Guild Wars 2

Hackers,Bots,Gold Sellers,Mail Spams exist because of Anet miscalculation of the Gem —> gold exchange rate.

Before you guys crucify me, please actually read what i’m saying and think if what i’m saying is reasonable and logical.

Hackers,Bots,mail spams,gold sellers,etc exist because of 1 very simple reason. That is because there is a market for gold selling, and people ARE and WILL continue to buy gold because of a fundamental logic error made by Anet. As long as there’s a demand for gold, these annoyance will continue to exist so long as its PROFITABLE.

Gold to Gem and Gem to Gold can be exchanged. Supposedly, the purpose of why there’s a real-time exchange system was to discourage gold sellers, not only did it fail at accomplishing this task, it have actually done the opposite, which is to ENCOURAGE gold selling because it had effectively solidify the value of gold. One of the main reason why it failed and done the opposite of what it was intended was because of how the exchange rate works.

Current exchange system:
Gold —> Gem 100% value return
Gem --> Gold 75% value return

Offical source: 800 Gems = $10
Gold selling companies: 1G = $1, 10G = $10
1G = 250Gems(approx) x 10 = 2500Gems (unoffical source wins by over 300%)

100gems = 28s(approx) x 8 = 2.24g ($10)
Unoffical source: 10g (win by over 450%) ($10)

Of course people are buying gold!

Proposed system:
Gold —> gem 75% value return
Gem --> gold 125% value return

It will by no means stop gold selling but it will certainly discourage it rather than encourage it, which is a step in the right direction. It will also devalue gold, which makes it less profitable to sell.

And gold sellers will drop the price of gold. Anet’s not going to beat the price gold sellers can sell gold at.

Yep. Gold Sellers offer that much better of a deal. Many people will be tempted to try despite of the risks of getting banned.

Whatever happened to actually supporting the company? It isn’t Anet’s fault goldsellers exists, they have existed long before then and they always try undercutting official sources.

yea im tempted, i dont feel like been ripped off. 10$ by a mere 1.8g is sad. i prefer to pay a monthly feed and be free to farm all the money and item i want the time, the day and the way i want. i feel controlled by a measuring tool.

Anet should just stop all methods of passing money via mail. Then, allow only the cheapest cost of an item to be purchasable at the TP, so that no gold seller tries to sell off cotton for 1g or something

Dibrom.6408:

And gold sellers will drop the price of gold. Anet’s not going to beat the price gold sellers can sell gold at.

Thing is, Eve Online did manage to beat the gold sellers price. ANET tried to copy that. I can think of three possible reasons why it failed in GW2:
– It takes some time for enough players to earn enough coin to bring the exchange rate up to competitive values.
– Eve Online uses a buy/sell order system like the GW2 trading post and lets players set the prices. ANET uses a hidden algorithm to set them. Maybe the algorithm is bugged and not producing the intended result.
– Eve Online has people trading for PLEXs, which can be directly used to pay your subscription. Meaning plenty of people are paying for alt accounts, sometimes even their primaries, with farming income. Gems in GW2 are no where near as wanted, because everything they offer is optional.

If true the first possibility will come right on its own. There isn’t much ANET can do about the third.
The second however can be fixed by just moving the currency exchange onto the trading post. I don’t understand why ANET uses their secret algorithm instead of it now that the trading post is working reliably.

Dibrom.6408:

And gold sellers will drop the price of gold. Anet’s not going to beat the price gold sellers can sell gold at.

Yes, by dropping the price, they effectively earn less because supply remain constant. There goes a point in which it is simply not worth their time selling gold.

I agree that anet did poorly at both incentivizing gem to gold, but also their price point of gold value. with the precusor dusk at appx 1,600.00 USD (didn’t calc directly here).
I had full intentions of purchasing gold at intro, however the start price was not / is not still worth it. I’m not planning on buying web site gold, though I know of a couple who already have.
I agree with op that gem to gold should be a main fighter for “reducing incentive” to gold sites; thus lowering the total number / profits / buyers. TBH I’m surprised that hasn’t been the case as of yet. The anto-farm, DR, speed clear, etc, etc has also seemed / proved counterintuitive as well it seems.
dunno

Agemnon.4608:

Whatever happened to actually supporting the company? It isn’t Anet’s fault goldsellers exists, they have existed long before then and they always try undercutting official sources.

Supporting the company is good. However, what I’m proposing will actually support the company more than right now beacuse it place a higher value on gems, the currency that ANet is offering you for your money, which will tempt more people to use official source. As a direct result of this, more people will support the company, people who supports them get a fairer deal, and everyone gets less spam and hacked accounts while the gold sellers lose money. So it’s win win(except for gold sellers).

So you want to make gold worthless. Great idea.

You argument is fundamentally flawed.

First of all, the gem/gold exchange rates are set, at least in part, by players rather than by ArenaNet. Currently the exchange rate heavily favors gold-to-gems because the demand for gold is much higher than the demand for gems. People want gold, they want it now, and they’re willing to pay pretty steep rates for it, and so the value of gems falls off. If players wanted gems more than gold – which they really, really don’t right now – then the exchange would favor gem-to-gold conversions rather than gold-to-gems.

Secondly, gold sellers can set whatever prices they want for their ‘product’. Ten dollars for ten gold is simply a nice, easy conversion they can make which also happens to seriously undercut the Currency Exchange. If the CE was at or near the 10g/$10 rate, the gold sellers would just up it to 20 gold for ten bucks. They can do that because they can generate gold at rates a legitimate player could never match, and the CE rates are driven by legitimate players. Nor do they care about things like the EULA (obviously) or the well-being of their fellow players (who can’t get junk-all done with their illicit gold if their zone is overrun with bots).

No, ArenaNet can’t undercut, or even realistically match, the gold sellers. That shouldn’t matter, because anyone with two neurons to rub together should be very, very, VERY hesitant about giving their credit card information to, I don’t know…PEOPLE WHO STEAL ACCOUNTS SO THEY CAN BOT FOR GOLD. Really, folks…you’re ("you referring to the general idea of a gold buyer, not to anyone specifically in this thread) giving away your card information to people who are admitting, via the very service you are paying for, that they are both hackers and scurrilous scumbags who don’t have any respect for the sanctity of another’s property – or the law, for that matter?

Are you trying to get your identities stolen, or are you really that dense?

How about you get rid of the gold/gem exchange and just make all items in the cash shop obtainable ingame either by buying from players or finding them through difficult quests or as a rare drop? Microtransactions should always be about convenience, and never about buying power. Arenanet’s halfway there- I can’t find anything in there that makes a buyer stronger than anyone else.

Just a thought. To be honest, every MMO I’ve ever played is plagued by bots and gold spammers. We’ll never be rid of them until we flat out arrest/kill the people in charge.

Phy.2913:

So you want to make gold worthless. Great idea.

No, I want to make it worth less. It does not directly impact you what the value of gold is in real dollars unless you wish to sell them. It will affect you only when you exchange gold to gem. Any logical person should agree that the current gold to gem rate is too generous. This is coming from a player who never bought gems and had gotten thousands of gem by only spending a couple gold, which is absurd.

Yes, it’s ArenaNet’s fault, not the criminals who are hacking accounts and/or violating terms of service.

“Hackers, Bots, mail spams, gold sellers, etc exist because of 1 very simple reason”. Yes. That reason is people believe rules do not apply to them, on both the selling and buying side.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

You argument is fundamentally flawed.

First of all, the gem/gold exchange rates are set, at least in part, by players rather than by ArenaNet. Currently the exchange rate heavily favors gold-to-gems because the demand for gold is much higher than the demand for gems. People want gold, they want it now, and they’re willing to pay pretty steep rates for it, and so the value of gems falls off. If players wanted gems more than gold – which they really, really don’t right now – then the exchange would favor gem-to-gold conversions rather than gold-to-gems.

Secondly, gold sellers can set whatever prices they want for their ‘product’. Ten dollars for ten gold is simply a nice, easy conversion they can make which also happens to seriously undercut the Currency Exchange. If the CE was at or near the 10g/$10 rate, the gold sellers would just up it to 20 gold for ten bucks. They can do that because they can generate gold at rates a legitimate player could never match, and the CE rates are driven by legitimate players. Nor do they care about things like the EULA (obviously) or the well-being of their fellow players (who can’t get junk-all done with their illicit gold if their zone is overrun with bots).

No, ArenaNet can’t undercut, or even realistically match, the gold sellers.

No, Gold sellers can’t just pump out unlimited amount of supply. Their supply is constant, meaning they can get no more gold unless they add more resource into it. By making 20g = $10, they effectively cut their revenue in half. Also, how does it make any logical sense when they ANet said they want to combat gold sellers with the excha ge system then make the exchange rates for favorable from gold to gem rather than gem to gold?

Hackers botters etc are wasting there time if they are trying to make a profit in this game. Swtor Pandaland make 3-5x more per hour irl money wise.

Please refer to this thread regarding this issue. This thread is locked.
Thank you for your understanding.