Guild Wars 2

Whenever we make a purchase we are charged a tax. Whenever we sell something, we are charged a tax. Whenever we travel somewhere, we are charged a tax. We have a bank, where we can deposit goods and coins. What incentive is there to actually put cash in the bank? Sure you get an achievement when you reach a certain level of “saving”; which I think is around 200 gold deposited.

Why aren’t we earning interest on those savings? By following the economic principles of taxation and free market trade, why not complete it with interest rates?

As a way to encourage using the bank more, as a way to potentially offset some of the numerous taxes we get charged (way points, repair costs etc), earning interest on money put in the bank, would not only help people grow their bank, but will actually make the bank useful for money collection. Taxation stands at 15% for buying and selling, interest rates won’t obviously be that high, so even a 1% interest rate (or even 0.5% if you really want to be miserly) per day (week? month?) would be better than nothing, which is what we have now.

I understand this would involve a whole new set of programming to work out what every person has in the bank and then calculate the interest and automatically deposit extra money, but it’s worth looking at?

I suppose, worst case, if it is too difficult to do on a per account basis, then what about earning interest for guild banks?

I think this is actually a pretty cool idea. The only reason why I think it’s cool is because charging us 15% on the TP is kind of ridiculous. The idea of the tax is not ridiculous in itself, but a 15% loss on everything you sell is too much. Whatever happened to good old trading between players? Every mmo except GW2 allows you to trade with other players. If you want to post your goods on the TP and sell something fast, then sure, i’ll take a 15% loss. But if I want to trade directly to another player to mitigate that 15% loss, I should have the freedom to do so.

oh good lord this game is turning into real life. kill me now lawd!

vespers.1759:

oh good lord this game is turning into real life. kill me now lawd!

I mean it in terms of they have a trading post and a taxation system, so if they have those why not add the third?

Ema.4953:

vespers.1759:

oh good lord this game is turning into real life. kill me now lawd!

I mean it in terms of they have a trading post and a taxation system, so if they have those why not add the third?

i know but i feel like they should just remove the tax rather than add more stuff. i know they want to steal money somehow so tax is the first thing to come to mind but it’s still a game and tax has no place in it.

problem is were making money out of nothing already, the reason we are “taxed” constantly is to keep the amount of money in game from just going up non stop.

If you then make the money made from no where go up constantly all your going to do is increase the need for money sinks or watch everyone sit on mountains of gold with nothing to do with it.

So no, no interest please, I’ve seen what happens when games have too much money income and not enough money sinks to counter it and it results in even the most common items costing ridiculous amounts to buy which only prohibits new players or poor players more than anything.

If anything there needs to be more things to spend gold on other than the trading post for those that are already getting ridiculously rich.

sure, you can have bank interest … along with withdrawal fees, minimum deposit fees, and the other 4000 bank fees.

Ema.4953:

Why aren’t we earning interest on those savings? By following the economic principles of taxation and free market trade, why not complete it with interest rates?

Actually, too much saving has a negative impact on the economy. Why would you want to encourage people to hoard their money instead of spend it? Lots of people buy a lot of stuff off of the TP just to put their gold to work. If they were getting a fixed return letting it sit in their bank, they would buy less stuff, folks would sell less stuff, and everyone would suffer.

The only reason a bank gives you interest is because they are paying you for letting them use your capital. Virtual gold sitting in someone’s stash does absolutely nothing to improve the game’s economy, and should not be encouraged. Actually it would actually hurt the game’s economy, because gold sellers would have a huge advantage over your typical player.

I find it surprising in the current “stick it to the rich” environment that anyone would advocate “let’s give the people with lots of money even more money”. Maybe you didn’t think through all the implications?

too many people don’t realize game economies don’t equal real life economies.

Dasorine.1964:

So no, no interest please, I’ve seen what happens when games have too much money income and not enough money sinks to counter it and it results in even the most common items costing ridiculous amounts to buy which only prohibits new players or poor players more than anything.

You’re right, being inhospitable to new players is probably the most significant impact of making it easy to amass huge amounts of gold. I know when we played City of Heroes we used to hang out in Atlas Park and give new characters with clever names or costumes a big pile of money because we knew they weren’t going to be able to afford their enhancements just by playing. We had been playing for so long with no money sinks, we had more than we could spend (even though we are both altoholics).

Hey it was a thought / suggestion. I hope I didn’t come across as saying or implying it should happen, more a “if this, why not this” type deal.

I understand and respect your arguments against it. Sure it could lead to more things like deposit fee and withdrawal fees, and yes it would hurt new players until they weren’t new player anymore.

I certainly understand this is not a real economy.

Like I said it was more a thought than a demand for its inclusion. I also agree money should be spent than horded, thought it’s getting harder to spend with so few things to actually buy.

you’ve got t3 and commander at 100g and then… legendaries at 1500g. not a whole lot in between

hoarders gonna hoard regardless.