Guild Wars 2

I agree to 4)
gold for achievement is just lazy design

Danikat.8537:

Astral Projections.7320:

Omygosh. OP should have played gw1. The inflation there was crazy and there were tiny, tiny gold sinks. No traveling costs, no trading posts costs (there was no trading post). Once you were set up, there was just small occasional purchases to drain your gold

Your bank could hold 100,000 gold and your characters could hold 10,000 gold. I had
my bank maxed at 100,000 and a number of characters holding 10,000 each. A friend and I were farming items that sold for about 18,000 to 20,000 gold each (10,000 gold and then X number of ectos to make the rest). I remember selling an axe with good stats for about 5,000 gold. I was buying fluff items, like eternal tonics, for 10,000 to 50,000 gold or more each

Anyone who complains about gold sinks needs to play in a game that doesn’t have enough of them. It’s an interesting, eye opening experience.

I agree with the basis of what you’re saying, I just want to add one important note on the numbers:

There was no copper or silver in GW1. 1 gold was the smallest possible unit of currency, about equal to 1 copper in GW2. (It’s quite common to get 10g off the first enemy you
kill for example.)

100,000 gold is still a lot of money, but not as much as it might seem if you’re used to the way GW2 does it.

Yeah, it’s hard to compare any two games moneywise. But it was easy to hit the limits your bank and have to start storing money on alts. Without real gold sinks, there was no real way to drain the excess gold. People had so much money they had to resort to barter because the prices were higher than the amounts the game allowed for trades.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

1. Travelling in the real world is not free
2. To list anything on a real world auction you have to pay a listing fee

Hi.

Videogame.

Not real life.

Bye.

BriarRose.5639:

The way this game is set up is rediculous:
1. You charge us to go to a WP, which is just stupid.
2. You charge us to list our stuff on the TP, another stupid idea.
3. Whenever we do find a way to make money you guys nerf it by stopping it or way lowering the drops we get.
4. Donate to Winterdays to get part of the achievements, is outragous.

This is suppose to be a game that is fun and you doing all the above is not making it fun. Why are you guys constantly looking for ways to take the money we spend hours trying to get? Where does the money really go? into thin air as the NPC’s are not real people, WP, TP and Winterdays Donation do nothing but STEAL FROM US.
We spend grinding hours of trying make money or get items which is getting to the point of NOT FUN. NOT FUN GET IT????

They are called Convenience fees. And as others have said, gold sinks balance the economy for the game.

the only thing that needs to be changed is the TP listing fee, it should be collected when you sell an item. Not when you list it.

1-3: Money sinks. Annoying but necessary
4: Oh no OP, don’t be a Scrooge haha

vikkival.2459:

1-3: Money sinks. Annoying but necessary
4: Oh no OP, don’t be a Scrooge haha

Quoted for truth.

regarding #4: I’d like to turn your attention to the Fashion achievements.
essentially, they are 5 AP for each full set of cultural armor. If you get all of them, that’s 130 AP for 90 cultural armors (from tier 1-3)
Tier 1 costs 2g88s
Tier 2 costs 7g10s
Tier 3 costs 119g
for 5 full sets (one for each race), that’s 644g90s
I believe you can sell them back to a merchant for like 1/15 of their cost, so your net expense is 601g90s66c
basically you’re paying 4g63s PER ACHIEVEMENT POINT

now tell me again how paying 3g3s for 30 AP (10s10c per AP) is outrageous. You certainly don’t have to do it, as you can just do dailies instead. So the only reason you would do it is if you are AP hunting, in which case there is no cost high enough to keep you from your goal.

other responses:
1. I wish wp cost was higher. it’s too convenient imho. I find myself wping within the same zone far too often – get out and see the scenery!
2. the market would be far too unpredictable without TP fees. for starters, there would always be 1c difference between buy and sell prices (what with everyone undercutting each other every 10 seconds because relisting is free)
3. you can make money. you’re just not supposed to be making 40g/hour from farming temporary bosses. makes the game too easy and you stop playing. it’s for your own good.

Mystic.5934:

regarding #4: I’d like to turn your attention to the Fashion achievements.
essentially, they are 5 AP for each full set of cultural armor. If you get all of them, that’s 130 AP for 90 cultural armors (from tier 1-3)
Tier 1 costs 2g88s
Tier 2 costs 7g10s
Tier 3 costs 119g
for 5 full sets (one for each race), that’s 644g90s
I believe you can sell them back to a merchant for like 1/15 of their cost, so your net expense is 601g90s66c
basically you’re paying 4g63s PER ACHIEVEMENT POINT

now tell me again how paying 3g3s for 30 AP (10s10c per AP) is outrageous. You certainly don’t have to do it, as you can just do dailies instead. So the only reason you would do it is if you are AP hunting, in which case there is no cost high enough to keep you from your goal.

other responses:
1. I wish wp cost was higher. it’s too convenient imho. I find myself wping within the same zone far too often – get out and see the scenery!
2. the market would be far too unpredictable without TP fees. for starters, there would always be 1c difference between buy and sell prices (what with everyone undercutting each other every 10 seconds because relisting is free)
3. you can make money. you’re just not supposed to be making 40g/hour from farming temporary bosses. makes the game too easy and you stop playing. it’s for your own good.

I think you’ve missed the point. It is not about g/AP. But it’s just a lazy achievement. It is unrelated to the theme and you don’t get the gold from wintersday. If it’s limited to sweaters, no matter it’s 3g worth or even ridiculous amount, I would have no problem with that. But 3 pure gold? It’s lazy work from the developer for lazy players.

Agree on the achievment, that is as lazy as you can get. But the rest is needed.

I agree that some gold sinks are needed. On the WP money most, games besides GW1 had you pay for some type of fast travel. Plus there are some ways to slightly negate the price for the WP cost, an easy one is do a quick event near the wp, there the wp is now just about payed for. You can also just go though WvW or PvP for a free transfer to Lions Arch, yes there are a few more loading screens and a little running but you dont have to pay for the travel. You can also go though LA to another home city and leave from there to save a little coin.

For most people paying 2.5s for a wp across the map isnt that big of deal, they are soon going to be making much more than that so it pays for itself.

For the most part I think Anet has done a good job with the small gold sinks here and there, and with a little planning you can even negate some of those gold sinks so they dont take as much of a bite out of your hard earned gold.

Considering how much has come out this month I think 1 or 2 lazy achievements can be excused.

new skills, new fractals including mistlock instabilities, skill balance, pvp glory rebalance, rebalancing some of the wintersday, and conclusion of the tower of nightmares.

The achievement is questionable. I wouldn’t mind if it was pocket change (the 3 Silver one, for instance, is fine) but 3G is still a decent amount of money for some people who are still in the middle of the leveling process or who just don’t have a lot of money in general. Not really a fan of an achievement requiring that sort of money.

The other stuff is nessicary gold sinks, though. They’re fine.

but there is one that is just a few silver for the achievement point. Yes the 3g achievement can be hard for some people, but not impossible, at lvl 35 you can just run AC a few times and you will have more than enough money.

where were you guys when we needed this argument during the dragon bash achievements?
“50 effigies lit” – there were only like 24 on the whole planet, and you had to revisit them a couple times after daily reset.
“150 pinatas pummeled” – same thing; only like 30 in LA that you had to visit every day for a week
“100 fireworks launched” – at least you could buy firework launchers and just mouse mash while watching a movie
“250 zhaitaffy eaten” – it’s the daily feast ach on steroids

I’m just glad it’s only 3g and 3s instead of 250g and 250s and 250c and 250 sweaters.

BriarRose.5639:

Economy healthy? When everyone and anyone under cuts the lowest price on TP until all the items are not worth much, except the ones you spend hours trying to get? This is not a healthy economy.

Actually, you just described a functioning system of supply and demand, which is the cornerstone of a healthy economy.

Hi i dont think 3 gold is gonne be a gold sink its a ac and cof agrree with OP dont see the use for donations

The OP seems to be ignorant of the most basic principles of an artificial virtual economy and is quite impolite as well, so not sure it is worth replying to his points one by one. But it makes for an interesting topic overall :-) So let me join the crowd and contribute my 5 coppers worth.

When thinking about virtual economies like those in MMOs, there are specific factors to keep in mind. All MMOs have to:

1) Design in-game mechanisms to reduce the volume of virtual currencies in circulation

(“stealing” them as the OP puts it eloquently)

This is needed to keep inflation in check, otherwise prices go up steadily over time. This is called monetary inflation.

In a MMO, monetary inflation is particularly bad because it disfavors newcomers to the game (i.e. who start with zero gold and therefore have a longer, harder uphill battle to get the money they need as compared to other players who started playing earlier).

In the case of GW2, they have a few mini-gold sinks here and there that are designed to take a little bit of currencies from all players equally over time, while not being felt too strongly. The WP charge is one of those. At the level of a single player those small amounts do not amount to much, but when applied day-in day-out to all players over time it enables the removal of a non-negligible volume of virtual currency from the market.

2) Design small mechanisms to discourage excessive micro-transactions on the trading post/auction house

For sure the TP charge is also a form of gold sink, but even if it was not needed as a gold sink, some form of “tax” is needed there to ensure that only transactions that reach a minimal level of “meaningfulness” take place. If there was not tax at all on TP transactions you would see huge market moves with people speculating over a couple of coppers. I suspect this could attain volumes of transaction that could break down the TP servers.

By imposing a 15% tax (or whatever it is in the end), you ensure that speculation only happens when there is a significant gap in price between offer and demand, or when the person actually really need the good and needs to buy it (i.e. does not perform the transaction for speculation).

Maybe 5% would do the trick for that purpose, but bringing it higher is another form of gold sink (see above).

So all games will always tax the TP and will always destroy/“steal” money from you. It is not against you, it is to keep the game economy healthy for you and all players.

Now, I am not saying that the current game economy in GW2 is perfect and there are for sure a few problematic isolated pockets, but recent history shows that Anet is not averse to making changes and tweak the economy when needed. And no point whining about gold sinks or TP tax as a principle, they are needed.

Zel

tweeve.3782:

at lvl 35 you can just run AC a few times and you will have more than enough money.

Which is absolutely unrelated to the LS. Make it a tons of sweaters or gift and I’m ok with that. It’s grindy like some achievements we had previously, but at least it’s related to wintersday. 3 straight gold!? No thanks.

Afya.5842:

I think you’ve missed the point. It is not about g/AP. But it’s just a lazy achievement. It is unrelated to the theme and you don’t get the gold from wintersday. If it’s limited to sweaters, no matter it’s 3g worth or even ridiculous amount, I would have no problem with that. But 3 pure gold? It’s lazy work from the developer for lazy players.

And I think everyone who thinks its lazy missed the point of that achievement entirely. Christmas time is a time of giving. The achievement is supposed to be about donating your hard-earned gold (a la in real life donating to a charity—which I’m pretty sure 95% of the people here do not do). It isn’t a lazy achievement, it is a very appropriate achievement for the Holiday it is representing. You should be rewarded for donating. I get that it is an imaginary donation, but the idea is sound and maybe, just maybe, being able to give up 3g of imaginary currency without whining like giant babies will help to forge better human beings in the real world. Judging from some of the responses in this thread, however, I’m thinking that stingy a**holes are who play this game mostly. Get in the effing Xmas spirit, jeez.

Well put Draknar. I sometimes don’t get people and this is one of those times. Calling it a lazy design is like calling the salvation army and fake Santas on the store fronts ‘douchbags’. Wintersday is like Christmas where you give up your glittery possessions to a better cause. Like for real, think of those poor orphans.

Scrooges, Scrooges everywhere…

This is Wintersday not Christmas! It’s the celebration of moving from the Grenth season to Dwayna season! We are NOT celebrating the birth of Jesus!
Dwayna sends presents and Grenth destroy them. It’s never Dwayna sends money nor Grenth stealing them……
The dolyak to divinity reach carries presents only. And inside it’s only some old ugly clothing, not gold bar. So tell me where the heck did the gold go?

I said it many times, if it’s like a thousand sweaters, which probably worth more than 3g, I’m absolutely fine with it.

Ah~ if you want to be technical about it, I’m sure the money is use to rent the dolyak (food and cart) and let’s not forget that wrapping paper cost moola too. Plus every trip through the Asura gates cost money for npcs. And I’m 100% sure Ho Ho Tron pockets a bit of that money…somewhere.

Wintersday isn’t christmas, it’s like christmas. Not everything in Christmas is about the birth of Jesus. It’s also about giving and being jolly.

Afya.5842:

This is Wintersday not Christmas! It’s the celebration of moving from the Grenth season to Dwayna season! We are NOT celebrating the birth of Jesus!
Dwayna sends presents and Grenth destroy them. It’s never Dwayna sends money nor Grenth stealing them……
The dolyak to divinity reach carries presents only. And inside it’s only some old ugly clothing, not gold bar. So tell me where the heck did the gold go?

I said it many times, if it’s like a thousand sweaters, which probably worth more than 3g, I’m absolutely fine with it.

….are you honestly telling me that Wintersday, with the ornaments, beautifully wrapped presents, a big ole toy factory, etc. is not based on the real life holiday Christmas? Is that what you really want to be on the record as saying? No one is saying Wintersday is about the birth of Jesus, but its fairly obvious that Wintersday, and literally every other “winter time holiday” in other MMOs is based on the commercialized Christmas holiday. And charity is a part of that holiday. Saying anything but is simply just being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn.

If you want to scrooge it up and not donate to the imaginary charity, don’t. You just won’t be rewarded for it. You can still get the meta while being a miserly scrooge.

While most of us understand this game is run as a business because it is a business and gold sinks have to occur,

I am totally against any daily or monthly achievements that require no effort or skill and are simply bought. This is a blatant insult to the playing base. I would be embarrassed to admit I had done even one of these.

Be careful A-net. Continuing this poor choice could make achievement points worthless to the player base.

Making achievements cost gold is a terrible idea.

This is just stupid. I’m not here to argue whether Wintersday is Christmas. It IS NOT, period. So don’t put argument like “Christmas time is a time of giving.” Or “Get in the effing Xmas spirit.”

And donation isn’t necessarily in pure money form. You can donate food, clothes, etc. which would be better in game because you earn those stuffs from completing wintersday activities. And that encourages people to participate more in the event. The gold option however, drives people off the event because wintersday activities don’t reward gold.
(ofc you will come up with the argument that earning gold and buying sweaters would be the fastest method, or to sell the stuffs from wintersday to buy gold , blahblahblah.)

edit: Not gonna create anymore reply because it’s just stupid to argue about that. I just don’t get why some people always try to use the meta as an argument. An achievement is an achievement, when did I ever mention the word meta?

Ah okay, whatever because it just a difference of opinion. I donate in RL everytime I’m asked and I guess doing it in game is from that habit. Hell it’s even better cause it’s with fake currency. Donating 3g to an event with a good reason is fine by me. The achievement is no big deal since you don’t need to do it to get the meta. You are free to donate or not to, just like in real life.

All your hard earned gold is going straight into the pockets of the Minstrel and Consortium, just listen to what the characters say.

You are all being played for suckers, not only by Arena Net for wasting your gold but by the characters in the game. I checked the orphanage in my personal instance, it does not look any more full than usual.

Also, Bah! Humbug!

Afya.5842:

This is just stupid. I’m not here to argue whether Wintersday is Christmas. It IS NOT, period. So don’t put argument like “Christmas time is a time of giving.” Or “Get in the effing Xmas spirit.”

And donation isn’t necessarily in pure money form. You can donate food, clothes, etc. which would be better in game because you earn those stuffs from completing wintersday activities. And that encourages people to participate more in the event. The gold option however, drives people off the event because wintersday activities don’t reward gold.
(ofc you will come up with the argument that earning gold and buying sweaters would be the fastest method, or to sell the stuffs from wintersday to buy gold , blahblahblah.)

The gold option is just that, an option. It isn’t driving anyone away from anything. Every person in my guild did it and did it without crying about it. For those that think its simply too much to ask for can supplement the achievements from those with the daily categories and still get the meta. You’re honestly complaining that they dare even have the option to donate money for an achievement. That’s ludicrous.

Wintersday IS BASED ON THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY. You would have to be completely delusional not to see that. Everything about it references the typical commercial Christmas holiday (candy canes/peppermint, snowflakes, toys, gifts, the color schemes, decorations, snowmen in top hats, heck even the kitten ed quaggan are wearing SANTA HATS!) You need to give up on the Wintersday isn’t Christmas argument. You sound ridiculous. It is the GW equivalent of Christmas (and no I don’t mean the religious holiday Christmas, I mean the commercialized Santa Claus Christmas). Are you trying to say that everything I listed that is shared by both Wintersday and Christmas is merely a coincidence? Explain the lore on the snowmen with top hats to me in Tyria, or the quaggan in bright red hats with white trim and a white ball at the end. Please, I would love to read your explanation as to how that ties in with Dwayna and Grenth….

@Aedelric
Oh I don’t doubt that for a minute I actually find it interesting.

However I’m a suckered for winter holidays and so a Merry Wintersday to you!

I see nothing wrong with having a ‘donate gold’ option. It mimics real life relief efforts, (just as many other things in the game mimic real life things) and really should not be a surprise, nor so controversial an issue. Some people prefer to show their ‘support’ of humanitarian efforts through the use of their pocketbook vs thru donations of used items. In some instances money is more versatile, but that’s beside the point here.

To each their own.

“But you are buying AP!” Technically, anytime you complete any type of achievement that requires the gathering, donating, or slaughter of items/critters… you are “buying” AP. This one just give you the option of using hard currency (gold), while the others use a goods bartering system (donate sweaters). In the end, the person that chooses to go the sock route gets them amount of AP as the person that opts to go the gold route….

FlamingFoxx.1305:

1. Travelling in the real world is not free
2. To list anything on a real world auction you have to pay a listing fee
3. Usually the ways people are making money is by exploiting systems. Exploiting systems is not playing the game…
4. I agree wholeheartedly with this one…

Really.. you’re comparing a completely unrealistic game to real life?
Last time I checked, none of my neighbours were able to transform themselves into a tornado or change gender and skin colour so easily.

Zach.3264:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

1. Travelling in the real world is not free
2. To list anything on a real world auction you have to pay a listing fee
3. Usually the ways people are making money is by exploiting systems. Exploiting systems is not playing the game…
4. I agree wholeheartedly with this one…

Really.. you’re comparing a completely unrealistic game to real life?
Last time I checked, none of my neighbours were able to transform themselves into a tornado or change gender and skin colour so easily.

I’m comparing the economies because I would love to see you come up with a viable fantasy economy. Game economies either have to be highly restrictive in what they do or they have to function in the same way as the real world economy does – otherwise it doesn’t work. Kthxbye.

I will agree that the 3 gold achievement is rough on new players, but I get the feeling it was included for the veteran players who should have a sizeable bank account by now. New players can still complete the meta by donating silver, or just doing the Dailies.

Now if ANet had made the gold achievement repeatable, with 25 AP for every 3 gold donated, THEN I’d join you in complaining. :P

For the “if you don’t like it don’t do it” crowd, you seem to forgot that these achievements are only available for the event and are gone forever. This means that achievement completionists are forced to pay the gold. Like someone else stated, it would have been much more appropriate to instead get the achievement from donating something else, like maybe the Wintersday weapon skins as toys. Something to keep in the theme without it making it just seem like a money grab.

I’m also against the tri-color key achievement because there’s no way to get the key pieces without having to purchase them.

Kojiden.8405:

For the “if you don’t like it don’t do it” crowd, you seem to forgot that these achievements are only available for the event and are gone forever. This means that achievement completionists are forced to pay the gold. Like someone else stated, it would have been much more appropriate to instead get the achievement from donating something else, like maybe the Wintersday weapon skins as toys. Something to keep in the theme without it making it just seem like a money grab.

I’m also against the tri-color key achievement because there’s no way to get the key pieces without having to purchase them.

The key pieces still drop from mobs in Kessex Hills. Although I will admit, it was very frustrating as I used more than 5 keys in the last LW event.

Achievement completionists are always somewhat committing themselves to doing things they may or may not like if they want to get EVERYTHING. That’s the nature of the beast. So long as the meta is accessible, ArenaNet aren’t forcing anyone to do anything.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

They are gold sinks, and absolutely necessary for a healthy in-game economy.

LOL at the use of the word “economy” in this game as if it actually meant something.

its funny i used to worry about gold when i first started and now im at 144g… as for the 3 gold i had to donate.. well karma decided to be nice and gave me a sigil of generosity which i sold for 12g..

besides if you think its bad just remember it can always be worse..

1. You charge us to go to a WP, which is just stupid.
- As a trade-off, we get WPs almost everywhere, if you chose so, you hardly have to walk anywhere you’ve been before, which is a luxery not many games have, neither does it have a cooldown. There’re enough Asura gates to reduce some costs (I don’t quite know them, but like enter PvP to get to LA, go from LA to Hoelbrak for Frostgorge, I think there’s a Pact portal aswell for Orr, I’m lazy though and rather spend the silver.) But yes, I do agree it can add up and maybe getting an X-amount for free per day or give a free one every hour or so could motivate people to travel once, walk the rest.

2. You charge us to list our stuff on the TP, another stupid idea.
- Listing fees are not only a gold-sink, it prevents people from using the TP as an additional storage (which in this game is rather rare.) Without a listing fee, simply post anything for 100x what it’s worth and take it out when you need it.

3. Whenever we do find a way to make money you guys nerf it by stopping it or way lowering the drops we get.
- Isn’t doing the same optimal thing for money over and over worse than learning something new once in a while? Opinion-based I guess.

4. Donate to Winterdays to get part of the achievements, is outragous.
- Lazy, lazy, lazy Anet, I agree, luckily it’s not the only way to get the meta-achievement (do dailies)

Have you some problem? The gold are VIRTUAL moneys! Please play the game and have fun

Wow, you’re being charged virtual money for virtual services in a virtual world.

The only thing I can think of is… Wow, such first world problems :/

There’s a reason the GW2 economy is one of the best I have personally seen.

First off OP, I agree with point 4. I think it’s wrong that a newer player, for whom 3 gold is a lot of money, should be put at such a disadvantage for getting this living world achievement.

However pretty much everything else you post about the economy would lead to rampant inflation. Inflation is a relatively small problem at the moment, but nowhere near as bad as it would be if ANet did away with the gold sinks.

You also wrote “Economy healthy? When everyone and anyone under cuts the lowest price on TP until all the items are not worth much, except the ones you spend hours trying to get? This is not a healthy economy.” Really, this should be addressed. There is a reason that people will pay more money for items that are hard to get, but will pay hardly anything for items that are easy to get. If something is easy to get why would you expect anyone to pay good money for it? There are actually a couple of exceptions if you are not into crafting, like softwood logs and iron at the moment.

A gold sink is needed only for the wealthy players who can drive up the price. It would be very simple to tax let’s say the total wealth of the top 25% daily to keep down inflation. The casual player isn’t going to be a problem. Since a lot of items are account or soul bound and therefore worthless to everyone else they shouldn’t be taxed, but all sellable items should be. I am sure the 75% who aren’t being taxed wouldn’t have a problem with it. Even better that money should be transferred to the poorer players. This sounds familiar some how.

Cormac, they aren’t at a disadvantage. They can’t get that one achieve, but they can easily get the meta by doing one or two extra dailies to make up for it. If they’re new, they won’t be in the obsessive completionist achieve subset anyway.

Ranger Emeritus.2905:

A gold sink is needed only for the wealthy players who can drive up the price. It would be very simple to tax let’s say the total wealth of the top 25% daily to keep down inflation. The casual player isn’t going to be a problem. Since a lot of items are account or soul bound and therefore worthless to everyone else they shouldn’t be taxed, but all sellable items should be. I am sure the 75% who aren’t being taxed wouldn’t have a problem with it. Even better that money should be transferred to the poorer players. This sounds familiar some how.

Yeah, it is called Socialism.

But GW2 was built around a Democratic system where everyone pays thier own way for what they use/have. Why should I pay for you to waypoint around?! If you want to waypoint then you pay for it. It is not required in order to play the game, it is an optional benefit. If you want to save some money then simply don’t use it. If you get a good exotic drop worth 100s’ of gold why should I have to pay the 15% for you to post it on the TP?! You will more than get it back once the item is sold.

This is a game with fake money!!! Gold sinks are necessary. But there are always options to both save and make money. No one NEEDs a specific look to an armor or weapon in order to be “even”. Just be glad that we don’t have to pay monthly with REAL money to play this game….or would you expect me to pay your monthly fees also?!

Draknar, I enjoyed reading all your rebutals and agree with you 100% about the Wintersday / Christmas arguement.

As a player that is new and whose highest level character is level 52, I can say this…

The 3 gold I spent on the achievement wasn’t missed.

Holy Whirlwind.2067:

Yeah, it is called Socialism.

But GW2 was built around a Democratic system where everyone pays thier own way for what they use/have.

I think you’re getting Democratic confused with Capitalism. If GW2 was a democratic system, players would have a say in the decisions made by Anet but we have little to no say in them. We can only request things, or leave the game if we don’t like it.

Capitalism is the opposite of socialism.

OmaiGodman.2098:

I think you’re getting Democratic confused with Capitalism. If GW2 was a democratic system, players would have a say in the decisions made by Anet but we have little to no say in them. We can only request things, or leave the game if we don’t like it.

Capitalism is the opposite of socialism.

No, I meant Democratic although the 2 (Capitalism) often go hand in hand and I probably used them both when making my case above. I was however, talking about our characters in-game in my previous comment, not us as players. Our toons were involved in an elections between 2 representitives and in-game we each pay a “tax” on any item we buy or sell, we pay for our own repairs/heals and waypoints.

I definately would not want Anet to change the taxes and waypoints to the Socialist suggestion that I first responded to, even as a player would probably be in the bottom 75% not having to pay. And if it was based soley on gold, then people could scam their way out of the top 25% by buying up rare materials or buying legendarys/pre legendary or other items like gems to keep their gold amount low vs someone who choses to save it, and now gets penalized for it. It would just be too messy to implement… not to mention unfair as well IMO.

Anyone who thinks that gold sinks are necessary for a healthy economy needs to put the kool-aid down. That is an easy way out that will never work correctly if that is their real agenda. I believe it is more like they are creating a currency vacuum to motivate those who will to buy in-game gold through Gem purchases, nothing more. I personally would much rather pay for new content then to deal with all the annoying issues in this game like the ones the OP listed. I understand they need to make money but this feels like they are preying on me and harassing me. Arenanet and NC Soft don’t ignore these issues they are ruining the game experience!