Guild Wars 2

So I got this in a PM this afternoon. Obviously gold sellers have been abound since launch and it’s been apparent that Precursors are being manipulated in order to keep their prices artificially high. What HASN’T been apparent until now is that it seems GOLD SELLERS and not greedy players are the ones controlling these Legendary/Precursor markets. I’d really like to get John or Gaile in here to comment on Arenanet’s awareness of the situation and to hear what can be done to fix this problem.

Man, in what country is it still christmas?

Oh, and I wouldn’t read too much into a single message :P

Theirs arent on the TP they are locked away on certain accounts. The ones on the TP belong to a small group of players who are friends with Anet I believe.

Narkosys.5173:

Theirs arent on the TP they are locked away on certain accounts. The ones on the TP belong to a small group of players who are friends with Anet I believe.

Lol…

Syntax.3704:

Narkosys.5173:

Theirs arent on the TP they are locked away on certain accounts. The ones on the TP belong to a small group of players who are friends with Anet I believe.

Lol…

Sadly, that mentality is prevalent here on these forums ;/

Actually the fact that gold sellers would monopolize these items makes perfect sense to me since you buy them and they get more gold to sell, so keeping the prices up is in their best interest.
Gold selling accounts would be easy to get rid of if they just kept some sort of log of big gold transfers from one account to other, assuming that’s possible.

This proves that gold sellers will also sell items that are worth a significant amount of real money. (Surprise?)

It doesn’t prove that they have control of the market.

Leablo.2651:

This proves that gold sellers will also sell items that are worth a significant amount of real money. (Surprise?)

It doesn’t prove that they have control of the market.

It may not prove that they have the control over the market but to think that they don’t manipulate curtain or all of the most wanted items is just silly, it’s in their best interest that those things are high in price, so that whoever buys one they get more gold than it’s worth, and whoever sees the price and is unable to afford it but wants it fast ends up buying gold, it’s a vicious circle really.

Shear Force.9154:

It may not prove that they have the control over the market but to think that they don’t manipulate curtain or all of the most wanted items is just silly, it’s in their best interest that those things are high in price, so that whoever buys one they get more gold than it’s worth, and whoever sees the price and is unable to afford it but wants it fast ends up buying gold, it’s a vicious circle really.

If that’s your assumption then the message shown in the OP doesn’t even matter. Just another witch hunt thread then? Okay, get the pitchforks.

Shear Force.9154:

Actually the fact that gold sellers would monopolize these items makes perfect sense to me since you buy them and they get more gold to sell, so keeping the prices up is in their best interest.
Gold selling accounts would be easy to get rid of if they just kept some sort of log of big gold transfers from one account to other, assuming that’s possible.

They already do. Any transaction over 400g prompts an automated ban. Most RMT get around this by creating dummy guilds and transferring money through the Guild Storage system.

Leablo.2651:

Shear Force.9154:

It may not prove that they have the control over the market but to think that they don’t manipulate curtain or all of the most wanted items is just silly, it’s in their best interest that those things are high in price, so that whoever buys one they get more gold than it’s worth, and whoever sees the price and is unable to afford it but wants it fast ends up buying gold, it’s a vicious circle really.

If that’s your assumption then the message shown in the OP doesn’t even matter. Just another witch hunt thread then? Okay, get the pitchforks.

Yep, you’re right it doesn’t matter, however if you think gold farmers, actually farm their gold you’re silly, especially with all the bot bans, it’s not cost efficient at all.

I would expect that gold sellers don’t list their legendaries. They don’t give a rat’s right buttock about getting gold that way – they have bots for that. They care about being able to SELL YOU a Legendary for real cashey money. Having their stock exposed to being bought in-game for worthless gold or just losing the listing fee when a real money order comes in and they need to take it down to fill it is just stupid for them.

Nike.2631:

I would expect that gold sellers don’t list their legendaries. They don’t give a rat’s right buttock about getting gold that way – they have bots for that. They care about being able to SELL YOU a Legendary for real cashey money. Having their stock exposed to being bought in-game for worthless gold or just losing the listing fee when a real money order comes in and they need to take it down to fill it is just stupid for them.

Buying up all but a small number of legendaries/precursors drives the prices through the roof and allows them to charge more USD for the much larger number of precursors/legendaries that they are not listing.

Say there are 50 of The Lover in the market for a 100 gold each. You can buy all of them, relist five of them 500g each and buy up any new items that enter the market (while simultaneously posting phony buy orders to force the price to remain high). This allows you to charge 3-5x more USD for the 45+ copies of The Lover that you AREN’T listing.

Now do you see why it makes loads of sense for these gold farms to try and dominate the precursor market?

I see the value of buying them up, even en mass, but I think that the ussual player base of market sharks will do the work for them of charging the absolute limit of what the market will bear without tying up the goldseller’s stock or exposing it to scrutiny.

Errant Venture.9371:

Nike.2631:

I would expect that gold sellers don’t list their legendaries. They don’t give a rat’s right buttock about getting gold that way – they have bots for that. They care about being able to SELL YOU a Legendary for real cashey money. Having their stock exposed to being bought in-game for worthless gold or just losing the listing fee when a real money order comes in and they need to take it down to fill it is just stupid for them.

Buying up all but a small number of legendaries/precursors drives the prices through the roof and allows them to charge more USD for the much larger number of precursors/legendaries that they are not listing.

Say there are 50 of The Lover in the market for a 100 gold each. You can buy all of them, relist five of them 500g each and buy up any new items that enter the market (while simultaneously posting phony buy orders to force the price to remain high). This allows you to charge 3-5x more USD for the 45+ copies of The Lover that you AREN’T listing.

Now do you see why it makes loads of sense for these gold farms to try and dominate the precursor market?

That’s exactly how RMT used to do it in FFXI , there is no reason to believe they dont the same thing here.
Lets face it, most players who put their precursors or legendary weapons on the TP dont care about that because in their minds it helps them make some extra gold too

Errant Venture.9371:

Say there are 50 of The Lover in the market for a 100 gold each. You can buy all of them, relist five of them 500g each and buy up any new items that enter the market (while simultaneously posting phony buy orders to force the price to remain high). This allows you to charge 3-5x more USD for the 45+ copies of The Lover that you AREN’T listing.

Now do you see why it makes loads of sense for these gold farms to try and dominate the precursor market?

No, I see why it makes sense for everyone to do this. Which makes it competition, not control.

Hard to say. Who knows, there could be some accounts that have been banned AFTER buying up some precursors too…but before selling them.

Which would mean they’re straight up gone now.

Dusk just shot up 100g, lol wut? Wouldn’t surprise me if people are controlling the precursor market. It’s easy (if you have a lot of gold) cause there are only a few limited ones, and hardly any new ones come in daily. Unlike globs of ecto with 5 billion supply.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/29185

These prices are ridiculous… its like a month worth of farming. if you actually farm every single day.. and the whole day, not just a couple of hours…

Farming coin is just proving coin is worthless. It does not add value to the economy.

I am almost sure gold sellers controling Precursor’s market. Today my guildie got from MF The Colossus. he was hoping to get it cuz actually only one precu Hammer was posted on TP with price 550g. He was very lucky and got one! Set the price 499g to sell it fast. Withing few hours hammer was sold and in few minutes later someone listed another Colossus with price 530g. You don’t have to be Einstein to find it was the same item reposted with higher price. The question is – Is there enough rich and stupid player to buy it for 499 and repost it for price 530g ( 450g income)?

Soon as the precursor scavenger hunt thing rolls around, the prices of all those precursors will plummet to half or less. Just wait it out.

soon you say? It only be out in May, IF that soon…
till then work on the other gifts… and pray… pray to Dwayna to keep you healthy, pray to Balthazar to give you strength, pray to Kormir to give you patient and to Grenth to KILL THE MOTHERkittenING TRADING POST LOBBY!

I’m sorry guys, got a little overexcited..

trane.4569:

These prices are ridiculous… its like a month worth of farming. if you actually farm every single day.. and the whole day, not just a couple of hours…

I agree with you. I’ve been farming my butt off for over 2 months hardcore just to buy a Dusk & gain all the mats for the gifts. Now the prices shot out the roof! 600g+ for a Dusk? nahh! Its not worth it.

I did some research.. and there are these gold sellers, that all also selling the precursors for real money on there sites. That’s to show you that yeah, maybe they are controlling the Precursor market. If they can’t sell you there gold to buy a precursors, why not sell you the weapon its self. Its really really sad…

I hope with the next 2 updates, Anet finds a way to give players a bigger chance to obtain precursors. Maybe these farmers notice that there will be a big change on the drop rate on these precursors & mats and they trying to milk us all for every Gold/silver/copper we work hard for till the end. Once the precursors start dropping with a higher % rate, all the precursors prices will drop, nuff said.

Loco.5739:

I am almost sure gold sellers controling Precursor’s market. Today my guildie got from MF The Colossus. he was hoping to get it cuz actually only one precu Hammer was posted on TP with price 550g. He was very lucky and got one! Set the price 499g to sell it fast. Withing few hours hammer was sold and in few minutes later someone listed another Colossus with price 530g. You don’t have to be Einstein to find it was the same item reposted with higher price. The question is – Is there enough rich and stupid player to buy it for 499 and repost it for price 530g ( 450g income)?

As you point out, if someone bought out your friend’s Colossus for 499g and relisted for 530g, they are making a net loss (list fee of 26.5g plus sales tax of 53g). I don’t see why a gold-seller (or anyone else trying to manipulate the precursor market) would do this, especially as they would be undercutting their existing listing at 550g. This makes me think that it is unlikely to have been the same Colossus that your friend sold.

Astraea.6075:

Loco.5739:

I am almost sure gold sellers controling Precursor’s market. Today my guildie got from MF The Colossus. he was hoping to get it cuz actually only one precu Hammer was posted on TP with price 550g. He was very lucky and got one! Set the price 499g to sell it fast. Withing few hours hammer was sold and in few minutes later someone listed another Colossus with price 530g. You don’t have to be Einstein to find it was the same item reposted with higher price. The question is – Is there enough rich and stupid player to buy it for 499 and repost it for price 530g ( 450g income)?

As you point out, if someone bought out your friend’s Colossus for 499g and relisted for 530g, they are making a net loss (list fee of 26.5g plus sales tax of 53g). I don’t see why a gold-seller (or anyone else trying to manipulate the precursor market) would do this, especially as they would be undercutting their existing listing at 550g. This makes me think that it is unlikely to have been the same Colossus that your friend sold.

Theres actually logic behind doing it that way. Say I have 10 precursors. I list 2 on the market( that I got for 80g). for 110g and 120g. You sell yours for 100g. I buy you out and relist it at 105g. When all 3 sell out, I still make a net profit. AND I get the added benefit of selling my items faster and also creating an artificial demand for what I am selling.

Hate to admit this but I do this on commodities. If you undercut me by 1c I will buy all your stock to prevent a deflation in the price.

chum.1892:

Theres actually logic behind doing it that way. Say I have 10 precursors. I list 2 on the market( that I got for 80g). for 110g and 120g. You sell yours for 100g. I buy you out and relist it at 105g. When all 3 sell out, I still make a net profit. AND I get the added benefit of selling my items faster and also creating an artificial demand for what I am selling.

How is selling 105, 110, 120 precursors is faster than selling 100, 110, 120 precursors?
How it’s an artificial demand, when in both cases 3 precursors are being sold?

At least put some work in your conspiracy theories and made up stories, because they make no sense whatsoever.

Guys.. Gold sellers don’t want us to pay more for precursors. They wan’t us to buy their gold right! So if the price is higher it is better for them right? We don’t know how many people consider to buy gold in this way but higher precursor price = bigger chance for gold seller to sell their dirty gold.

Errant Venture.9371:

[…]fix this problem.

Could you elaborate why this is even a problem? And don’t tell me “precursors cost too much”. That is just your opinion.

Couldn’t they just add a serial number identification when the precursor / legendary item is made.

Item crafted by “this user ID”.

Would that not narrow it down to who made what, where these items are going and what they are being used for. It was used in other mmorpg’s when users crafted items (not naming any in particular) would put the name of the user who crafted it under the stats. There is a sense of pride that goes along with crafting these items and it should not be done just to be able to trace where the items end up through the market, but to give the users crafting them, those that are using them, a greater sense of joy.

dragon.8625:

Couldn’t they just add a serial number identification when the precursor / legendary item is made.

Item crafted by “this user ID”.

Would that not narrow it down to who made what, where these items are going and what they are being used for. It was used in other mmorpg’s when users crafted items (not naming any in particular) would put the name of the user who crafted it under the stats. There is a sense of pride that goes along with crafting these items and it should not be done just to be able to trace where the items end up through the market, but to give the users crafting them, those that are using them, a greater sense of joy.

That is actually a pretty kitten idea…!

Gold Sellers DO play a role in the market of Legendary weapons, because they do not make the legendaries themselves. The way they get the legendaries is by buying the legendaries from the TP that were made by legitimate players.

How do I know this?
Simple:
Gift of Mastery:
1x Gift of Exploration

Gold Sellers generally do not play the game themselves. They use bots. The amount of time to program a bot to 100% map complete would be tedious and not worth the time as opposed to just having that bot farm for gold.

Those bots are 80th level – map completion being an easy way to level a character and prep a bot for service. Plus it builds an appearant history as a legitimate player. Getting map completion towing a lower level charater (with a permanent 25% speed boost Signet…)behind 3-4 80th level Rangers is literally nothing more than the time it takes to reach the vistas and climb them. They anhilate any map critter without breaking stride.

Don’t forget bot-farming generates skill points – they need to find some way of burning those off for gold/cash.

Not saying they do it often, but how many do you need to be ready to sell them at a moment’s notice? Not many…

kitteno.8103:

chum.1892:

Theres actually logic behind doing it that way. Say I have 10 precursors. I list 2 on the market( that I got for 80g). for 110g and 120g. You sell yours for 100g. I buy you out and relist it at 105g. When all 3 sell out, I still make a net profit. AND I get the added benefit of selling my items faster and also creating an artificial demand for what I am selling.

How is selling 105, 110, 120 precursors is faster than selling 100, 110, 120 precursors?
How it’s an artificial demand, when in both cases 3 precursors are being sold?

At least put some work in your conspiracy theories and made up stories, because they make no sense whatsoever.

You’re missing the point. By buying off the lower listed precursor and relisting it at a higher price (even if you don’t make a profit) prevents other people from listing below the lower listed precursor. Thus, like he said, preventing inflation.

Resilient.8634:

Did the same because to be honest i thought who would be crazy enough to buy stuff that would surely flag your account but your right. Even complete legendaries for sale, ok i take thier claims with a bucket of salt but they claimed to have sold multiple legendaries of some types.

It seems crazy
Player: here my credit card details
Happygoluckrabitdragongold company: Here is your Dusk
Gm Chuthulu: Heres your ban you $1000 worth of pixels will now be deleted.

Leablo.2651:

This proves that gold sellers will also sell items that are worth a significant amount of real money. (Surprise?)

It doesn’t prove that they have control of the market.

When was the last time anyone got anything decent from “just playing the game normally”.

The majority of players are now on perma-dr.

Meanwhile, bots go un-inhibited because they don’t get bored or frustrated when drops are smaller.

It makes perfect sense for a company that runs the bots to use their copious reserves to corner the precursor market, drive up the price faster than inflation.

It accomplishes their goals in two ways:

1 – it increases the likelihood people will give in and buy gold.

2 – it exacts massive monopoly rents from the infinitesimally tiny minority who have managed to accrue that much gold.

It doesn’t matter if the gold sellers or a small group of “legitimate” market manipulators are the ones driving up the price. All that matters it that the price needs to go down or the supply needs to go up. At the moment the Precursor is the last step in getting a Legendary weapon. Except that unlike the rest of the steps which is a steady climb up a long ladder, the Precursor as it is now is a 10 mile upward leap between the penultimate and ultimate steps. That’s, for lack of a better term, pants-on-head stupid.

" All that matters it that the price needs to go down or the supply needs to go up."

These are not mutually exclusive.

In fact, for it to be economically feasible the supply must go up drastically for the price to go down.

The supply must produce more sales than currently fabulously wealthy market manipulators can keep up with.

I just got the same PM. I reported it, hopefully the account will be banned and/or returned to the person it was stolen from.

That PM looks legit man. It has no chance whatsoever of containing false information.

plasmacutter.2709:

The supply must produce more sales than currently fabulously wealthy market manipulators can keep up with.

This. Just this.

We have an articifial shortage on most mats, precursorsors etc. in GW2 which necessarily leads to the kind inflation we are experiencing right now.

The economy also lacks FREE (usable in unlimited quantities and NOT limited by gems / skillpoints / mystic coins!) transmutation recipes which would allow to balance prices between materials of the same grade and between items of the same type but multiple grades.

It actually does work for lvl80 masterwork / rare items, the latter ones are worth ~20x as much as the masterworks because you can transmute them at just that precise rate via the mystic toilet, but prices of regular mats or “wanted” equip (like bezerk) are not tied together at all which allows for strange price manipulations because you can simply buy the whole market and you can be sure, that nobody would be able to produce sufficient supplies to counter the manipulations.

But I’m sure John Smith won’t see any problem with this, because thats how economics are supposed to work from his point of view…. He should recall that this is a GAME and that economics of a game are supposed to help players to overcome the drawbacks of an RNG based loot system. And NOT to simulate a real world economic.

In almost every thread I’ve seen John Smith post in, he’s said something dismissive about almost every issue. Most of these issues are real and need to be solved before they spin out of control. I think the fact that they aren’t even being considered as issues and so easily dismissed is a problem in itself.

There’s a difference between an issue for you and and an issue, you not liking the current system isn’t a real issue.

I’m not alone, look at the amount of threads asking for a change? John Smith doesn’t consider the forums an accurate representation of the population but I play the game, I see the “/map” chat, I talk to my friends and I read the forums. I don’t think anyone can say that this economy makes perfect sense, I don’t think that any in-game economy does but there should always be an effort to improve it and I just don’t see that happening.

You do realise like with real life, the people most willing to talk on a topic are those unhappy with the topic and those that are happy or indifferent are actually out doing something else because they aren’t unhappy and so don’t feel the need to go on about it. Just because an opinion is vocal doesn’t in any way make it a majority, for every person you’re seen complain there’s likely been 10 that haven’t said anything. Commonly heard isn’t the same as a majority and shouldn’t be confused.

It’s pretty obvious that with the bot ban about a month ago that precursors and legendaries would increase in cost because the mats used to craft rares/exotics to throw in the mystic forge to get precurors have decreased significantly in supply (bots produce so many crafting materials and flood it into the market) just an example smooth scale, with bots around gets down to 20c without it’s around 1s20c. The prices of exotics has also increased slighty as a result.

No market makes perfect sense, but when it randomly goes crazy it’s generally the result of bots or bot bans.

Well, I think the whole gw2 economy experiment failed more or less. At least from my casual, playing just for the fun, perspective. I would not call it next gen mmo in that point. Bots and real money traders had a very huge impact due to the nature of bots creating too much wealth and items of course. Now it becomes visible for everyone. But the in my opinion biggest mistake was to not strict separate the ultra-rare status symbol items from the casual gaming stuff. They are paid with the same money and mats and new items are also introduced with the same mats. There should have been a simple line between casual (exotic) and hard core (like ascended legendary) items. As also I think it was a big mistake to make very rare items tradable in the tp. All in all I’m very happy I do not really care for such status symbols and completed my char within the first months.
Who is now starting from scratch has a huge disadvantage.

I think precursor prices are probably at the point where its profitable to make them in the MF and sell them repeatedly, if one was rich enough to tolerate the randomness and not freak out if they spent a few hundred g and didn’t get one.

Using lev 80 exotics, not rares.

I’ve always had a good amount of money but never enough where I felt up to the risk. That’s probably the main deterrant that’s keeping them at such a high price and not at what I’m guessing is the proper price point (like 400g or something) for the desired ones.

I’m sorry to write that but gold sellers control even the legendary market. A few day ago I reported PM from gold selling company and that user directly mentioned that they’re selling also legendaries. Not all illegal farmers are using bots and I doubt that ordinary players will sell their legendary instead of using it. Of course there might be exceptions.

I would recommend Anet to track id of the user and in case that id was banned permanently for various reasons, immediately remove all items present on TP. Who already bought that “illegal” item won’t be affected except of that id will be banned in the future and that item was placed on TP again. I’m talking about money (item) laundering type of tactic. It sounds like difficult process but I do believe it can be handled through databases.

Giles Marchand.6970:

In almost every thread I’ve seen John Smith post in, he’s said something dismissive about almost every issue. Most of these issues are real and need to be solved before they spin out of control. I think the fact that they aren’t even being considered as issues and so easily dismissed is a problem in itself.

Right you are Sir!

Protoavis.9107:

There’s a difference between an issue for you and and an issue, you not liking the current system isn’t a real issue.

Actually yes it is.

The system works you dont like it tough, forgets which side the power is in the customer equation.

Its like making 3inch bright pink TV set and saying they work you dont like them thats your problem, well actually seeing you have a product your trying to sell that the customer doesnt like…

Its your problem