Guild Wars 2

I want to maintain the value of my gold compared to something that is stable in value, such as gems or real money. Buying gems would be a significant loss if I wanted to resell, so that is not a very good option though.

The game has been deliberately constructed to thwart this desire, unfortunately. If you try to hold gold, you’ll lose value over time because of the new “printing presses” that are continually being introduced (the most recent of which comes from achievement chests). And if you try to avoid this by holding a physical asset of some type, such as a good weapon, you run the continual risk that the game designers will run the “item printing press” and introduce new items people will like better than the one(s) you’re holding, driving the value of your asset(s) into the ground.

You may not like the commissions/taxes associated with buying gems, but if you’re expecting huge “print runs” that will erode everything’s value over the long term, gems will at least put a ceiling on your losses. Alternatively, you can listen to one of numerous voices on the boards who believe they have deduced earlier than the rest of us which particular items are going to be good investments over the long term. That’s probably the only way to stay ahead of the game (so to speak), but you have to be really good at sorting wheat from chaff to be successful at it.