Guild Wars 2

fourpoundburrito.1698:

I don’t understand all of the fuss in this thread. The OP is just pointing out the fact that there is an opportunity cost involved in crafting with mats you gathered yourself. So people who say stuff like “OMG it only cost me 20g to level weaponsmithing to 500 ’cause I had most of the mats in the bank already” are wrong. The correct statement is that it cost them 20g plus what they could have made selling all their mats instead of crafting with them.

^this^

It appears that a lot of people posting here don’t have a clue what “opportunity cost” means. Any money forgone by not selling the mats is money that could have been used for any other aspect of the game, and unless somebody ONLY played GW2 to make that one weapon that one time, the concept totally applies here. The money you didn’t get from the TP is just as real as the money you spent there.

Master of Timespace.2548:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Master of Timespace.2548:

The essence of the discussion should be here: Why are the materials somehow differend from the gold they make during playing “normally”?

They aren’t, just the person’s perspective on their value is.

Since the intent is to use them, to people that gather their own mats during what they consider enjoyable play, materials cost less than what they would need to purchase the same quantity on the TP. Its cheaper to grab the tool and gather as you play (where you’re also earning money through drops and in straight coin, recouping that tool cost) than it is to just buy it off the TP.

Does it change what they could make from the TP is they chose to sell them? No. Does it change how much it would cost if they bought the armor instead of crafting it? No. If what they wanted was even for sale.

But the real question is: do they care? Again no, because their perspective is that it was just simpler, cheaper, easier to grab the mats as they played and make it themself.

It’s ok that you don’t understand, you’re not alone in that. What and how people view the value of items depends a lot on personal perspective.

Well I don’t know what to say. I tried to use rational reasoning to show that materials are really just money, but you suggest that all that matters is the person’s perspective of value, even if that perspective is completly biased in the rational sense? Hm, you may be right, it feels better and more fun to craft the item using the materials you gathered yourself and so on*. Thus, you get more enjoyment out of the game if you gather the materials yourself and so it makes sense to do so. I quess it’s really just a matter of perspective after all.
Though, it still doesn’t really justify the claim “I gathered the mats so it was free” now that I think of it :/.

It’s only money if each individual person who plays the game associates value with them.

You do and that’s fine. However, I don’t. So to me gathering materials to use for crafting is something I would consider “free”. The only thing I “spent” to obtain them was a little bit of time and I hardly consider that a cost if I’m not making it a chore.

Cactus.2710:

fourpoundburrito.1698:

I don’t understand all of the fuss in this thread. The OP is just pointing out the fact that there is an opportunity cost involved in crafting with mats you gathered yourself. So people who say stuff like “OMG it only cost me 20g to level weaponsmithing to 500 ’cause I had most of the mats in the bank already” are wrong. The correct statement is that it cost them 20g plus what they could have made selling all their mats instead of crafting with them.

^this^

It appears that a lot of people posting here don’t have a clue what “opportunity cost” means. Any money forgone by not selling the mats is money that could have been used for any other aspect of the game, and unless somebody ONLY played GW2 to make that one weapon that one time, the concept totally applies here. The money you didn’t get from the TP is just as real as the money you spent there.

If you only play for profit then sure. Not everyone plays to maximize profits. I’m not sure why that’s hard to understand.

Clark Skinner.4902:

I hear this often from people in and out of game. I can’t understand how they can think that crafting something was free since they gathered the mats.

Once you have the mats, you have 2 options:
1. Craft them into something.
2. Sell them.

In both cases, you are without the mats in the end, but gain:
1. The value of the item you crafted.
2. The gold gained from selling mats.

So when crafting, the cost was either #2 (gold you would have gotten selling the mats), or the cost of buying the mats, both of which are pretty similar.

And the time it takes to gather should also be taken into account. Time saved can be used to make gold somewhere else.

And….?

I understand opportunity cost, but I’m not sure what your point is. If someone doesn’t understand it why do you feel that it’s your problem?

Cactus.2710:

fourpoundburrito.1698:

I don’t understand all of the fuss in this thread. The OP is just pointing out the fact that there is an opportunity cost involved in crafting with mats you gathered yourself. So people who say stuff like “OMG it only cost me 20g to level weaponsmithing to 500 ’cause I had most of the mats in the bank already” are wrong. The correct statement is that it cost them 20g plus what they could have made selling all their mats instead of crafting with them.

^this^

It appears that a lot of people posting here don’t have a clue what “opportunity cost” means. Any money forgone by not selling the mats is money that could have been used for any other aspect of the game, and unless somebody ONLY played GW2 to make that one weapon that one time, the concept totally applies here. The money you didn’t get from the TP is just as real as the money you spent there.

It isn’t an opportunity cost so much as the value of mats you used, whether you gathered them specifically or collected them over the past year while salvaging things, i.e. this Ascended weapon only cost me 20g plus ~250g worth of mats that I had already collected. The mats have a value whether you use them for crafting or you sell them. You wouldn’t call it an opportunity cost as the value of the items are still in effect and you retain that value, in the form of a crafted item, so there was no lost opportunity. Whether you sell the items or use them for crafting, there is no opportunity cost if your end-goal remains the same (i.e. crafting an Ascended weapon).

I do agree that it would technically be incorrect to say that the mats are free (assuming you got them purely from salvage or gathering while playing the game casually) as salvage kits have a cost as does mining equipment. The time spent is negligible unless you are farming. Do you really want to quantify how much time it took to salvage/mine items over the course of a year and then somehow ascribe a value to that time? That would be nearly impossible.

morrolan.9608:

Lexandro.1456:

All mats gathered in the world are free. There are GIVEN to the player. The “time” involved in collection is not a cost, as your “time” has no given value in the game world. You dont get 10 gold just for logging in each day. You are not “employed” in any way shape or form.

Look up the concept of opportunity cost

Know the concept very well, and find it 100% irrelevant when I am playing a game. If I didn’t spend money on it, it was free, opportunity costs are irrelevant in a game.

fellyn.5083:

Cactus.2710:

fourpoundburrito.1698:

I don’t understand all of the fuss in this thread. The OP is just pointing out the fact that there is an opportunity cost involved in crafting with mats you gathered yourself. So people who say stuff like “OMG it only cost me 20g to level weaponsmithing to 500 ’cause I had most of the mats in the bank already” are wrong. The correct statement is that it cost them 20g plus what they could have made selling all their mats instead of crafting with them.

^this^

It appears that a lot of people posting here don’t have a clue what “opportunity cost” means. Any money forgone by not selling the mats is money that could have been used for any other aspect of the game, and unless somebody ONLY played GW2 to make that one weapon that one time, the concept totally applies here. The money you didn’t get from the TP is just as real as the money you spent there.

If you only play for profit then sure. Not everyone plays to maximize profits. I’m not sure why that’s hard to understand.

Not hard to understand. You’re just in the wrong thread. OP’s point was that the “free” mats have ingame value. Whether you want to maximise profit or not is besides the point.

You could have absolutely no need for ingame gold. Maybe you walk everywhere instead of waypointing. Maybe you’ll never need to repair armor or pay for gathering tools.

But the mats have value. You’re merely giving up what you would have gotten if you had used the mats to craft, instead on selling it to fund waypoints or repairs or tools.

fellyn.5083:

Cactus.2710:

fourpoundburrito.1698:

I don’t understand all of the fuss in this thread. The OP is just pointing out the fact that there is an opportunity cost involved in crafting with mats you gathered yourself. So people who say stuff like “OMG it only cost me 20g to level weaponsmithing to 500 ’cause I had most of the mats in the bank already” are wrong. The correct statement is that it cost them 20g plus what they could have made selling all their mats instead of crafting with them.

^this^

It appears that a lot of people posting here don’t have a clue what “opportunity cost” means. Any money forgone by not selling the mats is money that could have been used for any other aspect of the game, and unless somebody ONLY played GW2 to make that one weapon that one time, the concept totally applies here. The money you didn’t get from the TP is just as real as the money you spent there.

If you only play for profit then sure. Not everyone plays to maximize profits. I’m not sure why that’s hard to understand.

What does this post have to do with either the OP or either of the quoted posts? I play for fun and not to maximize profit yet I understand there is an opportunity cost every time I choose to hoard / craft something vs. selling it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

This thread feels like:

“So, you’re really saying that the earth is the centre of the universe?” “Yes, it is just a matter of perspective.”

“It’s just a game! The principles of choice do not apply here.”

fourpoundburrito.1698:

What does this post have to do with either the OP or either of the quoted posts? I play for fun and not to maximize profit yet I understand there is an opportunity cost every time I choose to hoard / craft something vs. selling it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

But there isn’t a cost when you hoard the items. Those items are still in your possession and they still have value. Those items are essentially in your “company’s” inventory. Whether you sell them right now or save them and sell them a year from now, or save them and actually use them for crafting makes no difference. They still retain their value.

I think the whole point of this post was to call out the people that are saying mats were free to them. Sure it didn’t directly cost them anything except time/salvage/mining equipment, but there is still technically cost.

Now, that’s still not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about people who are saying that Ascended weapons only cost them 100g because they had the mats already. What they aren’t monetizing are those mats. They are completely negating the value of them. The correct thing to say would be 100g out of pocket and 200g worth of mats I already had. That would be the correct thing. Not 100g and the mats were free, which is what started this whole opportunity cost discussion, which is incorrectly being used here. You guys clearly understand the concept of it, but it doesn’t apply as the items they are saying are “free” are items that have value and were consumed, thus they need to be included in the cost.

So, no your Ascended weapon did not cost you only 100g. It cost you 100g + whatever the value of the mats you used that you saved up over the course of the year. OP is right, but opportunity cost it is not. Just sayin’.

MrIllusion.5304:

fellyn.5083:

Cactus.2710:

fourpoundburrito.1698:

I don’t understand all of the fuss in this thread. The OP is just pointing out the fact that there is an opportunity cost involved in crafting with mats you gathered yourself. So people who say stuff like “OMG it only cost me 20g to level weaponsmithing to 500 ’cause I had most of the mats in the bank already” are wrong. The correct statement is that it cost them 20g plus what they could have made selling all their mats instead of crafting with them.

^this^

It appears that a lot of people posting here don’t have a clue what “opportunity cost” means. Any money forgone by not selling the mats is money that could have been used for any other aspect of the game, and unless somebody ONLY played GW2 to make that one weapon that one time, the concept totally applies here. The money you didn’t get from the TP is just as real as the money you spent there.

If you only play for profit then sure. Not everyone plays to maximize profits. I’m not sure why that’s hard to understand.

Not hard to understand. You’re just in the wrong thread. OP’s point was that the “free” mats have ingame value. Whether you want to maximise profit or not is besides the point.

You could have absolutely no need for ingame gold. Maybe you walk everywhere instead of waypointing. Maybe you’ll never need to repair armor or pay for gathering tools.

But the mats have value. You’re merely giving up what you would have gotten if you had used the mats to craft, instead on selling it to fund waypoints or repairs or tools.

If I chose to associate a money value with the materials. The only value they have to me is to craft with them. The cost I pay is the little time it takes to get them.

I’m not giving up anything except for my time.

Materials are just a means to end. For you that may be to make money. For me it’s to use as a crafting material, therefor they have no gold value to me. I don’t care what the market says they are worth.

So no there isn’t an opportunity cost for me.

“But but but but it has value..”

That’s great. I don’t care. It didn’t cost me any of my own gold to make so it was free outside of time and effort.

Lexandro.1456:

Do people not understand the basic concept of “free” anymore? Just because something has a value attached to it does not make it “cost” you when there is zero cost attached to ownership.

If I collect an item, that has no cost attatched in doing so it is free, REGARDLESS of its value.

I think people understand “free” just fine, but you do not understand “cost”.

What you are really spending is time and energy. Gold in the game is a product of your time and energy, just like a crafting material that you gather, or an item that drops.

fellyn.5083:

If I chose to associate a money value with the materials. The only value they have to me is to craft with them. The cost I pay is the little time it takes to get them.

I’m not giving up anything except for my time.

Materials are just a means to end. For you that may be to make money. For me it’s to use as a crafting material, therefor they have no gold value to me. I don’t care what the market says they are worth.

So no there isn’t an opportunity cost for me.

“But but but but it has value..”

That’s great. I don’t care. It didn’t cost me any of my own gold to make so it was free outside of time and effort.

QED: you don’t understand what opportunity costs means.

fourpoundburrito.1698:

fellyn.5083:

If I chose to associate a money value with the materials. The only value they have to me is to craft with them. The cost I pay is the little time it takes to get them.

I’m not giving up anything except for my time.

Materials are just a means to end. For you that may be to make money. For me it’s to use as a crafting material, therefor they have no gold value to me. I don’t care what the market says they are worth.

So no there isn’t an opportunity cost for me.

“But but but but it has value..”

That’s great. I don’t care. It didn’t cost me any of my own gold to make so it was free outside of time and effort.

QED: you don’t understand what opportunity costs means.

Or he does, and finds it completely irrelevant. I understand the concept fully, but find it completely irrelevant in a game.

Clark Skinner.4902:

I hear this often from people in and out of game. I can’t understand how they can think that crafting something was free since they gathered the mats.

Once you have the mats, you have 2 options:
1. Craft them into something.
2. Sell them.

In both cases, you are without the mats in the end, but gain:
1. The value of the item you crafted.
2. The gold gained from selling mats.

So when crafting, the cost was either #2 (gold you would have gotten selling the mats), or the cost of buying the mats, both of which are pretty similar.

And the time it takes to gather should also be taken into account. Time saved can be used to make gold somewhere else.

Why you’re trying to change the way people define free is beyond me, but I don’t believe you’re going to succeed. People consider free to mean no outlay of currency, not some measure of opportunity cost.

Real life example, someone paints a picture and hangs it on their wall. A friend admires it and asks how much it cost. Most people would say it was free because they painted it themselves. Some would calculate the cost of paint and canvas and say that amount and point out they painted it themselves. You would have them respond based on some opportunity cost of how much they could make at another job, or how much they could sell it for, or something else they could have done with the time; whichever is greater.

Many of us players never sell mats we collect. We store them or use them. Thus, for us they have no gold value associated with them. The opportunity cost involved is that once used they will no longer be stored to be able to be used for something else in the future; and since this is not quantifiable, it is considered free.

So what? People can think whatever they want.
If people are happy gathering, let them gather.

fellyn.5083:

MrIllusion.5304:

fellyn.5083:

Cactus.2710:

fourpoundburrito.1698:

I don’t understand all of the fuss in this thread. The OP is just pointing out the fact that there is an opportunity cost involved in crafting with mats you gathered yourself. So people who say stuff like “OMG it only cost me 20g to level weaponsmithing to 500 ’cause I had most of the mats in the bank already” are wrong. The correct statement is that it cost them 20g plus what they could have made selling all their mats instead of crafting with them.

^this^

It appears that a lot of people posting here don’t have a clue what “opportunity cost” means. Any money forgone by not selling the mats is money that could have been used for any other aspect of the game, and unless somebody ONLY played GW2 to make that one weapon that one time, the concept totally applies here. The money you didn’t get from the TP is just as real as the money you spent there.

If you only play for profit then sure. Not everyone plays to maximize profits. I’m not sure why that’s hard to understand.

Not hard to understand. You’re just in the wrong thread. OP’s point was that the “free” mats have ingame value. Whether you want to maximise profit or not is besides the point.

You could have absolutely no need for ingame gold. Maybe you walk everywhere instead of waypointing. Maybe you’ll never need to repair armor or pay for gathering tools.

But the mats have value. You’re merely giving up what you would have gotten if you had used the mats to craft, instead on selling it to fund waypoints or repairs or tools.

If I chose to associate a money value with the materials. The only value they have to me is to craft with them. The cost I pay is the little time it takes to get them.

I’m not giving up anything except for my time.

Materials are just a means to end. For you that may be to make money. For me it’s to use as a crafting material, therefor they have no gold value to me. I don’t care what the market says they are worth.

So no there isn’t an opportunity cost for me.

“But but but but it has value..”

That’s great. I don’t care. It didn’t cost me any of my own gold to make so it was free outside of time and effort.

Well it’s great that you don’t care.

Being ignorant and being carefree are two things. No one is saying you have to be bothered by it.

But OP is referring to something factual. You saying you don’t care about the value of money doesn’t make commodities lose value overnight.

fourpoundburrito.1698:

fellyn.5083:

If I chose to associate a money value with the materials. The only value they have to me is to craft with them. The cost I pay is the little time it takes to get them.

I’m not giving up anything except for my time.

Materials are just a means to end. For you that may be to make money. For me it’s to use as a crafting material, therefor they have no gold value to me. I don’t care what the market says they are worth.

So no there isn’t an opportunity cost for me.

“But but but but it has value..”

That’s great. I don’t care. It didn’t cost me any of my own gold to make so it was free outside of time and effort.

QED: you don’t understand what opportunity costs means.

I understand it just fine. I don’t see how it applies to me and my materials because I was never looking to make any money from them. Therefor the only value they had to me was what I could use to make from them.

I’m pretty sure that opportunity cost implies there is a choice to be made between one thing or the other. To me there is no choice because I was never looking at them or considered them as means to make money, primarily.

The person who said it’s a matter of perspective is correct.

Now you might have an argument saying my opportunity cost was do I make a sword or do I make an axe? Or mace? So many choices.

Clark Skinner.4902:

I hear this often from people in and out of game. I can’t understand how they can think that crafting something was free since they gathered the mats.

Once you have the mats, you have 2 options:
1. Craft them into something.
2. Sell them.

In both cases, you are without the mats in the end, but gain:
1. The value of the item you crafted.
2. The gold gained from selling mats.

So when crafting, the cost was either #2 (gold you would have gotten selling the mats), or the cost of buying the mats, both of which are pretty similar.

And the time it takes to gather should also be taken into account. Time saved can be used to make gold somewhere else.

I refrained from exploiting the gold farms involving champion hunts and invasions. By not taking part of the exploits, I do not have 500 gold sitting in my bank, like most the farmer crowd. People like me don’t have the chance to get ascended. Ascended are an excuse for grinders.

eisberg.2379:

fourpoundburrito.1698:

fellyn.5083:

If I chose to associate a money value with the materials. The only value they have to me is to craft with them. The cost I pay is the little time it takes to get them.

I’m not giving up anything except for my time.

Materials are just a means to end. For you that may be to make money. For me it’s to use as a crafting material, therefor they have no gold value to me. I don’t care what the market says they are worth.

So no there isn’t an opportunity cost for me.

“But but but but it has value..”

That’s great. I don’t care. It didn’t cost me any of my own gold to make so it was free outside of time and effort.

QED: you don’t understand what opportunity costs means.

Or he does, and finds it completely irrelevant. I understand the concept fully, but find it completely irrelevant in a game.

It’s fine to say opportunity cost is irrelevant to you, but at least you acknowledge that it exists. The other poster is saying it doesn’t exist, arguing against it’s very definition.

fellyn.5083:

fourpoundburrito.1698:

fellyn.5083:

If I chose to associate a money value with the materials. The only value they have to me is to craft with them. The cost I pay is the little time it takes to get them.

I’m not giving up anything except for my time.

Materials are just a means to end. For you that may be to make money. For me it’s to use as a crafting material, therefor they have no gold value to me. I don’t care what the market says they are worth.

So no there isn’t an opportunity cost for me.

“But but but but it has value..”

That’s great. I don’t care. It didn’t cost me any of my own gold to make so it was free outside of time and effort.

QED: you don’t understand what opportunity costs means.

I understand it just fine. I don’t see how it applies to me and my materials because I was never looking to make any money from them. Therefor the only value they had to me was what I could use to make from them.

I’m pretty sure that opportunity cost implies there is a choice to be made between one thing or the other. To me there is no choice because I was never looking at them or considered them as means to make money, primarily.

The person who said it’s a matter of perspective is correct.

Now you might have an argument saying my opportunity cost was do I make a sword or do I make an axe? Or mace? So many choices.

OC doesn’t refer to the value YOU put on the materials, it refers to the loss of potential gain via the market’s value of the materials. So no, you do not understand it just fine.

fourpoundburrito.1698:

eisberg.2379:

fourpoundburrito.1698:

fellyn.5083:

If I chose to associate a money value with the materials. The only value they have to me is to craft with them. The cost I pay is the little time it takes to get them.

I’m not giving up anything except for my time.

Materials are just a means to end. For you that may be to make money. For me it’s to use as a crafting material, therefor they have no gold value to me. I don’t care what the market says they are worth.

So no there isn’t an opportunity cost for me.

“But but but but it has value..”

That’s great. I don’t care. It didn’t cost me any of my own gold to make so it was free outside of time and effort.

QED: you don’t understand what opportunity costs means.

Or he does, and finds it completely irrelevant. I understand the concept fully, but find it completely irrelevant in a game.

It’s fine to say opportunity cost is irrelevant to you, but at least you acknowledge that it exists. The other poster is saying it doesn’t exist, arguing against it’s very definition.

If you’re referring to me then I was only ever speaking for myself.

If the mats had no value, people wouldn’t be gathering and saving them, regardless of whether they went out of their way to do so or not. If something has value and something has to be expended to obtain it, then it isn’t free. Saying it is free is saying your time and effort have no value. Some may believe that. While they’re free to think whatever they like, I don’t believe their time and effort have no value.

Conclusion after reading through thread: farmers will never understand how non-farmers think. To a farmer everything is the gold value and their time is worth what they can get the most gold per minute doing. For the rest, not so much; just is it fun or not.

fourpoundburrito.1698:

fellyn.5083:

fourpoundburrito.1698:

fellyn.5083:

If I chose to associate a money value with the materials. The only value they have to me is to craft with them. The cost I pay is the little time it takes to get them.

I’m not giving up anything except for my time.

Materials are just a means to end. For you that may be to make money. For me it’s to use as a crafting material, therefor they have no gold value to me. I don’t care what the market says they are worth.

So no there isn’t an opportunity cost for me.

“But but but but it has value..”

That’s great. I don’t care. It didn’t cost me any of my own gold to make so it was free outside of time and effort.

QED: you don’t understand what opportunity costs means.

I understand it just fine. I don’t see how it applies to me and my materials because I was never looking to make any money from them. Therefor the only value they had to me was what I could use to make from them.

I’m pretty sure that opportunity cost implies there is a choice to be made between one thing or the other. To me there is no choice because I was never looking at them or considered them as means to make money, primarily.

The person who said it’s a matter of perspective is correct.

Now you might have an argument saying my opportunity cost was do I make a sword or do I make an axe? Or mace? So many choices.

OC doesn’t refer to the value YOU put on the materials, it refers to the loss of potential gain via the market’s value of the materials. So no, you do not understand it just fine.

From the wiki..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost#cite_note-3

Opportunity cost is what you have to forgo when you choose to do A rather than B.

For “OC”, since we’re being lazy, to apply to me there would have to be a choice between A and B.

For me there was never a choice to be made other than what I want to turn my materials into.

fourpoundburrito.1698:

OC doesn’t refer to the value YOU put on the materials, it refers to the loss of potential gain via the market’s value of the materials. So no, you do not understand it just fine.

^^ correct use. As long as you hold onto the items and use them for what you wanted to use them for, then there is no opportunity cost anyway. If you want an Ascended weapon, you will either need to buy the mats or use the ones you have. Just because you used the ones you have doesn’t mean their value is lost opportunity cost, though.

Their value is now associated with that Ascended item. That item cost you Xg worth of whatever materials you put in. Just because you aren’t getting the mats via paying gold, but rather mats you had saved, doesn’t mean their equivalent value isn’t retained in their use.

Master of Timespace.2548:

Well I don’t know what to say. I tried to use rational reasoning to show that materials are really just money, but you suggest that all that matters is the person’s perspective of value, even if that perspective is completly biased in the rational sense? Hm, you may be right, it feels better and more fun to craft the item using the materials you gathered yourself and so on*. Thus, you get more enjoyment out of the game if you gather the materials yourself and so it makes sense to do so. I quess it’s really just a matter of perspective after all.
Though, it still doesn’t really justify the claim “I gathered the mats so it was free” now that I think of it :/.

Hasn’t anyone ever told you that being logical and rational doesn’t work with women? I joke…

Back on topic, your logic is sound. For you and for many others, I’m sure. I won’t argue that. But for many, they look at gathering materials similarly to how someone may look at a family heirloom. It may or may not have significant monetary value, but to them it doesn’t matter, because the sentimental value makes it priceless. In this case, we know the materials have a monetary value, in some cases a significant monetary value; however the players that look at the materials in the way we arguing about don’t care because it’s not about the money.

Inspired.6730:

Conclusion after reading through thread: farmers will never understand how non-farmers think. To a farmer everything is the gold value and their time is worth what they can get the most gold per minute doing. For the rest, not so much; just is it fun or not.

It’s not a matter of farmers vs. non-farmers. The issue here is that some people draw a strange magic line between money and commodities, saying that only one side has value.

What is the cost of acquiring gold?

IndigoSundown.5419:

If the mats had no value, people wouldn’t be gathering and saving them, regardless of whether they went out of their way to do so or not. If something has value and something has to be expended to obtain it, then it isn’t free. Saying it is free is saying your time and effort have no value. Some may believe that. While they’re free to think whatever they like, I don’t believe their time and effort have no value.

Semantics. Saying something has no money value does not mean it doesn’t have value.

Air for example has no money value but without it you die. So in that sense it’s the most valuable thing in existence yet has no money value (although some would charge people for it if they could).

The value I get from my crafting materials is what I can make from them. I also acknowledged that the cost I paid was the time it took to gather them. And since I never made a chore out of it I never really considered that a real cost. It’s just something that happened naturally as I played.

IndigoSundown.5419:

If the mats had no value, people wouldn’t be gathering and saving them, regardless of whether they went out of their way to do so or not. [bold]If something has value and something has to be expended to obtain it, then it isn’t free. [/bold] Saying it is free is saying your time and effort have no value. Some may believe that. While they’re free to think whatever they like, I don’t believe their time and effort have no value.

This is just wrong. Value doesn’t equal not free, nor does free equal no value. Anyway, do you really even believe this? So every gift you’ve ever received consequently had no value to you. Or, maybe you just considered that it wasn’t free because you had to invest valuable time being nice to the person that gave it to you?

fellyn.5083:

The value I get from my crafting materials is what I can make from them.

I don’t agree, I think:

“The value of a crafting material is its market price” (or higher maybe if there’s some arbitrage opportunity)

Even if you don’t plan on selling the mats, this is an objective, impersonal definition of value, and I like objective, impersonal definitions.

voidwater.2064:

Inspired.6730:

Conclusion after reading through thread: farmers will never understand how non-farmers think. To a farmer everything is the gold value and their time is worth what they can get the most gold per minute doing. For the rest, not so much; just is it fun or not.

It’s not a matter of farmers vs. non-farmers. The issue here is that some people draw a strange magic line between money and commodities, saying that only one side has value.

What is the cost of acquiring gold?

Of course commodities have value. That’s why someone says it was free, I used mats I had (the value I had). Pointless argument over nothing, if some people think that free equals no value; that’s not what people mean. They just mean free, not no value.

Opportunity cost is one way of looking at it, but the materials themselves have (virtual) value – so things don’t become free just because you didn’t sink one particular store of value (gold) into it when the reason was that you used another (materials).

Whether or not the statement is logically accurate has no bearing on whether the person who makes it has made an optimal decision regarding the use of their resources, though. If they really want that thing that they just crafted, then they should still get it. I’m just telling them that it’s perfectly acceptable to trade for the materials if they’ve got sufficient cash reserves instead of collecting the materials themselves.

A lot of people don’t understand economics or opportunity costs. That’s true IRL too. I always hear people going “I got X for free cause i had a gift card/prepaid debit card/friend owed me money” etc. and just facepalm every time I hear it. The entire idea of “it was free cause I paid with something other than cash” doesn’t even make sense but that won’t stop anyone from running with it anyway.

Inspired.6730:

Of course commodities have value. That’s why someone says it was free, I used mats I had (the value I had). Pointless argument over nothing, if some people think that free equals no value; that’s not what people mean. They just mean free, not no value.

So let me mirror your argument.

You spend 10G on an item. But you already had 10G! It’s value you already had. Therefore, the item was free.

We all know gathering materials i not free as long as you pay for the item to harvest them. If you use always the best tools it cost around 3-4 copper per strike for ore and wood.

Opportunity costs are only present if the conversion in gold makes sense. Otherwise the this transaction is worthless. If I want to level crafting I need a certain amount of materials to be converted into something else. Selling the needed materials to avoid “opportunity costs” would be worthless since you can’t level any profession with this currency as starting material. Gold has therefore no use and worth for me. I don’t want and need it. I want my materials for crafting. Only with them I can reach my goal to level my profession.

Therefore I have no opportunity costs since I don’t want the gold in this case. I contrast the gold as useless material would hinder me. Considering all this crafting by using self-gathered materials is almost free and for sure way more cheaper than buying the mats for TP.

I think peoples are just blowing things way out of whack here, completely over thinking things.

When I say I made my ascended weapons for “free” all I mean is I personally didn’t spend any gold on them.

The value of the materials I used in the process was never in question because I didn’t spend any gold to get them. Like wise what I could sell them for was never in question because I wasn’t interested in selling them.

Hence, free. Although I’m not certain I ever used that word when talking about ascended weapons. I’m pretty sure I’ve always said something along the lines of “it didn’t cost any anything (gold) to make mine”.

Master of Timespace.2548:

In this game, every single item that you can sell is just money in another form. When you loot a vial of powerful blood, you loot 28silvers. When you consume a vial of powerful blood, you consume 28silvers. Sometimes it’s still useful to keep gathered materials for crafting as that can save you the 15% tax ratio.

“I gathered the mats so it was free” is nothing but a cognitive bias.

It is useful to keep a buffer of materials around so you can always get them for the buy order price without having to wait to craft.

fellyn.5083:

I think peoples are just blowing things way out of whack here, completely over thinking things.

It’s a pedantic and semantic issue, not a real one.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

It’s free as in: they didn’t pay money for it. Free doesn’t mean there’s no effort involved, at least not in this case.

Mats gathered are free. In this case, free means “I do not owe nor pay another player money for this item.” It is about the lack of actual costs; not what could have been.

fellyn.5083:

I think peoples are just blowing things way out of whack here, completely over thinking things.

When I say I made my ascended weapons for “free” all I mean is I personally didn’t spend any gold on them.

That’s great from your perspective but I’m not really sure if this argument is usefull for an outsider. I can’t know how many mats you had already, all I can assume from this statement is that it’s possible to gather enough mats within on year. But I still don’t know how much you played etc. It’s a bit like saying a legendary didn’t cost me anything because I had the money already on my bank. And while both statements are true in a way they are not an objective basis imo.

On the other hand I think people are overestimating this gold-time ratio. My profit from “investing” time and efford is fun not gold or mats. So gold or mats are something on top and tbh I think both are “free”. So the question how one currency translates in another one becomes way less important.

I base my decisions what I want to do in this game on the question if I have fun doing it. Everything else is wasted time for me because I could use it doing something usefull in RL.

So if someone wants to get as much gold as possible from his playtime, that is only one option, but it’s not a general rule that everyone has to play that way.

rizzo.1079:

fellyn.5083:

I think peoples are just blowing things way out of whack here, completely over thinking things.

It’s a pedantic and semantic issue, not a real one.

Sure, it’s not a major issue, but I think discussion arises because some people have a definition of “free” that sounds more like a mental accounting gimmick used to underreport costs.

For clarification… if you have the mats, this means you have worked for them and the amount of time working on them, could be translated in gold.

If you don’t have the mats, this means you don’t like to farm (which is understandable) OR you’re a WvW or SPvP players (areas of the game that reward about 1/20 you would get in PvE). This means… PvE farmers, who didn’t play WvW/SPvP and don’t have a clue how to PvP will get BiS gear, pay to win.

Nothing is free.

If you’re farming and grinding for materials and would rather do something else with your time; that means that the game designers have forced you to do something you don’t want to.

If your time is that worthless to you then you are their ideal customer.

Inspired.6730:

Clark Skinner.4902:

I hear this often from people in and out of game. I can’t understand how they can think that crafting something was free since they gathered the mats.

Once you have the mats, you have 2 options:
1. Craft them into something.
2. Sell them.

In both cases, you are without the mats in the end, but gain:
1. The value of the item you crafted.
2. The gold gained from selling mats.

So when crafting, the cost was either #2 (gold you would have gotten selling the mats), or the cost of buying the mats, both of which are pretty similar.

And the time it takes to gather should also be taken into account. Time saved can be used to make gold somewhere else.

Why you’re trying to change the way people define free is beyond me, but I don’t believe you’re going to succeed. People consider free to mean no outlay of currency, not some measure of opportunity cost.

Real life example, someone paints a picture and hangs it on their wall. A friend admires it and asks how much it cost. Most people would say it was free because they painted it themselves. Some would calculate the cost of paint and canvas and say that amount and point out they painted it themselves. You would have them respond based on some opportunity cost of how much they could make at another job, or how much they could sell it for, or something else they could have done with the time; whichever is greater.

Many of us players never sell mats we collect. We store them or use them. Thus, for us they have no gold value associated with them. The opportunity cost involved is that once used they will no longer be stored to be able to be used for something else in the future; and since this is not quantifiable, it is considered free.

I dont think you paint pictures, because i would never say it was free, i would say i painted the picture.

In some ways i understand the people who want to say its free, which isnt really a problem, except when they start to take their products to market or compare it to others time/money/earnings

first off, anything you craft and sell, not including the price of materials is beyond foolish.
Also if you want to compare the effort required to do a task, you must start breaking the costs down to some value people can relate to. Its all good to say its all subjective, until you start dealing with other people. It doesnt make sense to tell people that an ascended armor piece costs nothing, because though you may not have put a value to your own mats, you are actually giving them false information, because it actually requires something. If you want to say it takes about 3 weeks of normal play thats fine, if you want to say it takes gold, you have to include the generally accepted value of materials.

for you personally it may be nothing important, but once you start trying to relate to someone else, you have to make it less subjective. Some one asking how much an ascended costs needs some real information, you can assume they have a bank full of mats, or assume they play the game in a way that generates a wealth of materials. Lets say they play mostly dungeons, or only hunt world bosses, or WvW.

fellyn.5083:

IndigoSundown.5419:

If the mats had no value, people wouldn’t be gathering and saving them, regardless of whether they went out of their way to do so or not. If something has value and something has to be expended to obtain it, then it isn’t free. Saying it is free is saying your time and effort have no value. Some may believe that. While they’re free to think whatever they like, I don’t believe their time and effort have no value.

Semantics. Saying something has no money value does not mean it doesn’t have value.

Air for example has no money value but without it you die. So in that sense it’s the most valuable thing in existence yet has no money value (although some would charge people for it if they could).

The value I get from my crafting materials is what I can make from them. I also acknowledged that the cost I paid was the time it took to gather them. And since I never made a chore out of it I never really considered that a real cost. It’s just something that happened naturally as I played.

This thread is mostly an exercise in semantics.

I never said crafting mats have no value. Their value is based on making something with them or selling them. Either way, they’re expended. Gathering them takes time, even if it only involves pausing for five seconds or so at each node and/or going a few seconds out of your way to get to the node.

Virtual gold has value also, because of what you can get by expending it. Gaining gold takes time. If I do nothing in the game, then I accumulate no gold. Accumulating either mats or gold takes time spent doing something in the game, whether you are going out of your way or not.

One could accumulate gold solely by doing DE’s and selling trash drops. This would involve little to no “going out of your way.” However, it would take an awfully long time to be able to afford the mats for an Ascended if you did it that way.

I recognize that those who accumulate either mats or gold by mostly doing what they would do anyway are going to take the expenditure much more lightly than those who feel like they went out of their way. It’s still an expenditure.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

For some, the game isn’t all about ‘potential profit.’ At which point, these things (to them) are ‘free.’ They only ‘cost’ to gathering them is time, which they are spending playing anyway, and the gathering tools costs, which are easily recouped after a few kills.

Except, as i said before, the very same reasoning can be applied directly to gold. In which case we would get statements like “no, this item priced at 200 g doesn’t cost 200g, because all the money for it i got during the normal gameplay, therefore it was completely free”.
200g is not free, no matter how easy getting it would be.

Clark Skinner.4902:

I hear this often from people in and out of game. I can’t understand how they can think that crafting something was free since they gathered the mats.

Once you have the mats, you have 2 options:
1. Craft them into something.
2. Sell them.

In both cases, you are without the mats in the end, but gain:
1. The value of the item you crafted.
2. The gold gained from selling mats.

So when crafting, the cost was either #2 (gold you would have gotten selling the mats), or the cost of buying the mats, both of which are pretty similar.

And the time it takes to gather should also be taken into account. Time saved can be used to make gold somewhere else.

Thanks for the freshman level introduction to economic theory. I should let you know, you didn’t invent the concept of opportunity cost. Next time, can we have an introduction to tensor math? I’m a little rusty on that.

Azure Prower.8701:

When I gather and craft some thing myself. I feel I’ve earned it and I can use the gold I have to go else where.

If I simply buy the mats off the TP. It feels like cheating and cheapens the feeling of accomplishing some thing.

im with this guy cuz hes my sequel