Guild Wars 2

I notice the gem-prices sky rocketed after the patch. It’s now about 10 gems for 1 gold. Officially they should change with the economies so when you see a patch that puts a lot of gold into the game you can expect the prices to go up and go down after the patch (then again, they never seem to get down again). However the last patch is not so much of a money grind so how come gem prices almost doubled again. Has it been done artificially in stead of the economy?

Yes and No. ANet changed the tools to account bound, which made a lot of people decide to buy them. (The reason I said yes, is that, of course, ANet knew this was going to happen that’s why they did it)

People used in game gold to buy gems, thereby affecting the gem market.

Also there are new skins that are rather nice in the gem store. Which means more gold to gems.

8g will buy you 100 gems atm. There is a lot more gold in the game now that they increased rewards, but the big reason you see the conversion rate increasing is they added some really nice, very desired pieces to the gem store and lots of players converted gold to gems to buy them.

Gems still cost the same since launch: 800 for 10 bucks. That’s how it works. The price in gold will fluctuate based in: 1) demand; 2) Anet’s will. Concerning Anet’s will, they have 2 ways of doing it: mannually setting the price of them (no one knows how the price fluctuation really works) or launching new items on cash store.

Its because too many treat this game as F2P after their initial purchase, and spend their entire playtime farming gold and buying gems with gold instead of real money. Actually, this is what makes GW2 good, being able to go premium with just in-game currency. But on the other hand, it will result in inflation over time unless more people step up to the plate and buy more gems with real money in order to balance supply and demand.

But inflation occurs in any econemy. Prices on both the gem conversion and the TP are ten times what they were when I started playing, and I don’t see it levelilng out any time soon, if ever, because more ways to get gold are added, despite some getting nerfed the overall amount of gold in the game is ever-increasing.

Devata.6589:

I notice the gem-prices sky rocketed after the patch. It’s now about 10 gems for 1 gold. Officially they should change with the economies so when you see a patch that puts a lot of gold into the game you can expect the prices to go up and go down after the patch (then again, they never seem to get down again). However the last patch is not so much of a money grind so how come gem prices almost doubled again. Has it been done artificially in stead of the economy?

Gem price sky-rocketed due to the change in gathering tools. Nothing sinister or complex here.

Also doesn’t help that pretty much every mesmer in game will purchase the Kasmeer staff

I personally pay for gems, I’ve never converted gold to gems. I have done gems to gold though ;P Although I wish I had cashed in on the “pre-launch” gem prices, 100 gems for 33 silver, I thought that was expensive, wow am I dumb. I could have been rich!

WheezerX.4367:

I personally pay for gems, I’ve never converted gold to gems. I have done gems to gold though ;P Although I wish I had cashed in on the “pre-launch” gem prices, 100 gems for 33 silver, I thought that was expensive, wow am I dumb. I could have been rich!

Buy the gems at today’s prices then wait a year. With people getting richer over time, the gem prices can only go up.

That’s the problem though Astral, I don’t have hundreds of thousands of gold to just chuck around for investments like that. I don’t get to play that much anymore and when I do, I try to cover a good bit of story content, wether personal or living story. I don’t have days on end to farm events and the likes to get that kind of scratch. That’s why Gems being a convertible currency is really nice for me, if there’s something in game I don’t have the time to farm the gold for, then I can just buy it with real money. The flip side is the same for those who have time but not money, you can farm for days to get gems to purchase things in the gem store, it’s a brilliant system really.

Anytime there are new items added to the gem store that will bring in buyers you can expect a price surge on gems, at a minimum it will be temporary. However, as you may have noticed over the short life span of the game, prices keep going up and up, no matter how slow. This is a supply and demand example of economics 101. As the game ages, players gain more and more wealth. Less players will buy gems for real cash. The demand for gems will remain roughly the same or slowly escalate, depending on new items being added. Less gems in the market, more demand for gems via in-game currency, higher prices for gems.

Devata.6589:

I notice the gem-prices sky rocketed after the patch. It’s now about 10 gems for 1 gold. Officially they should change with the economies so when you see a patch that puts a lot of gold into the game you can expect the prices to go up and go down after the patch (then again, they never seem to get down again). However the last patch is not so much of a money grind so how come gem prices almost doubled again. Has it been done artificially in stead of the economy?

Part of it is the change in the permanent gathering tools and since they cost 1K gems people who convert gold to gems are causing a spike in the price . The other factor is the weapon skins (which you cant deny are pretty sweet) so people are gonna be buying those up in droves .

toafarmer.8401:

(no one knows how the price fluctuation really works)

Actually we do and it’s been talked about to death. Now if anyone believes what John Smith said, that’s another story.