Guild Wars 2

Had some interesting concerns about Influence come up in a recent conversation.

The following quotes are from http://dulfy.net/2015/06/18/gw2-rethinking-guilds/

“Aetherium replaces the pacing elements of the current queue system and establishes a baseline rate at which our largest guilds can progress that cannot be circumvented by spending gold.”

“You’ll no longer be able to gain influence once the new system is live, but we respect that you’ve worked hard to accumulate your guild’s existing influence, so we’re going to offer you a few different ways to spend it.”

So…we want to have things “that cannot be circumvented by spending gold”…
…and we tell everyone that influence is going to disappear…
…but we also tell them that the influence they have before this change comes in can be used for…

“Favor: incentivizes guilds to gather and complete missions on a weekly basis.”

“Aetherium: replaces the pacing elements of the current queue system and establishes a baseline rate at which our largest guilds can progress that cannot be circumvented by spending gold.”

“Resonance: serves the sole purpose of speeding up the assembling of guild items and removes the need to balance other currencies around that. Meanwhile, resonating shards reward small group play with fellow guild members.”

…the above can be obtained…

“Each day, you may trade a limited amount of influence for favor.”

“Once per day, you may use influence to purchase a small boost to your aetherium production.”

“Whenever it suits you, you may convert influence to resonance.”

….meaning….
if you have influence now you can do more progression based things when this comes out…and since influence can be purchased right now from vendors…we don’t think people will stockpile more?

It seems this was done backwards…

Correct way:
Turn off Influence and implement all things to inhibit acquisition of more Influence
THEN
Tell everyone it’s going away and can be used to give Guilds and edge during the start-up phases

Other Concern
What are we doing with items that give Influence?
Are Letters of Commendation etc going to just “stop working”?

my guild has 3.5m influence…WHAT GONNA HAPPEN TO THEM?!

how am i gonna level up my personal bank guild now?!

Not even sure what you’re on about there >.>

TL:DR

Thing 1:
A statement was made that they wanted to remove Gold from the progression system of their new Guild Halls, but we released information that Influence is going to be used at the start to give Guilds a running start with the new Guild Hall progression. However, we did not turn off influence acquisition methods or inhibit the ability to purchase other in-game consumables that grant Influence prior to the release of the statement that Influence is going to disappear entirely. Large Guilds will likely stockpile Influence to maintain a progressive edge…

Thing 2:
As stated in Thing 1 – the in-game consumables haven’t been turned off yet. The question then arises: “what happens to unused consumables that grant Influence”? Additionally, will these items be removed/replaced from/in the Core Game’s Personal Story?