Guild Wars 2

I tried some flipping over the time, especially since I started to go for my ascended armor set.
So first let me tell you my little story so far.

Note that I’m not one of those gold-hoarders, the largest amount I ever had was something close to 300 when I sold my flame and frost dyes, other than that I just save up as much as I currently need.
So my flipping was still on a kinda small scale.

When the prices for silk skyrocketed with ascended crafting I started to stock up on large amounts of cabalist armor and salvaged the heck out of it.
At first I started to stock up on silk and couldn’t craft as much silk spool as I had silk for, for almost half the price I would’ve paid if I had bought silk scraps directly in the TP.
So I started to sell the silk I didn’t need for a daily spool-craft.
Sometimes I made around 6 to 8 Gold in ten minutes…granted for only one cycle of buying armor, salvaging it, substracting 300 scraps and selling the rest.
This system is still working, though it seems that either enough people found that method or my exploitation has impacted the market enough to raise the price of cabalist armor-pieces from around 3 silver to 3.5 silver.

I started to see patterns though. Some folks seem to have nothing better to do than to raise their buy-orders one copper above higher bidders all the day. I had kinda funny runs of changing an order multiple times in a row, until it was so high that I rather sold my cabalist armor to the player bidding against me.

To be honest, it depresses me. Sitting alone in front of the screen and flipping some key-products from time to time was more effective in order to get an ascended armor than actually playing pve or pvp.
My superficial step into tp-flipping brought more results than the actual game.
It was so easy, I wouldn’t even wonder if there are already flipping-bots at work.

So why do I think that flipping could be the bane of GW2?
Simply this: If you don’t put a lot of work into the game to keep track with the price-wars in the tp, your progression is enormously slow.
Say we got a casual player. Maybe doing his dailies and running some pvp, fractals or dungeons at the weekends. Last time I checked, 300 silk scraps cost approx 7.2 gold at the tp. 7.2 gold are quite some dungeons.
While our casual friend plays an hour to get just the ascended silk-spool, even an unexperienced flipper like me could raise twice the amount of gold in the same time with a budget of less than 10 gold.
Since I stared only at the tp and bought the cheap sell-orders, the price rose higher because people doing the same placed higher buy-orders.
Long story short: Flipping raised the prices and our casual friend is on the losing end.

I don’t even want to imagine what it’s like if you’re a new player, exploring and doing your story. When the game started I really enjoyed crafting. If I lacked some materials I could buy them at the tp easily with what I earned during my playtime.
Nowadays one wool-scrap costs more than 5 silver.
If you want to craft the matching armor for your level 30 char as a new player, you’re pretty much bankrupt.
Alternatively you could farm…I tried that too to know what I’m talking about: I know grindy j-rpg’s with a faster progression.

As lucrative as a little work and time on the tp might be for me, I think Anet should do something against it since it has far too much impact for that little work.
Maybe something like limited buy-orders per day for each account.
But I don’t see that coming anytime soon.

Until then I will end this post with a small song:

They call him Flipper, Flipper, trades rather than playing,
No-one you see, has more gold than he,
And we know Flipper, lives in a world full of trading,
Buying there-over, over the tp!
Everyones bugged by the despot of tp,
Ever so grabby and greedy is he,
Clicks he will do when bargains appear,
And how they vanish when he’s near!
They call him Flipper, Flipper, trades rather than playing,
No-one you see, has more gold than he,
And we know Flipper, lives in a world full of trading,
Buying there-over, over the tp!

It’s the fault of the casual player. They need to reassess their expectations on what they can do in the game.

Often I see on these forums casual players who are jelly of rich people and want everything handed to them like rich players have it, despite not even having anything close to the # of hours put in.

If you only play 1 hour a week, then of course you should not expect to be able to make one ascended silk spool.

If it were that easy for a casual player, then imagine how easy it would be for hardcore players? They could craft everything in an hour.

And so what if the casual player cannot keep up? This is how the market works. If there is someone out there willing to pay more than you do, whether that buyer is a flipper or someone in legit need of the item they are buying, the market is doing it’s job at reaching equilibrium.

If the price is too overpriced, the market will correct itself.

Remember that there are always two sides of the coin. While items are more expensive for buyers, there are items that are more valuable for sellers.

Vol.7601:

It’s the fault of the casual player. They need to reassess their expectations on what they can do in the game.

Often I see on these forums casual players who are jelly of rich people and want everything handed to them like rich players have it, despite not even having anything close to the # of hours put in.

If you only play 1 hour a week, then of course you should not expect to be able to make one ascended silk spool.

If it were that easy for a casual player, then imagine how easy it would be for hardcore players? They could craft everything in an hour.

And so what if the casual player cannot keep up? This is how the market works. If there is someone out there willing to pay more than you do, whether that buyer is a flipper or someone in legit need of the item they are buying, the market is doing it’s job at reaching equilibrium.

If the price is too overpriced, the market will correct itself.

Remember that there are always two sides of the coin. While items are more expensive for buyers, there are items that are more valuable for sellers.

I’d agree, at least if it wouldn’t be a virtual market in a game that is buy-to-play.
Like it or not: Flippers don’t put the money into the game.
When I look at the sums you can earn if you put a lot of work in flipping, it’s not hard to imagine that people with that amount of gold rather buy gems for gold than with their rl-money.
Arenanet earns cash if someone buys a copy of the game or buys gems for hard earned dollars or euro.

I don’t get it … your progression doesn’t need to be dependent on flipping, so why is flipping a bane for people wanting to progress? Progress a different way if that doesn’t work for you.

Obtena.7952:

I don’t get it … your progression doesn’t need to be dependent on flipping, so why is flipping a bane for people wanting to progress? Progress a different way if that doesn’t work for you.

Flipping has worked really good for me, even in the relatively small limit I did it.

Just put yourself in the shoes of a new player. You buy the game, you start your first character and play a bit. Within a few kills you unlocked the skills for your weapon.
As intuitively as Anet designed the game to start, you make your way.
Around level 30 you decide do a bit of crafting so you can fill the gaps in your gear.
You lack some wool for the padding of your armor and go to the tp, just to see that one scrap of it is around 5 times more than you get for completing a heart on the map.

These prices are nothing for people who amassed a large amount of gold with flipping, but for someone who just started the game or doesn’t play it as often, they can be a real problem.

Oh, it’s Thursday again?

tekfan.3179:

Obtena.7952:

I don’t get it … your progression doesn’t need to be dependent on flipping, so why is flipping a bane for people wanting to progress? Progress a different way if that doesn’t work for you.

Flipping has worked really good for me, even in the relatively small limit I did it.

Just put yourself in the shoes of a new player. You buy the game, you start your first character and play a bit. Within a few kills you unlocked the skills for your weapon.
As intuitively as Anet designed the game to start, you make your way.
Around level 30 you decide do a bit of crafting so you can fill the gaps in your gear.
You lack some wool for the padding of your armor and go to the tp, just to see that one scrap of it is around 5 times more than you get for completing a heart on the map.

These prices are nothing for people who amassed a large amount of gold with flipping, but for someone who just started the game or doesn’t play it as often, they can be a real problem.

Yes and no… It depends a bit on what the player was doing with the playtime.

For example, if they were like me and religiously harvested everything they came across, by the point I decided to purchase some extra Wool for my crafting, I’d also have a good supply of Iron, Soft Wood or various Cooking mats. I’d then be able to sell off my excess mats (which, for Iron and Soft Wood at least, also fetch considerable prices), and buy my Wool.

That’s what’s often overlooked when looking at the prices of materials and items on the TP. Since prices for items are generally still in pace with each other, a player’s earning power is still enough for them to buy basic materials. They might not be able to afford luxury goods, but “how expensive should luxury goods be?” is a whole different question.

Well the type of flipping your doing is boring tedious work. Ya sure you can make a profit better then playing, but look at what your spending your time doing, same thing with that crafting video of the guy with like 6 accounts making greatswords, i couldn’t imagine anyone enjoying that. I’d rather work at my real job and make $15 an hour and just buy gold. If you want to compare rl money to your flipping method, i’m pretty sure buying the gold with rl money would win.

As for myself i’m more a speculator/investor. I usually buy thing for the long run. Trying to compete with millions of other players with buy orders is pointless to me and not worth my time.

Btw i can get a stack of silk playing wvw and salvaging my drops pretty quick. I think your kinda exaggerating your view to make your point.

That boring work you are doing, and competing with all those other buyers for buy orders is actually helping other get more gold for thier cabalist armors. You are also listing silk and undercutting others i’m sure, lowering the price of silk, so you could say your work is actually helping the poor. Although your work is boring, and myself and many others wouldn’t do it because our time is more important, you are still helping everyone and earning more then you could by playing. That’s the great benefit of having a free market.

As a casual player I didnt see the price of silk an extreme challenge when crafting my ascended armor. Although I farmed most of it by running dungeons amd salvaging, and kill mobs that had a high rate of drops for silk. Same with the other mats I needed. The only thing that makes it difficult for casual players is their lack of patience. I understood that it would take time, lots of it. I played a few hours a day at most and it took about 3 months for me to complete the set. If more casual players actually thought like this, that it will take time to get the shinies that they want and if it takes too long for them, then they can use their moms credit card and go from there, then there will be far less threads like this. Threads that claim the more “hardcore” ways of playing are ruining the game.

Kind of OT here: Has the OP ever HEARD the Flipper Theme song? Those lyrics do not even remotely follow the tune nor cadence of the song…..at least do a half- kitten job of attempting satire….

you’re doing something boring that few people want to do. If it were popular/more enjoyable, more people would do it and you wouldn’t be making as much profit. that’s how it works. lots of people want to run dungeons, kill bosses, etc. so all the items they get aren’t worth as much. If only a few people did open-world content, you better believe the price of cabalist armor would be 100 times what it is now.
you’re also not accounting for how much prior knowledge you need to be making the profits you are making. most people don’t know which are the good items to do that with, so most people can’t make the same profits you do. there are so many jobs in RL that revolve around this concept – pay someone to do something for you because they know how to and you don’t.

tekfan.3179:

Just put yourself in the shoes of a new player.

You seem to think I’ve somehow purchased this game with a full contingent of endgame gear and leveled characters … let me assure you, I don’t need to do a mind experiment to ‘understand’ what it’s like to be a new player.

tekfan.3179:

These prices are nothing for people who amassed a large amount of gold with flipping, but for someone who just started the game or doesn’t play it as often, they can be a real problem.

They aren’t any more a problem for the casual/new player than the veteran because the ways to earn rewards are the SAME for everyone, as well as the value that these rewards have when you sell them to others. It’s all relative.

I’m confused, what the OP originally described sounded more like “Warehousing” than instant-trading & Speculating. Can someone clarify?

tekfan.3179:

I tried some flipping over the time, especially since I started to go for my ascended armor set.
So first let me tell you my little story so far.

Note that I’m not one of those gold-hoarders, the largest amount I ever had was something close to 300 when I sold my flame and frost dyes, other than that I just save up as much as I currently need.
So my flipping was still on a kinda small scale.

When the prices for silk skyrocketed with ascended crafting I started to stock up on large amounts of cabalist armor and salvaged the heck out of it.
At first I started to stock up on silk and couldn’t craft as much silk spool as I had silk for, for almost half the price I would’ve paid if I had bought silk scraps directly in the TP.
So I started to sell the silk I didn’t need for a daily spool-craft.
Sometimes I made around 6 to 8 Gold in ten minutes…granted for only one cycle of buying armor, salvaging it, substracting 300 scraps and selling the rest.
This system is still working, though it seems that either enough people found that method or my exploitation has impacted the market enough to raise the price of cabalist armor-pieces from around 3 silver to 3.5 silver.

I started to see patterns though. Some folks seem to have nothing better to do than to raise their buy-orders one copper above higher bidders all the day. I had kinda funny runs of changing an order multiple times in a row, until it was so high that I rather sold my cabalist armor to the player bidding against me.

To be honest, it depresses me. Sitting alone in front of the screen and flipping some key-products from time to time was more effective in order to get an ascended armor than actually playing pve or pvp.
My superficial step into tp-flipping brought more results than the actual game.
It was so easy, I wouldn’t even wonder if there are already flipping-bots at work.

So why do I think that flipping could be the bane of GW2?
Simply this: If you don’t put a lot of work into the game to keep track with the price-wars in the tp, your progression is enormously slow.
Say we got a casual player. Maybe doing his dailies and running some pvp, fractals or dungeons at the weekends. Last time I checked, 300 silk scraps cost approx 7.2 gold at the tp. 7.2 gold are quite some dungeons.
While our casual friend plays an hour to get just the ascended silk-spool, even an unexperienced flipper like me could raise twice the amount of gold in the same time with a budget of less than 10 gold.
Since I stared only at the tp and bought the cheap sell-orders, the price rose higher because people doing the same placed higher buy-orders.
Long story short: Flipping raised the prices and our casual friend is on the losing end.

I don’t even want to imagine what it’s like if you’re a new player, exploring and doing your story. When the game started I really enjoyed crafting. If I lacked some materials I could buy them at the tp easily with what I earned during my playtime.
Nowadays one wool-scrap costs more than 5 silver.
If you want to craft the matching armor for your level 30 char as a new player, you’re pretty much bankrupt.
Alternatively you could farm…I tried that too to know what I’m talking about: I know grindy j-rpg’s with a faster progression.

As lucrative as a little work and time on the tp might be for me, I think Anet should do something against it since it has far too much impact for that little work.
Maybe something like limited buy-orders per day for each account.
But I don’t see that coming anytime soon.

Until then I will end this post with a small song:

They call him Flipper, Flipper, trades rather than playing,
No-one you see, has more gold than he,
And we know Flipper, lives in a world full of trading,
Buying there-over, over the tp!
Everyones bugged by the despot of tp,
Ever so grabby and greedy is he,
Clicks he will do when bargains appear,
And how they vanish when he’s near!
They call him Flipper, Flipper, trades rather than playing,
No-one you see, has more gold than he,
And we know Flipper, lives in a world full of trading,
Buying there-over, over the tp!

You may have run into a bot.

I dont think the flipping in itself will be the “bane” of gw2. I think it have something to do with the fact that it is so easy and/or rewarding. Or it is believed to be so.
Almost every “where to farm x” question is answered with “tp” when asked in game. And most of the time this is true.
I dont know much about flipping, I dont use the tp much. I do know however, that without the tp, things take a lot of time. And so far, I have the time. But I’ve seen people that dont have the time. Yes, I guess I can say they are impatient.
But I can also say that for a lot of people the game isnt fun enough for people to stick around long enough to get whatever they “need” without tp, dungeonrunning or buying gems.
For a lot of people, flipping isnt playing the game. This may be true or not. Its personal opinions, but doing unfunny things hardly feel like playing, whatever you do to entertain yourselfes. It is grinding.

Many people dislike flipping.

But at the same time, I’m not sure how many people like farming gold.

We all play the same game. Everyone has the same oppritunity to flip items on the trading post. If overdone it can be boring time & consuming work, but sometimes you can hit the jackpot if an update change happens in your favor. Sometimes the opposite happens and you loose gold. No one is denying that the trading post has better profits then ingame playing, but regaurdless flippers are helping remove gold from the economy.

Using the gold to gem ratio for the value of gold for ingame items, things haven’t changed much since the start. Take the super weapons, jetpack, mystic forge conduits, really anything that’s old and no longer drops. All have gone up in price about 3-4 times thier initial value was established after the living story ended. The Gold ratio back then was around a year ago was 3gold/100gems and now its 12gold/100gems. While some may be better ratios then others, they’re all pretty similar, some are bigger ratios because of higher demand/less supply. People see these items going up and think flippers are ruining the economy, but it’s just the value of gold is changing. How many threads of accusations that precursers are raising in price due to manipulation have we seen? As time goes on more and more gold is constantly being produced from dungeons and every type of gameplay, exept the trading post which a gold sink. I’m sure most of the players from over a year ago are going to agree that gold was 4 times harder to earn a year ago, then it is now.

I think many players are lying about how much they making also, trying to make other jealous, or trying to convince people the trading post is evil. Or maybe they are just saying the most they’ve ever made in a day, and the jealous people are blowing it out of proportion. Whatever the case, it is time consuming, probably boring to most, risky, they are helping improve golds worth, and you have the same oppritunity to do exactly what they are doing.

Curse Drew.8679:

We all play the same game. Everyone has the same oppritunity to flip items on the trading post. If overdone it can be boring time & consuming work, but sometimes you can hit the jackpot if an update change happens in your favor. Sometimes the opposite happens and you loose gold. No one is denying that the trading post has better profits then ingame playing, but regaurdless flippers are helping remove gold from the economy.

Using the gold to gem ratio for the value of gold for ingame items, things haven’t changed much since the start. Take the super weapons, jetpack, mystic forge conduits, really anything that’s old and no longer drops. All have gone up in price about 3-4 times thier initial value was established after the living story ended. The Gold ratio back then was around a year ago was 3gold/100gems and now its 12gold/100gems. While some may be better ratios then others, they’re all pretty similar, some are bigger ratios because of higher demand/less supply. People see these items going up and think flippers are ruining the economy, but it’s just the value of gold is changing. How many threads of accusations that precursers are raising in price due to manipulation have we seen? As time goes on more and more gold is constantly being produced from dungeons and every type of gameplay, exept the trading post which a gold sink. I’m sure most of the players from over a year ago are going to agree that gold was 4 times harder to earn a year ago, then it is now.

I think many players are lying about how much they making also, trying to make other jealous, or trying to convince people the trading post is evil. Or maybe they are just saying the most they’ve ever made in a day, and the jealous people are blowing it out of proportion. Whatever the case, it is time consuming, probably boring to most, risky, they are helping improve golds worth, and you have the same oppritunity to do exactly what they are doing.

nothing you said shows that it would be a good idea for TP fllipping to continue to be the best means of gaining value in game

Well farming is like a bell curve eventually you will get dimishing returns and stop earning the same amount of gold per hour. With TP is scale exponentially the more time you put into it the more money you make. Do not see a good way to stop flipping, not that it matters.

phys.7689:

nothing you said shows that it would be a good idea for TP fllipping to continue to be the best means of gaining value in game

Ah yes, the 15% trading post fee is the gold sink that’s removing gold from the game. The more flipping the more times all this gold keeps getting taxed that 15%. The more gold sinks there are to remove gold from a game, the better value gold will have. Players will have trouble saving up gold, and need more of it, increasing it’s demand. If gold sinks are not in the game gold would never disappear, and prices would be crazy high, and new players would be introduced to a way worse economy.

Curse Drew.8679:

phys.7689:

nothing you said shows that it would be a good idea for TP fllipping to continue to be the best means of gaining value in game

Ah yes, the 15% trading post fee is the gold sink that’s removing gold from the game. The more flipping the more times all this gold keeps getting taxed that 15%. The more gold sinks there are to remove gold from a game, the better value gold will have. Players will have trouble saving up gold, and need more of it, increasing it’s demand. If gold sinks are not in the game gold would never disappear, and prices would be crazy high, and new players would be introduced to a way worse economy.

Gold sinks can be solved/added in many ways. If the sole purpose of the TP is to reduce the amount of gold generated, There are other methods.

To be clear, i am not advocating for the destruction of the TP, or saying it serves no purpose. I am saying i see no evidence that the TP should be the best method of obtaining value in the game.

phys.7689:

I am saying i see no evidence that the TP should be the best method of obtaining value in the game.

Maybe you should first bring evidence that the TP is the best method of obtaining value in the game.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

I am saying i see no evidence that the TP should be the best method of obtaining value in the game.

Maybe you should first bring evidence that the TP is the best method of obtaining value in the game.

i dont think anyone debates that wanze, every other method i can come up with a direct mathematic relationship based on the time required and maximum output. The only method that has a even a chance of comparing would be soloing arah, and selling paths. And that is only a possibility because theoretically people could pay anything.

in reality from the prices i have seen people selling, and assuming they are not using exploits, that still doesnt compare.

even JS has made comments essentially accepting the premise that TP has greater potential for gaining value than other game play types.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

I am saying i see no evidence that the TP should be the best method of obtaining value in the game.

Maybe you should first bring evidence that the TP is the best method of obtaining value in the game.

Actually, working a real job and buying gems with cash is really the best method of obtaining value in game. Even the crazy greatsword video on youtube, which is using 8 accounts and software that’s possibly bannable, can be outearned by a $10 an hour job. If you dont want to work for the black lion trading post, then you can always earn even more then those guys by supporting the devlopers.

Uhh well, as far as I can see, if you’re doing TP flipping, be prepared to not take account for what your daily income will be, but instead what your weekly income will be. I took some good advice from some people and its that you should vary your items more, and that the more variety of items you buy, the better the rewards; some people can claim that they earn at least 30g a day, but the question is if you have enough money to buy that variety of items; and how often you’re going to flip and such. Now if you’re considering salvaging armor for scraps as flipping, it really isn’t. Salvaging armor can be visually deceptive to how much money you can make compared to TP flipping, grinding dungeons (with a speed group), and wvw zerging; as playing the TP believe it or not, is another form of playing the game. If you play the game correctly, even by doing event farming for like 15 min, flip for 15 min, dungeon for 30 min, and wvw you should be able to aquire a good amount of gold.

As for flipping silk, flipping silk is a big mistake; profitable? Most likely, but based on my experience, flipping silk is extremely hard because the price fluctuations are extremely risky, ill try to explain why as briefly as possible: the supply and demand curve is so bad, http://www.gw2tp.com/item/19748-silk-scrap and the reason why you cant flip this is because of the amount of risk you’re taking depends on that demand line; as you can probably already guess, there’s about fifty thousand players trying to bid on those stacks of silk; so you’re competing with those fifty thousand players demanding so much on such limited supply; it’s not good, but go ahead and take your gamble if you wish. Whereas the people getting 30g+ a day are competing against 5-25 people, and this is why they’re rich. To each his own.

Vol.7601:

It’s the fault of the casual player. They need to reassess their expectations on what they can do in the game.

I may have misread the OP’s argument, but I don’t think the issue is that casual players are prevented form doing hardcore things- they are also blocked from doing casual things. I learned pretty quickly that unless you’re willing to put in the time to harvest everything yourself, there is little point in using the TP to supplement your materials to help get crafting even past 100. And it’s also not worth it to try and keep your armor current until you hit 80.

The first field I ever tried to advance in was Tailoring, and even Jute scraps proved too expensive to buy for someone who doesn’t have time to invest in activities that net even 1g/day.

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

I am saying i see no evidence that the TP should be the best method of obtaining value in the game.

Maybe you should first bring evidence that the TP is the best method of obtaining value in the game.

i dont think anyone debates that wanze, every other method i can come up with a direct mathematic relationship based on the time required and maximum output. The only method that has a even a chance of comparing would be soloing arah, and selling paths. And that is only a possibility because theoretically people could pay anything.

in reality from the prices i have seen people selling, and assuming they are not using exploits, that still doesnt compare.

even JS has made comments essentially accepting the premise that TP has greater potential for gaining value than other game play types.

I would still argue that the TP on average provides a value loss of 15% (through fees and taxes).

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

I am saying i see no evidence that the TP should be the best method of obtaining value in the game.

Maybe you should first bring evidence that the TP is the best method of obtaining value in the game.

i dont think anyone debates that wanze, every other method i can come up with a direct mathematic relationship based on the time required and maximum output. The only method that has a even a chance of comparing would be soloing arah, and selling paths. And that is only a possibility because theoretically people could pay anything.

in reality from the prices i have seen people selling, and assuming they are not using exploits, that still doesnt compare.

even JS has made comments essentially accepting the premise that TP has greater potential for gaining value than other game play types.

I would still argue that the TP on average provides a value loss of 15% (through fees and taxes).

Thats an evasion, Thats like saying in a winner take all poker match people on average no one makes money.

To be clear, i am not claiming in the slightest, that the TP generates value. I said it has the highest potential for gaining value.
gaining value is not creating value.

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

I am saying i see no evidence that the TP should be the best method of obtaining value in the game.

Maybe you should first bring evidence that the TP is the best method of obtaining value in the game.

i dont think anyone debates that wanze, every other method i can come up with a direct mathematic relationship based on the time required and maximum output. The only method that has a even a chance of comparing would be soloing arah, and selling paths. And that is only a possibility because theoretically people could pay anything.

in reality from the prices i have seen people selling, and assuming they are not using exploits, that still doesnt compare.

even JS has made comments essentially accepting the premise that TP has greater potential for gaining value than other game play types.

I would still argue that the TP on average provides a value loss of 15% (through fees and taxes).

Thats an evasion, Thats like saying in a winner take all poker match people on average no one makes money.

To be clear, i am not claiming in the slightest, that the TP generates value. I said it has the highest potential for gaining value.
gaining value is not creating value.

Exactly, so you cant really compare activities that gain value to those that create value.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

I am saying i see no evidence that the TP should be the best method of obtaining value in the game.

Maybe you should first bring evidence that the TP is the best method of obtaining value in the game.

i dont think anyone debates that wanze, every other method i can come up with a direct mathematic relationship based on the time required and maximum output. The only method that has a even a chance of comparing would be soloing arah, and selling paths. And that is only a possibility because theoretically people could pay anything.

in reality from the prices i have seen people selling, and assuming they are not using exploits, that still doesnt compare.

even JS has made comments essentially accepting the premise that TP has greater potential for gaining value than other game play types.

I would still argue that the TP on average provides a value loss of 15% (through fees and taxes).

Thats an evasion, Thats like saying in a winner take all poker match people on average no one makes money.

To be clear, i am not claiming in the slightest, that the TP generates value. I said it has the highest potential for gaining value.
gaining value is not creating value.

Exactly, so you cant really compare activities that gain value to those that create value.

yes, actually you can, and the government does. The only distinction they make between the money you win in a poker match, and the money you make farming corn, is they take higher taxes when you win it in poker.

Many methods of gaining value, do not create value, that doesnt make them uncomparable at all.
Also this is a game world that is created. They can actually design more things that dont, in and of themselves, create value. In this type of situation, where the main limit is what you can design, and imagine, the question is about what the design specifications should be, not the limits of what is currently in place.

The main question to first be answered, is SHOULD this be the means with the highest potential for gaining value. Then you can explore the ramifications, and ways in which value is gained, and whether it is created or transfered, etc.

phys.7689:

To be clear, i am not claiming in the slightest, that the TP generates value. I said it has the highest potential for gaining value.
gaining value is not creating value.

Every $2 Powerball ticket you buy has the potential to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. That doesn’t make it the best investment strategy in America.

For every TP player who sold his unid’d dyes at the peak of their value, a hundred TP players bought them and lost most of their investment. One guy gets lucky but a lot of people lose their money. You know that playing the TP is in no way a sure thing, pretending otherwise is getting tiresome.

phys.7689:

The main question to first be answered, is SHOULD this be the means with the highest potential for gaining value. Then you can explore the ramifications, and ways in which value is gained, and whether it is created or transfered, etc.

Yes, as it was intended to be. Because there is also the greatest potential for loss. Entering a dungeon doesn’t cost 100 gold, but you can easily spend – and lose – that much and more trying to play the market. You’re pointing to those who claim – and those claims are not always accurate – that they make a lot of money from the TP and going “it’s not fair!” But most players lose money because they lack knowledge and experience, or just got unlucky and bought or sold at the wrong time.

I can just as easily point to dungeon speedrunning groups and say it’s not fair that they make so much money constantly, because I don’t know how to run the dungeons most efficiently. Even more so because if they make a mistake it doesn’t cost hundreds of gold, it just takes a few minutes longer to finish the dungeon.

The TP was set up to interact with the way the game works, and it simply is not possible to change the TP without changing the way the entire game works. Nor should it be changed, because all this happened by design, not by accident.

Vol.7601:

If the price is too overpriced, the market will correct itself.

No, no, no and no… I find it interesting how people are so optimistic about “The Economy” being this well-oiled perfect machine, but that trope right there… No. Please do provide real-world empirical evidence, not fit into a model (random sample), that this is true.

That said, both of you and the OP as a point.

In one way, Player A with limited time should be able to acquire resources without having to repeat the same job over and over. It makes the player happy, and in turn, it helps retention. Retention is important for a game to sustain a healthy community.

On the other hand, we have player B who spends seemingly unlimited amounts of time in game, who will find and exploit the easiest way to acquire resources, and who will, depending on how available resources are, acquire heaps more than the players with limited time.

Luckily Player A exists in multitudes of Player B, limiting the amount of impact Player B can have on the economy. Unfortunately however this creates the rich 0.1% who everyone envies.

This is how the game should work because time = value, and ideally it should be somewhat linear, probably a small curve to account for preference.

What OP is pointing out is that “time value” for the main activities of gw2, namely killing monsters < “time value” of playing the tp. He is presenting this with anecdotal evidence, which may or may not be true, but can be dismissed as anecdotal. Still he wants to start a debate of whether or not his anecdote does come close to the current state of the game.

Which I believe it does.

Recently I got 20 gold from a random nice person in LA (claiming to distribute the wealth"). I asked him/her what his/her income stream was, and I wasn’t surprised to hear “the tp”.

In RL I do fx and derivate index trades. Sometimes I dabble in game economies, but I try to not make it my living in game, since it is my living in RL. I started reading on the bltc forums and asking around in my guild. Most people doesn’t seem to care much for tp trading (instead they grind something else for hours cough Boss Blitz cough). Still a few individuals who did told me they spend about 30 minutes to 2 hours a day and have a return of about 70-140 g a week.

I was low on gold, but decided to sit down and see what I could do with 30 minutes on the tp a day. I spent about 4-5 hours setting up a spreadsheet for recording and looking for sources of data to base my decisions off, as well as do a bit of analysis on what markets were lucrative. Then on day one I set out to trade Mystic Coins, Rags, and some other items. And every day I’d open my spreadsheet look at median values, look at trends and DSRs, and buy/sell vs. median value, then buy in the evening and sell in the morning.

With an average of 30 min a day over a week, and with 60g starting capital in one week I was sitting on 240g, of which 130g was profits from flipping, and the rest was either dungeons, fractals, eotm, or crafting + my start capital.

Again, this is only anecdotal, and I have no other data to support a theory.

Still, I do believe something can be done to even out the value of investing ones time in killing monsters and playing the tp. Ideally you should be able to substitute one with the other.

Such a balance is hard to achieve, but I believe balancing it would be for the better.

EDIT:

I see many mention the risk of the TP and how you can lose everything on the TP, so the possibility of infinite gain is the compensation for the risk you take %15 tp fees and the chance of the item going the opposite way.

Sure there is direct market risk when flipping or crafting on the TP, but essentially this risk is small. Doing a dungeon also carries risk, the risk of time value lost. With minimum US wage at $7.25, you currently earn 65 g an hour. One hour lost in a dungeon the opportunity cost of +/- 65 g, and so it should be rewarded appropriately

What you can consider risk free is grinding and selling to npcs, but then you are earning less than minimum wage.

When I say that you should be able to substitute playing the tp with killing monsters, I am thinking about this in a way relative of each game modes related value at risk.

Chobiko.9182:

Still, I do believe something can be done to even out the value of investing ones time in killing monsters and playing the tp. Ideally you should be able to substitute one with the other.

Such a balance is hard to achieve, but I believe balancing it would be for the better.

Generally speaking, the most valuable items on the TP are also the rarest. A while back, there was a lot of speculation about the staff Final Rest because it was known to be a potential drop from the Shadow Behemoth event, but so rare that no one had put one on the TP for sale. Eventually it was discovered that there was an error in the game code and Final Rest never actually dropped.

When it was fixed, the first few weeks Final Rest actually dropped it was extremely valuable. But after a while so many had dropped that its value went down to the point where it was worth more than the average exotic staff, but nowhere near what it used to be. Although it attracted a lot of attention, once people realized it wasn’t actually as rare as they thought it was, owning it became less prestigious.

The upper limit of the TP is a process of distillation. Players pour money from many sources into obtaining the rarest items and ignore the more common ones. There is no way to balance this – if they make the rare items more common, then they become less attractive and the prices go down, while those that remain rare become more expensive. If they increase the wealth of the average player, this wealth is eventually collected by a few players who then spend more for the rarest items, driving their prices up even more.

This is how it works, and there is no changing it. You can play the game the way it’s played and grind or trade for the gold to buy the most prestigious items, or you can be satisfied with what you have and let others waste their time trying to make you jealous because their sword leaves glowing footprints.

tolunart.2095:

Chobiko.9182:

Still, I do believe something can be done to even out the value of investing ones time in killing monsters and playing the tp. Ideally you should be able to substitute one with the other.

Such a balance is hard to achieve, but I believe balancing it would be for the better.

Generally speaking, the most valuable items on the TP are also the rarest. A while back, there was a lot of speculation about the staff Final Rest because it was known to be a potential drop from the Shadow Behemoth event, but so rare that no one had put one on the TP for sale. Eventually it was discovered that there was an error in the game code and Final Rest never actually dropped.

When it was fixed, the first few weeks Final Rest actually dropped it was extremely valuable. But after a while so many had dropped that its value went down to the point where it was worth more than the average exotic staff, but nowhere near what it used to be. Although it attracted a lot of attention, once people realized it wasn’t actually as rare as they thought it was, owning it became less prestigious.

The upper limit of the TP is a process of distillation. Players pour money from many sources into obtaining the rarest items and ignore the more common ones. There is no way to balance this – if they make the rare items more common, then they become less attractive and the prices go down, while those that remain rare become more expensive. If they increase the wealth of the average player, this wealth is eventually collected by a few players who then spend more for the rarest items, driving their prices up even more.

This is how it works, and there is no changing it. You can play the game the way it’s played and grind or trade for the gold to buy the most prestigious items, or you can be satisfied with what you have and let others waste their time trying to make you jealous because their sword leaves glowing footprints.

The value of items sold on the tp is relative to demand, and demand is relative to preference and price.

Balancing the time value of killing monsters with the time value of playing the tp is a question of how to regulate supply according to demand and make the tp as open as possible to everyone who wants to trade.

As a hypothetical:

The pricing of luxury items has always been an issue because none of them have an intrinsic cost, plus it is hard to evaluate the time vale of the item. Drop rate is one such thing, but RNG is unfair by nature and there should be more reliable ways to acquire items tradeable on the tp. Items with a very low chance of acquisition should be account bound or sellable to NPCs for a price relative to its RNG value.

Sure this hypothetical would create issues, but it would have left Tyria with a rather small amount of eternities and sunrises. Now we can buy them for 3000g at the tp. With minimum wage in the US that will take you approximately a week to get.

The theory that demand drives the price and economy is fine can be applied to any mmorpg ever existed.

Doesn t prove economy is healthy anyway, nor that flipping is a good thing.

in wow you get ban for flipping items
here you get a f medal

LordByron.8369:

The theory that demand drives the price and economy is fine can be applied to any mmorpg ever existed.

Doesn t prove economy is healthy anyway, nor that flipping is a good thing.

Doesnt prove that the economy is unhealthy or that flipping is a bad thing either.

Svetli.4276:

in wow you get ban for flipping items
here you get a f medal

No you don’t. Either WoW or here. Just checked the WoW official forums and there is at least on thread discussing flipping from 2 days ago, not to mention all the other threads on making money using the AH there.

And I’m pretty sure ANet doesn’t hand out medals.

Somebody said that crafting is too expensive for casual players and I strongly disagree. I went from 0-400 in three crafting professions (jeweler, huntsman and chef) in about 12 hours time, started with 8g that I had got with my level 80 main and ended up with around 6g, loads of awaiting sell orders in TP, stack of Feast of chickpea fritters and a Pearl stinger for my main. I also bought Crystalline blade in the meantime. I got the money to start with by playing the game, and did the crafting by researching what is profitable to craft, bought mats with buy orders and sold products with sell orders. And did some flipping as I waited for my orders to go through. Surely you can argue that this is playing TP that isn’t casual, but if you aren’t willing to do a bit of research and think what you are doing then why should you have quick rewards? If nothing in this game required any effort, everybody would quit when they hit 80 or even before that. You can absolutely max two professions with your main in reasonable time and effort for casual player. And if one isn’t willing to get money for mats, or harvest them, or do a research of what to craft (I did this and 0-400 jewelery made me +2g, all mats bought from TP), why should one have maxed out crafting disciplines? Achieving things in MMORPG’s is going to take effort, and in my opinion legendary weapons are the only thing not achievable by casual players.

EDIT: Ant to clarify, I have clocked 180 hours in, about 150h of that is with my main. I haven’t done any farming and haven’t done even half of the dungeon. I haven’t traded any money for gems (bought an additional bank space, though). All this just to clarify my casualty, I am the 99%. Still I have three crafting professions at 400 (huntsman actually around 450), exotics on my main and whatnot. Still some cash on the bank. I don’t really see the content that casual players aren’t able to play because of money.

LordByron.8369:

The theory that demand drives the price and economy is fine can be applied to any mmorpg ever existed.

Doesn t prove economy is healthy anyway, nor that flipping is a good thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot

Yet those with biased/negligible amount of data, studies, evidence still push that it is a “bad” economy.

Bread.7516:

LordByron.8369:

The theory that demand drives the price and economy is fine can be applied to any mmorpg ever existed.

Doesn t prove economy is healthy anyway, nor that flipping is a good thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot

Yet those with biased/negligible amount of data, studies, evidence still push that it is a “bad” economy.

lol, people tell people their theories and beliefs are wrong based on some one elses philosophical beliefs?

You also compare the a philosophy based on religion, to an idea of the economy, which one lives in and interacts with, and has much data, and reasons to form as valid an opinion as anyone else here?

The concept speaks of when you have a belief that seems unlikely based on the current knowledge set, versus a very likely one. The idea that economy is good (for the average player) is no more logically well founded than the idea that it is bad.

The best argument one can propose on this matter is that neither side has much evidence to support thier claims.

In the case of a lack of evidence, you generally rely on other factors such as reason, experiments, and even anecdotal evidence (which is actually better than no evidence) and philosophy.

tolunart.2095:

phys.7689:

To be clear, i am not claiming in the slightest, that the TP generates value. I said it has the highest potential for gaining value.
gaining value is not creating value.

Every $2 Powerball ticket you buy has the potential to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. That doesn’t make it the best investment strategy in America.

For every TP player who sold his unid’d dyes at the peak of their value, a hundred TP players bought them and lost most of their investment. One guy gets lucky but a lot of people lose their money. You know that playing the TP is in no way a sure thing, pretending otherwise is getting tiresome.

comparing playing the TP to powerball is laughable. You can very easily make money off the tp, with daily market fluctuations. Im not talking about speculation here, Which would be still, extremely far from powerball, and closer to playing the stock market.

Im talking about basic TP use, buy low sell high, daily price fluctuations, item transformations etc, will yeild a noticeable profit, consistently based primarily on your initial investment, and how often you can reinvest.

tolunart.2095:

phys.7689:

The main question to first be answered, is SHOULD this be the means with the highest potential for gaining value. Then you can explore the ramifications, and ways in which value is gained, and whether it is created or transfered, etc.

Yes, as it was intended to be. Because there is also the greatest potential for loss. Entering a dungeon doesn’t cost 100 gold, but you can easily spend – and lose – that much and more trying to play the market. You’re pointing to those who claim – and those claims are not always accurate – that they make a lot of money from the TP and going “it’s not fair!” But most players lose money because they lack knowledge and experience, or just got unlucky and bought or sold at the wrong time.

I can just as easily point to dungeon speedrunning groups and say it’s not fair that they make so much money constantly, because I don’t know how to run the dungeons most efficiently. Even more so because if they make a mistake it doesn’t cost hundreds of gold, it just takes a few minutes longer to finish the dungeon.

The TP was set up to interact with the way the game works, and it simply is not possible to change the TP without changing the way the entire game works. Nor should it be changed, because all this happened by design, not by accident.

most TP players dont lose more money than they gain, most people involved in the TP lose money, but those people dont actually play the TP, they provide the vast majority of the profts the other tp players get on average.

As far as you answer, it should be this way, for the reason that it is this way, is not a good answer for an engineer, whose focus is solving problems.
Yes, it is clear that with the current design, it is a fact that the tp makes more money, yes we can discuss the mechanics of how this solution makes its decsions, and the pluses and minuses of each.

This does not make it the right solution, or the right question, that is simply a study of what is.

Say for example, many years ago, some engineer decides people should travel faster than birds.
Critics tell him, what you are saying is foolish, birds can fly, and have hollow bones, and weigh like 1/10 the weight of humans. They tell him the amount of power in atp that the muscles can generate, and the maximum effeciency in pushing that weight over land.

and in doing so they completely miss the point, examining the mechanics of how the problem is currently solved, or why by current designs something cannot be done is useful, but is far from a reason why you cannot solve the current problem in most cases.

now with hindsight, we can say hey, people can travel faster than birds, they can learn to fly, they can build cars, etc.

So when looking at whether TP earning should earn more than other gameplay activities, dont look at why it does now, just decide, is this the way i prefer things to be? Is this how i would have things if i could design any solution?

the question after the should, is the how to do it, within whatever specifications are placed on the solution. Thats, the hard part, but first one must decide what is the goal, then you can figure, and compare solutions, or even decide there may be no good solutions within what you have to work with.

But like i said, first comes the “should this be the case”

LordByron.8369:

The theory that demand drives the price and economy is fine can be applied to any mmorpg ever existed.

Doesn t prove economy is healthy anyway, nor that flipping is a good thing.

Flipping is a good thing because it removes gold from the game; otherwise you’d see bad pricing on items. Whether the economy is good or bad usually depends on the gold-profit ratio, meaning the amount of gold spent to get a certain profit. As far as my experience goes I usually spend around 5g to get back 1; though this varies per item.

LordByron.8369:

The theory that demand drives the price and economy is fine can be applied to any mmorpg ever existed.

Doesn t prove economy is healthy anyway, nor that flipping is a good thing.

Flipping is a good thing because it removes gold from the game; otherwise you’d see bad pricing on items. Whether the economy is good or bad usually depends on the gold-profit ratio, meaning the amount of gold spent to get a certain profit. As far as my experience goes I usually spend around 5g to get back 1; though this varies per item and I think it’s what makes people say whether the economy is good or bad.

phys.7689:

comparing playing the TP to powerball is laughable.

phys.7689:

Thats an evasion, Thats like saying in a winner take all poker match people on average no one makes money.

You´re right, Poker is a way better comparison than Powerball.

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

comparing playing the TP to powerball is laughable.

phys.7689:

Thats an evasion, Thats like saying in a winner take all poker match people on average no one makes money.

You´re right, Poker is a way better comparison than Powerball.

within the scope of what we were talking about, it was.
you were saying that the tp on average loses 15% value.

my comparison to poker was to show that the fact that others lose money is not really relevant to how much money is gained.
You dont want to use poker fine, we can put it a lot simpler

By your analysis definition, no market irl gives value on average, most people lose 10-20% of value based on taxes. Which completely evades the truth that some jobs make way more money than other jobs with similar resource expenditures.

Lukyromero.6780:

LordByron.8369:

The theory that demand drives the price and economy is fine can be applied to any mmorpg ever existed.

Doesn t prove economy is healthy anyway, nor that flipping is a good thing.

Flipping is a good thing because it removes gold from the game; otherwise you’d see bad pricing on items. Whether the economy is good or bad usually depends on the gold-profit ratio, meaning the amount of gold spent to get a certain profit. As far as my experience goes I usually spend around 5g to get back 1; though this varies per item and I think it’s what makes people say whether the economy is good or bad.

Dont try to reason with him.

phys.7689:

Wanze.8410:

phys.7689:

comparing playing the TP to powerball is laughable.

phys.7689:

Thats an evasion, Thats like saying in a winner take all poker match people on average no one makes money.

You´re right, Poker is a way better comparison than Powerball.

within the scope of what we were talking about, it was.
you were saying that the tp on average loses 15% value.

my comparison to poker was to show that the fact that others lose money is not really relevant to how much money is gained.
You dont want to use poker fine, we can put it a lot simpler

By your analysis definition, no market irl gives value on average, most people lose 10-20% of value based on taxes. Which completely evades the truth that some jobs make way more money than other jobs with similar resource expenditures.

I am not talking about markets irl, i am talking about the tp in game.