Guild Wars 2

phys.7689:

The main reason they probably dont allow it, is it creates a sort of floor value for certain things.

Same idea, allowing them to be salvaged puts a price ceiling of sorts on those items – if exotics ever get expensive enough, buying a bunch of exotics from a vendor and salvaging them becomes attractive. That certainly wasn’t a mechanism they wanted to have sitting in the game at launch when we still didn’t know where price levels were going to end up, so they locked it out.

At least, that’s why I would have done it.

Ensign.2189:

phys.7689:

The main reason they probably dont allow it, is it creates a sort of floor value for certain things.

Same idea, allowing them to be salvaged puts a price ceiling of sorts on those items – if exotics ever get expensive enough, buying a bunch of exotics from a vendor and salvaging them becomes attractive. That certainly wasn’t a mechanism they wanted to have sitting in the game at launch when we still didn’t know where price levels were going to end up, so they locked it out.

At least, that’s why I would have done it.

May I remind you of the context and the comparison in which it served? The “vendor” is the badges vendor, so you still need those. Now compare this against dungeon tokens. If you buy exotics from a dungeon vendor all you pay is tokens, not gold.
Both currencies (tokens/badges) require a similar time investment to acquire. But “token exotics” can forges or salvaged, and “badges exotics” can neither be forged nor salvaged (they don’t even have a sigil/rune).

Not to mention that Badge Exotics also need a gold outlay to purchase in addition to the Badges. It baffles me as to why dungeon Exotics can be salvaged/Forged, but Badge Exotics can’t.

Zaxares.5419:

Not to mention that Badge Exotics also need a gold outlay to purchase in addition to the Badges. It baffles me as to why dungeon Exotics can be salvaged/Forged, but Badge Exotics can’t.

Dont you realize the sheer number of badges you can get doing something as braindead as the karma train in EotM? Most dungeons only have 3 paths, which means you’re limited to 120 tokens per day. A SINGLE dungeon armor takes 2-3 days to buy. BoH armor? 2-3 HOURS if you’re slow. So no, they dont even have the same time investment involved.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Zaxares.5419:

Not to mention that Badge Exotics also need a gold outlay to purchase in addition to the Badges. It baffles me as to why dungeon Exotics can be salvaged/Forged, but Badge Exotics can’t.

Dont you realize the sheer number of badges you can get doing something as braindead as the karma train in EotM? Most dungeons only have 3 paths, which means you’re limited to 120 tokens per day. A SINGLE dungeon armor takes 2-3 days to buy. BoH armor? 2-3 HOURS if you’re slow. So no, they dont even have the same time investment involved.

honestly balancing things around the EOTM train is not going to make sense on most fronts. But the point is, 2-3 hours AND 1 gold per exotic, for salvage? thats a losing proposition 9/10 times, and multiply that investment times four for a mystic forging. Thats also a losing investment. 4 gold and 8-12 hours training for 1 random exotic.

I mean i get them not wanting to give a floor value, or worry about badge aquisition, but the time it takes would put the value of badges pretty low. Sure every once in awhile someone would blow a huge wad and feel like they got a great deal, but fact is if that time was put into whatever is the current money meta, that value would be better spent elsewhere.

Its really bad design as its implemented anyhow, they never warn you that any sigils/runes used with these gears are irretrievable. Even if they wanted it to salvage to nothing or back to badges, they should put that functionality somewhere.

John Smith.4610:

Ayrilana.1396:

He’s referring to the conversion rates of gem and gold within the gem store most likely.

Ah, I see.
As a note, while RMT is accurate, it is generally used to refer to third party traders, hence my confusion.

This is not a returned volley:

Thank you John Smith for asking for clarification, thank you Ayrilana for providing clarification, pardon me not clarifying myself in a timely manner.

The RMT label is accurately applied to Arenanet et al. ‘You’ have collapsed the traditional third party responsibilities of RMT into the responsibilities of Arenanet et al.

Question

Have you as a game theory economist ever considered partnering with other game theory economists to create the backbone for a third party neutral RMT company that would provide RMT services to participating game worlds?

John Smith.4610:

Psientist.6437:

John Smith.4610:

Conncept.7638:

but there is no way you have the numbers to claim that the players think so, from a psychological perspective.

You’re adorable.

Economists have ways to measure how much your parents love you and the scariest part of all… it works.

The EULU allows Arenanet et al to data-mine chat logs.

John Smith, there are so many ways to shape information for thermodynamic effect. Your response to this player is almost caustic.

Questions!

1. The RMT algorithm, does it process every gold and gem bit as individual bits (ie do gem and gold bits queue in a single line), process bits as batches, or both?

2. The RMT algorithm, would it translate simultaneous “no demand” for gems and gold into a vector?

1. It’s more complicated than that, but as you know I cannot discuss the specifics.

2. If I’m understanding correctly then no. The exchange requires player activity for change, it does no interpret a lack of activity as value.

This is intended as a returned volley.
One of the ways I measure differences between pseudo-realistic economic ecosystems and realistic economic ecosystems is with system rational quantum ethics and system rational relativistic ethics. When you respond to one Tyrian asking;
“How do you know me without talking to me?”, with “We are watching you and your mother!”; you are expressing a quantum ethical bit. “Dye gate” describes Arenanet et al’s relativistic ethics.

This is not intended as a return volley.

1. Quantum causality table tennis is difficult to play as a spectator sport, but it is a spectator sport. While I have no interest in recycling gems (you have access to my history) other players are interested in recycling gems. Every bit of Tyrian currency is the equivalent of the box containing Schrodinger’s cat. Tyrian currency must be spent (the box opened) before its true value can be measured. When John Smith describes the parity between potential workload expression and kinetic workload expression, that is what he is referring to.

2. That answer makes me a bit nauseous. Before I express the nausea as thermodynamics I need to ask a clarifying question that I know will be very difficult to answer. By “vector” I meant a change in state.

Question: Would Arenanet et al’s RMT algorithm translate a complete lack of player input as any change of state. In other words would the reserves return to parity by relaxing or do they save the compression created by player activity.

My historical position on Arenanet et al’s use of an algorithm has matured. I would like to retract my earlier blanket description of an algorithm’s use as unethical. Algorithms have inertia and while GW2’s fan parents had to work hard to overcome the potential inertia of a newly born algorithm; current GW2’s fan parents can rely on the kinetic maturity of the algorithm. In theory at least.

Hey John! I have a question about limited time items, or items with no current way of acquisition other than the trading post. Alot of these items will continue to go up in price on the TP, the Halloween 1 skins for example, but there are also a few with no real demand for but are still unobtainable by other means. The current LS1 items are on the laurel vendor now(Which I personally thought was a very good way to deal with them). Are there any plans on re-implementing this idea on the other items that are unobtainable? Or would the re-introduction be too volitile?

Ask Dons Mop.3601:

Hey John! I have a question about limited time items, or items with no current way of acquisition other than the trading post. Alot of these items will continue to go up in price on the TP, the Halloween 1 skins for example, but there are also a few with no real demand for but are still unobtainable by other means. The current LS1 items are on the laurel vendor now(Which I personally thought was a very good way to deal with them). Are there any plans on re-implementing this idea on the other items that are unobtainable? Or would the re-introduction be too volitile?

He cant comment on future plans.

John Smith.4610:

Psientist.6437:

John Smith.4610:

Ayrilana.1396:

He’s referring to the conversion rates of gem and gold within the gem store most likely.

Ah, I see.
As a note, while RMT is accurate, it is generally used to refer to third party traders, hence my confusion.

This is not a returned volley:

Thank you John Smith for asking for clarification, thank you Ayrilana for providing clarification, pardon me not clarifying myself in a timely manner.

The RMT label is accurately applied to Arenanet et al. ‘You’ have collapsed the traditional third party responsibilities of RMT into the responsibilities of Arenanet et al.

Question

Have you as a game theory economist ever considered partnering with other game theory economists to create the backbone for a third party neutral RMT company that would provide RMT services to participating game worlds?

I have thought of it, I think it would be very interesting to have new worlds to work inside constantly and honestly more games need to start using economists. I also have extremely negative feelings about third party RMT because I watch them steal and destroy what players have created and it sickens me. Competing them out of business would be worth it alone.

how could you compete them out of business without having similar effects, and employing similar tactics?
Essentially how can you compete with people who operate above the laws, in a completely self interested fashion?

John Smith.4610:

phys.7689:

John Smith.4610:

Psientist.6437:

John Smith.4610:

Ayrilana.1396:

He’s referring to the conversion rates of gem and gold within the gem store most likely.

Ah, I see.
As a note, while RMT is accurate, it is generally used to refer to third party traders, hence my confusion.

This is not a returned volley:

Thank you John Smith for asking for clarification, thank you Ayrilana for providing clarification, pardon me not clarifying myself in a timely manner.

The RMT label is accurately applied to Arenanet et al. ‘You’ have collapsed the traditional third party responsibilities of RMT into the responsibilities of Arenanet et al.

Question

Have you as a game theory economist ever considered partnering with other game theory economists to create the backbone for a third party neutral RMT company that would provide RMT services to participating game worlds?

I have thought of it, I think it would be very interesting to have new worlds to work inside constantly and honestly more games need to start using economists. I also have extremely negative feelings about third party RMT because I watch them steal and destroy what players have created and it sickens me. Competing them out of business would be worth it alone.

how could you compete them out of business without having similar effects, and employing similar tactics?
Essentially how can you compete with people who operate above the laws, in a completely self interested fashion?

Their tactics must be combated inside the game as well.

To add to John’s reply, a solution to the RMT problems in MMOs is not to compete with them by starting Price Wars. If a game company lowers the costs for in-game currency purchasing, RMTs just drop their prices even lower. The end result of any type of Price War is an oversupply of cheap in-game currency, which leads to inflation of the in-game economy.

The best deterrent to RMTs is to take away the player’s incentive to make such transactions, which is the banning of accounts.

I disagree John. That response shows you’re human, and makes you more approachable. Even If we were to disagree on aspects of the in-game economy, we prefer you add in some mild snark every now and then, over a “professor-like” attitude.

Edit – Heck, that’s the whole reason a lot of us like you over other Anet employees.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I disagree John. That response shows you’re human, and makes you more approachable. Even If we were to disagree on aspects of the in-game economy, we prefer you add in some mild snark every now and then, over a “professor-like” attitude.

Edit – Heck, that’s the whole reason a lot of us like you over other Anet employees.

I have to side with John and his community team on this one. The conversations that go on here on the forums are not conversations between equals, and it looks bad when someone with power responds to someone without in a way that would quite possibly earn a post deletion/infraction if the roles were reversed. I don’t think it’s necessary to be caustic in order to appear human and approachable, and I suppose I differ from you in that I am less likely to engage with someone who acts that way, not more. At the very least, I think we can all be glad that John is taking the time to consider how his messages are perceived, and I can’t see how that could be anything but a good thing – Kudos John.

Thanks for being the best gw2 dev John Smith!

Ahh back from vacation .

Just curious if and how the economy dictates reward structure/ rng coding and what influences the levels to which items are determined as economically acceptable?

Now i’m not a tp pro, but i’m curious if its intended that costs are going up so much, like say, a vial of powerful blood costing 60 silver. Considering that gold income from actually playing the game hasnt increased even close to as much as those prices the last 6 months, is anything going to address this? I’m aware that a player driven economy is supposed to “fluctuate”, but for a casual player who doesnt want to flip on the tp all day long to afford things its getting pretty disheartening.

Sizer.5632:

Now i’m not a tp pro, but i’m curious if its intended that costs are going up so much, like say, a vial of powerful blood costing 60 silver. Considering that gold income from actually playing the game hasnt increased even close to as much as those prices the last 6 months, is anything going to address this? I’m aware that a player driven economy is supposed to “fluctuate”, but for a casual player who doesnt want to flip on the tp all day long to afford things its getting pretty disheartening.

I understand your frustration. However, as you said, the TP is player driven. The main reason that all the T6 mats are going up in price is due to their demand. More people are crafting legendaries, or Ascended. Also, Vials of Powerful blood are even more in demand then the other T6 mats because it is used for “beserker” armor. With Beserker stats being the most desirable for DPS builds, people are crafting and selling and making a nice little profit. Also I believe that less people are farming for T6 mats, prefering to buy off the TP as needed. So the demand is slightly higher than the supply. But in the end, the farmers are making out fairly well, as the suppliers/sellers can raise the price to meet that demand.

Strangely I’m making more money in the last three months than the six months before that. I credit that to a firmer grasp on where money can be made in the open world. And strangely enough I could be making more if I didn’t roll the dice salvaging rares, for ectos/runes/sigils, and masterwork for luck.

And I could have enough for a precursor by now if I didn’t spend most of my daily earnings on gems. I’ve become more efficient with my time in game and that’s without resorting to repeating the same content during my play session or farming for a particular mat. And I still have time to play in Dry Top now and then. Bright side of LS 2 is you aren’t rushed to complete it and you can keep revisiting it indefinitely.

John Smith.4610:

I’ve gotten a lot of mixed feedback about this comment

That comment is the funniest thing I’ve read on these forums. I understand the need for it, but it’s too bad that the interaction with the community has to be done with care and a bit of distance. You peeps seem to be a great bunch but only get to hint at humor without it being in the grey zone of what’s okay.

I don’t participate much in threads like this, but I enjoy reading your replies and greatly appreciate that you do it. It’s a good reminder that there’s much more going on behind the scenes than one thinks. Thank you.

John Smith.4610:

Psientist.6437:

John Smith.4610:

Ayrilana.1396:

He’s referring to the conversion rates of gem and gold within the gem store most likely.

Ah, I see.
As a note, while RMT is accurate, it is generally used to refer to third party traders, hence my confusion.

This is not a returned volley:

Thank you John Smith for asking for clarification, thank you Ayrilana for providing clarification, pardon me not clarifying myself in a timely manner.

The RMT label is accurately applied to Arenanet et al. ‘You’ have collapsed the traditional third party responsibilities of RMT into the responsibilities of Arenanet et al.

Question

Have you as a game theory economist ever considered partnering with other game theory economists to create the backbone for a third party neutral RMT company that would provide RMT services to participating game worlds?

I have thought of it, I think it would be very interesting to have new worlds to work inside constantly and honestly more games need to start using economists. I also have extremely negative feelings about third party RMT because I watch them steal and destroy what players have created and it sickens me. Competing them out of business would be worth it alone.

Applying competitive advantage authority would be extremely difficult, perhaps to the point of not being worth the inertia. Pardon being used as an analog, but “a John Smith” would be competing using currencies minted against player calorie. That standard is too quantum to not apply comparative advantage authority.

It is more fun arguing with you than against but I do love arguing up.

Torsailr.8456:

John Smith.4610:

Lodius.5392:

How about offering incentives to recruiting people?

This is a bit beyond my scope, sorry. Also it falls into my future things coming out clause, so I can’t answer twice, but I’m sorry twice as well and I hope that makes up for it.

Is this indirectly saying that Anet is working on some kind of incentivized recruitment or am I reading too much into what you said? If so, I have to admit I’m curious about what it would look like.

Participants would be wired into a quantum computer….
this might sting a moment

John Smith.4610:

John Smith.4610:

Conncept.7638:

but there is no way you have the numbers to claim that the players think so, from a psychological perspective.

You’re adorable.

Economists have ways to measure how much your parents love you and the scariest part of all… it works.

I’ve gotten a lot of mixed feedback about this comment and I wanted to agree that it’s unnecessary. It’s an overly caustic response to an accusation (which isn’t the worst thing in the world), but it’s been pointed out that this isn’t a two way street which changes the situation entirely (and makes it really bad). My community team are saints and allow me the time and medium to interact with the players, I’ll be focusing more on providing positive responses as much as I’m able.

Cheers all, questions welcome.

Pride, the way the word works, is the heat an individual can apply internally to warm themselves.

Cheers and I hope Conncept sees this, for the quantum and relativistic effect.

John – (1) how do you view your role in economic management . . . although a micro person, how much, if at all, do you incorporate macro modeling into your work, (2) do you have any real life role models that you follow, and (3) what papers/blogs do you read?

First reply was kitten! No apologies! Swing for the moon!

John, I just have to say thanks for taking the time and effort to answer some of our meager questions. As someone who does tend to flip items when I can make educated guesses on what to flip, I take great interest and often read this sub forum .

I’m also a person who has had a monopoly on an item for a time. It’s quite profitable, but I’m curious (and yes, this is my question) as to if you/your team does anything if it notices a monopoly; I.E. one or two people working in tandem to control a price.

My followup is: has this been an issue insofar that you’ve noticed it and had to take action?

Thanks for your time again, and here’s two notes—
-As a journalist by profession, my follow-up might seem redundant but it is necessary.
-As a reader of this forum, I appreciate your sometimes snarky responses to those who earn them. I’ll never likely earn one, but if I did, I’d add it to my signature.

QUESTION:

How long does it usually take to implement big changes to the economy from the point that Anet decides that something has to change until the patch goes live?
As the question is propably too generic, i will give 2 past examples, you maybe are allowed to comment on:

1. The change of making ectos salvageable into t6 dust. How long did you monitor t6 dust until you decided that their droprate in general is too low and how long did it take you to come up with the idea of salvaging them from ectos instead of raising their droprate across the board? And over a year later, did it work out as expected in the long term?

2. How long did it take to implement ascended weaponcrafting from the decision to implement it until it went live in september last year? And how much did you have to prepare the game economy for it? I guess the 2 patches before it (Pavillion and Invasions) where a way of injecting lots of mats into the market in preparation.
Had the introduction of Essences of Luck a big impact on the way you decided to implement ascended crafting or were these changes rather unrelated? I also guess, you already had a good plan on how to implement ascended armorcrafting 3 months later before you released ascended weaponcrafting. How much changes went into armorcrafting between september and december?

What advantage do you see in the current gold<>gem exchange over trading gems like any other in-game item ?

From where I sit it’s less transparent as we don’t know how it decides the price and it’s less user friendly because, instead of telling it we want x gems and it giving us a price, we tell it how much we want to spend and it spits out an amount. It would have taken extra work to write the code for it instead of reusing existing code. Though those issues would be outside your area of expertise.

I know that at least some of ANET know about the PLEX system in Eve Online, where they are traded like any other item.

So what made ANET go with their secret algorithm to set the gold<>gem price instead of copying Eve’s method ?
What advantage does the secret algorithm have ?

I’ve seen players suggest is to prevent price manipulation by someone with enough gold to buy up all the gems. But, as you say. that’s not an issue in GW2:

Monopolistic or cartel control isn’t really an issue in guild wars 2. Most of the markets won’t bare it for long enough for us to even get around to fixing it, and 99% of the time people trying lose huge quantities of money. I wouldn’t say that we’ve never had to do anything about it, but the details I’m not currently allowed to speak on.

I’ve seen players suggest that it’s to allow ANET to manipulate the price of gems. But ANET will always be able to manipulate the price of gems because they control the supply.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I disagree John. That response shows you’re human, and makes you more approachable. Even If we were to disagree on aspects of the in-game economy, we prefer you add in some mild snark every now and then, over a “professor-like” attitude.

Edit – Heck, that’s the whole reason a lot of us like you over other Anet employees.

Pardon

test the contents of your stomach against this

Degrees of gray are being measured and a John Smith needs hot air not abigger balloon.

Pardon if that makes alittle sense

edit for grr synesthesia syhc

‘, Thank you in advance for any answer and inclination to answer
I am an economist onlyif economists accept currency as the anative function of reality
please be generous with your answer breadth
would I know what I am not asking

1, Hello?
2, Do you have a character avatar?
3, Do you consider yourself Tyrian?
4, Would you consider anative RMT algorithm a system rational Tyrian?
5, 4 and why?
6, What is 6 afraid of?
7, as phi’1,pi’1,phi as
8, How would ‘4 as yes, be named?
9, I xp synesthesia with words on paper, am I typical,atypical?

edit for lovinglilyliveredlovelilies

In terms of permanent account bonuses for achievements (% increase of MF, Coin, Karma), what, if at all, would you consider a real world equivalent to this mechanic and how do you look at it. Surely, while the dynamic is slower compared to the rest, this is an increasing number that will flat out at some point.

QUESTION:

How do you feel about bumping threads and how do they effect the economy?

What kind of tools do you use to manage the economy? Did you develop them in house, get them from a third party, or is it just excel gone wild?

John Smith.4610:

wwwes.1398:

I have three questions:

1) Is precursor crafting something being held back because of technical concerns or because of economic concerns, ie a massive surge in demand for certain types of materials? I know you’re limited in what you can speculate, but I have a theory that the crafting is largely being held back because legendaries and precursors are possibly the biggest driving force of the economy and a change in how they function could cause massive waves. Wanted to know if I was correct in this.

2) When you consider game inflation, do you primarily look at the prices of farmable material and blues/greens or do you take into account super-rare items acquired from drops, rewards or gems? Is the reason you say inflation isn’t a problem simply that the items with crazy high prices are the only things with a price rising so rapidly?

3) Can you give an example of a situation where what seemed a good idea for balancing had ridiculously bad consequences? A true learning experience in GW2, I suppose you could say.

Also thanks for doing this! It’s extremely interesting every time you have something to say.

1. All I will say about this is that any discussion about precursors, that I’m involved in, involves a discussion about the materials and markets involved.

2. When looking at inflation I use a large bundle of common goods
(the bundle changes depending on the time frame and the game state). I never use super-rare items or anything involving gems.

3. Halloween 2 candy corn sinks. There was an insane amount of candy corn in the world (10’s of billions) and we underestimated the distribution of those materials and cranked up the sinks too high. This made it very difficult to interact with those sinks at all and it didn’t feel good.

Live and learn, John Smith. Live and learn.

Can we get some less Larry King’esque questions asked/answered?

Essence Snow.3194:

Can we get some less Larry King’esque questions asked/answered?

Ask one.

Putting Foxfire Essences in elder wood trees has obviously added a large amount of elder wood to the market, but also, likely from proximity, led to more mithril. This has already had a noticeable effect in making level 80 rares cheaper to craft.

John Smith.4610:

1. All I will say about this is that any discussion about precursors, that I’m involved in, involves a discussion about the materials and markets involved.

Was putting Foxfire Clusters in t5 trees a deliberate attempt/experiment to lower the price of precursors without actually changing their method of acquisition?

serapheles.5409:

Putting Foxfire Essences in elder wood trees has obviously added a large amount of elder wood to the market, but also, likely from proximity, led to more mithril. This has already had a noticeable effect in making level 80 rares cheaper to craft.

John Smith.4610:

1. All I will say about this is that any discussion about precursors, that I’m involved in, involves a discussion about the materials and markets involved.

Was putting Foxfire Clusters in t5 trees a deliberate attempt/experiment to lower the price of precursors without actually changing their method of acquisition?

John actually meant that any discussion about precursors will have to involve discussion about certain markets, which he is not allowed to do.

Mithril was very cheap to begin with so it getting cheaper would not have a significant impact compared to the other components that comprise most of the cost. Anyway, this would warrant a new thread if the discussion were to continue.

The majority of the cost of crafting for precursor attempts comes from the T5 (or T6, if crafting exotics) fine materials, not the basic crafting items (logs and ore).

If you made Mithril and Elder wood free you’d only be saving about 5s per rare (so 80s per forge attempt assuming 16 rares for one exotic).

mtpelion.4562:

The majority of the cost of crafting for precursor attempts comes from the T5 (or T6, if crafting exotics) fine materials, not the basic crafting items (logs and ore).

If you made Mithril and Elder wood free you’d only be saving about 5s per rare (so 80s per forge attempt assuming 16 rares for one exotic).

Certainly, but 6s or so off is about 10% of the crafting cost, which I feel is enough that they wouldn’t worry about the prices going too low, but still affects the expected final cost of forging a precursor.

I’ll drop it, it was mostly something I considered when trying to figure out why trees.

John Smith.4610:

Zaxares.5419:

Question: Just how old are you, John?

“The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which mean never losing your enthusiasm.” – Aldous Huxley

:)

Or take a guess based on that behind the scenes video.