Guild Wars 2

LordByron.8369:

And if the flipping stuff wasn t free pvp against anyone not wanting to participate…..

We don t have alternatives to TP…..like for example NPC vendors for materials….

If you dont want to participate, dont use the TP.
If you dont want to buy materials on the TP, you have the alternative to gather them (think of it as a NPC vendor, that looks like a gathering node for example).

LordByron.8369:

I don t want to be forced to play a PvP minigame in order to get access to the main game…..

Not a single TP player is forcing you to stand around LA instead of farming your own materials.

You have two options:
1. Gather your own resources.
2. Benefit from the division of labor and buy the resources that other players have gathered that are available for a fair price on the TP.

LordByron.8369:

Risk/reward the base of any game
Totally unbalanced here……

The issue is the inflation caused by FALSE scarcity created by flippers.

They balance and nerf anything in the rest of te game not respecting their view of risk/reward….

So a lvl 80 FOTM player get slapped in the face while a TP flipper get each patch more rewards via rumors and patchnotes before release….

Go have a look at the price of linen, cotton, silk and gossamer right now.
You’ll see a huge downward spiraling curve. People that acted on “rumors” lost their gold bigtime today. You really have to qualify that “risk/reward” statement, for one because there is no risk when doing PvE/WvW, only reward.

Second, you are not “forced” to do the TP minigame. No one is. Scores of people acquired multiple legendaries without it. You started with the “speedclearer” comparison, I’ll finish it: speedclearers play content that gets them the most gold in the least amount of time. Even if it means doing one dungeon path all night skipping any mob that can be skipped, glitching through a dungeon in the most effective (read: exploitative) way. I did not want to participate in that, so I chose a “speed path” that fitted my playstyle better. I’m very glad I did, because it means I can enjoy content for what it is without stating on an official forum that by selling my items on the TP I am being “slapped in the face” – or other superlatives that are completely out of context and which – thus far – are devoid of any argument to back it up.

I’ll stop here: I wanted to help you formulate a good argument, because I actually believe there is some merit in it, yet all this has turned into is a rant against profiteering persons in the sky that make you a “victim” rather than a participant of the same system.

Buttercup.5871:

Second, you are not “forced” to do the TP minigame. No one is. Scores of people acquired multiple legendaries without it. Y

NOPE.JPG

Try farming the actual mats, 250 of each, go ahead, just try.

Buttercup.5871:

LordByron.8369:

Risk/reward the base of any game
Totally unbalanced here……

The issue is the inflation caused by FALSE scarcity created by flippers.

They balance and nerf anything in the rest of te game not respecting their view of risk/reward….

So a lvl 80 FOTM player get slapped in the face while a TP flipper get each patch more rewards via rumors and patchnotes before release….

Go have a look at the price of linen, cotton, silk and gossamer right now.
You’ll see a huge downward spiraling curve. People that acted on “rumors” lost their gold bigtime today. You really have to qualify that “risk/reward” statement, for one because there is no risk when doing PvE/WvW, only reward.

Second, you are not “forced” to do the TP minigame. No one is. Scores of people acquired multiple legendaries without it. You started with the “speedclearer” comparison, I’ll finish it: speedclearers play content that gets them the most gold in the least amount of time. Even if it means doing one dungeon path all night skipping any mob that can be skipped, glitching through a dungeon in the most effective (read: exploitative) way. I did not want to participate in that, so I chose a “speed path” that fitted my playstyle better. I’m very glad I did, because it means I can enjoy content for what it is without stating on an official forum that by selling my items on the TP I am being “slapped in the face” – or other superlatives that are completely out of context and which – thus far – are devoid of any argument to back it up.

I’ll stop here: I wanted to help you formulate a good argument, because I actually believe there is some merit in it, yet all this has turned into is a rant against profiteering persons in the sky that make you a “victim” rather than a participant of the same system.

I don’t think it’s obviously bad that people make lots of money on the trading post.

The argument I’d make is that people flipping goods are — if they try to control the supply — harming the market by distorting supply and demand. They may fail to control the price, if additional supply becomes available — when that happens, they lose money. But in general, the best that can be said of them is that they maximize the degree to which the TP functions as a gold sink.

Part of the problem is that in the real world, if the price rises people just make (mine, etc) more of the item in demand. In a game like this, that option is not always available, or depends on the rules of the game … e.g. there is a constant supply of precursors, but depending on the percentage which come from normal drops versus the mystic forge, it may not be elastic with demand; and for things like permanent hairstyle contract or permanent mystic forge conduit — the item may not be possible to make.

OTOH — those who establish buy/sell ranges which give them profit are providing liquidity — I think this benefits everyone. I wish that the TP made it easier to be a market maker … there’d be less profit in it if more people did it, but it’d be less annoying than having to constantly update your buy/sell orders (I don’t have the patience to do it anymore).

linuxotaku.4731:

The argument I’d make is that people flipping goods are — if they try to control the supply — harming the market by distorting supply and demand. They may fail to control the price, if additional supply becomes available — when that happens, they lose money. But in general, the best that can be said of them is that they maximize the degree to which the TP functions as a gold sink.

One change I’d like to see is the addition of an “Average Listing Age” stat on the TP screen. This would allow the user to tell if the current price is based on short or long term listings and would allow people who are not familiar with a given market to know quickly if that market is currently experiencing a spike (up or down).

Granted, not everyone will know how to use this info, but it would be a useful stat to have available at a glance for non-traders.

LordByron.8369:

We should debate wich thing makes gold more worthless…

Flippers or supply?

Only the addition of new currency makes gold worth less. Flippers destroy a lot of currency via tp fees (making gold more valuable overall).

Gasoline.2570:

Buttercup.5871:

Second, you are not “forced” to do the TP minigame. No one is. Scores of people acquired multiple legendaries without it. Y

NOPE.JPG

Try farming the actual mats, 250 of each, go ahead, just try.

By tp minigame I’m sure he means flipping for income, not that people are out there gathering up ALL the mats without buying anything.

mtpelion.4562:

One change I’d like to see is the addition of an “Average Listing Age” stat on the TP screen. This would allow the user to tell if the current price is based on short or long term listings and would allow people who are not familiar with a given market to know quickly if that market is currently experiencing a spike (up or down).

Granted, not everyone will know how to use this info, but it would be a useful stat to have available at a glance for non-traders.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/ gives you info on the buy/sell volume which you can use to help judge this (it’s not exactly what you want, but the higher the volume the faster it’s being sold).

So they need to add proper gold sinks.

Gasoline.2570:

Buttercup.5871:

Second, you are not “forced” to do the TP minigame. No one is. Scores of people acquired multiple legendaries without it. Y

NOPE.JPG

Try farming the actual mats, 250 of each, go ahead, just try.

I actually did that. It took around 8 months. After I had everything else I simply was unable to a precursor without buying one off the tp. I had multiple gifts (still have) for various legendaries jic I got one, but nope. I simply had no other choice but to use the tp.

PS still farming and throwing crap into toilet with nada…….

Aberrant.6749:

http://www.gw2spidy.com/ gives you info on the buy/sell volume which you can use to help judge this (it’s not exactly what you want, but the higher the volume the faster it’s being sold).

Oh I’m well aware of gw2spidy, I just want the information to be more easily available and more detailed. The Average Listing Age would help users to quickly spot price spikes without the need to use an outside resource.

mtpelion.4562:

Aberrant.6749:

http://www.gw2spidy.com/ gives you info on the buy/sell volume which you can use to help judge this (it’s not exactly what you want, but the higher the volume the faster it’s being sold).

Oh I’m well aware of gw2spidy, I just want the information to be more easily available and more detailed. The Average Listing Age would help users to quickly spot price spikes without the need to use an outside resource.

Mpt, that’s actually a really good and constructive idea to level the playing field a bit.

An authorized TP app could do the rest. To my own detriment, I still refuse to use third party programs (I loathe the TP notifier concept as a whole), but it’s a lost cause arguing why it’s not legit over and over again while Anet simply remains silent and condones this behavior.

And gasoline: yea, I did farm all my mats for my first legendary (lots of cursed shore) but bought the precursor after wasting about 400 to 500 rares. Actually, the crazy precursor price combined with a heavy DR policy is what drove me to sit down and take time to learn a bit how TP trading worked.

mtpelion.4562:

Aberrant.6749:

http://www.gw2spidy.com/ gives you info on the buy/sell volume which you can use to help judge this (it’s not exactly what you want, but the higher the volume the faster it’s being sold).

Oh I’m well aware of gw2spidy, I just want the information to be more easily available and more detailed. The Average Listing Age would help users to quickly spot price spikes without the need to use an outside resource.

If you use gw2spidy on a general basis and use its watchlist feature, its very easy and you can even do it whitout being in game.
The average listing age would not give you much more hints because you will still need more info on the velocity of the item on the tp.
Items traded in high volume on the tp arent as prone to price changes as much as items with a low supply count.

Buttercup.5871:

I don’t disagree with your feeling that playing PvE/WvW content and playing the TP is out of sync. I just disagree with the arguments made in support, as well as the conclusion.

I think that instead of limiting the TP, we should first look at limiting DR and increasing reward-based gameplay. I only reverted to the TP when I saw that the more I played, the less the game rewarded me. That’s bad;

I’m someone who has been critical of the TP and I would heartily agree with this statement. There can be no doubt that the main game is the rpg/adventure game and the rewards should reflect this.

John Smith.4610:

Don’t believe everything you see, the 11k is probably real, but the other numbers simply aren’t.

:o You could be suggesting:
1) No one has reached the 321,334g 17s 93c mark.
2) The currency is stored as an integer, having an upper limit of 2147483647. Which is at most 214,748g 36s 47c.

morrolan.9608:

Buttercup.5871:

I don’t disagree with your feeling that playing PvE/WvW content and playing the TP is out of sync. I just disagree with the arguments made in support, as well as the conclusion.

I think that instead of limiting the TP, we should first look at limiting DR and increasing reward-based gameplay. I only reverted to the TP when I saw that the more I played, the less the game rewarded me. That’s bad;

I’m someone who has been critical of the TP and I would heartily agree with this statement. There can be no doubt that the main game is the rpg/adventure game and the rewards should reflect this.

I wonder what makes you think that the one is unrelated to the others. There are some resources that yield a great deal of profit for low lvl characters that just bought the game.

^ Yes, that’s one thing that’s often overlooked. While it’s true that prices for many goods on the TP has risen markedly (due to inflationary pressures by increased money supply), it also makes it easier for completely new players to earn money by just gathering mats. Green Wood Logs sell in the vicinity of 50 – 60 copper. If they were using Copper tools to harvest it, that’s a profit of almost 1000% with every swing. Provided the new player uses his money sensibly, they can build a nest egg and get themselves to a stage where they can catch up and start saving/investing to get the really expensive stuff.

While I, personally, would support any move that makes luxury goods more easily available to the wider player base (mainly because I’m not the type of person who’s upset that someone else has my super-rare/expensive stuff), I do think that the overall economic situation is actually pretty good.

I disagree with the person who says it’s impossible to have a monopoly in GW2. There are items in-game that are no longer accessible, and while a few people may be hoarding them, having the bulk of that supply is near enough to a monopoly. (Gemstore dyes, Halloween skins from last year, etc.)

Speaking of Halloween skins, whatever happened to the new Halloween skins? Are they still being sold for 1 BL Ticket? (Can’t get into the game to check right now.) I never saw any announcement saying they were going away soon. The reminder that Dreamthistle weapons were going up in price reminded me.

I’m an experienced TP-flipper, and right now im sitting on ~55k gold in cash, and ~15k in items + 9 legendaries. I get a lot of hate when people see me walking around with a level 50 rocking 3 legendaries (transmuted), and get called ‘nerd’ a lot. People tend to get mad very easily. The thing is, TP flipping isnt as hard as most people make it out to be. Theres plenty of guides out there, but people are just too affraid to take any risk. Well.. you’ve got to spend money to make money, simple as that. Seriously guys, read some guides, try a few items, and before you know it, you’ll never have farm champions again! And you get to buy that legendary you always wanted..

John Smith.4610:

Don’t believe everything you see, the 11k is probably real, but the other numbers simply aren’t.

Is there an update to this figure, three months later?

Zaxares.5419:

Speaking of Halloween skins, whatever happened to the new Halloween skins? Are they still being sold for 1 BL Ticket? (Can’t get into the game to check right now.) I never saw any announcement saying they were going away soon. The reminder that Dreamthistle weapons were going up in price reminded me.

Halloween’s are sold for 5.

They do not announce when they are changing the price. It forces you to hurry and buy at the beginning.

I think the flippers are not a problem. The problem is the people selling way below price market to get a quick sell, thoose are te people enabling the flippers to get their profit. The flipper ’’job’’ in the market is to reduce the gap betweeen sell and buy orders and they get handsomly paid by rash players selling without taking a look at the current prices.

Then they are players gambling the TP for big cash or an equally big loss. One such example is quartz crystal right now. Sme people speculate it will be used for acended insignia crafting and bought a big chunk of the supply theese days. If they are right they will become rich, if they are wrong they will lose money since they will have to repost it probably a bit lower than they bought it off. Of cours if they win we will see cries about insider trading whereas if they are wrong nobody will notice anything. Evreyone can take such gambles and the price of gossamer for example shows that options are being taken since the realase of ascended weapons.

Finally about precursors. They are 2 ways of getting them, via MF forging or via random drops. I think the price of the most expensive precursors is about equivalent to the average price of the weapons you need to throw in the MF to get one. (do we have a reliable statistic about MF’ing weapons to get precursors?) The price of the cheap ones is driven dow by the people getting random precursor drops and bringing therefore the supply up higher than the demand.

So finally in my opinion the ’’problem’’ about big wealth does not come from the TP but from people carelessly selling things underpriced and by players not being carefull about the probable evolution of material prices as new crafts get announced and introduced in play.

Zanshin.5379:

Zaxares.5419:

Speaking of Halloween skins, whatever happened to the new Halloween skins? Are they still being sold for 1 BL Ticket? (Can’t get into the game to check right now.) I never saw any announcement saying they were going away soon. The reminder that Dreamthistle weapons were going up in price reminded me.

Halloween’s are sold for 5.

They do not announce when they are changing the price. It forces you to hurry and buy at the beginning.

Evon keeps us well informed, he said on Nov. 5th:

Halloween Items Leaving Soon!
You’ve got just one week left to store up enough Halloween goodies to last the year! Soon, Trick-or-Treat Bags will be gone from Black Lion Chests, our Halloween costumes, finishers, and miniatures will disappear, and the Halloween weapon skins offered by Black Lion Weapons Specialists will go up in price!

Buttercup.5871:

And gasoline: yea, I did farm all my mats for my first legendary (lots of cursed shore) but bought the precursor after wasting about 400 to 500 rares. Actually, the crazy precursor price combined with a heavy DR policy is what drove me to sit down and take time to learn a bit how TP trading worked.

^THIS!

Between DR and RNG for precursors anyone who wants a legendary or three is pretty much FORCED to learn some way of making LOTS of money on the TP. I crafted exotics for profit which took a lot of work, but I did end up with two and almost a third legendary until they nerfed me with account bound ascended crafting.

Wanze.8410:

Zanshin.5379:

Zaxares.5419:

Speaking of Halloween skins, whatever happened to the new Halloween skins? Are they still being sold for 1 BL Ticket? (Can’t get into the game to check right now.) I never saw any announcement saying they were going away soon. The reminder that Dreamthistle weapons were going up in price reminded me.

Halloween’s are sold for 5.

They do not announce when they are changing the price. It forces you to hurry and buy at the beginning.

Evon keeps us well informed, he said on Nov. 5th:

Halloween Items Leaving Soon!
You’ve got just one week left to store up enough Halloween goodies to last the year! Soon, Trick-or-Treat Bags will be gone from Black Lion Chests, our Halloween costumes, finishers, and miniatures will disappear, and the Halloween weapon skins offered by Black Lion Weapons Specialists will go up in price!

Ah, I did miss that. So the old Halloween skins like the Greatsaw etc. didn’t return then? (Must not have. I’m sure there’d be an outpouring of rage from speculators if they’d returned.)

Zaxares.5419:

Wanze.8410:

Zanshin.5379:

Zaxares.5419:

Speaking of Halloween skins, whatever happened to the new Halloween skins? Are they still being sold for 1 BL Ticket? (Can’t get into the game to check right now.) I never saw any announcement saying they were going away soon. The reminder that Dreamthistle weapons were going up in price reminded me.

Halloween’s are sold for 5.

They do not announce when they are changing the price. It forces you to hurry and buy at the beginning.

Evon keeps us well informed, he said on Nov. 5th:

Halloween Items Leaving Soon!
You’ve got just one week left to store up enough Halloween goodies to last the year! Soon, Trick-or-Treat Bags will be gone from Black Lion Chests, our Halloween costumes, finishers, and miniatures will disappear, and the Halloween weapon skins offered by Black Lion Weapons Specialists will go up in price!

Ah, I did miss that. So the old Halloween skins like the Greatsaw etc. didn’t return then? (Must not have. I’m sure there’d be an outpouring of rage from speculators if they’d returned.)

The greatsaw, the dagger, the rifle and the scythe were all missing from this year’s holiday. (I may be missing others- I wasn’t present for the first event.) I wanted to dual wield disembodied hands holding daggers, too.

Yeah, I had a feeling that when the 2013 Halloween skins went up to 5 BLTickets, that the 2012 Halloween skins might make a return as well. That would put their price range up to the 100 – 200g range at minimum; much cheaper than certain highly desirable skins like the Greatsaw, but still within the range of “expensive luxury goods” to make them not exactly common among the player base.

That didn’t happen, of course (and it’s a good thing I wasn’t planning on getting the 2012 skins), but it just strikes me as unusual given that Halloween 2012 is now the only set of special edition skins that aren’t available via the BL Weapon Merchants.

Saint.4789:

Vol.5241:

guardiaN.1640:

no vol, ppl will buy them because there is almost no other chance to get one – not because the prices were “undervalued” (wtf)

if you guys think this is ok, fine – i don’t

and no, i am not jealous

Well then that’s the price they are willing to pay for it! Doesn’t matter the reason behind it, whether it be a ‘reasonable’ price or they are desperate. If someone buys it, that’s the equilibrium.

I know you probably want to buy precursors for 10 silver each but when there are thousands of players willing to pay more than you, there is absolutely zero reason why a seller should pick you. They will pick the highest bid.

At least he’s complaining about economics and learning about it here instead of going out and voting based on this knowledge.

At least I pray he does…..

LOL, I went there, too!

The 11,500 is very believable, just last month I made around 5500g with some good market opportunities and a lot of flipping, the other one is very fake as John Smith said because I’m sure they can check for such among all accounts in-game.

Saint.4789:

Another guildie of mine also has 250,00g+ and says he cannot control most markets.

I feel like your entire post was “GG LOLANETBAD”

That means he has made around 17,800 gold per month since release and considering the market didn’t have much “gain value” during the first few months of the game I highly doubt your friend is legit or your post. I wouldn’t believe anything over 100k and even 100k is a high figure but possible if you found many good advantages.

If it was real, I would suspect it’s someone that has ran bots 24/7 since launch, or someone who steals accounts like crazy with key loggers or using a gold site etc.

They should just add a face to face trade system like GW1 had along with the tp. I liked the AH in WoW but the TP in GW2 just kitten es me off because of the sheer volume and rapid price fluctuations.

Dromar.1027:

They should just add a face to face trade system like GW1 had along with the tp.

Not just no, but HELL NO.

I’m in no rush to have zone chat turn into an unending WALL of WTS/WTB blather.

it’s slowly getting there as it is. a lot of scamers out there watchout.

GW2’s economy is fundamentally poisoned by the fact that the “gem-gold exchange” is a black box, where players can’t set their own prices (or pick who they buy from or sell to).

Before release, Arena Net said it would “put the gold selling market in the hands of the players” (as Eve does with PLEX / AUR), but they apparently changed their minds and decided to become the “official gold seller” instead, hiding behind a “gold exchange” that is based on unpublished formulas and hidden data, and is subject to undisclosed changes at any moment.

Until that changes (i.e., until players can actually trade gems directly with each other, setting their own prices, as originally promised), don’t expect any other part of the economy to behave in a realistic or trustworthy way.

Ultimately, it’s just a game, so it’s no big deal.

Account.9832:

GW2’s economy is fundamentally poisoned by the fact that the “gem-gold exchange” is a black box, where players can’t set their own prices (or pick who they buy from or sell to).

Gems not being player-tradeable has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual problems of GW2 economy. Now back to the real problem – flipping being the best moneymaking process in GW2.

Lampshade.7569:

Now back to the real problem – flipping being the best moneymaking process in GW2.

And I still say DR is the culprit of that. Skill-based rewards could help, too. I remember I completely dropped flipping until I had bested Liadri with my kitten ranger. The lack of good, consistent rewards in PvE is the only reason the comparison between playing the game and flipping is out of whack.

There is one other culprit though in the TP corner ruining the game for all of us; the third party TP programs. They go by the name of Zicore or Gold Wars, but there are several out there. And then there’s of course the scores of people who are running their own little scripts to analyze the entire TP within the blink of an eye for maximum profit. Some modified them into bots. I say they all come down to the same thing: cheating. One is just a little less automated than the other.

juno.1840:

A gold cap would be a nice solution — it existed in GW1. It’s not so much a punishment as a limit to the amount of wealth you can accumulate in the system. It’s a safety net against loop holes, exploits, or other unforeseen consequences of game changes.

The number would be sufficiently high so if you hit the cap you are sufficiently wealthy to do whatever you want in the game. The limit exists to prevent a small number of players from doing something drastic in the economy. This something “drastic” might be something that is possible only after a future game change when the vast wealth could be applied in a devious way. This is really a theoretical discussion at this point, but you can imagine the possibilities.

A cap would be a last-line-of-defense in the game economy.

Yea and we would be back to using something else as a currency like ectos in gw1 which were used in trading rather than gold (platinum).