em, one item.

the price of gem doesnt go up. its the gold value are going down.
its take 20s to buy 100 gems at release and now it take 7-8g to buy 100gems
unless anet make gold crazy hard to get , otherwise , gold price will continue to go down and it’ll be harder to buy any others items, not just gems.

my prediction it’ll hit 10g =100gems soon and continue to like 100g =100gems

and it should be capped, gold isn’t as easy to get as you think unless you’re farming for it.
for now, it’s for the farmers and grinders, a casual player will never get enough gold.
heck, i stopped hoping for any exchange, i know it’s the players who ruined it but still, it’s Anet’s responsibility to keep a lid on it.

Of course not. Last I checked it was 1g for an absurd 13gems! This is what they want. It encourages folks to whip out the credit card.

Gems was never inteded to favour gold —> gems converision afaik, you should be happy the option even exists.

Don’t forget 800 gems will always be worth 10€/$

Once more from the top …

Gold to Gems is and never was meant to be the primary means to acquire Gems in this game. Gems are the proxy currency of the cash shop and this game’s primary source of income is the cash shop. Having a low gold to gems rate defeats that purpose and would be cutting their own throat.

Gold to Gems is how the currency exchange funds itself for Gems to Gold purchases. This way no gold or gems are created or destroyed by the exchange, merely stored. This way the exchange is self funded beyond the original allotment of gold and gems at launch time. The rates are based on the simple ratio of gold to gems in the exchange. As gems are taken out while gold is added, each remaining gem is worth more and more gold and therefore the rate is higher. If gems are added and gold taken out the reverse is true.

In most MMOs with cash shops, there isn’t a way to acquire cash shop items with in-game currency. We should consider ourselves fortunate that we don’t always have to pony up real money.

I know you don’t want to hear this but the exchange is a reward for players with lots of time to earn in-game coin and little cash as oppose to the other extreme where players have cash but not a lot of game time to earn in-game coin. The exchange also doubles as the legitimate way to buy gold with cash through gems.

But after more than a year of sales and in-demand items the Gem supply has been reduced enough that the rate is now 8.8x higher than just a year ago. This will keep going until players start buying gems with cash and exchanging it for gold enough to counter the players who only buy gems with gold. And it will keep being driven buy sales and attractive offers at the cash shop.

So the choice is yours. Pony up real money to buy those shinny trinkets at the cash shop and/or in-game gold or learn to go without or with a lot fewer purchases.

The problem is that for the same player, a few months ago it was affordable to buy gems with gold (let’s say 6 months ago when you had 35 gems for 1 gold), and now it’s really less affordable for the same player (at this time, 13 gem for 1 gold).

In the meanwhile, gold is not 2.5 times easier to grab.

That’s what is quite “unfair” with this system.

Gold loses money for two reasons : more and more gold farmed by players, and more and more new players (for the now – this will sometimes stop raising), whereas the gems available through gold has (by developper’s choice) a fixed amount.

Problem is some people have too much money and bloat the exchange.

Dromar.1027:

Problem is some people have too much money and bloat the exchange.

exactly, and that’s why i say they should cap it to around 5G=100GEM.
the some ppl you’re talking about are manipulating the whole system, changing it from casual friendly to hard farmers friendly.

sorudo.9054:

Dromar.1027:

Problem is some people have too much money and bloat the exchange.

exactly, and that’s why i say they should cap it to around 5G=100GEM.
the some ppl you’re talking about are manipulating the whole system, changing it from casual friendly to hard farmers friendly.

Capping it would send a message that they have failed to stabilize the economy but they don’t want the gem exchange to stabilize because its less green in their pocket.

Again, the exchange wasn’t meant for “casual” players, only players who can accumulate large piles of gold through play. This means the merchant class who leverage other players impatience, indifference or ignorance as a means to riches. This includes those who pay for items to salvage and sell the mats or buy lower quality items and play the mystic slot machine for profit.

Yes, the aren’t “adventuring” in the wilderness doing whatever farm of the month to maximize income. But they are keeping the wheels of the TP greased by absorbing excess items and turning them into desired ones or providing immediate coin at prices much higher than a vendor is willing to pay.

And what they do is considered anathema to those who simply use and not participate in the workings of the TP. They are simply making profits that you decided to pass up on when you sold them your stuff than selling it yourself or weren’t willing to wait for someone to sell you an item at what you would be willing to pay. You get some item you don’t want so you take 10s for now rather than waiting for 12s later because you want to buy something you would use now for 10s that you could have gotten for 8s if you were willing to wait. Or you didn’t care if it cost a little more or a little less. Well guess where a good chunk of that 4s difference ends up? In the pockets of those who are willing to do the waiting for you by providing what you want, coin or item, now.

Think of it the other way around: exchanging gems for gold will Always lose 1/3 of the gold to gems value. Since gems will keep raising in gold prices, a patient gamer would always have profit in buying gems for gold. Just wait a few months and change them back to gold. Profitable, because the gold value (to buy items) does not drop that fast.

Behellagh.1468:

Again, the exchange wasn’t meant for “casual” players, only players who can accumulate large piles of gold through play.

The exchange was put in for many reasons, not just for people who play the tp or hoard their money and the biggest reason is for a living market with the ability to combat gold sellers as a nice bonus.

Behellagh.1468:

And what they do is considered anathema to those who simply use and not participate in the workings of the TP.

Because its an age old war of the poor vs the wealthy creeping its way into the game and you seriously don’t think those who work the tp and have a wallet fatter than Albert don’t look down on those with less money than they do and think them kittens for viewing it as players just giving them money? Trust me it goes both ways.

In the end the game was preached that it was for everyone, people are just upset that it’s turning into something different than that.

Think of it this way. Those who play the TP are farming the whole game at once. All servers, all zones at the same time. They farm by proxy letting all the other players do the heavy lifting. But it’s the bulk of those same players who are all right with how much they get selling to high bidder or spending buying from low seller. The concentrating of coin to those who actively work the TP isn’t some nefarious plot or secret cabal who set prices. They are willing to take the risk, monetarily so the rest can buy and sell their items quickly. But since they have the entire game including all servers to work with, they can become quite wealthy skimming their half pennies from all transactions.

As for the exchange sorry that some feel left out. But the game runs on a cash shop. Making it easy for a large percentage of the player population to bypass it is suicide for the game, plain and simple.

Behellagh.1468:

Think of it this way. Those who play the TP are farming the whole game at once. All servers, all zones at the same time. They farm by proxy letting all the other players do the heavy lifting. But it’s the bulk of those same players who are all right with how much they get selling to high bidder or spending buying from low seller. The concentrating of coin to those who actively work the TP isn’t some nefarious plot or secret cabal who set prices. They are willing to take the risk, monetarily so the rest can buy and sell their items quickly. But since they have the entire game including all servers to work with, they can become quite wealthy skimming their half pennies from all transactions.

As for the exchange sorry that some feel left out. But the game runs on a cash shop. Making it easy for a large percentage of the player population to bypass it is suicide for the game, plain and simple.

Never said there was a “secret cabal” and the tp was created to stop that and it has been successful in that endeavor because people actually created monopolies in GW1 to manipulate the market. The problem is that they amass gold too quickly, thus upsetting the market and causing inflation and with sites like GW2spidey the risk is not as great as you would think. Mind you that is just a regular theory about the economics of the game and not some crazy kitten conspiracy theory BS. I got no problem with people making money but Anet created a broken system and their ignorance shows in the mistakes they made at launch that caused mass exploitation through the MF and other areas of the game.

SRG.3607:

The problem is that for the same player, a few months ago it was affordable to buy gems with gold (let’s say 6 months ago when you had 35 gems for 1 gold), and now it’s really less affordable for the same player (at this time, 13 gem for 1 gold).

In the meanwhile, gold is not 2.5 times easier to grab.

That’s what is quite “unfair” with this system.

Gold loses money for two reasons : more and more gold farmed by players, and more and more new players (for the now – this will sometimes stop raising), whereas the gems available through gold has (by developper’s choice) a fixed amount.

It’s not unfair that players are purchasing gems with gold. That’s how it’s setup.

A few months ago, people ran CoF P1 for ~8g/h before loot with a dedicated speedrun group.

If you take the same ideal of running a dedicated speedrun group, you can finish Arah P123 in ~1 hour, which also gets you ~8g (3.26 + 3.26 + 1.86 = 7.38g) before loot (these numbers also don’t count chest coin which is factored into the CoF P1 speedrun moneys).

After that first hour, you can then proceed to do CoF P12 + CoE P123 + HotW P123 + AC P13 (2 if you have a competent group) + CM P123 + SE P23 + TA P123 with each dungeon taking an hour for all the paths when averaged (since CoF and CoE will be done faster than an hour and AC P2 may put AC over the hour limit).

If you do that (keep in mind, this is with dedicated groups that are meant for speed and/or efficiency, so you’re not just going to be pugging), then you’ll make a total of…

AC: 3/4.5
CM: 3
TA: 2/4
SE: 2
CoF: 2
HotW: 2/3
CoE: 3
Arah: 7.5
Total: 22.5/27

Not to mention an additional 26s per run, making the total become…
+ 19 * 26 (or 22 * 26) =
Total: 27.44g/32.72g
The entirety of this will take somewhere between 6-8 hours, depending on efficiency, meaning you’re making 3-6g/h depending on how many paths you get done and how fast.

At the current rate of 6g91s per 100 gems, you’re making, at best, $1 per hour.

I personally get most of my gems by purchasing through gold. I purchase during the week and when new items haven’t appeared. If you purchase on the weekend, the rates may be slightly higher due to every weekend having a sale (yeah, there’s always a sale even if it may be useless to you). If I absolutely need something, I will not use only dungeons to get my money. I will flip, I will convert, I will craft, I will sell, and I will get the gems that I need for what I want.

But in no way are Gems being controlled by an evil mastermind that isn’t Arenanet because that would take hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of gold to be able to propel the rates to go up. Have you noticed while tweaking the numbers down to the silvers and coppers that suddenly you have to go up by a silver or so? That’s because someone else just purchased a lot of Gems through Gold.

tl;dr: The most efficient way (in terms of effort AND speed) of making gold (and gems) in GW2 is to get a [part time] job and convert gold to gems or, illegally, purchase gold through third party websites. I do not recommend the second choice.

Note: I don’t have a job, but I enjoy “grinding” for money via dungeons. I enjoy running Arah with pugs. I enjoy running CM with pugs. I enjoy walking around doing what I want with no care for money. Then when I hit ~50g+, I find something I want to purchase in the gem store, and boop, back to <10g I go.

Find what works for you, but don’t blame the system because it doesn’t cater to you.

it simply meant “Gold” base’s growth rate is faster than Gem’s. I mean it is reasonable development, with all those champ bags and relatively easiness of running dungeon for 1 gold each path.

This also means, gold sinks are not counteracting the new gold growth effectively. I personally think the biggest reason is that there is simply not enough gold sinks, because most of cosmetic items are gem purchases. You could argue that gem act like a gold sink, but if someone is unwilling to exchange the gold for the gem due to high exchange rate then it has no gold sink effect.

To Op’s questions, I doubt it. Floating exchange rates is designed to show relative value. Unfortunately, gold is losing value COMPARE to gems. More importantly, this is in Anet’s favor…. no go buy some gems using your credit card

I’m curious. Why do people feel they’re entitled to cheap Gold → Gems exchange (for no real money), when there are players who pay real money for theirs?

Anet added this exchange not only a Gold Sink, which is healthy for the in game economy, but also a way for players to have access to the Cash Shop without spending cash. Basically, those players are enjoying the benefits of Gems for free, and they still complain?

as someone who exchanges gems→gold, I love it

(and you can thank people like me for keeping the gold→gem exchange as low as it is)

I’ve got to admit, even as someone who personally prefers to spend gold for gems rather than buy them with real world dollars, this whole “hurting the casual” argument is hilarious. I mean just listen to yourselves. What are you actually saying? Should COSMETIC items meant to differentiate those who support A.Net and GW2 by either buying gems or playing the game for hours on end be easily accessible to those who show up once a day for 20 minutes?

Why shouldn’t there be a differentiation between what is accessible for those who either put in the money or the effort versus those who don’t?

When the average player trading gold for gems is willing to pay the current price for the gems (That’s the only way the gold price of gems actually goes up), why shouldn’t that be the gold price of gems?

Grow up you self entitled shmucks.

As a player who grinds for hours to get those fancy cosmetic things for fun, I agree with the previous four posts.

Greymantle.9168:

Right now on Yaks bend, the 19 gold is equivalent to 268 gems. That’s not that great for a casual-esk player that doesn’t want to spend real money. I remember when it started out as about 20s for 100 gems. I also remember way way back when Anet had the power to re-regulate the prices of ectoplasm in the original Guild Wars game, so the question is will it ever be regulated, or at least capped. There’s some good stuff in there that I want right now if not sooner, but really it’s either grind a ton of gold, or spend $10 for 800 gems (or 7g10s for every 100 because it went up while typing this head shake) on one, count em, one item.

dude yes, 20 silver for 100 gems, those were the days !!! I wish I knew back then how it’s gonna get, if I knew back then, all I would’ve been spending my money on was gems

I did know back then how much gem price would go up. I still chose to not buy a lot of gems, and here’s why:
at 40s -> 100 gems, I could buy 100 gems for ~10% of my net worth
at 6g -> 100 gems, I could buy 100 gems for ~0.1% of my net worth
those first few gold are really hard to get when you start playing from nothing.
In the first few weeks of me playing, the price rose from about 30s to 60s. I saw the pattern, knew how gems changed price, and knew that always more people will spend gold for gems instead of money, so it will always go up.
I guarantee that if Anet doesn’t change anything, gem price will continue to go up on an exponential curve. looking at spidy, I’m estimating the price will double every 6 months. you mark my words: 100 gems will cost 14g on May 1 2014 (today is 11/5/13).
The reason I’m not buying a hoard of gems now is because I expect that when gems are at 14g -> 100 gems, that 100 gems will cost 0.01% of my net worth

let me make this really simple, if the exchange was never made to be casual friendly then the game should never be advertised as such.
also, if the exchange was never meant to be the primary way of getting gems then they should never have added it in the first place.

so the choice is really simple, ether cap the gold→gem price to 1G=100GEM or remove the whole system.
the game is advertised as casual friendly, make it as such.
if Anet doesn’t want to lose money, don’t add an exchange system, it’s your own kitten fault.

sorudo.9054:

let me make this really simple, if the exchange was never made to be casual friendly then the game should never be advertised as such.
also, if the exchange was never meant to be the primary way of getting gems then they should never have added it in the first place.

so the choice is really simple, ether cap the gold->gem price to 1G=100GEM or remove the whole system.
the game is advertised as casual friendly, make it as such.
if Anet doesn’t want to lose money, don’t add an exchange system, it’s your own kitten fault.

Casual friendly doesn’t mean you are entitled to CASH shop items. The fact that you seem to believe is pretty pathetic.

Also gem to gold was meant as a way for casuals who have less time to be able to leverage real world money to be able to get in game cold, not the other way around. The point being they aren’t looking to do you any favors.

sorudo.9054:

let me make this really simple, if the exchange was never made to be casual friendly then the game should never be advertised as such.
also, if the exchange was never meant to be the primary way of getting gems then they should never have added it in the first place.

so the choice is really simple, ether cap the gold->gem price to 1G=100GEM or remove the whole system.
the game is advertised as casual friendly, make it as such.
if Anet doesn’t want to lose money, don’t add an exchange system, it’s your own kitten fault.

So your solution is to remove a system that other players can use and benefit from, remove the legit way to convert cash to gold, all because you can’t use it.

It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to realize that a game whose monthly source of income is a cash shop isn’t going to provide a way for most players to avoid paying cash to use it. I don’t remember ArenaNet ever promoting the exchange as anything other than what’s on the tin, an official way to buy gold with cash and gems with gold. They never said it would be a good deal.

sorudo.9054:

let me make this really simple, if the exchange was never made to be casual friendly then the game should never be advertised as such.
also, if the exchange was never meant to be the primary way of getting gems then they should never have added it in the first place.

so the choice is really simple, ether cap the gold->gem price to 1G=100GEM or remove the whole system.
the game is advertised as casual friendly, make it as such.
if Anet doesn’t want to lose money, don’t add an exchange system, it’s your own kitten fault.

What is a casual? A casual is a player who plays the game for short segments of time, not a player who is grinding hours on end. GW2 has to be the most casual friendly MMO I’ve ever played.

Fast, easy leveling? Check.
Easy access to end game stats? Check.
Availability of end game content to solo players? Check.

To a casual who wants fancy looking gear, the gem system is great. It’s people who are NOT casual and are actually trying to GRIND gems that do not benefit as much from the gem system.

sorudo.9054:

let me make this really simple, if the exchange was never made to be casual friendly then the game should never be advertised as such.
also, if the exchange was never meant to be the primary way of getting gems then they should never have added it in the first place.

so the choice is really simple, ether cap the gold->gem price to 1G=100GEM or remove the whole system.
the game is advertised as casual friendly, make it as such.
if Anet doesn’t want to lose money, don’t add an exchange system, it’s your own kitten fault.

So tell me, how is the “casual” susposed to get the gold fora Vulcanus? or Whisperblade? or any of the other 1-200g psudo-legendary items? Most casuals I know love the gem→gold exchange as it lets them look boss without having to spend 30h a week grinding gold.

a volcanus or whisperblade is not required to play, especially for the casual player.
casual players never expect bis gear, why should they expect best-cosmetic gear?

A lot of these answers are pretty much non answers, since they aren’t from any Anet source lol. But like it was said, if you can’t work it both ways it shouldn’t be in the game. Seems to me that you have all these people feeling like it’s the cat’s kitten when really they had nothing to do with it. I fondly remember seeing teams of human rangers running circles farming. You know what they were called boys and girls? Bots. In every game sure, but it sure hurt the little guy a year or so down the road. As it was stated above somewhere had I known it’d be like this, I would have hoarded gems like they were going out of style.

I supported the original Guild Wars games. Bought every one, plus the imp gem and the Grenth outfit. Cost about $15 in total both to look cool all the time, and to have a good function. GW2 stuff doesn’t seem like it’s worth real cash since costumes are on only half the time, so really why not have the option to pay half the cost lol. Don’t try to feel like a victim when you choose to spend real money. That is more facepalm worthy than the casual expecting the free trade option to be reasonable. Great you can buy gold without buying it illegally for your legendary/achievement, pay to win and all that, but it sure punishes the ones that’d like that new costume that only shows up if you’re out of combat lol.

Mystic.5934:

a volcanus or whisperblade is not required to play, especially for the casual player.
casual players never expect bis gear, why should they expect best-cosmetic gear?

But they can get BiS gear in GW2 with little to no effort. Now they want to make it pretty. I mean, they can’t complain that getting BiS is too hard, so what should they complain about in their spare time instead of being on GW2?

Imperatora.7654:

sorudo.9054:

let me make this really simple, if the exchange was never made to be casual friendly then the game should never be advertised as such.
also, if the exchange was never meant to be the primary way of getting gems then they should never have added it in the first place.

so the choice is really simple, ether cap the gold->gem price to 1G=100GEM or remove the whole system.
the game is advertised as casual friendly, make it as such.
if Anet doesn’t want to lose money, don’t add an exchange system, it’s your own kitten fault.

So tell me, how is the “casual” susposed to get the gold fora Vulcanus? or Whisperblade? or any of the other 1-200g psudo-legendary items? Most casuals I know love the gem->gold exchange as it lets them look boss without having to spend 30h a week grinding gold.

I know this is going to really really blow your mind here but:

The “casual” could buy gems and convert them to gold! Amazing news on that front, the increase in gold/gem makes it even easier for casuals to get these items as well. It’s almost as if this system [gasp] favors “casuals!”

Edit: Replied to wrong post so yes, I’m agreeing with you Imperatora

Imperatora.7654:

sorudo.9054:

let me make this really simple, if the exchange was never made to be casual friendly then the game should never be advertised as such.
also, if the exchange was never meant to be the primary way of getting gems then they should never have added it in the first place.

so the choice is really simple, ether cap the gold->gem price to 1G=100GEM or remove the whole system.
the game is advertised as casual friendly, make it as such.
if Anet doesn’t want to lose money, don’t add an exchange system, it’s your own kitten fault.

So tell me, how is the “casual” susposed to get the gold fora Vulcanus? or Whisperblade? or any of the other 1-200g psudo-legendary items? Most casuals I know love the gem->gold exchange as it lets them look boss without having to spend 30h a week grinding gold.

hmmm, and since when did i talk about gem→gold?

I like how some people think the yare entitled to gems if they earned gold and that the price should be normalised to be more affordable for them. The exchange is just an extra feature for those who have excess gold and want to buy gems with or vice versa a legal way to buy gold with real money. The system made for the players to balance it out themselves, normalising it to a certain rate would mean Anet has to infuse the system, losing out on gem sales themselves.

It probably is regulated. It just dont’ mean it is regulated to be cheaper.

If you think about it, the players are actually self regulating the prices. If Gold → Gem exchanges are in demand, and players are willing to pay the prices, the per Gem costs will increase. Then players like me will come in and exchange Gems → Gold because the rates would be very good. That in turn helps to bring the exchange rates of Gold → Gems lower.

^ You’ll spend another essay of text telling people how player control and set the price.

I remind you I use the word regulate. I didn’t use the word control or set. Since you are really sensitive to the wording. Or maybe I should use the sentence the supply of gem store item or motivation to convert gem to gold is regulated.

It’s like people like using the word manipulate or investing on this forum. Eventhough they are techincally the same thing.

Like I said on another topic. People arn’t discussing weather price should be self regulated by whatever economic model. People are discussing weather or not Anet should step in to make gem price cheaper so it is easier for people to get gem store item without over farming or spending real cash.

Anet regulate the price. And yes, the current 7 gold per 100 is extreme.

Well Anet could counteract this by gifting every player in the game an amount of gems that is too low to buy literally anything in the store. Many people would feel forced to convert their gems to gold and .. voila. That would still be wierd and unreasonable.

dietzero.3514:

Anet regulate the price. And yes, the current 7 gold per 100 is extreme.

Turn the question around. How much gold would you want to get for a dollar? Is 4 gold enough, is 5 gold? What about 50s?

The only way Anet is regulating prices is by controlling the gold tap and what’s offered in the store. If players didn’t have so much gold to burn for some desirable item at the store then they wouldn’t convert gold to gems and the exchange rate wouldn’t rise.

People are overthinking the exchange. It’s a very simple system and until players start converting the other way the rate climb will accelerate past 10g per 100 by New Years.

a good exchange system would be 1:1, if the gem to gold go’s higher then gold to gem has to go lower.
for now we don’t have one exchange, we have two completely different rated and until that’s made as one, this system will go the wrong way one way or another.

laokoko.7403:

^ You’ll spend another essay of text telling people how player control and set the price.

I remind you I use the word regulate. I didn’t use the word control or set. Since you are really sensitive to the wording. Or maybe I should use the sentence the supply of gem store item or motivation to convert gem to gold is regulated.

It’s like people like using the word manipulate or investing on this forum. Eventhough they are techincally the same thing.

Like I said on another topic. People arn’t discussing weather price should be self regulated by whatever economic model. People are discussing weather or not Anet should step in to make gem price cheaper so it is easier for people to get gem store item without over farming or spending real cash.

To me, regulation means control. Anet’s formula is static since day one. The exchange rates are determined by the movement of the Gems and Gold in the pot.

If the conversation is about Anet making things cheaper for people, then we’re moving into the realm of “entitlement”. If the conversation is about who can effectively determine rates, it would be the players. It’s all self adjusting, as when the exchange rates get too wacky, the opposite exchanges will be made to bring down the rates.

It’s to ANet’s advantage to have a high gold-to-gem conversion because:

1. It suppresses gold farming by providing a better value to Players trying to buy gold
2. Reduces the ability to buy gems using in-game gold which results in more players buying gems with RL money.

I imagine there’s some ceiling where it starts to become disadvantageous. Example: If you get 1,000,000 gold for a 100 gems then nobody would need to continue to buy gems to get gold because you get so much gold in the conversion. However if such a ridiculous conversion was in place then the economy would probably be in a horrible state due to inflation.

Nub.2391:

the price of gem doesnt go up. its the gold value are going down.
its take 20s to buy 100 gems at release and now it take 7-8g to buy 100gems
unless anet make gold crazy hard to get , otherwise , gold price will continue to go down and it’ll be harder to buy any others items, not just gems.

my prediction it’ll hit 10g =100gems soon and continue to like 100g =100gems

It seems people have forgotten what inflation is and I’ve got to hand it to GW 2 for allowing inflation and deflation into their economy. I mean, the company needs to make money somehow and if inflating the economy eventually gets people to buy into the system, well, so be it. If you guys want gold prices to go back down to 20 s = 100 gems, you need to convert gems into gold rather than vice versa. It’s simple, really.

juno.1840:

It’s to ANet’s advantage to have a high gold-to-gem conversion because:

1. It suppresses gold farming by providing a better value to Players trying to buy gold
2. Reduces the ability to buy gems using in-game gold which results in more players buying gems with RL money.

I imagine there’s some ceiling where it starts to become disadvantageous. Example: If you get 1,000,000 gold for a 100 gems then nobody would need to continue to buy gems to get gold because you get so much gold in the conversion. However if such a ridiculous conversion was in place then the economy would probably be in a horrible state due to inflation.

By then, it would have cost 1,300,000 Gold to get 100 Gems. But that hypothetical situation won’t happen, because there is a finite amount of Gems in the pot, and thus there is a ceiling as to how high the exchange rates get. I’m not sure how close we are to getting to that point, as no player knows how many Gems were put into the pot from day 1.

I view the Gem market like the Options Exchange. When you sell options the transaction happens immediately, regardless of whether there was a buyer or not. This is the closest match to what ANet has set up ihmo.

juno.1840:

It’s to ANet’s advantage to have a high gold-to-gem conversion because:

1. It suppresses gold farming by providing a better value to Players trying to buy gold
2. Reduces the ability to buy gems using in-game gold which results in more players buying gems with RL money.

I imagine there’s some ceiling where it starts to become disadvantageous. Example: If you get 1,000,000 gold for a 100 gems then nobody would need to continue to buy gems to get gold because you get so much gold in the conversion. However if such a ridiculous conversion was in place then the economy would probably be in a horrible state due to inflation.

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If it’s 1,000,000 gold, we run the risk of going all Diablo 3 and having a broken economy.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

To me, regulation means control. Anet’s formula is static since day one. The exchange rates are determined by the movement of the Gems and Gold in the pot.

If the conversation is about Anet making things cheaper for people, then we’re moving into the realm of “entitlement”. If the conversation is about who can effectively determine rates, it would be the players. It’s all self adjusting, as when the exchange rates get too wacky, the opposite exchanges will be made to bring down the rates.

That’s why I use the sentence “the supply of gem store item or motivation to convert gem to gold is regulated”.

It’s like the last topic. You spend all the time talking about economic. When really the complaint is about “skins and gear take way too long to acquire for some people”.

People are complaining it take much longer to get gemstore item with gold now. Since the exchange rate are much higher than before.

No one is even discussing the things you are discussing. Oh player set the price. People are not discussing about the price but the difficulty to acquire items.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

juno.1840:

It’s to ANet’s advantage to have a high gold-to-gem conversion because:

1. It suppresses gold farming by providing a better value to Players trying to buy gold
2. Reduces the ability to buy gems using in-game gold which results in more players buying gems with RL money.

I imagine there’s some ceiling where it starts to become disadvantageous. Example: If you get 1,000,000 gold for a 100 gems then nobody would need to continue to buy gems to get gold because you get so much gold in the conversion. However if such a ridiculous conversion was in place then the economy would probably be in a horrible state due to inflation.

By then, it would have cost 1,300,000 Gold to get 100 Gems. But that hypothetical situation won’t happen, because there is a finite amount of Gems in the pot, and thus there is a ceiling as to how high the exchange rates get. I’m not sure how close we are to getting to that point, as no player knows how many Gems were put into the pot from day 1.

That’s why I never get what you are talking about. The guy is discussing the “best rates” to maximize Anet’s profit. For example a legendary cost 1500 gold. If exchange is high it does motivate people to buy gem to convert. But at the same time Anet could potentially make less money because the guy need to spend less real life cash to buy a legendary.

And you spend too much time emphasizing players set the price. Which is true. But the difficulty to acquire item have an influence on price too. Take for example, the government can’t set the price of american stock. That’s set by the buyer and seller. But the price of stock do go up or down depend of QE and interest rates which is controled by the government.

A house where I live is 2 to 3 times more expensive than house in other country. Because the house/land tax you need to pay is really low relative to the standard. If government have the guts to raise tax, the house price will burst. Obviously the price is set by buyer and seller. But the governemnt does have a influence on the housing price.