I am wondering if anyone disagrees that the influx of illegal goldsellers gold in the TP influences the “percieved” player demand for gold and thereby illegally affects the gem value?
Ponder this solution to goldsellers. When do they stop using the “throwaway” account?
Most likely when it is banned. What if it is never banned? what if suddenly and without notice a verified goldseller account is rerouted to a permanent overflow server called …. Purgatory or Desolation and because of their status they never travel back into game. They can keep happily farming away and when they sell their mats …which will still go on the gamewide TP, since no one iswilling to revisit that, their sales tax rate is lets say 75% and legit players gems cost are deferred by the amount of money the goldsellers are now making for you ANET ? How does that sound? Good enough to give the rest of us a real free market economy back?
my metacritic re-review:
I reviewed this game previously a 10 after playing since headstart. After this time I am rereviewing and have come to the conclusion this prince of a game has more warts than a frog in a swamp. The main game is fine except for 2 core mechanics that have been exploited. Instanced nodes and a game wide Trading Post. Goldsellers have hacked into the game and botted in the form of what I refer to as the Naked Ranger Conga Line. All nodes can be harvested by each player or bot with impunity. A line of 5 ormore bots hits all the best areas before legit players can have a shot. They tag mobs and take drops and then all these basic mats glut the Trading Post. You would think this would bottom the price to nothing, but the forums cried for and got a barrier keeping the price from dropping below a sell price to an NPC vendor. They said that would keep new players from getting cheated on the Post. Instead it allows a set ROI for all the goldsellers and the armchair Economy experts in the forums never noticed. They are more bent on calling anyone expressing the desire for a free market chance a power mad moneygrubber. So this version of Trading post keeps the goldsellers in business while choking the playablity out of the TP. After spending time trying to handle this within the forums and being accused of trying to gain an unfair advantage by players and having mods and John Smith “you guys got this thread handled” of ANET shout me down as trying to make a ton of money i give up handling this on the inside. The top tier items cost 400g …. who is trying to make a ton of money? almost RMAH-like. The goldsellers illegal influx of money generated from a stable ROI on basic mats has sent gems values up and gold from gems down. Example – I bought one character slot with in-game gold for under 3g shortly after the game got the TP up. Fair and nice…… that same slot would take over 8g now. Crafting is worhtless and a money sink … like its needed.. with only xp having any value. I can farm mats and gain equal exp and more money. anyone who is looking for an enjoyable market experience with free enterprise and the ability to succeed or fail on your own… run fast and far the other direction. This is not your game. The game environment is good. The dynamic events, POI, heart quests etc … are wonderful. thats the 6 … the rest is a zero. sorry to say any who thought GUILD WARS 2 was the no sub solution and successorto WoW will be disappointed. It’s only slightly better in the quest and loses by a landslide in the rest… kitten shame too. I had high hopes — end of re-review
RE: posters comment that he hasnt seen a botter…. they dont have to be on all servers since the gamewide TP serves all server and provides them the full access package.
and im asking you VendettaDFA, do you think the GEM->GOLD ratio is high or low? and why?
Don’t reply me “Gold sellers are illegal scums.”
excerpt from forum code of conduct:
•Do not breach the Guild Wars 2 User Agreement. Any post or thread in which a player admits to violating the Guild Wars 2 User Agreement, encourages others to violate the Guild Wars 2 User Agreement, or violates the Guild Wars 2 User Agreement itself will be removed and the forum account will be terminated.
thats pretty darn close and the mods have ultimate discretion ….
How is that pretty darn close? Sure, alcopaul doesn’t start every post with a disclaimer about not endorsing third-party gold sellers like they do on the black market page at guildwarstrade.com, but I don’t see anything coming close to admitting to or encouraging others to violate the user agreement.
Saying that black market gold is a better indicator of the actual dollar amount most users place on gold may not be exactly correct, but it’s not at all the same as saying therefore players should buy black market gold.
It’s not correct because gold seller gold must be cheaper than ANet gold in order to have any hope of competing, even if it ends up being much lower than what the average player is happy to pay for a given amount of gold. It is the riskier choice, in addition to being morally wrong in most people’s views. Therefore, gold sellers have to counter the moral cost and risk-factor cost by lowering the real money cost.
For example, suppose the idealized completely free market equilibrium price at a particular time was $1 = 1g, meaning that the same number of people were willing to pay $1 for 1g as were willing to sell 1g for $1. If ANet’s exchange reflected this, so that 80 gems ($1 worth) could get you 1g, then black market gold would necessarily be quite a bit cheaper than that, or else the sites selling it couldn’t make any money because no one would have any reason to buy from them.
Any attempt at using the black market to validate or defend a position will not be accepted by me. Go back to your economy. I would rather be on the right side of this and outnumbered than to be counted among your side.
and im asking you VendettaDFA, do you think the GEM->GOLD ratio is high or low? and why?
Don’t reply me “Gold sellers are illegal scums.”
I dont have to validate any of your rhetoric. There is one legitiamte seller of gems for real money … ANET. If you think the price is too high … dont buy from them. Why you claim rip-off on one hand and I spent 150 dollars on the other says it all. You have no ability to stand for what you believe. I would tell them its too high and still have 150 dollars.
My response to the OP was similar dont use an illegal gold seller to try and validate your position… man up and say it on your own. …. but too late like i said
and im asking you VendettaDFA, do you think the GEM->GOLD ratio is high or low? and why?
Don’t reply me “Gold sellers are illegal scums.”
excerpt from forum code of conduct:
•Do not breach the Guild Wars 2 User Agreement. Any post or thread in which a player admits to violating the Guild Wars 2 User Agreement, encourages others to violate the Guild Wars 2 User Agreement, or violates the Guild Wars 2 User Agreement itself will be removed and the forum account will be terminated.
thats pretty darn close and the mods have ultimate discretion ….
you do realize that players set the gem->gold ratio right?
i don’t care about gold -> gem ratio since you can’t cash out gems. i only care about gem -> gold ratio since real money is the starting point of this conversion.
its the players who buy gems with real money and convert the gems to gold but the baseline is too low compared to the black market. the black market usually know the real value of gold based on its in game acquisition. remember these gold sellers are acquiring gold by playing the game.
I am done playing nice … your post just got forwarded
instead of attacking me, provide a valid argument other than “these gold sellers are illegal scums.” pitch of yours.
and mind you, i spent over 150 dollars on the bltc.
too late … you are promoting violators of the terms of agreement over and over ad nausium … you should be and hopefully will be infracted right off the forums… and no loss to us.
you do realize that players set the gem->gold ratio right?
i don’t care about gold -> gem ratio since you can’t cash out gems. i only care about gem -> gold ratio since real money is the starting point of this conversion.
its the players who buy gems with real money and convert the gems to gold but the baseline is too low compared to the black market. the black market usually know the real value of gold based on its in game acquisition. remember these gold sellers are acquiring gold by playing the game.
I am done playing nice … your post just got forwarded
even legit players who amassed large amounts of gold can be potentially a gold seller. so don’t confine gold selling to some illegal business operating overseas.
anyway, a.net doesn’t take note of the easiness of gold acquisition for certain people on their black lion gold to gem conversion rate. if prices of an item goes to 400 gold, that means gold can easily be acquired and inflation rate is high. bltc has to keep up with the market, being the current market which include the gold sellers. if bltc conversion rate goes high, that means gold farmers/hoarders/sellers have to keep up and for sure there is a certain ceiling that gold can be acquired for a given day. if this is so, bltc can actually compete with potential gold sellers and will bring them out of business.
don’t be dumb comparing the situation to real life. this is selling virtual money. the quality of virtual money sold by bltc and gold sellers are the same. so comparing it to a kidney donor from a 3rd world country and a donor by your favorite hospital is dumb,
Again … Goldsellers are illegal scum ….. period.
A legit player with a lot of gold is just that … legit. The rest of your post is closer to single digit IQ than the examples you attack.
I wouldnt worry too much … they haven’t even been able to balance the water attunement on the elemental staff . Its all about the DPS healing gets no drops only tagging damage does
They coded this game to run on the CPU more than use the graphics memory. It sits there and chews the crap out of my quad core til my number 4 pushes past 100 percent and the game crashes on the next port. Memory leak! They try to blame it on a conflict w nvidia drivers … nope…. I can run Diablo 3 ALLLLLLLL day and browse like a fiend w/o a problem.
by now even a lot of the exploring types are at 80 and joined the ones that did it old style and powerleveled … Look at the horizon. That dark cloud is the rest of the server.
Since other initial problems are becoming public knowledge the influx of new players is slow and hesitant.
ok and when you start up the game , if you hear the sound but the graphics seem extremely dark, try looking at the other side of your monitor. The framerate and FOV should be much better from the front of the monitor.
You might be able to use the TP like a search and look for a hood that way. I havent changed my starter hood off my thief yet either cos i like the hood way better than the bandana mask option.
I tend to use skill 1 if I am not sure of my range. The auto-attack engages and as soon as I have an auto fire occur then I can follow up with my other skill of choice. Blowing a skill under that circumstance is on me not the game. When they are in range and suddenly go INVULNERABLE … then im frustrated.
I feel it is bad policy to force changes to the rest of the world that plays this game for something that happens in a small area on the scale of things.
Lucky, then, that you aren’t in charge >_>
Yeah, it would tyrannical to have someone in charge who displayed consistency and followed a production and release schedule.
After Sandy does her damage game or not why dont you go door to door and tell everyone whose lives are affected that they are just something small in the overall scale of things……………………. JERK
A recently released Harris Interactive study confirms that a bad customer service experience with your company is enough to make a majority of consumers run for the hills. The study reported that 80% of 2,049 US adults surveyed decided never to go back to a business/organization after a bad customer service experience. The study clearly indicates that an organization’s customer service level is a defining factor that will make or break a company.
Consumers have increasingly higher expectations of businesses and are willing to walk away quickly from a majority of businesses if they are not met. Although a business may be attracting new customers the key to growth is being able to retain your existing customers while attracting new customers. The Harris study reflects how great customer service can significantly contribute to a company’s growth. Its
findings indicated that 51% of consumers cited outstanding service as the reason that they continued to work with a company
Gamespy’s article just points out what everyone else has discussed in the forums. The longer ANET decides to sit on their collective thumbs, the more likely the above article and excerpts will apply to them.
Honestly , I can’t say I see anything wrong with this article. It addresses issues that players on many occasions have brought up. The difference being ANET can’t close/delete his article. I would recommend ANET also check out this article. I don’t need a response here. From a PR standpoint they can live up to the stance of making a game for their fans to enjoy or they can slide down the same slippery slope Diablo3 did and claim there is no fire while choking on smoke fumes.
Sorry but comparing an Illegal sites gold pricing to ANET’s right to set their price on the game and contents within the game is a weak WEAK attempt to legitimize the goldsellers price only to try and validate your thought that ANET is overcharging for gems. If you think ANET has the price too high then say so.
Goldsellers are illegal scum …period. Of course someone with no operational overhead can undercut the price. They don’t have a company full of employees on a payroll depending on the legitimate income from their work to support them.
I played WoW for 2 years and am seasoned enough myself in a slew of MMO’s to say …… you are entitled to your OPINION. If you expect me to try and convince you otherwise only because you initially said if “we” tried to convince you then we are wasting our collective breath. Sorry … I am NOT going to try. Enjoy your MMO of choice… I am happy with GW2 (flaws and all) and I choose to enjoy and play it. No MMO is free of flaws including the 800 pound Orc circa 2004.
Why in the world is this thread under BLTC forums instead of general discussion. Not to mention the fact it has been discussed to exhaustion on several occasions.
Let me give another example.. Right now Bone chips are selling for 37c and the best offer is 26c. Someone JUST put 30 bone chips for 27c! WTH? If you want quick money, just accept the highest offer. That way you get some quick money and won’t disturb the market.
OR ……… You buy out the 27 cent listing and flip them at 37 … where is YOUR brain … profit is profit. The guy sells at 27 and feels he won … you flip at 37 and win…. win/win. don’t complain ….capitalize … thats the free market way.
Selling for 37c will give you only 31c (after taxes). There is my brain! Nobody will risk buying 5000 of this item and noticing that the price went down to 26 right after you bought it =D
ya .. .theres your brain … not looking at 4c profit and the fact it clears out the barrier to your clean 31c profit from what you farmed …but i guess you can sit there and watch 27 become the new standard selling point. profit is profit …even at 4c per unit.
Sorry, but it’s too risky for the low profit. You’re talking about buying and selling 5k of this item hoping that the market won’t change a bit, so you can have you 4c profit (around 40s for 5000 bone chips). The spread is so low that it may turn into a 1c profit or even a loss and it will take you FOREVER to sell 5k bone chips.
After all you’ll be getting 40s for the 5k bone chips (if everything went perfectly well) and you lost so much time on this matter (looking for a deal, buying and selling) that you would be better off doing events and getting this much money just by having fun!
You’re twisting your own words …. Never once did my suggestion claim that you buy 5000 bone chips … read what you posted you said someone just put 30 – not 5000 – 30 bone chips on at 27 instead of 37. If you don’t have a vested interest (that means you are part of the group selling at 37) then you have no grounds on which to complain to start with. Don’t just blurt out numbers if you arent willing to play the part of the party who the undercut affects. Your whole premise crumbles to the ground without at least that small amount of infused logic.
Let me give another example.. Right now Bone chips are selling for 37c and the best offer is 26c. Someone JUST put 30 bone chips for 27c! WTH? If you want quick money, just accept the highest offer. That way you get some quick money and won’t disturb the market.
OR ……… You buy out the 27 cent listing and flip them at 37 … where is YOUR brain … profit is profit. The guy sells at 27 and feels he won … you flip at 37 and win…. win/win. don’t complain ….capitalize … thats the free market way.
Selling for 37c will give you only 31c (after taxes). There is my brain! Nobody will risk buying 5000 of this item and noticing that the price went down to 26 right after you bought it =D
ya .. .theres your brain … not looking at 4c profit and the fact it clears out the barrier to your clean 31c profit from what you farmed …but i guess you can sit there and watch 27 become the new standard selling point. profit is profit …even at 4c per unit.
Let me give another example.. Right now Bone chips are selling for 37c and the best offer is 26c. Someone JUST put 30 bone chips for 27c! WTH? If you want quick money, just accept the highest offer. That way you get some quick money and won’t disturb the market.
OR ……… You buy out the 27 cent listing and flip them at 37 … where is YOUR brain … profit is profit. The guy sells at 27 and feels he won … you flip at 37 and win…. win/win. don’t complain ….capitalize … thats the free market way.
The problem is not gold buyers, but that the systems for black market gold selling to take place even exist
@Promega.7628
Thats the only intelligent thing you have said. The problem is NOT banning gold buyers who ARE the problem since their DEMAND for black market gold IS why goldselling exists.
You, by your own admission, want to treat these cheaters as legitimate members of the GW2 population. You would also rather punish the 95 percent of the legal players because of the actions of the 5% of illegal buyers and sellers.
I will also point out that the glut of illegal gold being used to purchase gems is keeping your precious gold conversion rate skewed. The problem is the total lack of understanding by people like you of how much everything within the framework of the game is tied together. Knee jerk reactionism like yours and general apathy in enforcing the terms of agreement will damage GW2 infinately more than banning gold buyers ever will. Chat suppression…. anti-farming code…. Diminishing returns … etc. Still you want to keep your cheating gold buying friends in the game …. pfft.
The most awful design available has to be studded leather. Thats not studded … it is quilted. I dont want to go kill skritt wearing grandma latest quilting creation. The skritt arent dying from my attacks , they are dying of laughter. That was a bit of humor but really … the studded design is horrid.
Of course you can shoot a hole in any suggestion in a single sentence if your not going to take the time to actually think of how it can be overcome. We could sit here and argue all day, you come up with silly reasons why a system wont work, and I’ll come up with systems to overcome them. Thats called development and is the process to improving things. Simply doing ban waves will get no where as we have seen over the past decade plus of proof in other games.
In the end I really dont care as long as my account never gets compromised. I acquire more than enough gold, am a couple days away from my first legendary, and am not bothered by the gold spam.
The game is great, but could be even better if resources were redirected to pumping out content instead of babysitting a system that provides very little to the community and enables RMT/botting/account compromises.
I started a thread on banning gold buyers that extended over 7 pages by the time the moderator locked it down. I have more than thought it out and frankly after that fight I don’t wish to discuss it further than the bottom line statement I gave. Research the other threads if you want to see all the discussion. Heres my old one … its way more than a single sentence. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Gold-Buyers-Lets-deal-with-the-cause-in-addition-to-the-effect
Also noticed you even POSTED TO THAT THREAD. You sir, are just trolling.
Shutting down the ability to mail gold accomplishes nothing but punishing legit players. You ban the illegal buyers and sellers. Thats how you deal with this issue.If you shut down acct gold mailing the goldseller will conduct a TP transaction to “buy” a garbage item for the amount of gold the illegal buyer purchased in order to get it transferred into the buyers account. Your idea does nothing.
After my experiences on these forums in both posting and creating threads I have 2 suggestions.
1. A lifespan – A created thread auto-closes after x number of days. x= what the mods determine. No one ever checks topic postings before creating a topic so thread redundancy runs rampant.
2 OP closable threads. I had a seven plus page thread thankfully, finally closed after it had been off-topic for at least 3 pages worth of content. I got infracted twice in the process. I can’t and don’t expect mods to police content for what is on or off topic beyond what they do, but after I posted a request to have my thread closed due to it being off topic and was ignored… that caused my frustration and subsequent infractions. To avoid any unsavory OP initiated thread closures, the OP would not be allowed to comment in the closure post. Click the close post button … click verify … thats it.
I will only sell mats that generate a profit on the TP. I will vendor all other mats that are on the 1c over vendor priceline. If I glut the market on an already low demanded item , I am contributing to my own cash flow issues in regard to TP sales. I salvage blues and greens for the basic mats which usually sell for more than the unit itself.
More restrictions, of any kind is not what is needed. An overhaul is needed, but not anything that infringes on the free market aspect. If its legal on Wall Street then its legal here should be the mantra.
Waypoints are ANETs travel option. They were in GW and they are in this game as expected. You are more than welcome to ignore all the waypoints you want.
I am about 20 levels above my personal story as I am not that interested in it vs the exploration and dynamic events in the map areas. Its all in how you want to play it.
As long as mats sell for more than the end product, the sharable node has zero impact. As long as the end product is a loss of profit in comparison to cost of mats in purchase price, crafting is a waste of time and money as the exp for getting mats is equivilent.
@ John Smith What he describes is absolutely valid. I got the same “order did not go through” message on a dye purchase and I re-attempted and was successful …BUT when I went to pick up my order I had both orders there. I didnt intend to spend double my outlay and didnt need double my order. IF my order didnt go through then dont take my funds … but if it processed dont tell me it didnt.
There was NO outage or maintenence associated with this …… YOU have an issue.
@ Ryuujin
I am generating about 20 silver an hour from farming a starting area and selling the basic mats off at TP. I can afford whatever I need for gear at that pace straight off the TP and still have shots at rare drops. Thank you Mr. 5 percent for being my concierge … you work for me enjoy
@ Archer.6485
It should be profitable to make the craft valid and to fund your gameplay. EXP from gathering mats matches crafting EXP w/o the monitary loss so crafting is currently worthless to level.
If a specific craft netted a specific profitable item the demand on that item would send the price up… meanwhile since everyone can farm all mats even those they cant use.. supply of mat needed for specific item would be overabundant – driving mat price down to meet the smaller demand base …. hence fixed TP economy. Everyone makes it more complex than it is … the mmo economy is simplified supply and demand … the misconception of crafting being valid keeps the demand for basic mats high and sends the price up.
I know everyone bashes some bad aspects of this game when comparing to wow. I mean this game has been out what like less then 2 months compared to wow that has been around for like 10 years? Is that really a fair comparison? This game needs some time for them to fix and add to it to make it better. Without the monthly sub though I still think comparing this to wow is unfair.
They can’t fix what they don’t think is broken – hence this thread. Love the game ….an 8 for the main game …missed that? If this is fixed its a 9.5. I didnt buy every GW1 xpac but “Eye” because I hated it.
@echo
You arent trolling me at all … very aware of the limits. Actually it shoots down Horheristo.3607 thinking I want to swim in money for min effort. I want to generate income enough to enjoy the main game w/o being broke always. Effort isnt the problem or the issue- My main in WoW went thru a 6 week questline grind of dailies for the Netherwing Drake. What I advocate is a feasable TP that rewards low/mid crafting more than a mat scavenger … but until they do I will play it the most efficeint way (horheristo) because I am not STUPID enough to blindly stay broke. If your 5000g = 50 silver correllation is correct … I am doing more than that daily from starting area mats. have a nice day.
Even in WoW the finised products are, in most instances, less than the raw materials on the auction house.
The one thing that WoW has that sell really well are the rare drops from raids. Only a select lucky few get those recipes and can craft and sell those finished products. Even then most of the raid drops were better (eg set bonuses).
Gold in WoW is trivial. Go check the people that have reached the maximum gold limit. They are out there and that was a few xpacs ago. There are very few gold sinks in WoW so accumulating currency is pretty easy. I am suprised that there is any sort of “economy” in WoW.
As stated there are PLENTY of recipes that can be made VIA the mystic forge. Those sell and for a LOT of gold too.
2 years experience in WoW ….. Made on average 55% profit making netherweave bags … thats a bag that beginning level toons on WoW can buy and equip. Made as a tailor and its a midlevel skill. When I stopped playing I had over 5000 gold on him and he financed 3 other toons for me in addition … so I beg to differ. I never NEVER left the AH I bought and flipped from mats only on sale at the AH and only spent an hour a day on him.
seriously though they would be fun … can we equip the prehensil tail with a 3rd weap ?