Guild Wars 2

So now that info on the new trading post is out, can you tell us what parts (if any) you’re most excited about?

I’m curious about the pick-up tab.

What’s going to happen to my thousands of gold worth of leather/silver/gold that I stashed on the TP?

So the next point of interest will be about the new TP, and yet John Smith is not listed as a speaker on this post?!
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/points-of-interest-episode-6/

This needs fixing!

titanlectro.5029:

So the next point of interest will be about the new TP, and yet John Smith is not listed as a speaker on this post?!
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/points-of-interest-episode-6/

This needs fixing!

He already mentioned that he usually has little to do with UI changes.

titanlectro.5029:

So the next point of interest will be about the new TP, and yet John Smith is not listed as a speaker on this post?!
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/points-of-interest-episode-6/

This needs fixing!

They weren’t able to get the face-blurring technology ready in time and John’s too proud to wear a mask.

wwwes.1398:

titanlectro.5029:

So the next point of interest will be about the new TP, and yet John Smith is not listed as a speaker on this post?!
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/points-of-interest-episode-6/

This needs fixing!

They weren’t able to get the face-blurring technology ready in time and John’s too proud to wear a mask.

He featured in a couple of videos from Anet though.

Edit: Without Mask.

John Smith.4610:

titanlectro.5029:

So the next point of interest will be about the new TP, and yet John Smith is not listed as a speaker on this post?!
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/points-of-interest-episode-6/

This needs fixing!

A lot of people put a lot of work into the new TP and they deserve to get some airtime to talk about their work. I’m no expert on UI by any means.

I am excited about the new buying and selling UI the most. It’s designed to reduce information asymmetry (it’s designed to give all users easy access to more information) and I think it will be really helpful for new players or players that are less studied on prices.

Except that the new selling UI is lacking the proposed profit. All it shows is the fees. Some of us could care less about the fees (since we can’t change/do anything about them), and just the what we’ll actually receive (like it is now).

John Smith.4610:

[…]

I am excited about the new buying and selling UI the most. It’s designed to reduce information asymmetry (it’s designed to give all users easy access to more information) and I think it will be really helpful for new players or players that are less studied on prices.

I just hope you made sure to give exposure to bulk crafted armors.

Those who invest in making those get screwed when they do not sell, because most people do not even know they exist. Someone looking for armor won’t get a bulk package in the search results.

John Smith.4610:

titanlectro.5029:

So the next point of interest will be about the new TP, and yet John Smith is not listed as a speaker on this post?!
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/points-of-interest-episode-6/

This needs fixing!

A lot of people put a lot of work into the new TP and they deserve to get some airtime to talk about their work. I’m no expert on UI by any means.

I am excited about the new buying and selling UI the most. It’s designed to reduce information asymmetry (it’s designed to give all users easy access to more information) and I think it will be really helpful for new players or players that are less studied on prices.

Except that it goes backwards in the net profit area. Before it was {projected profit} – {listing fee}
After it will be {listing price}-{listing fee}-{exchange fee}

On that note: How many players listing at a price where the net profit they receive is less than the vendor value are doing so through ignorance ?

How many are doing so for a good reason ?
The only good reason I’ve seen for doing so is that they have a full inventory and every item in their inventory would get a net profit on the TP that is less than vendor price. Meaning a TP listing is better than trashing the item.

But that sounds like a very rare scenario.

John Smith.4610:

titanlectro.5029:

So the next point of interest will be about the new TP, and yet John Smith is not listed as a speaker on this post?!
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/points-of-interest-episode-6/

This needs fixing!

A lot of people put a lot of work into the new TP and they deserve to get some airtime to talk about their work. I’m no expert on UI by any means.

I am excited about the new buying and selling UI the most. It’s designed to reduce information asymmetry (it’s designed to give all users easy access to more information) and I think it will be really helpful for new players or players that are less studied on prices.

Any chance that price history might make its way back to the TP at some point? There was a spot for it back in the beta.

If not would that be for technical reasons, economic or both?

John Smith.4610:

LordByron.8369:

John Smith.4610:

you mistakenly perceive a fantastic and functioning system as broken

Might i dare you to post your statement (without anyone involved just saying you believe economic system is fantastic and functioning) in general section or on a CDI?

out of this subforum would gather thousands answers in few hours.

I’m tempted to register to reddit and link that sentence without ANY comment.

My current role on these forums is not to debate on a subject, but to inform you of my thoughts, feelings, process…etc or to answer questions and educate.

Instead of goading, I suggest you write a detailed description of why you feel the way you do and you may PM it to me and I’ll respond.

I don t want to PM because its indeed a matter of public interest.
I said all my frieds left due to economy (grind is tied to economy)

And start with reading this:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2fj64j/inflation/
(recent popular topic… i don t even have an acccount on reddit so its not “my perception”, but i think i’ll register to provide some more feedback)

I would also argue that a common thing you hear in this game (in the game itself not in the forum) is you win GW2 by playing the TP.

And TP flipping is seen as the only way to get access to BiS items and shinies.

I hope you don t really ignore or don t think a more than noticeable part of GW2 (most veteran non flipping the TP actually) players perceive economy as OK, because it would just mean you are denying the obvious.

Just send a GM (without the anet tag possibly) to discuss economy with any WWW or Dungeon/fractal player with a reasonable amount of achievement points.
Then do the same with new players (not newbies, but someone that has a lvl 80 character and face the problems of gearing up).

I could see before 80 everything seems great.

That is the fastest way to see how your economy is really perceived.

That is try to gather feedback outside of a forum where players first purpose is to gather information on economy manipulation.

John Smith.4610:

A lot of people put a lot of work into the new TP and they deserve to get some airtime to talk about their work. I’m no expert on UI by any means.

I am excited about the new buying and selling UI the most. It’s designed to reduce information asymmetry (it’s designed to give all users easy access to more information) and I think it will be really helpful for new players or players that are less studied on prices.

Well since your not spending time on the podcast, you should test the new TP UI by taking say 200g-500g and challenging yourself to make as much profit as possible in a week (use every dirty trick you can think of to squeeze out a profit, your also testing how the market reacts to super secret commerce stuff). Post your results at the end of the week and gloat how you just emptied the market of thick leather sections(which at more than 10k gold would be insane).

I have a serious question about the economy, and unfortunately am not allowed to create new threads…
I just logged on to my char carrying all my treasures I was hoarding and just realized I got like 12 items, all worth about 20-80 gold each are no longer sellable on TP.

What is this?!

Oh, the punchline, is that I am still given the option to BUY MORE from Trade Post.

What.
Is.
This?

This is totally on topic, so please, spare me your infraction.

@Omar Aschi Popp.7496 Did you equip the items? Once they are equipped they become account bound and you can’t purchase more.

Are they in invisible bag? Can’t sell if it is.

Omar Aschi Popp.7496:

I have a serious question about the economy, and unfortunately am not allowed to create new threads…
I just logged on to my char carrying all my treasures I was hoarding and just realized I got like 12 items, all worth about 20-80 gold each are no longer sellable on TP.

What is this?!

Oh, the punchline, is that I am still given the option to BUY MORE from Trade Post.

What.
Is.
This?

This is totally on topic, so please, spare me your infraction.

You can still contact support instead of making off topic posts.

@LordByron

1. “a common thing you hear in this game (in the game itself not in the forum) is you win GW2 by playing the TP.”
2. “And TP flipping is seen as the only way to get access to BiS items and shinies.”
3. “Just send a GM (without the anet tag possibly) to discuss economy with any WWW or Dungeon/fractal player with a reasonable amount of achievement points.
   Then do the same with new players (not newbies, but someone that has a lvl 80 character and face the problems of gearing up).”

I am interested in this discussion.

First I would like to make some comments on the highlighted protions of your post.

1. I think that really depends on the group of people you are talking to. In my guild we have a couple of people who flip the TP, yet its still not generally thought of as “winning the game” even by the flippers. They do it because they enjoy it, and like that aspect of the game. Other mainly do dungeons, or WvW, and feel that being able to solo arah, or take a garrison with a 5 man havoc group, is “winning the game”. So in the end, it’s more of a matter of perception, than TP flipping actually being the only way to win the game.

2.Again this largly depends on who you are talking to. However, it is impossible to get the BiS gear solely by flipping the TP. You can buy legedaries, yes, but those are not the only BiS items. The next step down is ascended, and the only way to get that is to farm and craft. You cannot buy everything you need off the TP.

3. Gearing up a level 80, isn’t that difficult or time consuming, and can be done entirely outside of the TP. Dungeon gear is what, I feel, a majority goes for when gearing up a level 80. It has almost all stat combos, and is on a equal level with every other piece of exotic gear. Ascended gear does have a small increase and, again, cannot be purchased off the TP.

Also, as John eluded to, TP flippers can only make a finite amount of money. This isn’t the only way to play the game, I have known people who have thousands of gold, and never once flipped the TP. They earned it by playing the game, and not spending money when they didn’t need to. (Of course precursor drops really helped out.) In the end, you shouldn’t feel compelled to play the TP just to “win”. Just play the game and have fun.

John Smith.4610:

Supermagnum.3458:

John Smith.4610:

A lot of people put a lot of work into the new TP and they deserve to get some airtime to talk about their work. I’m no expert on UI by any means.

I am excited about the new buying and selling UI the most. It’s designed to reduce information asymmetry (it’s designed to give all users easy access to more information) and I think it will be really helpful for new players or players that are less studied on prices.

Well since your not spending time on the podcast, you should test the new TP UI by taking say 200g-500g and challenging yourself to make as much profit as possible in a week (use every dirty trick you can think of to squeeze out a profit, your also testing how the market reacts to super secret commerce stuff). Post your results at the end of the week and gloat how you just emptied the market of thick leather sections(which at more than 10k gold would be insane).

This is a funny idea, but I don’t think it would endear me to the general population (or my community team).

Since when did economists care about making friends?

Svarty.8019:

John Smith.4610:

Supermagnum.3458:

John Smith.4610:

A lot of people put a lot of work into the new TP and they deserve to get some airtime to talk about their work. I’m no expert on UI by any means.

I am excited about the new buying and selling UI the most. It’s designed to reduce information asymmetry (it’s designed to give all users easy access to more information) and I think it will be really helpful for new players or players that are less studied on prices.

Well since your not spending time on the podcast, you should test the new TP UI by taking say 200g-500g and challenging yourself to make as much profit as possible in a week (use every dirty trick you can think of to squeeze out a profit, your also testing how the market reacts to super secret commerce stuff). Post your results at the end of the week and gloat how you just emptied the market of thick leather sections(which at more than 10k gold would be insane).

This is a funny idea, but I don’t think it would endear me to the general population (or my community team).

Since when did economists care about making friends?

Notice he didn’t say friends…but the general game population, and the people he has to work with…. :P

John Smith.4610:

<<<<<snip>>>>
I am excited about the new buying and selling UI the most. It’s designed to reduce information asymmetry (it’s designed to give all users easy access to more information) and I think it will be really helpful for new players or players that are less studied on prices.

Only ‘mistake’ I see made here is the lack of a true net profit displayed. It’s an easy calculation, but with so much other work done to this interface, I would like to know the reason (if discussable) as to why such a QoL number was left out.

Roybe.5896:

John Smith.4610:

<<<<<snip>>>>
I am excited about the new buying and selling UI the most. It’s designed to reduce information asymmetry (it’s designed to give all users easy access to more information) and I think it will be really helpful for new players or players that are less studied on prices.

Only ‘mistake’ I see made here is the lack of a true net profit displayed. It’s an easy calculation, but with so much other work done to this interface, I would like to know the reason (if discussable) as to why such a QoL number was left out.

So kids learn again to substract 2 sums from a third one without a smart phone.

Wanze.8410:

So kids learn again to substract 2 sums from a third one without a smart phone.

Well … how about one of those little scan bars so I can just hold my smart phone up against the screen and it does it for me?

John Smith.4610:

I’ve read the thread, it’s not actually about inflation, but a misunderstanding of what indicators of inflation are, it’s about precursor prices.

I don’t understand what point you’re making here? You’re saying veteran players are upset about the economy, because you’ve heard that from people. It seems your primary concern is that TP flipping is the only way to make money and that’s upsetting people? We’ve discussed in great depth why that isn’t true.

John, I think it’s a losing battle trying to explain things like this to certain players. We’ve done our best to try and explain to these players that their misunderstandings about the economy lead to misapplied “solutions” to problems that don’t exist.

Rouven.7409:

Wanze.8410:

So kids learn again to substract 2 sums from a third one without a smart phone.

Well … how about one of those little scan bars so I can just hold my smart phone up against the screen and it does it for me?

That would be a grand idea, if you want the calculative abilities of the player base degenerate to a degree that they cant play guild wars anymore when they misplaced their phone charger.

Wanze.8410:

That would be a grand idea, if you want the calculative abilities of the player base degenerate to a degree that they cant play guild wars anymore when they misplaced their phone charger.

In ten years you won’t be able to open your front door without using a phone app.

John Smith.4610:

I’ve read the thread, it’s not actually about inflation, but a misunderstanding of what indicators of inflation are, it’s about precursor prices.

Whilst yes, the thread shows misunderstandings regarding inflation and yes, precursor prices are what caused the thread’s creation, what I really think the thread boils down to is obtaining rewards and how so much of that is tied to money grind. Many people are sick of endlessly grinding money for nearly everything. (And I find it sad that you only took inflation/precursors away from that thread.)

It seems your primary concern is that TP flipping is the only way to make money and that’s upsetting people? We’ve discussed in great depth why that isn’t true.

It’s not the only way, but it most certainly is the best way. Those people you see on these forums showing off how they have one of every legendary? Not a single one of them achieved that feat without substantial TP flipping. I think a lot of players would appreciate more balance between items that can just be outright bought and those that cannot, the later being obtained through skillful play and completing challenges (most reasonable people don’t want to stop TP flipping, I know I don’t even though I’ve zero interest in it.) Whilst I have two legendaries, I don’t necessarily feel all that proud of them because all it took was mind-numbing money grinding. But my Liadri mini I got the first year or SAB Tribulation mode weapon weapon skins? I’m more proud of those.

Lothirieth.3408:

Whilst yes, the thread shows misunderstandings regarding inflation and yes, precursor prices are what caused the thread’s creation, what I really think the thread boils down to is obtaining rewards and how so much of that is tied to money grind. Many people are sick of endlessly grinding money for nearly everything. (And I find it sad that you only took inflation/precursors away from that thread.)

Then those people should open their eyes and realize they can do things they like doing and STILL earn money doing it. If they have nothing they like doing, they shouldn’t be playing regardless if they do or don’t want money.

@ Wanz & Morsus, thanks for replying but I found out that if I put them back on to my main(the one who acquired them) they were sellable again. For some reason when you shift certain items, to characters who didn’t originally acquire it, they are not tradeable.

I appreciate you.

Wanze.8410:

Roybe.5896:

John Smith.4610:

<<<<<snip>>>>
I am excited about the new buying and selling UI the most. It’s designed to reduce information asymmetry (it’s designed to give all users easy access to more information) and I think it will be really helpful for new players or players that are less studied on prices.

Only ‘mistake’ I see made here is the lack of a true net profit displayed. It’s an easy calculation, but with so much other work done to this interface, I would like to know the reason (if discussable) as to why such a QoL number was left out.

So kids learn again to substract 2 sums from a third one without a smart phone.

Wanze.8410:

Rouven.7409:

Wanze.8410:

So kids learn again to substract 2 sums from a third one without a smart phone.

Well … how about one of those little scan bars so I can just hold my smart phone up against the screen and it does it for me?

That would be a grand idea, if you want the calculative abilities of the player base degenerate to a degree that they cant play guild wars anymore when they misplaced their phone charger.

Haha, oh I definitely agree with you here on a certain level. However we might as well get rid of the 5%, 10% and the display of the total in order to promote “math”.

At the end of the day I would personally care more about the amount of money I will get for a successful transfer then worrying about what “price” a potential buyer will see. Specifically in regards to how the TP works, I’m not going to make a $99.99 price.

No, I don’t know why kids in grade six already need a calculator and yes, I’ve heard of other kids running around with smart phones at that age already. To each his own, I tell my kids they don’t need that stuff (at that age for sure).

Question:

From an economic point of view, does the fact the Living Story content is now permanent, make your job of balancing material faucets easier?

I would reckon its easier now because you add new sources permanently. During season 1, it seemed to me, whenever you tried to add some more mats to the economy, it just resulted in a small supply spike and once the chapter was over, everything was back to normal. As an example, cloth during the Escape/Battle for LA come to mind, as well as exotic sentinel gear in the same updates.

John Smith.4610:

Wanze.8410:

Question:

From an economic point of view, does the fact the Living Story content is now permanent, make your job of balancing material faucets easier?

I would reckon its easier now because you add new sources permanently. During season 1, it seemed to me, whenever you tried to add some more mats to the economy, it just resulted in a small supply spike and once the chapter was over, everything was back to normal. As an example, cloth during the Escape/Battle for LA come to mind, as well as exotic sentinel gear in the same updates.

It’s actually harder. With short term content we can be a lot more liberal with changes because the worst case scenario is minimized. With permanent content a lot more research has to go into the long term stability of markets.

Did the switch to megaservers have any significant impact? I guess alot of events are less likely to fail, so more loot comes into the market. Like before, 20 people each tried to free the temple of balthazar on 4 different servers and all failed but now those 80 people are grouped in one map, the event chain scales up to 80 people (more mobs and loot) and the event succeeds?

Are you aware that some people who get early access to new content, seem to exploit this as an unfair advantage in economy ? (eg : buy items which price is going to rise, while only a few of them are aware of what will happen)

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2fu2pn/lets_look_at_the_tp_prices_of_some_of_the_rare/

IRL that’s call insider trading (if I got the translation to English right). And it deserves a ban jail/fines.

So here is my question : when you provide early access to new content to a few people, I guess they have to sign a contract with a NDA date. Does the contract include not buying anything in the live TP during the preview time ?

To add on to the above….I would hope that Anet takes that very seriously and goes after offenders. We know ya’ll have the data and tools to do so.

If they use secondary accounts to do that, tracking offenders would require a careful comparison of IPs used by main accounts of people who get early access and IPs of people who buy those items between the beginning of said access and the and of NDA.

If they “work” with friends, I’m afraid nothing can be done :’(

John Smith.4610:

Attempting to track people manually isn’t effective. If we suspect it’s getting unwieldy we have a numbers of options to make insider traders (and them only) lose large quantities of money. We’ve done this before to destabilize insider trading as an idea and will likely do it again.

My imagination is running wild based off this…

Are you/your team consulted when releasing information about upcoming patches which could affect economy, or is the system flexible enough to handle it on its own? Like, the UnId dye speculations, mini flipping, spike in prices for collection items seen in Wooden Potato’s video, ambrite stuff etc.

Are all of these speculations healthy for the economy? I remember you saying that on average people lost money on UnId dye flipping, but what about current items? Is the larger TP tax for items which spiked good enough on its own in the long run?

John Smith.4610:

Wanze.8410:

Question:

From an economic point of view, does the fact the Living Story content is now permanent, make your job of balancing material faucets easier?

I would reckon its easier now because you add new sources permanently. During season 1, it seemed to me, whenever you tried to add some more mats to the economy, it just resulted in a small supply spike and once the chapter was over, everything was back to normal. As an example, cloth during the Escape/Battle for LA come to mind, as well as exotic sentinel gear in the same updates.

It’s actually harder. With short term content we can be a lot more liberal with changes because the worst case scenario is minimized. With permanent content a lot more research has to go into the long term stability of markets.

Btw.: Do you have already some long term solutions for T5 wood ? Or will it just be the new leather ?

Is it possible that something like a dynamic TP fee would help the less “fortunate” amongst the population? I don’t mean something like “person X has 10g, so he pays only 10%”, but more along the line of “the higher the price of an item the seller wishes to sell at, the more % the seller has to pay in taxes”.

eithinan.9841:

John Smith.4610:

Attempting to track people manually isn’t effective. If we suspect it’s getting unwieldy we have a numbers of options to make insider traders (and them only) lose large quantities of money. We’ve done this before to destabilize insider trading as an idea and will likely do it again.

My imagination is running wild based off this…

We’ve seen some of this before. Remember Gift of Wine? That may or may not have been an intentional sting, but there have been instances of price-driving information getting out that have turned out to be completely untrue.

A Beastly Stein Shimmy.6179:

Is it possible that something like a dynamic TP fee would help the less “fortunate” amongst the population? I don’t mean something like “person X has 10g, so he pays only 10%”, but more along the line of “the higher the price of an item the seller wishes to sell at, the more % the seller has to pay in taxes”.

This has already been discussed in length in other topics. Additional taxes would just be added to the sell price, making prices more expensive.

Beldin.5498:

John Smith.4610:

Wanze.8410:

Question:

From an economic point of view, does the fact the Living Story content is now permanent, make your job of balancing material faucets easier?

I would reckon its easier now because you add new sources permanently. During season 1, it seemed to me, whenever you tried to add some more mats to the economy, it just resulted in a small supply spike and once the chapter was over, everything was back to normal. As an example, cloth during the Escape/Battle for LA come to mind, as well as exotic sentinel gear in the same updates.

It’s actually harder. With short term content we can be a lot more liberal with changes because the worst case scenario is minimized. With permanent content a lot more research has to go into the long term stability of markets.

Btw.: Do you have already some long term solutions for T5 wood ? Or will it just be the new leather ?

He cant comment on future plans, unless they have been officially announced already.

Wanze.8410:

A Beastly Stein Shimmy.6179:

Is it possible that something like a dynamic TP fee would help the less “fortunate” amongst the population? I don’t mean something like “person X has 10g, so he pays only 10%”, but more along the line of “the higher the price of an item the seller wishes to sell at, the more % the seller has to pay in taxes”.

This has already been discussed in length in other topics. Additional taxes would just be added to the sell price, making prices more expensive.

Not to mention how harmful the taxes would be to a poor player who gets a lucky drop.

mtpelion.4562:

Wanze.8410:

A Beastly Stein Shimmy.6179:

Is it possible that something like a dynamic TP fee would help the less “fortunate” amongst the population? I don’t mean something like “person X has 10g, so he pays only 10%”, but more along the line of “the higher the price of an item the seller wishes to sell at, the more % the seller has to pay in taxes”.

This has already been discussed in length in other topics. Additional taxes would just be added to the sell price, making prices more expensive.

Not to mention how harmful the taxes would be to a poor player who gets a lucky drop.

Who cares about poor players?

Just kidding.

Sariel V.7024:

eithinan.9841:

John Smith.4610:

Attempting to track people manually isn’t effective. If we suspect it’s getting unwieldy we have a numbers of options to make insider traders (and them only) lose large quantities of money. We’ve done this before to destabilize insider trading as an idea and will likely do it again.

My imagination is running wild based off this…

We’ve seen some of this before. Remember Gift of Wine? That may or may not have been an intentional sting, but there have been instances of price-driving information getting out that have turned out to be completely untrue.

It was pure market hype that fueled the trading in grapes before the Gift of Wine was actually available. I should know. I was one of the guys doing the hype and getting rich selling a lot of grapes.