Guild Wars 2

Who can realistically afford those out of control gem prices now? Only those rich top few of course. A new player coming into the game and seeing that will be immediately discouraged from even looking at the gem store (I know because I have already had to address this from some new player recruits). When will these prices be brought into check? Where is the limit? Do the developers think this current conversion rate is a fair exchange of time played vs gems rewarded? Discuss (prefferrably without trolling)

Yes bc anet doesn’t make money off you converting… inflation of the rate is to discourage exchanging and promote actual cash flow to them from gem purchases…

Considering the gem store is a way for Anet to make money, I doubt they will try to control much of the gold-to-gems exchange rates. Gems have always been $10 for 800 Gems, so gem value hasn’t decreased or anything. In-game gold has inflated and depreciated in value.

If anything, new players will see how long it takes to make enough gold to turn it into a useful amount of gems and will either decide to not get gems entirely or just throw $10 here and there to get what they want.

The rate is determined by the players. As more people exchange gems for gold, the amount of gems you get per gold will increase. Gold to gems was never meant to be balanced around a specific target, it’s only the real money value that matters.

It’ll never be “fixed”, there is no limit and the rate will continue to get worse over time as gold becomes easier to acquire.

Back when the $10 sales appeared, you could make around 300-400 gems a month simply by logging in once a day and selling those rewards. Seems fairly casual, even considering it’s currently half that.

it’s due to the sales~ it’ll be high till it’s over.

Druss.6917:

Who can realistically afford those out of control gem prices now? Only those rich top few of course. A new player coming into the game and seeing that will be immediately discouraged from even looking at the gem store (I know because I have already had to address this from some new player recruits). When will these prices be brought into check? Where is the limit? Do the developers think this current conversion rate is a fair exchange of time played vs gems rewarded? Discuss (prefferrably without trolling)

Just tell the new players they can bring the conversion rate down by buing gems and converting them to gold.

As doggie said, it is because of the sales. after that it will return to normal.
Maybe a good tip for the future (it requires some self discipline though), obtain an amount of gems when the price is low and save them for the sales.

Druss.6917:

Who can realistically afford those out of control gem prices now? Only those rich top few of course. A new player coming into the game and seeing that will be immediately discouraged from even looking at the gem store (I know because I have already had to address this from some new player recruits). When will these prices be brought into check? Where is the limit? Do the developers think this current conversion rate is a fair exchange of time played vs gems rewarded? Discuss (prefferrably without trolling)

You do realize that the gold:gem conversion is a convenience? Gems are designed to be purchased with cash. If you are cheap (like me) and don’t want to spend cash, you need to expect that it’s going to be costly to convert.

The limit will be reached naturally: the highest the gold:gem conversion rate is, the more it encourages folks with more cash than time to spend on gems and convert to gold, which will lower prices. Rates peak during sales and drop during gem shop droughts, as it did just a month ago (you could get 100 gems for 17 gold consistently, and if you waited for the opportunity, for as low as 15-16g). Last November, prices peaked at close to 20g/100 gems and then by Mar/Apr you could get 100 gems for 13g.

Finally, the high rate also makes it harder for gold sellers to profit (they have to farm a lot more gold to make the same money.

tl;dr high rates are great for those who have disposable real world cash; gold:gem rates will self-moderate; and it’s merely a convenience for players like me (too cheap or broke to spend RL cash on gems).

So would right now be the best time to convert GEMs into Gold? Highest rate of return is right now?

“Disposable”? Compare it to a game with a subscription fee, which tons of people pay gladly. What do they average per month? Ten? Twenty? Buying 800 gems every couple of months does not even come close.

Sure, it gets expensive if you buy everything it the store but not if you look closely at what you need. I have no need for bag slots. I have only bought a few minis, outfits, and skins. Gathering tools? Quagan hats?

I look at it to ways:

1) How much per month would I spend on ANY hobby? From a subscription MMO to doing needlepoint (where you can spend a lot on colored threads and stuff).
2) How much is my time worth? My salary must be pretty bad if gold farming is a productive use of the few hours I have off.

eisberg.2379:

So would right now be the best time to convert GEMs into Gold? Highest rate of return is right now?

Yes, even better is to do that now then convert them back to gems when the exchange rate settles back down to where it was before.

eisberg.2379:

So would right now be the best time to convert GEMs into Gold? Highest rate of return is right now?

DEFINITELY

People apparently havent paid attention to the rate this fluxes at during the sales. I have watched it go from 4000 gems for 999gold to 6700 gems for 999 gold in hours(black lion sale pack)

I myself converted 200$ when the rate was super low for alot of gold. The rate jumped within an hour. Once the sale stops it’ll take like a day to get the prices back down to normal.

Gems are the same price they have always been. I think the question to ask is why (other) players have so much gold to throw at gems, or why Arenanet seems to like real money over game gold.

Anchoku.8142:

Gems are the same price they have always been. I think the question to ask is why (other) players have so much gold to throw at gems, or why Arenanet seems to like real money over game gold.

Huh? Is that a serious question? Why does Anet like REAL money over in game gold? Are you trolling?

The hilarious part is that most players think that since gold → gem ratio is so high, ANet should fix it by…adding ways to get more gold.

The ratio is really an indicator of two things – how much gold is there in the system, and the usefulness of gold for purchasing out-of-store items. If there is too much gold in the system, people will convert more gold to gems and drive up the ratio. If there is no in-game items to spend the gold on, they’ll convert the gold into gems since there isn’t much else to do with it, once again driving the ratio up.

This is of course over the long run. Short term large spikes are possible when desired item with limited availability is up in the store (sale events like current one). I expect it will level off back to 70-80g/400 gems in a few weeks after the sale is over. Of course what happens to the ratio after HoT launches is anyone’s guess.

So lets say someone converts 800 GEMS into 150 Gold, about what the current exchange is right now. If they were to save that 150 gold for after this sale and when exchange rates goes back to normal, that 150 gold can possibly be exchanged again for more than 800 GEMs?

eisberg.2379:

So lets say someone converts 800 GEMS into 150 Gold, about what the current exchange is right now. If they were to save that 150 gold for after this sale and when exchange rates goes back to normal, that 150 gold can possibly be exchanged again for more than 800 GEMs?

The market does not work like that. In order to convert gold to get your original 800 gems you will have to put in far more gold than what was paid out when you did the exchange dues to the ratios

eisberg.2379:

So lets say someone converts 800 GEMS into 150 Gold, about what the current exchange is right now. If they were to save that 150 gold for after this sale and when exchange rates goes back to normal, that 150 gold can possibly be exchanged again for more than 800 GEMs?

Yes gem investing makes lots of gold you just have to be patient

Linfang.1087:

eisberg.2379:

So lets say someone converts 800 GEMS into 150 Gold, about what the current exchange is right now. If they were to save that 150 gold for after this sale and when exchange rates goes back to normal, that 150 gold can possibly be exchanged again for more than 800 GEMs?

The market does not work like that. In order to convert gold to get your original 800 gems you will have to put in far more gold than what was paid out when you did the exchange dues to the ratios

The [exchange] does work like that. The different rate between the direction of exchange makes short-term flipping of gems impossible. Long-term flipping of gems is possible but requires a lot of patience and becomes more difficult to do as the exchange rate becomes more stable. Linfang may have to wait a long time before they see a gem profit.

eisberg.2379:

So lets say someone converts 800 GEMS into 150 Gold, about what the current exchange is right now. If they were to save that 150 gold for after this sale and when exchange rates goes back to normal, that 150 gold can possibly be exchanged again for more than 800 GEMs?

Remember the exchange rates aren’t the same in both directions.

There would have to be a major drop in the rate just to convert back to 800 gems. It’s more of a sure thing to buy Gems, not while an event like this is going on of course, and hold them for a very long time. A year ago you could buy 100 gems for only 12.5-13 gold. And today if you sell you could get 18 gold.

You would need the exchange rate to drop back down to under 18-19g per 100 for that to even break even.

Well this isnt a bad thing, the option is still there to grab items from the shop for free ( well free of real money).

Since anet do need to make cash, it is still nice of them to still have that option available, to ensure income they could keep the TP strickly money and not gold, yet it is not the case.

I think they deserve credits on this one instead of a slap.

Bottom line is, Anet needs to make money off of gems, so incentives to buy with money instead of gold will always be higher. I do think there needs to be a cap somewhere though. I was expecting a cap to be implemented a long time ago.

Psientist.6437:

Linfang.1087:

eisberg.2379:

So lets say someone converts 800 GEMS into 150 Gold, about what the current exchange is right now. If they were to save that 150 gold for after this sale and when exchange rates goes back to normal, that 150 gold can possibly be exchanged again for more than 800 GEMs?

The market does not work like that. In order to convert gold to get your original 800 gems you will have to put in far more gold than what was paid out when you did the exchange dues to the ratios

The [exchange] does work like that. The different rate between the direction of exchange makes short-term flipping of gems impossible. Long-term flipping of gems is possible but requires a lot of patience and becomes more difficult to do as the exchange rate becomes more stable. Linfang may have to wait a long time before they see a gem profit.

I bought some gems with gold at ~14g/100 gems around April. If I exchanged those gems right now, I’d get ~18g back, a 28% return on my investment. That’s not a particular good rate for 5+ months of appreciation. On the other hand, it requires no effort at all, just buying low and selling high.

(The math, of course, is similar for trading gems to gold and then back to gems. The main difference is that you have to hope that the rate goes down by more than 40% eventually. Whereas, when trading gold→gems→gold, you wait for it to go up. I leave it as a an exercise for the reader to determine which is more likely.)

Linfang.1087:

eisberg.2379:

So lets say someone converts 800 GEMS into 150 Gold, about what the current exchange is right now. If they were to save that 150 gold for after this sale and when exchange rates goes back to normal, that 150 gold can possibly be exchanged again for more than 800 GEMs?

The market does not work like that. In order to convert gold to get your original 800 gems you will have to put in far more gold than what was paid out when you did the exchange dues to the ratios

Umm …. sure you do not have it backwards? Say you guy gold at 2X/gem one day and then a few days later that amount goes down to X/gem. If I sell my gold to gems I wind up with twice as many gems as you had originally.

It only looks backwards because there are two mediums of exchange involved. One is fixed to RL currency (gems) and the other is not (gold).

BTW, I exchanged 50 or 60$ of gems last night at 6 gems per gold (ie, 133 gold per 800 gems). I seem to vaguely recall that is double the normal price? Which is half what I heard reports of earlier. Are people dumping that many gems already?

edit: ack! I forgot about the exchange fees! So what would I need to see for gold→gems in order to make money and is that the normal price?

Menadena.7482:

edit: ack! I forgot about the exchange fees! So what would I need to see for gold->gems in order to make money and is that the normal price?

Break-even point is ~38%, i.e. 1/(.85*.85) = 1.384…

For example

• If you bought gems for 10g/100 gems, you’d starting making coin by buying gold back when the rate rose above ~13.8g/100 gems.
• Similarly, if you sold gems for gold at 100 gems to get 10g, you’d start earning extra gems by buying them back when the rate dropped below 100 gems yielding 7.225 gems.

ive actually been taking advantage of this exchange rate and converting gems to gold. Im a casual player that likes to pvp and Wvw. i dont really farm dungeons or that much silverwastes for gold. So the occassional gem to gold conversion ensures i have enough gold to buy the things i need off the TP.

a few weeks ago it was over 430 gems for 50gold. last week i was able to get 50g for around 260 gems.

Behellagh.1468:

eisberg.2379:

So lets say someone converts 800 GEMS into 150 Gold, about what the current exchange is right now. If they were to save that 150 gold for after this sale and when exchange rates goes back to normal, that 150 gold can possibly be exchanged again for more than 800 GEMs?

Remember the exchange rates aren’t the same in both directions.

There would have to be a major drop in the rate just to convert back to 800 gems. It’s more of a sure thing to buy Gems, not while an event like this is going on of course, and hold them for a very long time. A year ago you could buy 100 gems for only 12.5-13 gold. And today if you sell you could get 18 gold.

You would need the exchange rate to drop back down to under 18-19g per 100 for that to even break even.

Yeah. These sort of numbers and time say to me why it’s not worth trying it to make gold this way. A year of holding the gems bought with your gold to make ~5 gold per 100 gems is trying up your gems and gold for too long and for too little profit. You would need to have bought large numbers of gems with your gold to make it remotely worthwhile, and you’ve lost the use of that gold during that year.

Yesterday it was 1 gold for every 6 gems, so around 133 gold/gems, right? Which would mean it would need to drop to 82 gold per 800 gems, right? The conversion history chart I found only lists prices in gold so I have two VERY simple questions.

1) How do I know when the 900 gold I bought will make more gems than I bought it with in ‘get more gems’?

2) What is the ballpark average price, ie, would I look for a turnaround in a month when it settles to that or a year when the market spikes?

Remember you are talking to a programmer, not an economist.

So I am guessing if I see something I REALLY want to buy on the gemstore in the next week I would be better off buying more gems? Which is annoying since I had hoped to buy some things not long after the sale ended and I have all this money in gold to convert to gems at some point.

edit: If we are talking only a possible gain of a few gold (I bought 900 gold last night) I will just go ‘whups’, convert it back, and remember not to do it again. After all, I make several gold a day just hitting resource nodes and salvaging (that does not even count materials like ecto that I bank).

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

eisberg.2379:

So lets say someone converts 800 GEMS into 150 Gold, about what the current exchange is right now. If they were to save that 150 gold for after this sale and when exchange rates goes back to normal, that 150 gold can possibly be exchanged again for more than 800 GEMs?

Remember the exchange rates aren’t the same in both directions.

There would have to be a major drop in the rate just to convert back to 800 gems. It’s more of a sure thing to buy Gems, not while an event like this is going on of course, and hold them for a very long time. A year ago you could buy 100 gems for only 12.5-13 gold. And today if you sell you could get 18 gold.

You would need the exchange rate to drop back down to under 18-19g per 100 for that to even break even.

Yeah. These sort of numbers and time say to me why it’s not worth trying it to make gold this way. A year of holding the gems bought with your gold to make ~5 gold per 100 gems is trying up your gems and gold for too long and for too little profit. You would need to have bought large numbers of gems with your gold to make it remotely worthwhile, and you’ve lost the use of that gold during that year.

‘Investing/speculating’ in gems makes sense if you don’t want to work the TP or plan on taking a break from the game. I don’t get the chance to play often during the spring and summer and this season converted most of my gold into gems and realized more than 100% profit in gold.

Psientist.6437:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

eisberg.2379:

So lets say someone converts 800 GEMS into 150 Gold, about what the current exchange is right now. If they were to save that 150 gold for after this sale and when exchange rates goes back to normal, that 150 gold can possibly be exchanged again for more than 800 GEMs?

Remember the exchange rates aren’t the same in both directions.

There would have to be a major drop in the rate just to convert back to 800 gems. It’s more of a sure thing to buy Gems, not while an event like this is going on of course, and hold them for a very long time. A year ago you could buy 100 gems for only 12.5-13 gold. And today if you sell you could get 18 gold.

You would need the exchange rate to drop back down to under 18-19g per 100 for that to even break even.

Yeah. These sort of numbers and time say to me why it’s not worth trying it to make gold this way. A year of holding the gems bought with your gold to make ~5 gold per 100 gems is trying up your gems and gold for too long and for too little profit. You would need to have bought large numbers of gems with your gold to make it remotely worthwhile, and you’ve lost the use of that gold during that year.

‘Investing/speculating’ in gems makes sense if you don’t want to work the TP or plan on taking a break from the game. I don’t get the chance to play often during the spring and summer and this season converted most of my gold into gems and realized more than 100% profit in gold.

I guess it makes sense in some special occasions. Such as those who stop playing for long periods of time and come back to sell the gems they got previously. But for those who play continuously, trying to make gold this way ties up both your gold and gems so that you can’t use either. You can neither use those gems to buy from the gemstore or to use that gold to buy from the trading post.

I guess if you tie up your gold this way into gems and convert as needed, accepting you’ll take some losses occasionally it might work.

It’s a false exchange rate. Even though the gold to gems cost ratio has gotten higher, the gems to gold ratio has not appreciably changed.

Superfrick.1536:

It’s a false exchange rate. Even though the gold to gems cost ratio has gotten higher, the gems to gold ratio has not appreciably changed.

On the TP in game the rates are synced. If one rises x%, the other rises x%.

What I have decided is that I paid ~5000 gems for 900 gold. Since gold→gems has a fit if you do not have enough gold last night I priced 500 gems and it said 120 gold. If I have heard right that is well above the usual rate, yes? In which case when it drops below 90 gold (I assume within the month) I will get more gems than I put in. If there is something HUGE today I will buy more gems (or maybe convert gold if the rate is not that bad, 30 gold is around what I would make anyway in 10 days).

Druss.6917:

Who can realistically afford those out of control gem prices now?

Players can. Players do. Players control the price of gold to gems and gems to gold. That’s why the prices are the way the way they are.

It also has a lot to do with the anniversary sale, people want the nifty gem store stuff. And so it goes with the price as it is now.