Guild Wars 2

So we have karma as currency but quite few items and rewards to spend it on. It’s a interesting currency since you can’t trade it with others – so it would be ideal for rewars which are prestige objects which show other players that you’ve not bought this stuff with real money etc.

What do you think is the plan with karma? Why do we have so little to spend it on?

I would like to see prestige skins released through Karma considering what it is, and was dismayed when they turned Karma into “gamble for more gold” via Orrian Coffers.

Every single one of those rare skins at the Queen’s Pavilion are cultural skins you can buy them each for 63k karma DO NOT waste 5-10g on those use worthless karma if you like them.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cultural_weapon
That’s something I guess..

yeah but these are in since release I wouldn’t mind if they’d give us updates now and then and wonder why there is nothing (?) new. Maybe it’s the fact that you can buy prestige objects with real money at the moment (gem → gold), like the new champion skins.

It seems that karma as a currency has been completely abandoned by the devs. There has been only one instance of adding something worth buying to karma vendors since the beginning of the game (exotic accessories and orrian boxes at the temple vendors), and it’s very unlikely there will be anything more in the future.
It’s all tied to current design of making everything timegated, and making all your past progress worth exactly nothing for all future content.

Astralporing.1957:

It’s all tied to current design of making everything timegated, and making all your past progress worth exactly nothing for all future content.

well if this was true, we wouldn’t have seen retroactive achievements.

but what should we get for karma?
It wouldn’t make sense to give us ascended items for huge amounts of karma.

• players who spent all their karma for orrian boxes would rage
• some of us would get the items (which are supposed to be longterm goals) instantly
  etc.

It’s really difficult for Anet imho. A rushed implementation of karma-rewards could lead to a huge fan-rage.

I’m not sure which kind of rewards would make sense, but I think rather smaller rewards for little karma-costs would make more sense. This way people who have spent all their karma because of no alternatives could catch up quickly.

BUT what could those rewards be? Give us items which currently are available for gold would destroy important gold sinks.

More stuff in the Orrian Boxes. I currently have double figures in the Balth mini pet, when really the whole temple set would have been better to have in them. Some exclusive armor or weap skins maybe inside. Or a chance at the Jade/Molten tickets. Or Bl keys.

Black Lion Keys… that would be awesome. They would destroy their Gem-store income through the keys though :-/

(is there actually someone who buys BL-keys from the gemstore? O_o)

hmm, what if we could buy a discount for the gemstore? -20% gem-price for 1 purchase = 10.000 karma. This would also be an incentive for people to spend more in the gemstore.

on the other hand: orrian boxes are the gold-source intended I guess, which would be turned to gems… dang, for a moment I thought it would be a good idea -__-

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Black Lion Keys… that would be awesome. They would destroy their Gem-store income through the keys though :-/

(is there actually someone who buys BL-keys from the gemstore? O_o)

If it’s in the gem store, chances are there is some addict out there getting his money taken, yes.

Virtual gambling among minors should be taken more seriously in my opinion. I understand that real money would be motivation for Anet to design cool new armor skins and the like, but do they really need to RNG gate it and make people who already love their game spend so much money to get these skins (such as the rich dragon coffers and aetherblade weapons)? I’ve seen people spend upwards of $50 to get enough claim scraps.

Back on topic, karma vendors need to give out unique skinned gear such as the Jotun greatsword. It would increase the rewards for exploring the map and map doing the heart quests more enjoyable, seeing what new karma skin you unlocked. Right now, all the skins are repeated over and over again and it’s really, really boring.

the Jotun Sword idea sparked another idea: Give Heart-NPCs exotic versions of the gear for karma also, so that lv.80 players have viable rewards. The skin could look slightly different than the low-level counterpart. Maybe a new effect.