Guild Wars 2

I’m so sick of these gold sinks, I will just briefly rant about each one I hate and if you want to discuss it then let’s. Although I’m not going to get into some pointless debate. So before you even start to glance at this list, understand that these my opinions so if you disagree, fine, but don’t make some fandango about it as if your some master economist. this is for calm discussion about an opinion (mine):

1. TP Taxes: they drive me nuts… I say just ax them completely. “But soft! the evil flippers and day traders will invade!” yeah, no… The TP is part of the game and it main function is to Buy/Sell items and it punishes players for selling. for exploiting supply and demand and driving a market on otherwise undesirable good isn’t going to be a game killer. Laissez faire and free markets are desirable and allow for the player to take ownership of their community economy. and plus you can’t buy or sell your goods anywhere else besides the TP. I would understand if you had both player trade and the TP and you charge for the TP service, but you don’t. (kinda flubbed on that one ANet)

2. Repairs: Are silly, especially in WvW, although I suppose it’s better than just dropping all your gear on the spot you died on (lol RuneScape PvP XD), I’m neutral on this to be honest but I feel there’s a better way to implement a death penalty. :P

3. Soul bound stuff: NO!!!!!!!! This drives me more nuts than the TP tax. Why shouldn’t I be able to resell my Twilight if I wanted to put the funds for buying a different item(s) I mean wtf, are you kittentin me ANet??? as soon as I put it on it’s like trying to sell my soul to some deranged imaginary contract. gem store and holiday items should really be the only thing that have the soul bound rule to it, other than that it’s silly…

I can’t think of anymore tbh, but if more come up I’ll post them.These gold sinks are just delaying the inevitable fact that the economy will inflate to the point were copper will become a novelty. My main intent is to make money while enjoy my game, not making money just to have it taken from me as some bullkitten cost of play crap. I 100% back a free market (more importantly a tax free market) And yes I earn my keep, in fact I make enough to provide for my guild and even cover some guildies expenses. So don’t bark at me that I’m lazy or don’t want to earn my money (bark at the people who cry poverty because they don’t want to contribute anything to an economy i.e: no mat collecting, no crafting, no farming, no investing, etc.), I just want more bang for my buck just like any other decent capitalist would desire. Well i’m glad I got that off my chest, it’s been really aggravating to me as of late. :P

Yup, just like real life, we get hammered by the taxman, we get hammered for vat.

And you can’t get away from being hammered in an MMO.

Stuff I hate most is account bound, because it just fills my slots, is totally useless and I can’t sell it, why not Anet.

The matter of soulbound is an interesting one when applied to resale that I hadn’t given a second thought. There’s certainly the concern of item economy. That is to say new legendaries are being created but rarely destroyed. By dead-ending them on a character, we keep the supply low. However, the TP tax does eat a chunk of the sale at every pass. If a 2000g item passes through the TP it eats 300g out of circulation. If it passes through the system twice, it does it again. The question is then which is going to ultimately maintain a more stable economy in a world where things appear out of thin air.

Curious, I often think about how the game needs more gold sinks.

Goldsinks are important. It’s very easy to make money in this game. If there’s no sink, there will be too much money. Then most of that money will accumulate among high leveled, veteran players. Incoming players, or casual players, will have a very difficult time matching up to the inflated prices – which the veteran players will directly, or indirectly be setting. It would not be a free market, because the veteran players will be the ones controlling it.

People should not be able to resell high-end gear. In a market that will always be inflating, these are VERY profitable, long term investments. (Trust me on this – I know :P) Today I buy a weapon for 5 gold, use it as I need, then resell it a few months later for 25 gold. Now let’s do that for all 6 armor slots, and 4 weapon slots. I buy 50 gold of gear, use them as I wish, and resell it for 250 gold. Now I got 250 gold to drop into whatever I want. Having more money = sellers increasing prices. Repeat this for every player that has high-end gear.

Then comes in a new player who just hit 80. A set of exotics will cost them 250 gold. How is he gonna get that? No one wants him in dungeons because he doesn’t have the good gear for speed runs. He can’t make his own gear because mats will be expensive (less gear salvaged = less crafting materials. Supply < demand) Only those that can afford the mats for crafting are either a) people who can bot and farm nodes or b) have the money to buy what they want when they need it. ===> another increase on prices. He’ll be stuck at the bottom.

Binding gear will force the player to buy their new, better set without retrieving the gold from their prior set. This is a big thing that keeps prices from inflating. The items salvaged won’t upset the market either.

Ah great. I wrote a wall of text on gaming economy. I wonder if people will read it. If you did, yay for you.

I did. Thank you, well done.

Arykyali, you raised a lot of good points and I’m inclined to agree. I have to agree with Young as well, we could use a few more gold sinks in game. The problem would be where to place them.

So you rly want to complain about the gold sinks?

As there a so few ways of getting gold in GW2?
Not to mention that there is absolutly no inflation in GW2.

Gold sinks are annoying, as that’s basicly a side effect of them. If the goldsinks would be in parts of the game, where you could easily evade them, they would be even less effective, as they are atm.

Good points but necessary for a healthy game economy and for Anet to make money, btw you left out the most common gold sink which is traveling from and to WPs. I actually think they did a good job setting up the game economy, it works as it was intended.

Bye bye gold sinks, hello 10 000 gold legendaries? Yah….. no thanks, prices are ridiculous enough as is

um…no…

This game needs more sinks, if anything. Right now the economy has too much gold in it. Without those sinks, even basic materials like copper and soft wood would be 50s a piece. The more gold in the system, the more people can afford to pay for things. The more people can afford, the more others will charge. It’s a vicious cycle.

If we had a few more gold sinks (significant, not penny ante) maybe the price of things would drop a bit because nobody could afford to buy them at the prices they are now.

“These gold sinks are just delaying the inevitable fact that the economy will inflate to the point were copper will become a novelty. My main intent is to make money while enjoy my game, not making money just to have it taken from me as some bullkitten cost of play crap”.

It doesn’t look like you’ve considered that rampant inflation would take money away from you faster than the games current gold sinks. You should read up about what uncontrolled inflation does to savings. The first picture is a chart showing the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic. The second shows a woman burning money, as it was cheaper to burn it than to buy fuel with it.

In an MMO like Guild Wars 2, money constantly flows in. Unlike a real economy, there is no away to get rid of the excess unless you have gold sinks. The gold sinks are the only way to keep inflation from turning the gold you have now into coppers.

Something to consider. The game Diablo 3 was made without sufficient gold sinks. That caused the game to develop hyperinflation http://artsygamer.com/diablo-3-a-lesson-in-hyperinflation/

Actually this game needs more goldsink

It’s pretty obvious regconizong gold is losing its value, just look at the conversion of gem to gold

I’ve read through a few of these post and you all had good points. I really want to just get around the sinks. I farm about 30 hours a week and I hedge fund my items to go with inflation. That one with the German marks was supper interesting though, thank you for that astral. Just know that no amount of gold sinks will stop inflation though (in fact some steady inflation is extremely healthy for an economy) Champ boxes and dungeon rewards are supper inflating the economy and to be honest it’s just going to inflate more. As for the wp’s, I believe that wp’s costs are fair.

Well, we ALL would love to get around the gold sinks. ^^

But of course, that isn’t reasonable. The health of the whole game has to be considered above the wants of the individual. If the system was set up so that one person could easily avoid the gold sinks then everyone would flock to it. This would quickly lead to the weak gold sink situation of Diablo 3 and the resulting hyperinflation where people needed millions and then billions of gold to buy items. And THAT would eat up your gold far faster than the gold sinks you are having now. A quote from that article: “watching the markets collapse and gold become worthless. … So you feel rich that you have a billion or two in gold? … Well guess what, you aren’t … there is nothing you can invest in to hold value. . .”

GW2 economy is a joke, don’t try finding any reason in it, that’s madness.
Although this might have been done by design to make gem prices rocket until the only viable way to get items from the BLTC is through cash payment.

On another note..

2. Repairs: Are silly, especially in WvW, although I suppose it’s better than just dropping all your gear on the spot you died on (lol RuneScape PvP XD), I’m neutral on this to be honest but I feel there’s a better way to implement a death penalty. :P

Personally I’d love to see more consequence for death. Honestly death means nothing right now, less so with resurrection orbs. I’m not saying you should be de-leveled to level 1 and lose all equipment but death should be something you try to avoid rather than something that makes you shrug.

How about a fee for getting rez’d….bet that would really go over, I can hear it now " No NO get away Don’t Rez me!"

Perhaps a fee to enter dungeons?

Did you ever play Guild Wars 1? That game had weak gold sinks and rewards were too high. Towards the end of 2012 I could easily make 10,000 gold in a day. There was a max of I million gold you could have in your bank and then each character could hold 100,000 gold. As you can well imagine, many people (including myself) maxed out the 1,000,000 bank gold and had to resort to holding excess money on their characters. This made the prices of items skyrocket.

There wasn’t a trading post, only player to player trading. Since the max you could trade at one time was 100,000 gold that meant people found a substitute for gold, ectoplasm. By the year 2012, one ecto traded for about 9000 gold. So people would sell high priced items by asking for 100,000 gold and X number of ectos. Some REALLY high priced items were 100,000 gold and stacks of ectos, with one stack being 250 of them.

Guild Wars 1 was also an object lesson in what happens if there are weak gold sinks.

Arikyali.5804:

Perhaps a fee to enter dungeons?

Fee for leaving, 1 silver for every mob left alive.

Yargesh.4965:

Arikyali.5804:

Perhaps a fee to enter dungeons?

Fee for leaving, 1 silver for every mob left alive.

This could actually have some very beneficial basis….needs tweaking, but I like.

Arikyali.5804:

Goldsinks are important. It’s very easy to make money in this game. If there’s no sink, there will be too much money. Then most of that money will accumulate among high leveled, veteran players. Incoming players, or casual players, will have a very difficult time matching up to the inflated prices – which the veteran players will directly, or indirectly be setting. It would not be a free market, because the veteran players will be the ones controlling it.

People should not be able to resell high-end gear. In a market that will always be inflating, these are VERY profitable, long term investments. (Trust me on this – I know :P) Today I buy a weapon for 5 gold, use it as I need, then resell it a few months later for 25 gold. Now let’s do that for all 6 armor slots, and 4 weapon slots. I buy 50 gold of gear, use them as I wish, and resell it for 250 gold. Now I got 250 gold to drop into whatever I want. Having more money = sellers increasing prices. Repeat this for every player that has high-end gear.

Then comes in a new player who just hit 80. A set of exotics will cost them 250 gold. How is he gonna get that? No one wants him in dungeons because he doesn’t have the good gear for speed runs. He can’t make his own gear because mats will be expensive (less gear salvaged = less crafting materials. Supply < demand) Only those that can afford the mats for crafting are either a) people who can bot and farm nodes or b) have the money to buy what they want when they need it. ===> another increase on prices. He’ll be stuck at the bottom.

Binding gear will force the player to buy their new, better set without retrieving the gold from their prior set. This is a big thing that keeps prices from inflating. The items salvaged won’t upset the market either.

Ah great. I wrote a wall of text on gaming economy. I wonder if people will read it. If you did, yay for you.

There already is wayyyy too much money. I know people who have at least 10 legendaries and are still piling up their gold by the thousands.
The problem is; the gold is extremely unevenly distributed. I have for example only 7 gold at the moment. Sure I get maybe a gold each day from playing WvW, but there’s no way I can keep up in order to buy fancy items. I’m going to lay the blame at the fact that players in PvE get so much better rewards for doing extremely easy things, while players in WvW get extremely low rewards for very skill-requiring things, such as 1v1 duels, small group fights, ninjaing towers and keeps (ninjaed stonemist with 5 people) and so forth.

Sirendor.1394:

There already is wayyyy too much money. I know people who have at least 10 legendaries and are still piling up their gold by the thousands.
The problem is; the gold is extremely unevenly distributed. I have for example only 7 gold at the moment.

So…… your asking for some sort of wealth redistribution?

Sirendor.1394:

There already is wayyyy too much money. I know people who have at least 10 legendaries and are still piling up their gold by the thousands.
The problem is; the gold is extremely unevenly distributed. I have for example only 7 gold at the moment. Sure I get maybe a gold each day from playing WvW, but there’s no way I can keep up in order to buy fancy items. I’m going to lay the blame at the fact that players in PvE get so much better rewards for doing extremely easy things, while players in WvW get extremely low rewards for very skill-requiring things, such as 1v1 duels, small group fights, ninjaing towers and keeps (ninjaed stonemist with 5 people) and so forth.

Wait, really? I find myself getting more gold in WvW than PvE.

I only have 100 gold in my bank, which, imo, isn’t a lot. It’s enough to keep me happy. The uneven gold distribution stems from people that want/can afford to put effort in to make all that money, to people who can’t.

Dungeon farming is the best gold generator I know of. Just that it’s boring and grindy.

At least this game’s inflation is stable to the gold being generated. I recall getting an exotic drop quite a few months back – I got greedy and posted it for the min sell offer instead of selling to the highest bidder – about 6g/8g. It never sold, and sat there all those MONTHS as its value dropped down to 1g. I finally got tired of staring at it and sold it for that price.

As much as I hate having lost the potential 6g-8g, this is a good thing. Exotic values dropping to affordable prices means they’re available to those with light coin purses. And this is a game where you don’t need to rely on high-end gear to get by.

When you think about money coming into the economy, it’s mostly from money that came out of ‘thin air’. Not money that came from trades. This mean coin bags, event rewards, mob drops, npc junk, etc. You can’t make much money based on that. Most of the money a player can make, comes from trade (black lion).

As for people who are stockpiling all that gold….there is yet another gold sink. There’s plenty of nice cosmetic items in the gemstore.

Arikyali.5804:

When you think about money coming into the economy, it’s mostly from money that came out of ‘thin air’. Not money that came from trades. This mean coin bags, event rewards, mob drops, npc junk, etc. You can’t make much money based on that. Most of the money a player can make, comes from trade (black lion).

As for people who are stockpiling all that gold….there is yet another gold sink. There’s plenty of nice cosmetic items in the gemstore.

I kinda’ have to disagree to a point there is a substantial amount of RL money that is brought into the game everyday through people buying gems with RL money, but the rest I do agree most other monies people make is from trades on the TP, but it is money that is already in the system for the most part and travels from buyer to seller.

There will always be horders of everything from mats, weapons, armor and gold, always someone who has played longer or has better luck with the RNG that will have more resources (ie gold) than other folks that just play the game and enjoy it, and as stated there are the players who’s sole purpose is to make gold in any way or fashion they can, it is what they enjoy….it is their “end game”

Blanger.3162:

I kinda’ have to disagree to a point there is a substantial amount of RL money that is brought into the game everyday through people buying gems with RL money.

Snip

If you are saying here that real life money brings gold into the game, then you are incorrect.

When someone, let’s say me, buys gems with real money and sells them on the TP, no gold is generated. The gold I get is 100% from other players who are buying gems with ingame gold, no new gold is created. This gold is directly transferred from their bank to mine. Zero gold is generated and zero inflation occurs.

Arikyali.5804:

Yargesh.4965:

Arikyali.5804:

Perhaps a fee to enter dungeons?

Fee for leaving, 1 silver for every mob left alive.

This could actually have some very beneficial basis….needs tweaking, but I like.

It has no beneficial basis, it can only damage the game.

There’s no easy way around properly rebalancing the economy all the time.

Oh look, another thread that wants to have the cake and eat it.

Trust me, you do not want to lose the gold sinks. Without them, everyone gets richer, which means everything will cost more. Also, new players will have a harder time buying anything because gold will have lost most of its value, making gem purchases a very good option.

And guess what is the most common complaint in f2p games? That the “free” players simply cannot compete, which is pretty much always the result of the in-game currency being near-worthless.

Astral Projections.7320:

Blanger.3162:

I kinda’ have to disagree to a point there is a substantial amount of RL money that is brought into the game everyday through people buying gems with RL money. What I’m saying is they only convert and bank, they do not buy anything with the gold.

Snip

If you are saying here that real life money brings gold into the game, then you are incorrect.

When someone, let’s say me, buys gems with real money and sells them on the TP, no gold is generated. The gold I get is 100% from other players who are buying gems with ingame gold, no new gold is created. This gold is directly transferred from their bank to mine. Zero gold is generated and zero inflation occurs.

But what about the people who use RL money to buy gems then convert those gem to gold on the TP? Doesn’t that add a new amount of gold to the system?

Blanger.3162:

Astral Projections.7320:

Blanger.3162:

I kinda’ have to disagree to a point there is a substantial amount of RL money that is brought into the game everyday through people buying gems with RL money. What I’m saying is they only convert and bank, they do not buy anything with the gold.

Snip

If you are saying here that real life money brings gold into the game, then you are incorrect.

When someone, let’s say me, buys gems with real money and sells them on the TP, no gold is generated. The gold I get is 100% from other players who are buying gems with ingame gold, no new gold is created. This gold is directly transferred from their bank to mine. Zero gold is generated and zero inflation occurs.

But what about the people who use RL money to buy gems then convert those gem to gold on the TP? Doesn’t that add a new amount of gold to the system?

No, that would be gold from the gold-to-gem side of things.

Blanger.3162:

Astral Projections.7320:

Blanger.3162:

I kinda’ have to disagree to a point there is a substantial amount of RL money that is brought into the game everyday through people buying gems with RL money. What I’m saying is they only convert and bank, they do not buy anything with the gold.

Snip

If you are saying here that real life money brings gold into the game, then you are incorrect.

When someone, let’s say me, buys gems with real money and sells them on the TP, no gold is generated. The gold I get is 100% from other players who are buying gems with ingame gold, no new gold is created. This gold is directly transferred from their bank to mine. Zero gold is generated and zero inflation occurs.

But what about the people who use RL money to buy gems then convert those gem to gold on the TP? Doesn’t that add a new amount of gold to the system?

Actually, it removes gold out of the system.

There’s roughly a 30% tax on gold to gems exchange. Assuming someone buys 100 gems and then sells them for 7g (rounding up the number), the fact that he can do that means that someone purchased 100 gems for 10g, so 3g were removed from the system as a gold sink.

Olba.5376:

Blanger.3162:

Astral Projections.7320:

Blanger.3162:

I kinda’ have to disagree to a point there is a substantial amount of RL money that is brought into the game everyday through people buying gems with RL money. What I’m saying is they only convert and bank, they do not buy anything with the gold.

Snip

If you are saying here that real life money brings gold into the game, then you are incorrect.

When someone, let’s say me, buys gems with real money and sells them on the TP, no gold is generated. The gold I get is 100% from other players who are buying gems with ingame gold, no new gold is created. This gold is directly transferred from their bank to mine. Zero gold is generated and zero inflation occurs.

But what about the people who use RL money to buy gems then convert those gem to gold on the TP? Doesn’t that add a new amount of gold to the system?

No, that would be gold from the gold-to-gem side of things.

K….but someone is going to have to explain the difference to me please.

locoman.1974:

Blanger.3162:

Astral Projections.7320:

Blanger.3162:

I kinda’ have to disagree to a point there is a substantial amount of RL money that is brought into the game everyday through people buying gems with RL money. What I’m saying is they only convert and bank, they do not buy anything with the gold.

Snip

If you are saying here that real life money brings gold into the game, then you are incorrect.

When someone, let’s say me, buys gems with real money and sells them on the TP, no gold is generated. The gold I get is 100% from other players who are buying gems with ingame gold, no new gold is created. This gold is directly transferred from their bank to mine. Zero gold is generated and zero inflation occurs.

But what about the people who use RL money to buy gems then convert those gem to gold on the TP? Doesn’t that add a new amount of gold to the system?

Actually, it removes gold out of the system.

There’s roughly a 30% tax on gold to gems exchange. Assuming someone buys 100 gems and then sells them for 7g (rounding up the number), the fact that he can do that means that someone purchased 100 gems for 10g, so 3g were removed from the system as a gold sink.

And that gold sink (30% tax) is where the gold comes from that folks who buy gems with RL money get when they convert their gems to gold?

Blanger.3162:

Astral Projections.7320:

Blanger.3162:

I kinda’ have to disagree to a point there is a substantial amount of RL money that is brought into the game everyday through people buying gems with RL money. What I’m saying is they only convert and bank, they do not buy anything with the gold.

Snip

If you are saying here that real life money brings gold into the game, then you are incorrect.

When someone, let’s say me, buys gems with real money and sells them on the TP, no gold is generated. The gold I get is 100% from other players who are buying gems with ingame gold, no new gold is created. This gold is directly transferred from their bank to mine. Zero gold is generated and zero inflation occurs.

But what about the people who use RL money to buy gems then convert those gem to gold on the TP? Doesn’t that add a new amount of gold to the system?

There is only one way to convert gems bought with real money to ingame money, and that’s to sell those gems to other players on the trading post.

As an example, I buy gems with real money and sell them to you, who are buying gems with gold.
First I buy the gems with real money, ANet gets my money and it goes in their pocket. They give me gems in exchange. I then turn around and sell the gems to you in exchange for your gold. No gold is generated. The money goes directly to ANet and the gold is transferred from your account to mine.

Astral Projections.7320:

Blanger.3162:

Astral Projections.7320:

Blanger.3162:

I kinda’ have to disagree to a point there is a substantial amount of RL money that is brought into the game everyday through people buying gems with RL money. What I’m saying is they only convert and bank, they do not buy anything with the gold.

Snip

If you are saying here that real life money brings gold into the game, then you are incorrect.

When someone, let’s say me, buys gems with real money and sells them on the TP, no gold is generated. The gold I get is 100% from other players who are buying gems with ingame gold, no new gold is created. This gold is directly transferred from their bank to mine. Zero gold is generated and zero inflation occurs.

But what about the people who use RL money to buy gems then convert those gem to gold on the TP? Doesn’t that add a new amount of gold to the system?

There is only one way to convert gems bought with real money to ingame money, and that’s to sell those gems to other players on the trading post.

As an example, I buy gems with real money and sell them to you, who are buying gems with gold.
First I buy the gems with real money, ANet gets my money and it goes in their pocket. They give me gems in exchange. I then turn around and sell the gems to you in exchange for your gold. No gold is generated. The money goes directly to ANet and the gold is transferred from your account to mine.

Stupid stupid stupid….all this time I thought ANet controlled the gem sales and that when you sold your gems for gold it was a transaction between you and ANet..not you and another player

Thank you Sir, I get a much clearer picture now.

Blanger.3162:

Astral Projections.7320:

Blanger.3162:

Astral Projections.7320:

Blanger.3162:

I kinda’ have to disagree to a point there is a substantial amount of RL money that is brought into the game everyday through people buying gems with RL money. What I’m saying is they only convert and bank, they do not buy anything with the gold.

Snip

If you are saying here that real life money brings gold into the game, then you are incorrect.

When someone, let’s say me, buys gems with real money and sells them on the TP, no gold is generated. The gold I get is 100% from other players who are buying gems with ingame gold, no new gold is created. This gold is directly transferred from their bank to mine. Zero gold is generated and zero inflation occurs.

But what about the people who use RL money to buy gems then convert those gem to gold on the TP? Doesn’t that add a new amount of gold to the system?

There is only one way to convert gems bought with real money to ingame money, and that’s to sell those gems to other players on the trading post.

As an example, I buy gems with real money and sell them to you, who are buying gems with gold.
First I buy the gems with real money, ANet gets my money and it goes in their pocket. They give me gems in exchange. I then turn around and sell the gems to you in exchange for your gold. No gold is generated. The money goes directly to ANet and the gold is transferred from your account to mine.

Stupid stupid stupid….all this time I thought ANet controlled the gem sales and that when you sold your gems for gold it was a transaction between you and ANet..not you and another player

Thank you Sir, I get a much clearer picture now.

From reading the forum for over a year, it’s a common misunderstanding.

One thing ANet could do better, is when they see people misunderstanding the background of the game that goes on for literally months at a time, is to post corrections somewhere. It doesn’t need to be in each thread. They could have a sticked post that is specifically for correcting common incorrect beliefs.

Edit:
That’s why the gold to gems ratio keeps going up. Most people who buy gems with money don’t sell them to other players for gold but use the gems to buy items in the gem store. This means players who are buying gems with gold are chasing after gems that are getting scarcer, that are in a slowly decreasing pool of gems. As gems get scarcer, the price of them for gold goes up. The prices won’t stabilize until it gets more tempting to sell the gems bought with real money for gold than it is to use them to buy items from the gem store.

ITT: A severe ignorance of how economies work.

Blanger.3162:

Olba.5376:

Blanger.3162:

Astral Projections.7320:

Blanger.3162:

I kinda’ have to disagree to a point there is a substantial amount of RL money that is brought into the game everyday through people buying gems with RL money. What I’m saying is they only convert and bank, they do not buy anything with the gold.

Snip

If you are saying here that real life money brings gold into the game, then you are incorrect.

When someone, let’s say me, buys gems with real money and sells them on the TP, no gold is generated. The gold I get is 100% from other players who are buying gems with ingame gold, no new gold is created. This gold is directly transferred from their bank to mine. Zero gold is generated and zero inflation occurs.

But what about the people who use RL money to buy gems then convert those gem to gold on the TP? Doesn’t that add a new amount of gold to the system?

No, that would be gold from the gold-to-gem side of things.

K….but someone is going to have to explain the difference to me please.

The exchange was started with a lot of gems and little gold. The ratio between the two meant gems weren’t worth a lot of gold.

As we buy gems with gold, the gold we use is deposited in the exchange and not destroyed (except for 15% sink). So gold in the exchange increases, gems in the exchange decrease so now gems are worth more gold.

Now if you sell gems to the exchange, you are being paid in gold that players used to buy gems. And when you are paid another 15% is taken by the sink which is why the two exchange rates are separated by the amount they are. Amount of gold in the exchange goes down, amount of gems goes up and gems are worth less gold.

So using the exchange, gems are neither created or destroyed by the game beyond what was created to initialize it over a year ago (I have a caveat for that assumption that has to do with new accounts).

Behellagh.1468:

Blanger.3162:

Olba.5376:

Blanger.3162:

Astral Projections.7320:

Blanger.3162:

I kinda’ have to disagree to a point there is a substantial amount of RL money that is brought into the game everyday through people buying gems with RL money. What I’m saying is they only convert and bank, they do not buy anything with the gold.

Snip

If you are saying here that real life money brings gold into the game, then you are incorrect.

When someone, let’s say me, buys gems with real money and sells them on the TP, no gold is generated. The gold I get is 100% from other players who are buying gems with ingame gold, no new gold is created. This gold is directly transferred from their bank to mine. Zero gold is generated and zero inflation occurs.

But what about the people who use RL money to buy gems then convert those gem to gold on the TP? Doesn’t that add a new amount of gold to the system?

No, that would be gold from the gold-to-gem side of things.

K….but someone is going to have to explain the difference to me please.

The exchange was started with a lot of gems and little gold. The ratio between the two meant gems weren’t worth a lot of gold.

As we buy gems with gold, the gold we use is deposited in the exchange and not destroyed (except for 15% sink). So gold in the exchange increases, gems in the exchange decrease so now gems are worth more gold.

Now if you sell gems to the exchange, you are being paid in gold that players used to by gems. And when you are paid another 15% is taken by the sink which is why the two exchange rates are separated by the amount they are. Amount of gold in the exchange goes down, amount of gems goes up and gems are worth less gold.

So using the exchange, gems are neither created or destroyed by the game beyond what was created to initialize it over a year ago (I have a caveat for that assumption that has to do with new accounts).

Thank you…that makes sense.

Astral Projections.7320:

Did you ever play Guild Wars 1? That game had weak gold sinks and rewards were too high. Towards the end of 2012 I could easily make 10,000 gold in a day. There was a max of I million gold you could have in your bank and then each character could hold 100,000 gold. As you can well imagine, many people (including myself) maxed out the 1,000,000 bank gold and had to resort to holding excess money on their characters. This made the prices of items skyrocket.

There wasn’t a trading post, only player to player trading. Since the max you could trade at one time was 100,000 gold that meant people found a substitute for gold, ectoplasm. By the year 2012, one ecto traded for about 9000 gold. So people would sell high priced items by asking for 100,000 gold and X number of ectos. Some REALLY high priced items were 100,000 gold and stacks of ectos, with one stack being 250 of them.

Guild Wars 1 was also an object lesson in what happens if there are weak gold sinks.

All of GW1’s market was skin based.
You could have a character decked out in BiS gear for free (by means of using collectors) from level 1 (if you had a buddy run you to a lvl 20 armorsmith).

In GW2 character levelling takes way way longer, so if you want to have the best available gear at any given moment (not necessary until lvl 80 IMO) you best pay up. Not even going to mention the whole charade of getting BiS ascended equipment.

Pariah.8506:

All of GW1’s market was skin based.

Runes, Insignias, Minis.

Alcohol, sweets, unidentified golds.

-50 Cesta.

Ah, the good old days.

Blanger.3162:

Olba.5376:

Blanger.3162:

Astral Projections.7320:

Blanger.3162:

I kinda’ have to disagree to a point there is a substantial amount of RL money that is brought into the game everyday through people buying gems with RL money. What I’m saying is they only convert and bank, they do not buy anything with the gold.

Snip

If you are saying here that real life money brings gold into the game, then you are incorrect.

When someone, let’s say me, buys gems with real money and sells them on the TP, no gold is generated. The gold I get is 100% from other players who are buying gems with ingame gold, no new gold is created. This gold is directly transferred from their bank to mine. Zero gold is generated and zero inflation occurs.

But what about the people who use RL money to buy gems then convert those gem to gold on the TP? Doesn’t that add a new amount of gold to the system?

No, that would be gold from the gold-to-gem side of things.

K….but someone is going to have to explain the difference to me please.

NOTE: this is how I think it works, nobody outside Anet is 100% sure of that. Also I’m going to round up the exchange tax to make it easier

For example, let’s say at release Anet started the market by placing 1g and 100 gems into the system (using made up numbers to make it easy). That means that at that point 100 gems would be worth 1g.

Now supose someone purchases 50 gems with 50 silver, now there are 50 gems and 1g 50s in the bank. So at this point 50 gems are worth 1g and 50s, or what’s the same, 100 gems are worth 3g.

Then someone sells 50 gems (doesn’t matter whether they were bought with gold or money) for 1g (the 50s would be the tax), there are noe 100 gems and 50s in the exchange, so now 100 gems are worth 50s.

That’s how it works in general, anytime you purchase gems with gold you drive the exchange upwards, anytime you sell gems you drive the exchange downwards. It balances itself, the higher the price goes, the more attractive it is to purchase gems with money and sell them for gold, but as more people do that, the price starts to go down until it eventually balances itself.

Where that balance is changes with time, BTW… anytime something very cool or desirable is added to the gem store, gem prices will tend to go up as more people purchase gems with gold to get them, if there are long periods without anything good added to the gem store (or prices become too high so it wouldn’t be worth it), then people will stop buying as much gold, but others will see it as an oportunity to get more gold from their money by purchasing gems and selling them, driving the price down. The fact that the price keeps climbing means that, a year later, it still hasn’t found it’s balance point.

BTW, Anet doesn’t care whether gems are purchased with gold or money, they just care that gems keep being purchased… each and every gems sold (whether it was with gold or money) has been paid with real money to anet at one point.

Ursan.7846:

Pariah.8506:

All of GW1’s market was skin based.

Runes, Insignias, Minis.

Alcohol, sweets, unidentified golds.

-50 Cesta.

Ah, the good old days.

Minis, booze, candy and unids had absolutely nothing to do with the gameplay.
The only rune that one could consider to be something to ‘save up for’ was the Sup Vigor one and the -50 Cesta was cheap because it was only essential in one (albeit very popular) build and was easy to get for any Tyrian characters.

Pariah.8506:

Ursan.7846:

Pariah.8506:

All of GW1’s market was skin based.

Runes, Insignias, Minis.

Alcohol, sweets, unidentified golds.

-50 Cesta.

Ah, the good old days.

Minis, booze, candy and unids had absolutely nothing to do with the gameplay.
The only rune that one could consider to be something to ‘save up for’ was the Sup Vigor one and the -50 Cesta was cheap because it was only essential in one (albeit very popular) build and was easy to get for any Tyrian characters.

Minis, Alcohol, sweets, unidentified golds.
They had everything to do with the game play as the game play was title grinds and those were all used for one title grind or another.

Also add lock picks, Zaishen keys, and war supplies to the list. All pricy and all used for title grinds.

Astral Projections.7320:

Pariah.8506:

Ursan.7846:

Pariah.8506:

All of GW1’s market was skin based.

Runes, Insignias, Minis.

Alcohol, sweets, unidentified golds.

-50 Cesta.

Ah, the good old days.

Minis, booze, candy and unids had absolutely nothing to do with the gameplay.
The only rune that one could consider to be something to ‘save up for’ was the Sup Vigor one and the -50 Cesta was cheap because it was only essential in one (albeit very popular) build and was easy to get for any Tyrian characters.

Minis, Alcohol, sweets, unidentified golds.
They had everything to do with the game play as the game play was title grinds and those were all used for one title grind or another.

Also add lock picks, Zaishen keys, and war supplies to the list. All pricy and all used for title grinds.

Nope, all of that is vanity.
A guy without Drunkard, Connoisseur of Confectioneries, HoM score and Scholar title would have exactly the same footing in encounters as a guy who maxed them all.

Talking about gold, the game actually needs either more sinks or less sources.

There’s something quite dangerous going on with gems atm.
If ascended armor/jewelry is introduced on a similar fashion to weapons, and exotic counterpart prices devaluate as much as exotic weapons did, we are going to find ourselves on a point were, gold wise, fully gearing a character with exotics is cheaper than a single bank tab.
When just QoL upgrades cost far more gold on gems (storage through bank tabs and bag slots, character slots) than on TP / through regular sinks (storage through bags, fairly decent gear), the gold to gem exchange is going to be much more used than the opposite, and exchange rate is going to keep rising.
At some point, that rate may get so high that alienates A LOT of no real cash users (the cost of a bank tab is probably already depressing for newcomers).
I don’t really know if this is desirable for ANet. If not, gold needs to at least recover some value (some real value outside exclusive skins) for a stable situation. Is that or a complete overhaul of gem economy.

Vargamonth.2047:

Talking about gold, the game actually needs either more sinks or less sources.

There’s something quite dangerous going on with gems atm.
If ascended armor/jewelry is introduced on a similar fashion to weapons, and exotic counterpart prices devaluate as much as exotic weapons did, we are going to find ourselves on a point were, gold wise, fully gearing a character with exotics is cheaper than a single bank tab.
When just QoL upgrades cost far more gold on gems (storage through bank tabs and bag slots, character slots) than on TP / through regular sinks (storage through bags, fairly decent gear), the gold to gem exchange is going to be much more used than the opposite, and exchange rate is going to keep rising.
At some point, that rate may get so high that alienates A LOT of no real cash users (the cost of a bank tab is probably already depressing for newcomers).
I don’t really know if this is desirable for ANet. If not, gold needs to at least recover some value (some real value outside exclusive skins) for a stable situation. Is that or a complete overhaul of gem economy.

Wouldn’t the gold to gems ratio be a somewhat separate issue from ingame gold inflation? The cure for one is not the cure for the other. ANet, theoretically could put more gems in the pool, but I can’t see them doing that. It decreases because more people want to buy gems with gold than want to sell gems for gold.

My guess is ANet is going to sit and watch it unfold. In theory, eventually it will become tempting enough for people to trade gems for gold and the rate of exchange to flatten. But this may take years. People who are starting out can get a starting infusion of gold by buying gems and selling them, but bank tabs and other items may become only for real money or ingame rich players.

I hate soulbound items, especially since I have multiple toons and enjoy working out new builds. These new builds require different items, and once I use something on one toon it’s stuck or worthless. I either fill my bank with items I have no use for, or salvage them for near nothing.

I get a new set of armor for a build I want to try out, but decide I don’t like it. So I decide to stash it in the bank because I don’t want to throw away the 30+ gold I just spent on it. I level a new toon and realize I could use some of that armor on this new toon. Oh wait I can’t, because it’s souldbound to another toon. So now I have to buy the identical item I already have but can’t use.

I understand that without soulbound items, that they would slowly lose gold value because there would be a much larger supply. It just sucks to have to buy things you already own and don’t use, in order to complete another toon.

Astral Projections.7320:

Wouldn’t the gold to gems ratio be a somewhat separate issue from ingame gold inflation? The cure for one is not the cure for the other. ANet, theoretically could put more gems in the pool, but I can’t see them doing that. It decreases because more people want to buy gems with gold than want to sell gems for gold.

My guess is ANet is going to sit and watch it unfold. In theory, eventually it will become tempting enough for people to trade gems for gold and the rate of exchange to flatten. But this may take years. People who are starting out can get a starting infusion of gold by buying gems and selling them, but bank tabs and other items may become only for real money or ingame rich players.

It’s not a separate issue because we don’t have inflation at all.
An excess of gold is introduced in the system every day, that’s for sure, but it doesn’t make prices to rise besides maybe for a few vanity items.

The release of ascended weapons has “forced” anyone interested to craft about (probably more) 15 exotic weapons, flooding the market and making prices to go as low as reciclable goods (same will probably happen with armor and trinkets).
With standard gear losing even more value than gold, and regular sinks (waypoints, repairs, respecs, holding runes, trait books) being laughable for the amounts we earn, gems are almost the only real use for gold unless we’re aiming for something really exclusive, and has become the main gold sink on the whole game.

For a paying customer (excluding the weird people who buy precursors with real money), which is obviously going to get his BL goods directly with cash, there aren’t many reasons to exchange gems for gold.
There’s a limit in theory for this to change, that’s true, but if gold is only meaningful for vanity, and vanity is the only thing that suffers inflation, then that limit can be really far away.

It doesn’t really matter if a BL exclusive armor reaches insane prices (T3 culturals are over 100 gold, so still plenty of room for gem price to rise), the problem is with the basic/QoL stuff in the gem store (I refuse to think this game is expected to be played with a single bank tab) which, gold wise, is already more than in the game itself.

A boost in the gold value, be it by nerfing gold sources or introducing new sinks, would not only fight the inflation but also make more interesting the gem to gold exchange.
A lot of good could be done just alternating the selling point for new armor/weapon skins between the BLTC (gems) and some ingame NPC (gold). It probably would produce less earnings for ANet, so it’s highly unlikely to happen, but the damage for the game could be worse in the long run without some changes.

Vargamonth.2047:

Astral Projections.7320:

Wouldn’t the gold to gems ratio be a somewhat separate issue from ingame gold inflation? The cure for one is not the cure for the other. ANet, theoretically could put more gems in the pool, but I can’t see them doing that. It decreases because more people want to buy gems with gold than want to sell gems for gold.

My guess is ANet is going to sit and watch it unfold. In theory, eventually it will become tempting enough for people to trade gems for gold and the rate of exchange to flatten. But this may take years. People who are starting out can get a starting infusion of gold by buying gems and selling them, but bank tabs and other items may become only for real money or ingame rich players.

It’s not a separate issue because we don’t have inflation at all.
An excess of gold is introduced in the system every day, that’s for sure, but it doesn’t make prices to rise besides maybe for a few vanity items.

The release of ascended weapons has “forced” anyone interested to craft about (probably more) 15 exotic weapons, flooding the market and making prices to go as low as reciclable goods (same will probably happen with armor and trinkets).
With standard gear losing even more value than gold, and regular sinks (waypoints, repairs, respecs, holding runes, trait books) being laughable for the amounts we earn, gems are almost the only real use for gold unless we’re aiming for something really exclusive, and has become the main gold sink on the whole game.

For a paying customer (excluding the weird people who buy precursors with real money), which is obviously going to get his BL goods directly with cash, there aren’t many reasons to exchange gems for gold.
There’s a limit in theory for this to change, that’s true, but if gold is only meaningful for vanity, and vanity is the only thing that suffers inflation, then that limit can be really far away.

It doesn’t really matter if a BL exclusive armor reaches insane prices (T3 culturals are over 100 gold, so still plenty of room for gem price to rise), the problem is with the basic/QoL stuff in the gem store (I refuse to think this game is expected to be played with a single bank tab) which, gold wise, is already more than in the game itself.

A boost in the gold value, be it by nerfing gold sources or introducing new sinks, would not only fight the inflation but also make more interesting the gem to gold exchange.
A lot of good could be done just alternating the selling point for new armor/weapon skins between the BLTC (gems) and some ingame NPC (gold). It probably would produce less earnings for ANet, so it’s highly unlikely to happen, but the damage for the game could be worse in the long run without some changes.

It’s true there isn’t much price inflation of most items in the gem store, but there is inflation in the player gold supply. Everyone started at launch with zero gold and now having hundreds of gold is not unusual. There is the occasional long term player who may only have a little, but I suspect that the average casual player who hasn’t bought expensive items has at least 100 gold. Spread that growth in equity over the entire player base, and the amount of money that is pooled in banks and sitting there is substantial.

Basic items not becoming more expensive in the TP may be more a function of lack of demand than lack of inflation. After all, once you reach level 80, and most long term players have at least one level 80, the demand for basic gear is low. This lack of demand may be masking inflation, rather than there being a lack of it.

Where you can see inflation occurring is where demand is, the vanity items. The increase in the prices of the precursors and Legendaries are, imo, a sign of this masked inflation.