Guild Wars 2

DarcShriek.5829:

Behellagh.1468:

Law of Big Numbers when dealing with RNG should show a greater tendency toward actual odds. So 500 chests gives us a practical number of 14 tickets. That’s much lower than I inspected. The 1 in 5 for scraps is close to what I expected but the 1 in 125 for an actual ticket is much lower than I expected.

Your mistake is thinking that 500 is a large enough number. It’s not a large number. Ten thousand is a large number.

Sure “big” is a relative term. Even if you don’t think that 500 chests is a big enough number, 500 chests cost ~4200g to open which should be a big enough number for most people.

If you spent that kind of gold which could have easily gotten you a good legendary right off the TP, but instead you got no where near that amount from chests, then that shows that chests are not good investments in general.

If ArenaNet wants me to buy keys, then they need to give a much better returns for my investment. And for those who say that this is a lottery – would you pay $4200 for a lottery ticket that would return to you only a small fraction of that amount, 99% of the time?

The problem with ArenaNet’s gem store is that it is not so much a problem with Pay-to-Win, it is Pay-to-Lose!

Minos.5168:

RemiRome.8495:

DarkSpirit.7046:

At such odds, it is not a lottery, it is a scam!

You do realize all lotteries worth winning have even worse odds?

Right?

Except that those lotteries actually pay you in cash.
Not virtual goods.

Took the words right out of my mouth!

The multiplicative factor in value, of a real world lotty is much higher, if you win. Considering the investment cost, the odds, and the value you obtain if you win, it is just not worth it.

Minos.5168:

DarkSpirit.7046:

Just look at Beigarth’s Knight Insignia right now (see attached picture for proof since value changes over time), you earn more than 19g in profit for EACH insignia you craft.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/recipe/7896

The only ingredient that you can’t buy are 5 Dark matter orbs for each insignia. But still 19g in profit per insignia is a lot. If you want to go for just buy orders for instant gold, there are 8 of them in the buy list which you can earn a profit of about 28.5g instantly without fear of other people undercutting your profits.

If I can find many such opportunities, I don’t understand how people can say crafting is not worth it.

And… How many Exotics do you have to salvage for 5 Dark Matter, if you do not use the Perfect Salvage Kit (available now at the Black Lion Trading Company <- Evon paid me to say that)?

That cost eats into the “19g” profit.
I used a Perfect Salvage Kit and salvaged all the exotics (worth less than 2g, the more expensive ones I sold on the TP) that I crafted on the way from 400 to 500 and only got like 17 Dark Matter.

And, in all honesty, the rest of that profit is likely due to Damask being time-gated.

You can only craft one per day. Insignias require 3.

TL;DR: At the end of the day, you may be making 13g every 3 days…
I look at that and think “Wow. I could have just given ANet $2 and converted gems to 13g.”

There are lots of exotics in the TP right now that are worth more in value, when salvaged by a Black Lion Salvage kit considering the price of their upgrade, their chance of ectos, and the chance of obtaining an insignia/inscription. Salvaging these exotics with BLSK to obtain their upgrades + chance of insignia/inscription, already earn me a small profit, even considering the price of BLSK nowadays. The chance of obtaining ectos and dark matter is just extra gravy.

Again, if you use your brains and you search well, you can usually find what you need to make a profit. I have shared this before:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/Globs-of-Dark-Matter-1/first#post3425710

As far as the Beigarth’s Knight Insignia above, you can always keep a stock of Damask over a period of several days. Damask has been worth more than its ingredients taken together to craft it ever since the ascended armor crafting release and it seems that trend would continue to be profitable for a long while.

The fact that you can always earn gold by selling gems bought with real money, does not imply that crafting is not profitable. There are so many craft-able items that are worth more than the ingredients that it takes to make them, so you can earn ALOT of profit just by exploiting as many of them as you want to.

Just look at Beigarth’s Knight Insignia right now (see attached picture for proof since value changes over time), you earn more than 19g in profit for EACH insignia you craft.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/recipe/7896

The only ingredient that you can’t buy are 5 Dark matter orbs for each insignia. But still 19g in profit per insignia is a lot. If you want to go for just buy orders for instant gold, there are 8 of them in the buy list which you can earn a profit of about 28.5g instantly without fear of other people undercutting your profits.

If I can find many such opportunities, I don’t understand how people can say crafting is not worth it. It is a gold sink only if you don’t use your brains or are too lazy to search for opportunities. Otherwise crafting is an investment which can be used to earn back many times the amount of gold that you have used to level it up, provided you are not too lazy.

Glacial Singer.1573:

Is crafting worth it ?, Unless your crafting for yourself…. no.

Crafting prices are upside down, a crafted insignia may sell for 6-7 gold.
But the item needing the insignia, IE: weapon, would sell for around 2 gold.

So what? Many of the insignia are also crafted items, so if they are worth it to craft then that implies that crafting is worth it.

Just because some or even most things are not worth it to craft doesn’t mean that EVERYTHING is not worth it to craft. People are just too lazy to find out which are the worthy items to craft by pointing their browsers to gw2spidy. Let me save you the effort by providing a link:

http://www.gw2spidy.com/crafting/5

….so many profitable items to craft.

Gibson.4036:

DarkSpirit.7046:

When would ArenaNet actually come up with items that financially makes sense, other than converting our gems into gold?

It’s a lottery, it’s not supposed to make financial sense.

At such odds, it is not a lottery, it is a scam!

There would ALWAYS be items that you can craft that would earn you more gold than the cost of its ingredients put together. They are mostly in the 400-500 max crafting level category. The problem for most people is to find out which of these items are out there, which are not difficult to find actually.

mtpelion.4562:

If you were to buy the 500 keys today it would cost you:

1. 5293g75s00c If using Gold
2. $781.25 If using Cash
2a. If the gems bought with cash were converted to gold instead, you’d get 3825g00s00c

So the question is: Is it even possible to come close to recouping either 1. or 2a. in game gold through Black Lion Chests?

The answer appears to be a hearty “NO” (we’re probably talking thousands of gold in losses unless you get your ticket skins when they are 1 ticket each and hold them until they increase in value enough to offset) which leads into a second question: Are the non-saleable items worth the amount of gold you are losing?

That’s kind of a personal question that I leave up to you.

Just don’t make the mistake of buying Keys for any kind of financial reason. They are gambling, pure and simple, and the house — always — wins.

With that kind of gold, he could have bought a legendary right off. When would ArenaNet actually come up with items that financially makes sense, other than converting our gems into gold?

Tallis.5607:

Cassocaster.4576:

The thing that kind of irks me is that people take an attitude towards those that can afford to buy gems (or choose to should that be the delimiter in deciding to buy or grind), no one HAS to buy gems.

Unfortunatly, this is not true.

People that buy gems with dollars ‘force’ others to do the same. It is because of players that are willing to pay-to-win (read: get top DPS), that others have to pay too.

There is no way for a player to make 3,000 gold by ‘just playing the game’ so that he can buy the top-DPS legendary. That is 300 hours of pure hard-core, mind-numbing grinding. The only realistic way to get 3,000 gold is to spend real money.

3,000 gold costs about US$588 at today’s price. Seriously, most people would not be willing to throw that kind of money at a MMO.

Because some people spent that money, ANet will never give a non-pay-to-win way to let us get that top-DPS weapon. Why would ANet do that, when they can get people to pay dollars to have the best gear?

So, yes, it is because of people that spent 700$ on a game, that others need to spend money too to keep up with the insane legendary (read: top DPS weapon) price.

You can still get the best DPS weapons by going the Ascended route.

Buttercup.5871:

@wanze: that thread invites players to report area botting, not TP botting.

Given the position the OP previously advocated, I think he is showing us the tip of the iceberg. I also note that previous threads like these have been removed. If this thread would be removed as well, that would be a shame, given that the OP was the biggest opponent of such TP bot reporting on the forum in the past. Something major must have happened, or is happening, that prompted him to post this here.

I have always been reporting bots in the game.

Despite our disagreements, I maybe a supporter of apps for the game, but that does not imply that I am pro-bots.

I have been noticing this auto-outbidding bot for the past few days now. It usually trades in quantity of 2 per item.

It is on now and the items that it is now tracking are the exotics:

Dire Ceremonial winged axe of accuracy
Dire Ceremonial speargun of accuracy
Dire Ceremonial rifle of accuracy
Dire Ceremonial trident of accuracy
Dire Ceremonial pike of accuracy
Dire Ceremonial warhorn of accuracy
Dire Ceremonial stave of accuracy

Botter seem to be in US east coast based on timing.

Rising Dusk.2408:

DarkSpirit.7046:

Sure if you don’t have to consider food, paying your house mortgage/rent, paying up your car, paying for your children’s education, paying your ISP, taxes, etc. That $10/hour becomes much lower now, so not too crystal clear to me.

I did say a lot of people, not all people. And if you’re suffering a financial crisis, you should probably not be spending 6 hours in a game at a time anyway! It’s all about priorities and what is appropriate for you; for a lot of people it’s okay to spend a few hours out of your biweekly paycheck on gems. That’s just the way it is.

If you are spending more than $12.99 a month, then you are paying more than a WoW-subscription to play GW2. And the initial draw of the subscription-less game becomes a lie.

Like it or not, a free subscription game tend to attract the kind of gamers that do not want any financial commitment from playing a MMO. But when these gamers feel compelled to spend, through the game designs, then conflict and frustrations can arise.

Rising Dusk.2408:

OrianZeta.1537:

Stop rewarding so much gold just for playing the game. There are a billion currencies; pick another one (how about laurels?). Bound items (you know, actual physical rewards?) are also things.

If selling gems earned a lot more gold and rewards were reworked away from injecting sacks of gold into everyone’s wallets we would have a more rational gem market, balanced economy and rewarding ecosystem.

I generally disagree with this sentiment. Even for obtaining 6g per 100 gems right now from selling gems, that’s 48g for 10 bucks, which for many people in this day and age is one hour of work or far less than that for people with higher paying jobs. Compare this to the number of hours of focused grinding you’d need to get 48g in-game, which is about 6 assuming a maximized 8g/hr rate from champ trains. 1 hour of real work or 6 hours of in-game work. For a lot of people, the appropriate course of action for them is crystal clear.

I think the values are in a good place right now given the amount of time it takes to earn the equivalent value of gold for those gems.

Sure if you don’t have to consider food, paying your house mortgage/rent, paying up your car, paying for your children’s education, paying your ISP, taxes, etc. That $10/hour becomes much lower now, so not too crystal clear to me.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Gem to gold converting people got smart. That’s all. They wait until there’s a spike. Then they spend gems enough to get 10k gold. The spike comes down, the gold buyers are silent again. And all wait for a spike again. If they all bought what they truly wanted, and didnt care for spikes, price would be down a crapload already. But since the people delay, cause they know their gems are worth more after a while, it sort of artificially increases the price. If everybody who intended to buy gold did it 1 week earlier and didnt care for spikes, the price would already be back at 7g. That’s my take on it after comparing last two weekends prices non stop.

You do know that 10k gold costs about US$1900 at current prices right?

tolunart.2095:

Buttercup.5871:

You know that Scarlet is going to be gone in a month right? No more invasions and such? No more Scarlett’s lair. No more sprockets. Only from the pick. And the pick probably provides 0.1% of the current supply.

Prices will shoot right through the roof, just like candy corn, snowflakes and taffy…

I doubt that. There are lot enough uses for sprockets.

If it would rise then speculators would already have come in to hoard them but their market price indicates that this is not happening.

Obtena.7952:

MikeyGrey.2496:

Value of sprockets is completely irrelevant. Its the actual ability that I am after.

That’s not a very genuine statement. Obviously collecting sprockets has some value to you, whether you want to use them or sell them. having the ability to get them ‘just because’ isn’t really a strong position to justify getting a refund on older picks or an upgrade.

Maybe for you that’s true but most people will buy the pick because they want sprockets to use or sell, not just to collect. How you desire to use the farmed materials it doesn’t invalidate the statement that older picks are the last ones people will need because people buy picks because they need ore and the older picks always give ore.

If you want to talk about how to get the most value from that 1000 gems, the answer would be to just convert them to gold. Buying an unlimited pick is just not worth it, if you do the calculations.

smiley.1438:

DarkSpirit.7046:

It is interesting that Stefan mentioned GW2Spidy when GW2Spidy is not even using the official API.

Where exactly does Stefan mention GW2Spidy? It’s mentioned be the articles author (who doesn’t seem to know the difference) as an example for GW2-API usage.

Somehow I doubt an author who, like you said, doesn’t know the difference would know so many GW2 websites that use API, on her own.

Killer Rhino.6794:

Hey gang,

Mentioned by Stefan in this recent API article:

It is interesting that Stefan mentioned GW2Spidy when GW2Spidy is not even using the official API.

We have been asking for an official trading post API ever since Cliff started asking for API suggestions but we have not heard anything back. I hope they have an official trading post API ready for us that is mobile-friendly.

People who have done the calculations know that buying any of the unlimited pick is not worth it in terms of gold, but only in terms of personal convenience. Yes, even with the sprockets. That means converting those gems into gold right away would cause more impact to the economy than the extra sprockets from those picks over a period of years.

dAcIaW.5107:

Guild Wars 2 wasn’t a P2W game before, but now it is, since this item gives you a clear advantage over someone who doesn’t have it. If a person with the pick and a person without the pick mine a rock the person with the pick suddenly has gained extra wealth that the one without a pick has not. He paid for the pick and he is now further ahead because of it.

It is not strictly P2W because the most effective gear is still not buy-able with gold, except for legendaries but they are the minor exceptions that require a crazy amount of gold. To get the best gear, you need more than just the most effective weapon, you also need the most effective trinkets and armor. People just don’t seem to understand why this is the case in this game. Gold can’t buy you everything in this game.

Second, you are talking about a pick that only gives 20% of a 40c item and making such a fuss about it. If you do the calculations, you would know that the pick is not worth it, so all the points about the economy, gold, and such do not make sense since converting all these gems into gold right away would have a much bigger impact on the economy itself than the extra sprockets from those picks over a period of years.

warchanter.9574:

DarkSpirit.7046:

warchanter.9574:

this needs to be addressed by someone….do not let this thread die…anet needs to respond to there customers…..

They have already responded. Read the posts in this thread. How many times must you keep asking them to respond?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Watchwork-Pick-Why-No-Response/page/2#post3578383

I guess you haven’t read it …. cause this was the response:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Guys, for the most part I think this has been a civil and helpful conversation. I want to thank you (well most of you) for keeping a constructive tone, and sharing your thoughts.

If I could ask you to share your thoughts on the item in the appropriate forum — I am pretty sure that would be the Black Lion Trading Company Forum — I’d appreciate it. Please know I am not trying to deflect or shut down the discussion, just get it where it belongs and is most likely to be noted.

Thanks for understanding.

Like I said, they have already responded so why did you claim that they have not responded?

warchanter.9574:

this needs to be addressed by someone….do not let this thread die…anet needs to respond to there customers…..

They have already responded. Read the posts in this thread. How many times must you keep asking them to respond?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Watchwork-Pick-Why-No-Response/page/2#post3578383

Buttercup.5871:

@smooth penguin: By your line of argument they might as well sell supreme sigils and runes of the overlord (account bound) in the gemstore. And 100% crit food (account bound). And special uberskills for tpvp. Because you can convert gold to gems, right?
.

Because they don’t want their gem store to appear that way which would spawn too many complain threads like this one. On the other hand, they are obliged to continue boosting sales of their gem store items, so it is a delicate balance. The old unlimited pick has been around long enough that its sales must be tapering off. They needed something, as successful, to take over so they recycled it with a new feature.

The problem is those who spent the gems to get the old unlimited pick, wanted theirs to be the best in class forever but ArenaNet has never guaranteed that. They also have not guaranteed any free upgrade to existing customers with the old unlimited pick.

If I am ArenaNet, I would also sell a consumable for about 500 gems, that would upgrade existing customers with the old unlimited mining pick to the new one, but that is just me.

cranked.3812:

Having said that, your constant analogies about MS office and cars are not even close to applicable here. First off, when you buy windows you do get free upgrades for a LONG time. If this particular pick was released 10 years after the other one and people were complaining, I would be inclined to agree with you. However, it was released 2 months ago. If Microsoft released new versions of windows every two months and made you buy the latest version to get all the new features at a price tag of $129 would you accept that?

You would be surprised that most people do not have a free upgrade on their windows. I am still using windows 7 and I don’t have a free upgrade to windows 8. Unless you opted to pay extra for your “free” upgrades, which most people don’t.

And the timing has nothing to do with it. Windows 8 can come 3 months after windows 7 and it would still be the same deal. So in answer to your question Microsoft can charge whatever they want, it is the customers that would vote with their money.

In the same way, why complain about the new pick, if you don’t like then just don’t buy it. It is only $12, hardly “crazy” at all, I spent more than twice that on lunch today. The fact is, if they dont keep making better upgrades in their gem store then I would not feel the need to buy gems from them.

If you have done the calculations, it would be obvious that even the old unlimited pick is not worth its cost. The only justification for buying it would be for convenience. So why dwell on the cost now? That ship has already sailed.

Septemptus.7164:

Also keep in mind that you can buy cars from different companies, you can have 3 operating systems that will run GW2: Windows, Linux, Mac, yet Black Lion Trading Company is the only and lately very bad supplier.

But you already know that before you bought the game don’t you?

Basically game items aren’t real live items, they don’t have the same values of making and selling, but the also don’t have the same other characteristics, so if you want to show similarities, please think about it a bit more and provide good examples.

Isn’t that the same case with the old unlimited pick? Yet so many of you guys bought them. If you don’t think that they are worth spending the gems on, then the point is moot, there is no point arguing, simply don’t buy.

The point of this is that old tools were convenience, but new ones are income generators that give you small but still an advantage. So next items could get you more and more advantage since you stated:

The old tools are also income generators. If you don’t have to keep buying gathering tools as you mine for orichalcum, what happens to your income? It generates.

Psientist.6437:

On the surface some folks are asking for upgrades, but what they are actually asking for is a product release model that does not devalue their past purchases, a model that does not leave them feeling like a sucker or have them counting how many times they have been fooled.

But it has always been like this with the world. The new version of Windows is suppose to be better (i.e. more features) than the previous one and you would have to pay to upgrade to that newer version. Same with other software like Microsoft Office or computers. I never complained when newer PCs come with newer and better features than the one I bought 10 years ago. I never complained when newer Toyotas come with better features than the one I bought 10 years ago. So on and so forth.

The reason why these companies bother to keep building better versions of their old products is because they need to entice people to keep buying from them. ArenaNet has the same need, so I don’t see what is so surprising or disappointing about their actions. This should be expected. How else are they going to survive? Furthermore, they have never ever promised that the molten pick would be the best-in-class pick forever and ever. Some of you guys just imagined this extra sales clause in your heads.
They have also never promised free upgrades to the best-in-class pick with all its features forever and ever. That is another thing that complainers HOPE for but that doesn’t means ArenaNet is obliged to provide for free. It has never been in their sales agreement when they bought the molten pick.

Psientist.6437:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

While I agree that the new pick is walking a thin line, there’s no real disrespect in the Gem Store. All items are meant for conveniences, and require no real world money to purchase. Getting mad that a current item is better than your previously purchased one, is like getting mad at Toyota because their new 2014 Corolla is better than your 2010 one. It’s just silly.

This is a false equivalency.
To be a true equivalency Toyota would need to be:
-The only manufacturer of everything
-The only entity conducting research into new products while maintaining a blackout on said research
-Able to change the laws of physics

The progression of items offered within the BLTP can not be compared to the real world progression of manufactured goods. The BLTP creates product progression only as it offers new products.

Such a marketplace can be very unfair to the consumer.

I don’t know why you guys are such cheapskates. If you really like the new version then uninstall (i.e. destroy) your old version of the unlimited pick and buy the new version. Just like you would uninstall your old version of Microsoft office to install the new version. This is what companies do to continue to survive, to keep coming out with newer and better versions of the product to entice people to buy.

If the newer version doesn’t entice you to buy them then simply don’t buy. Demanding for free upgrades forever, after a 1-time payment, is just lame.

DCM.3654:

I have given this analogy some thought and I was beginning to accept it when I realised what is wrong with it in my opinion: I am happy to buy a new Windows version, because when I bought the previous one it included cutting edge technology. They simply couldn’t have produced a better version, even if they wanted to, so with buying the new version I appreciate the development effort that was put into it. In the case of the mining picks however, there is no development or any effort involved in releasing a better one. It is simply an attempt to make players invest real money in the game continuously, just to be able to maintain their equal opportunities compared to others.

You can say the same thing about the old unlimited pick. It doesn’t take much coding effort to make such a pick, it can be as little effort as simply changing a variable to 0. But such is the nature of their business and the stuff sold in their gem store.

Also I completely agree that the additional income from sprockets is not very significant for now, but the existence of this pick – and the willingness of ANet to create such items – foreshadows even ‘better’ picks and other items, which will result in further increased extra income. (Additionally, in the case of sprockets we don’t even know of any other ways to source them aside from the home instance node after the Scarlett event is over, which means their price could increase significantly.)

Yes it is a slippery slope but you should know ArenaNet’s business model by now. My guess is that they ran out of new ideas for their gem store and simply recycled an old idea that has worked very well in the past – the unlimited gathering tools but now with a new twist added.

Most of the people that complained are those that have already bought the old unlimited gathering tools and they are trying to get theirs upgraded with the latest features, by complaining, without paying extra. It is like buying Microsoft office years ago and wanting to get free unlimited upgrades from then on with the latest features. Do you think Microsoft would have survived if they do that?

In the same way, ArenaNet has to keep getting income. They can’t pay salaries for just one month and expect everyone to continue to work for free from then on for an unlimited time. Some of those income would be from those players who have already bought the old unlimited gathering tools, like the new gathering tools better, and decide to buy them even if that means destroying their old gathering tools (or so they hope). Just like uninstalling your old Microsoft office for a new version.

Yes waiting longer to buy tend to give you the better tool, better software, better computer, better car, etc. But they know that you can’t just wait forever. If I am ArenaNet, I would also sell a consumable (cheaper than 1000 gems, of course) that would upgrade an old unlimited pick to the new one. But that is just me.

Terrahero.9358:

This is the bussiness model theyve moved towards, obviously they didnt advertise it but it goes a little something like this.

“We will have you pay over and over for the same stuff you already bought”

Of course, what else would you expect them to do? Like I have said, it is their goal to make you spend as much money in the gem store as possible, not to help you save money.

Granted it shows that they have ran out of ideas for new high demand items in their gem store, so they recycled an old idea that worked well, with a new twist. Without that new twist, then there is no reason for that new pick, when the old pick is still around. New purchases for the old unlimited pick must be running out of steam so they need to do something to kick start gem purchases again. What is so surprising about that?

Wanze.8410:

With the last patch, they introduced over 70 new recipes that need watchwork sprockets with the zealot and keepers gear.

Really? Where is that information from?

I don’t see them listed in the wiki, which only has the old recipes:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Watchwork_Sprocket

Ok I found the watchwork mechanism and the zealot insignia but that is only like 2-3 recipes.

The Queen’s jubilee has been over for many months now and as such, sprockets are useless unless you can get hold of those recipes.

DCM.3654:

No. I still don’t think you understand the problem with the situation, even though it is pretty clear in my opinion. The new pickaxe vs ANY other pickaxe will yield additional sprockets, which translates to additional income. Players who buy the new pickaxe will get more income from the same effort than the others. This is the definition of pay to win.
It’s not that the complainers want the new tool, it’s that if they don’t get it they will not have equal chances in terms of earning gold to those that bought it. Also while the new pick can be bought using ingame gold, I think is is safe to assume that the average player doesn’t have 90g lying in their banks just to buy a gathering item for one of their characters, and so the great majority of the new pick owners will have paid real money for it.

In the same way, those who have bought the old tool get to benefit from it longer than those who have bought the new tool. If you are counting that small 20% sprocket as gold, then you shouldn’t even have bought an unlimited tool because it makes no sense in terms of gold, but only in terms of convenience.

If you really like the new mining pick so much, why don’t you just buy it? Regardless of whether you have the old one or not.

Yes the new mining tools HAVE TO BE BETTER than the old one, otherwise why bother making new mining tools to spur gem store sales?

I bought my car 10 years ago, so this year’s model better not have any new features over my 10 years old car. It is disrespectful and a slap in the face I tell you! And Windows 8 better not have more features than Windows 3.1 which I bought many many years ago. That would be disrespectful of Microsoft and a slap in the face!

ArenaNet would do as much as they can to boost their gem store sales. Let this statement sink in and you would never be surprised or disappointed, by their actions, again.

If you really want the new mining pick, then go buy it, even though you already have the old one. Why? Because ArenaNet purposefully designed the new mining pick to make people feel that way. If you were surprised by that, then you are just naive by believing that it is their goal to help you save your money, rather than make you spend more money in their gem store.

Romek.4201:

Is it possible to get the Status from my Items im actual selling in TP?

i mean is it possible to have a list from all my items in TP?

when yes, how can i get this data in an excel sheet?

The answer is yes, but I am not an excel expert so I don’t know how to get this data into excel.

To do this, you need to acquire your guild wars 2 client game session key. Then set it in your cookie when communicating with the TP server.

To view the number of items in your current sell list:

https://tradingpost-live.ncplatform.net/ws/me.json?time=now&type=sell&charid=<your character id guid>&offset=1&count=<how many records you want returned>

You can see your character’s id and your game session key through fiddler. You need to keep your GW2 login session running in the background in order for the session key to not expire.

Ryan.9387:

All you have to do is ask the API not to compress it in your headers. Read my posted code and note the gzip header. I get the json returned with that code.

Then you are wasting bandwidth. Gzip reduces the time it takes for the website to transfer the data to your client. If you are not using it, then you are not being efficient.

If your client supports it, you should enable it, especially when it is so easy to uncompress the data.

http://love-python.blogspot.com/2008/07/accept-encoding-gzip-to-make-your.html

Maximilian.1926:

ya that was my assumption,
I don’t know why im not able to decode the listing.json… I do get a response in my python program but then it fails at decoding it, while it works fine for me.json, (I have matched the hosts and header info for both requests according to what I get in fiddler from an in client action)

NVM
figured it out, I set accept-encoding to “gzip,q=0”, and now it seems to read it fine… although im now getting “gzip,deflate” from fideller…

Setting gzip compression is usually a good idea. Although I have not written any python code before for that, I am sure you can easily search for how to uncompress the data in python.

It has been easy enough for me to handle gzip compression on my C# client.

Maximilian.1926:

ok, I know about me.json needing the session key from the client, and I have that working, but I was tiring to use the same key with listings.json, could that be my problem?
I need to get both keys separately? I would think the client session key one should cover it as I can view that data in the client

You do not need both keys if you already have the game client session key from your guild wars 2 client. That game client session key seems to have a higher privilege in the sense that it has access to more features of the web service (e.g. me.json) than the session key obtained from logging in to a web site. Therefore, if you have access to the game client session key, that is enough.

However, you have to keep your guild wars 2 client running in the background as the game client session key expires, if you log out, after a short while. The other session key lasts longer though and does not require your guild wars 2 client to be running.

me.json – gets your buy/sell/past buys/past sells transactions.
listings.json – gets the current buy and sell listings on an item.

me.json requires you to have the game client session key in your cookie when you communicate with the server. listing.json doesn’t need to and only requires the session key that you get by posting to “https://account.guildwars2.com/login?redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Ftradingpost-live.ncplatform.net%2Fauthenticate%3Fsource%3D%252F&game_code=gw2” with your login email and password. Therefore, listing.json does not require your guild wars 2 client to be running and logined while me.json does.

Galowin.6089:

is it possible to extract ur bought/sold items lists (to datasheet)?

Yes you can do that programmatically.

In fact, I did that for my historical records of past items bought/sold, when I realized that I can do this to optimize my app.

My app saves a copy of my past items bought/sold in persistent memory. The next time I launch my app, it only downloads my past transactions up to the latest transactions stored in my persistent memory, saving on downloads, then does a merge of both the newer and older lists dynamically.

Xavi.6591:

DarkSpirit.7046:

By the way, for a list of named armor with insignia that you can salvage:

• Rabid – Khilbron, Vatlaaw, Galrath
• Dire – Jatoro, Errol, Yakkington
• Shaman – Tahlkora, Reyna, Jalis

No named armor for Magi, Soldier, or Cavalier.

You can get Magi, Soldier and Cav named armour from Fractals and those do salvage into insignias.

Probably, but they are not named armors. Named armors in the game are only these:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Named_armor

Morhyn.8032:

DarkSpirit.7046:

Let me try to answer this in the context of C#. For the first case, it is natural to deserialize to a Dictionary and for the second, a List.

In terms of lookup times, the Dictionary is usually faster than the List, unless you have only 3 items or fewer.

http://www.dotnetperls.com/dictionary-time

Yes, if you’re deserializing my suggested “fixed” serializations. With the actual API result you either:

• deserialize to a dictionary with one key who’s value is the real result
• write a custom deserializer to ignore the useless outer key

I don’t see the point in either case. Not when the API could simply return the real result very easily.

If you are deserializing it to a dictionary then you are deserializing more than just one record. Furthermore, the API goes through the web and it is therefore very slow, so unless the record changes often, you want to download/cache the records into say, a JSON file, and read them into a dictionary to increase performance.

Let me try to answer this in the context of C#. For the first case, it is natural to deserialize to a Dictionary and for the second, a List.

In terms of lookup times, the Dictionary is usually faster than the List, unless you have only 3 items or fewer.

http://www.dotnetperls.com/dictionary-time

Wanze.8410:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Could it be a stealth update on the Ugly Stick (and maybe other items as well) instead of RNG?

Did you download an update to the client in the last 5 weeks? I didnt.

Not all updates require a change in the client code. Some updates only require a server-side change or vice versa. RNG updates like these would probably only require a server-side change, you are not updating any graphics asset on the client side or changing the user interface.

Mystic.5934:

It’s possible. I last salvaged an Ugly Stick a couple weeks after inscription salvaging first came out. But I doubt they would of fixed that one and not any others that don’t give inscriptions when they should.
But it looks like other people have tested it between when I did and this thread, so I’m gonna go with rng.

So it is possible that besides the Ugly Stick, those other named exotics that you previously categorized as not returning an inscription, may in fact return an inscription now.

Mystic.5934:

well, looks like we were simply unlucky before. I just salvaged The Ugly Stick with a BLSK and got a Rabid Inscription. Time to move where it is on my list

Short of a stealth update on their servers, that would be weird, since you said that you did salvage hundreds of each and every named exotic and did not obtain an inscription from the Ugly Stick before. Thanks for sharing the list.

Enigmoid.1264:

DarkSpirit.7046:

SandraSolace.7682:

2. All exotics

Except for crafted exotics. For weapons, some of the named exotics also do not drop inscriptions (e.g. Ugly Stick)

Just salvaged ‘Ugly Stick’ using BLSK. Got 2 ecto’s, bloodlust rune, and a rabid inscription.

Then perhaps we were just unlucky or you must be very lucky or there is a recent fix on the server side. As Mystic said, he only tried salvaging 10 times and got no inscription out of Ugly Stick. I tried a few times with BLSK too and never got any inscription from Ugly Stick. We can’t possibly try to salvage hundreds of each and every named exotics out there without burning through our gold. So the list can’t be of 100% certainty.

Laundry.5120:

If your argument revolves around “you can make profit too!” or “if you’re smart you can farm to get what you want”, then you’ve already excluded yourself from the discussion.

I don’t see how we excluded ourselves from the discussion when one of the complaints from the OP is that crafting is not profitable enough.

The strange thing is some people are saying crafting is way too profitable making 200-600g/day and some people are saying not profitable at all, even after reading/watching everything that was shared. I can understand that fun is subjective but crafting is either profitable or it is not. I don’t see how it can be extremely profitable for some and not profitable at all for the others. Even after the guys who find crafting to be profitable have shared their techniques, some are simply ignoring them and kept saying not profitable without providing any counter arguments. If making 200-600g/day is not profitable enough, then I really don’t know what is.

Just to let you guys know again, that crafting can be very profitable.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1umdyo/how_i_make_200_600_gold_a_day/

Tonikor.5637:

What do I do when i get an “ERROR: Invalid authorization” message?

I’m asking this (and on an “old” post) because I used the tool a couple of days ago and it worked fine.

Since it worked fine earlier, I suggest that you check the status of your account. Do a login at this URL and check your credentials:

https://account.guildwars2.com/login?redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Ftradingpost-live.ncplatform.net%2Fauthenticate%3Fsource%3D%252F&game_code=gw2

I always overwrite mine with the new database as I didn’t expect them to remove recipes that are still valid.

I have access to the gw2db data too and they do have them in there. But it would have been nice if I can get these in the official api as well.

I tried correlating the recipe sheets that are on sale at the TP with the recipes exposed by the API and came up with a list of missing recipes from the API.

Failed to find recipe for Recipe: Pot of Fire Veggie Chili 9811 3340
Failed to find recipe for Recipe: Feast of Sesame Roasted Dinners 9697 3226
Failed to find recipe for Recipe: Feast of Asparagus and Sage Salad 9756 3285
Failed to find recipe for Recipe: Pot of Mushroom and Asparagus Risotto 9712 3241

The numbers at the end are the item ids of the recipe sheets and recipe id respectively.