Guild Wars 2

Syeria.4812:

Pretty sure I can see Geotherma on that graph.

SHHH!….. as long as John doesn’t tell people how many ectos I’ve sold in 2 months Ill be fine :P

But I swear it wasn’t manipulation lol, it was just lots of boring farming in Orr while testing MF..

Vol.5241:

Pedra.4381:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

John Smith.4610:

24 hours, >150,000 ectos, > 9500 unique sellers.

Game. Set. Match.

We love you John!!!

It’s only game, set, match if the final data is provided that substantiates that the control of ectos is not controlled by a small minority, i.e., 2 guys could have traded 140k of those ectos with the remaining 10k being squabbled over by the 9498.

Stats can be used to prove or disprove anything (often the same thing). It’s all in how you present it. Not saying that’s the case here, but just saying.

You really think two guys have the time to spam 140,000 globs on the outpost? At a fixed price?

Everyone walks around with 36,400 gold nowadays duh.

Goettel.4389:

My mesmer can add to the moa population, to the detriment of other species.

If I Moa Morph a moa, will the universe end ?

No, then they would reign supreme

John Smith.4610:

24 hours, >150,000 ectos, > 9500 unique sellers.

How do you sleep at night with all that “win” you are full of :P

Syeria.4812:

Sounds like a good idea to me. If Anet isn’t willing to allow multiple trait sets (I’m going to level a whole other ele just so I can have my glass cannon staff ele and a d/d tank without needing to constantly respec and carry all the extra gear) I’d hope they’d be willing to add some sort of option for respec away from town.

Thats what I was thinking. And it could add a level of skill and technique to dungeons, because you could trait for each part. And people would have the option to do it or not to. I can’t think of something that fits the term “convenience” more than that hehe

Mystic.5934:

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

I was wondering if one of the Math Wiz contributors could take it one step further?

If we assume that the Statical theory is correct here(which i am NOT qualified to do), what is the estimated Return on Investment if one would buy say, 10 Master Kits from a Merchant at its static value and 10 BL Kits at its current Gold to Gem value.

Would the GP RoI yield a conclusive recommendation of using one Kit over the other?

I think I did this already… I made a spreadsheet where you could enter the current ecto cost, current gem price, and drop rates for each type of kit, then it calculated cost per salvage and ectos per salvage and gave you profit per salvage.
some example results:
1.25 ecto/BLSK, 0.9 ecto/MSK
1.9 gold per 100 gems:
ecto = 20s each: BLSK profit = 2.2s, Mystic profit = 16.87s, Master profit = 17.39s
ecto = 30s each: BLSK profit = 14.7s, Mystic profit = 25.87s, Master profit = 26.39s
ecto = 40s each: BLSK profit = 27.2s, Mystic profit = 34.87s, Master profit = 35.39s
1.5 gold per 100 gems:
ecto = 28s each: BLSK profit = 7s, Mystic profit = 17.09s, Master profit = 17.39s
ecto = 30s each: BLSK profit = 19.5s, Mystic profit = 26.09s, Master profit = 26.39s
ecto = 40s each: BLSK profit = 32s, Mystic profit = 35.09s, Master profit = 35.39s

note how BLSK is getting pretty close to MSK in that last one… if ecto price is high enough and gem price is low enough, BLSK will produce the highest profit. This was the case at the beginning of the year when ectos first reached 40s (but only just barely)

I also used this to find that Mystic SK is only cheaper than Master SK if you can buy 100 gems for less than 0.93 gold. not going to happen anytime soon :P

As long as people keep in mind that it is possible to get free BLSK at no charge, and sometimes at a smaller rate through chests if your lucky. ^^

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Geotherma.2395:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Geotherma.2395:

I just wanna say that I flooded the market with like… a TON of ectos when I did that salvage test lol.. Because there was another 200 salvages after the 800 I already did. Sorry about that..

So YOU’RE the manipulator! /gasp

Just joking. But I did appreciate your ectos that you pumped into the economy. I need to upgrade my backpiece for higher level FotM runs. 250 ecto a pop isn’t cheap at 40 Silver each.

40s o.o?

edit:ectos officially same price as rares now lols…

I meant it was creeping up to 40 Silver each before the recent influx of Rares. I’m quite happy with the current prices, to which I thank you for helping manipulate down.

Ah ok lol. Well now that ectos are needed (and i use that word loosely..) for the laurel gear I hope it helps people working on getting their ascended.

Vorch.2985:

Vol.5241:

Rukia.4802:

Because they didn’t actually test or optimize the game at all before it was released, and they didn’t listen to ANYONE during the beta tests (obviously)

Culling, lag in groups, etc. was reported since day 1.

2.) Go find me a game that has no bugs and no crashes

Checkers.

Check and mate.

(I choose minesweeper if you want a computer game)

Minesweeper crashes my computer, gw2 doesn’t. Is that weird? PS its russian mine sweep.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Geotherma.2395:

I just wanna say that I flooded the market with like… a TON of ectos when I did that salvage test lol.. Because there was another 200 salvages after the 800 I already did. Sorry about that..

So YOU’RE the manipulator! /gasp

Just joking. But I did appreciate your ectos that you pumped into the economy. I need to upgrade my backpiece for higher level FotM runs. 250 ecto a pop isn’t cheap at 40 Silver each.

40s o.o?

edit:ectos officially same price as rares now lols…

Stop making hats/caps/hoods remove hair.. and give a little flow to dresses etc lol

Any thoughts on an item that would reset your traits so you could change perhaps during a dungeon or something? It would be a little more expensive of course, but as the devs said the store is for “convenience”. What do you think?

I just wanna say that I flooded the market with like… a TON of ectos when I did that salvage test lol.. Because there was another 200 salvages after the 800 I already did. Sorry about that..

I’ll just leave this here…

MF works well, you can do it through two routes or combine them. Go full buffs/boosts and keep your stats you like, or go gear and save on boosts/food etc. Or you can combined all and have around 230MF and go nuts There is some interesting reads in the “loot conspira… drop thread” that was created some time ago when boxes were messed up.

But keep in mind as far as I know green MF gear has the same stats as exotic MF gear. But that doesn’t mean the mobs will take it easier on you :P

Jeahanne.5209:

Wanderbeard.3291:

Alkron.1345:

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

My ranger typically has no MF whatsoever and it still finds rares on a regular basis.

I added 22% MF with a consumable and the whole duration all I got was junk, 1 rare, and copper and a few blues. No greens at all. This was during a Fractals run and I can tell you , same difficulty level without any MF would yield much better loot.

As previously stated, 22% is near nothing for MF. A single sample run means absolutely nothing.

Here’s something that has a slightly larger grounds:
When running MF gear (Exo Armor, 4x Pirates, 2x Noble, Omnom Bar/Peach Tart, maybe a few other points thrown in via Guild/Banners/etc) I saw a noticeable increase in Shards of Mist Essense (up to 3 per run, often at least 1) however, once I transitioned out of my MF set for higher fractals, my Shard collection count has noticeably dropped, occasionally 1 per run, only a couple times in over 20 runs have I acquired 2 shards in no MF.

Overall, when leveling from 10-26, I was pulling 2-3 Globs/Mist (Globs in 10-19, Shards 20+) per run on average while in MF Gear. After I cut the MF Gear, 0-1 on average.

That’s is an effect of MF I believe (from what I could tell, people were complaining about never seeing any of those mist drops while I was pulling in several so I believe it’s the MF).

Also to remember, MF is very difficult to statistically show as justified and much easier to say it’s not, such as you have shown. Personally, having played months with 100%+ MF, I’ve seen a positive effect of MF.

Honest question here. Why do you use 4 pirates and 2 noble runes?

I know I use 5 pirates and one of something else that gives +MF because the last stat for Superior Rune of the Pirate only summons a bird, and does nothing for MF. It’s better to skip the 6th rune and replace it for something that ups MF instead of having an essentially wasted spot.

Exactly what I do, why waste a slot on a bird.,.

Magic find works. I would say more but there is like a 35 page thread on drops.. that describes well how magic find works. I generally run around with just 30% so that I have an average idea of what to expect. If I want to go crazy I might don my 230mf set/buffs and farm for a few hours. But I much prefer the stats of regular gear. Everyone has trouble at some point, but there is many ways to do better and many other things to do well.

On a side not-MF doesn’t mean “more” rares, it simply means better chance of rarer items. So those normal 20 blues could be 8 greens and 12 blues, those 5 whites could be 4 blues and 1 white. And even possible those 20 greens could be 2 rares and 18 greens. In between is a bunch of RNG soup, you just have to spoon around for the meat and veggies.

The culling is on the game side, your graphics card should be able to tone down the lag by simply putting it on performance mode, as well as game on performance. If that doesn’t help (now) and/or doesn’t help (then), then maybe its time for an upgrade.

Apo.5301:

Man, I love it when people are like “200 samples isn’t enough.”
Sigh, take at least a basic statistics course before you apply your own rules of “stats.”
Thanks for the statistical analyses with diff. confidence intervals Geo.

So, I guess I will be sticking to Master’s Salvage kits and using Black Lion when I get them. Well, that’s just me being lazy figuring out which sigils are worth more, etc.

Now, I’m curious about exotics. I expect to see the same conclusion though.

For the nominal fee of 900g I’ll do that test :P

1) Age – 925 Hours over 2 months
2) Deaths – 162 (Thief)
3) Titles – 2
4) Achievement Points – 2312
5) Legendary Weapons – None
6) PVP Rank – Rabbit
7) Tournament wins – None

Day light savings time. We moved ahead 1 hour.
“Daylight savings was 5 days ago so that can’t be the issue.”
DST isn’t a 1 day thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time

Ursan.7846:

sostronk.8167:

Because they are clearly cutting costs on development

If you’re gonna spew stupid speculative bullkitten like this you better have a source to back it up, because no one is going to take you very seriously.

Just a quick look at Anet’s website shows they are hiring a bunch of people.

http://www.arena.net/#careers

Cutting costs on development? Sure does seem like they’re expanding.

You mean the craziness that sounded like wasn’t just because I was tired last night? lol :P

Don’t forget: http://www.polygon.com/2012/12/13/3762362/ncsoft-selling-all-nc-interactive-shares-opening-new-us-subsidiary

From doing a LOT of farming lol.. I can say I haven’t seen many exotics at all from event mobs. I don’t farm much outside of the events so I couldn’t say for that. The times I’ve seen exotics most were from chests, though I think I remember Anet saying that dungeon chests etc have better chances of rarer loot that mobs. I don’t mind so much as I make plenty of mats and rares, but I can’t say that the exotic prices for regular non shiny gear being 1-3g each, isn’t too bad really. If you start seeing standard exotics reach 4+g I’d say we might have a problem.

Ema.4953:

Geotherma.2395:

Ema.4953:

Not in Australia though oh well

You don’t have any of those stores listed?

I can access Amazon of course but the rest don’t exist in Australia. If I was going to buy it online I might as well just get them in game.

This is true, but don’t you have EBgames? Sorry never been to Aussie land ^^;

sostronk.8167:

Geotherma.2395:

sostronk.8167:

I may be infracted for this, but as far as I am concerned, Im speaking the truth. Anet have a vested interested in keeping precursors costing alot of coin. Why? Because they are clearly cutting costs on development and adding as much grind to the game to compensate for it. So reducing the cost of precusors by any method would contradict their current outlook towards the game. I think spending coin for a few pixels is a terrible choice, but if you have alot of coin… 600g for a precursor aint going to get much better or worse.

" Because they are clearly cutting costs on development and adding as much grind to the game to compensate for it. "

This really confused me.. Cutting costs and compensating for it with grind..

The idea is, keep people active by grinding (the same content) rather than developing content to keep them engaged.

So your saying they are making the game terrible to keep us playing, and even though that terrible idea would lose all the players, thats okay because they don’t need money to support their company or families for that matter? I guess I’m just confused, maybe its cause its 3am. Because the idea that a company would make people grind to keep them in a game that is (after purchase) free to play and requires micro-transactions to survive boggles me.

sostronk.8167:

I may be infracted for this, but as far as I am concerned, Im speaking the truth. Anet have a vested interested in keeping precursors costing alot of coin. Why? Because they are clearly cutting costs on development and adding as much grind to the game to compensate for it. So reducing the cost of precusors by any method would contradict their current outlook towards the game. I think spending coin for a few pixels is a terrible choice, but if you have alot of coin… 600g for a precursor aint going to get much better or worse.

" Because they are clearly cutting costs on development and adding as much grind to the game to compensate for it. "

This really confused me.. Cutting costs and compensating for it with grind..

Behellagh.1468:

Ah yes, NCsoft and CCs. There were lots of problems in CoH as well with monthly limits and number of purchases in a single day. Not with every card or every player just enough that many found NCsoft’s online store annoying as heck.

Well Aion is a much older game and if NCSoft’s quarterly reports are right, has had a shrinking population of players recently. Which would be another reason to do such a program especially since it went from subscription to F2P with cash shop. Then again wasn’t Aion player data hacked early on?

I had the monthly limit thing as well.. drove me nuts. Once it even locked my card, that was a long and not nice email lol.. I don’t remember a data hack problem for players, I’d say its about par with other MMO’s where players don’t know better and get phished or keylogged from websites. Aion is a bit run over with RMT at the moment, not my kind of game anymore. But they have had them(cards) since July of 2012 I think, honestly i can’t remember if they were free to play or not then. But I can definitely imagine they are losing revenue with that game being its all about the store..

I just think adding something small to the cards would help, in combination with better items on gem store could really help support the development of what players have been asking for. And money is always good motivation to fix bugs etc as well :P Not to say of course they should do that solely for that reason.

Ema.4953:

Not in Australia though oh well

You don’t have any of those stores listed?

Ema.4953:

They sell gem cards? Where?

https://www.facebook.com/GuildWars2/posts/10151161572874209

US+ Gamestop as well. Old list I guess heh.

Behellagh.1468:

I’m assuming you are having a problem finding Gem Cards in your local retailer and/or that you are a cash Vs plastic consumer (or simply rather not enter their CC/DC number in a game).

Now I can see a “sale” on Gems for those buying online, 1) it’s easy to implement and 2) Anet is getting all the money from the sale as oppose to Gem Cards where the retailer and POSA service gets a cut.

And that’s the problem with offering deals on Gem Cards, ANet is already “losing” (as in not getting it all) money on that card.

No, my local gamestop keeps them stocked specifically for me lol. The problem with the online store is that my card has been used on multiple account for NCsoft etc, and customer service has stated i can no longer use that card number for purchases via in game. So I usually go to my local store anyway, as I did when I played Aion (same problem with CS). This is also a problem with many others I’ve talked to, to the point where most people have said they can’t use their card at all.

But what I’m saying is that NCsoft who owns Arenanet “already” does this for Aion and Lineage II. The in game items wouldn’t hurt the economy really and would make purchasing them more worthwhile for gamers.

http://na.aiononline.com/posa

I’m with the boxes people, just make sure you have all your karma buffs before you reopen the new karma items. You could make a ton of money off possible lodestones etc.

Gestankfaust.4216:

StormageddonBK.9842:

Geotherma.2395:

I make my 14+g a day simply by playing the game.

OMFG! How do you guys do this?! You must have over 1,000 gold now!

I really struggle to make 1-2 gold a day and I’ve been playing 2-5 hours every day since launch. I’ve tried farming Orr, WvW, personal story, dungeons but I just get a silver her and there and then I have to repair gear (at level 80 it gets really expensive). The most I’ve got is 6 silver for taking down a garrison or 50 silver for the monthly… T.T

Between you and the person you quoted is where you could be. You should not struggle to make 1-2 gold. But kitten will always say they make around 14.

You can figure it out depending on how you want to play

The difference is I have videos on these forums showing me making 2g/hr ^^ And everyone on my server who partys with me will agree. But if you are 80 and haven’t been around long there’s nothing wrong with making about 1-3g a day as a casual player.

StormageddonBK.9842:

Geotherma.2395:

I make my 14+g a day simply by playing the game.

OMFG! How do you guys do this?! You must have over 1,000 gold now!

I really struggle to make 1-2 gold a day and I’ve been playing 2-5 hours every day since launch. I’ve tried farming Orr, WvW, personal story, dungeons but I just get a silver her and there and then I have to repair gear (at level 80 it gets really expensive). The most I’ve got is 6 silver for taking down a garrison or 50 silver for the monthly… T.T

Lol I get this alot, and alas I do not tell everyone what exactly i do. But gold is easy to come by in game, if you know what you are doing. One thing i CAN tell you is to try to avoid being killed, I know how silly that sounds. Do things with groups and struggle to stay in the downed state and not get defeated. You can be downed a gazillion times and never have to repair. Just make sure you have people around you.

One day I will work on a guide, but not today :P I just did hours of research on BL kits and master kits and that racked my brain pretty hard lol. But I’ll give you a hint:

“It’s not what you find, it’s how much you find.”

StormageddonBK.9842:

Geotherma.2395:

GW2=Ability to level a character to max in 1 day, acquire best non ascended gear in 1 day.

Please let me know how this is done! If you’re going to say crafting then isn’t the collection of mats grinding?

From a lazy persons perspective you could simply buy the funds to support the craft. From my perspective when I was gathering etc and leveling my main, those mats allowed me to make money or use them to level crafting on my second character. It seems as though every character you hit 80 with just makes it easier and easier lol. But no the collecting the mats is only grinding if you see it that way. That word “grinding” is overly used without a very specific definition. I could say merely logging in to do the daily is a grind, where others do fotm every day all week long and call doing dragon events grinding. Personally I see grinding as being forced to do something to get to something else you want. If you are willingly doing it because you have a goal, then i don’t see it as grinding I see it as working towards your goal. I know that sounds confusing lol.
But now say you need to log in every single day gather 300 ore, if you don’t you will never get the item you want. There’s no other options, and this item is required to enjoy the game. You could consider that a grind I suppose.

On the flip side, you could simply call EVERYTHING a grind since, well, it is lol. Your grinding your skills, your grinding dailies, monthlies, dungeons, events. I think the importance isn’t IF your grinding but WHAT your grinding and how hard it is. If you’re doing something that helps you enjoy the game, well I call that playing the game.

Send me the 600g and I will buy 600g worth of onions with it. Because they are just as useful as a precursor for a shiny toy :P But that’s my opinion heh

I have this idea that soon there will be better gear or another way to receive them, and those who spend on these overpriced things will be kicking themselves. Never hurts to wait.

Dante.1508:

Geotherma.2395:

Dante.1508:

Geotherma.2395:

GW2=Ability to level a character to max in 1 day, acquire best non ascended gear in 1 day. Ability to outright buy the best “looking” legendarys (crazy, but possible). Ability to have a full ascended set in a matter of months. Ability to “beat the game(story)” in a matter of days/weeks.

Nice Skirting of the real facts, how pray tell do you get the ability to buy a Full set of exotics in one day? leveling a character in one day wont award you with the necessary funds, so grind is the way…

Ascended in a matter of months? So its grind Fotm every day or time sink grind with a slice of dailies grind added for good measure. yes its all supposedly “optional” but then so is playing the game, so to progress in this game its buy gems, grind or move on.. epic options..

I was level 80 in 1 week w.o crafting, about 2 weeks later I had a full exotic piece in every slot from farming orr and events.(Anyone with $20 bucks can trade for coin and do the exact same thing in 5 minutes.) After the first 80 and knowing what your doing the game is cake. I regularly toss 30g at random things for fun like Uni dyes etc every 2 days. There is always some small grind or what people consider grind in every MMO, that is something that will probably be forever. But this is by far the easiest, least grindiest game I’ve ever played. I mean heck, with 48g I made 83g just by salvaging, there is an entire post on it. And those kits were from chests/rewards.

As for ascended I don’t care much for it as it is completely optional and in no way is required to play the content (aside from AR gear for Fotm.).

As for the term time sinks, I seriously do not understand how people use this negatively. It is an MMO, of course you have time sinks… It isn’t something you beat in a day and wait for a sequel to. And even the time sinks are optional.

But I won’t add to the arguing here, this is just my experience. When someone hasn’t played something like FFXI where you basically need to work 9-5 7 days a week to get anywhere, they really don’t know how bad MMO’s can really be.

So you level in one week now, buy gems and buy your gear, while that’s completely fine, i’m pretty sure it shows what this game is about..

Time sinks can be fine, but the proper way Ascended should have been added would have been completely through the game, crafting, open world, fotm, token dungeons, wvw… but it was gated to slow down a minority, that eat content on all games..the rest suffer for it in my opinion..

I’ve played hundreds of MMO’s over the years, sadly one i never touched was WoW, but i did play Anarchy online, RF Online, Perfect World, Linage 2, Rohan etc etc, all grindy games but they all had their charms…

You knew if you grinded and played enough you’d get in time what you needed, here its so much RNG and cash store currency you may never fulfill a goal and those other games never once said they were something they were not, you knew what you were getting into at beta, Guildwars 2 not so much..

No, I’m sorry you misunderstood what I said. I leveled to 80 without gems in 1 week, and with my own farming I had exotics in about 2. What I meant was that anyone with $20 could also have the full exotic set in 5 minutes without ever doing that work and even hit 80 with the right choices on crafting. The game is clearly not about trading gems to gold.. And I have rarely ever done so except when I really needed that extra 1g for some reason or another and gems were up. Otherwise I make my 14+g a day simply by playing the game. By playing this game a month you should have an idea of what your focus is and what you want. How you get there is on your own terms and in my opinion is in no way a grind unless people make it as such. I have only tried WoW for a short time so i do not have much to reference other than friends unbiased opinions and information. As for the rest I’ve been playing MMO’s for around 10 years or so since I was more of an RPG solo player when I was young. And this game has done away with almost everything I hated from the other games. Not to say any of those games didn’t have their own appeal, but this is a huge step. I think people need to give it a chance before dooming it to the level of other MMO’s that have been out for several years.

Dante.1508:

Geotherma.2395:

GW2=Ability to level a character to max in 1 day, acquire best non ascended gear in 1 day. Ability to outright buy the best “looking” legendarys (crazy, but possible). Ability to have a full ascended set in a matter of months. Ability to “beat the game(story)” in a matter of days/weeks.

Nice Skirting of the real facts, how pray tell do you get the ability to buy a Full set of exotics in one day? leveling a character in one day wont award you with the necessary funds, so grind is the way…

Ascended in a matter of months? So its grind Fotm every day or time sink grind with a slice of dailies grind added for good measure. yes its all supposedly “optional” but then so is playing the game, so to progress in this game its buy gems, grind or move on.. epic options..

I was level 80 in 1 week w.o crafting, about 2 weeks later I had a full exotic piece in every slot from farming orr and events.(Anyone with $20 bucks can trade for coin and do the exact same thing in 5 minutes.) After the first 80 and knowing what your doing the game is cake. I regularly toss 30g at random things for fun like Uni dyes etc every 2 days. There is always some small grind or what people consider grind in every MMO, that is something that will probably be forever. But this is by far the easiest, least grindiest game I’ve ever played. I mean heck, with 48g I made 83g just by salvaging, there is an entire post on it. And those kits were from chests/rewards.

As for ascended I don’t care much for it as it is completely optional and in no way is required to play the content (aside from AR gear for Fotm.).

As for the term time sinks, I seriously do not understand how people use this negatively. It is an MMO, of course you have time sinks… It isn’t something you beat in a day and wait for a sequel to. And even the time sinks are optional.

But I won’t add to the arguing here, this is just my experience. When someone hasn’t played something like FFXI where you basically need to work 9-5 7 days a week to get anywhere, they really don’t know how bad MMO’s can really be.

http://steelseries.com/products/mice/steelseries-kinzu-optical
http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-mice/razer-abyssus/
http://www.overclock.net/t/1046547/small-mouse-for-gaming
http://steelseries.com/products/mice

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/18764-guild-wars-2-comic-book/

Some stuff here as well.

I think most people and devs would say simply the “Living Story”, and content released after.

I’ve been playing 2 months and have a personal guild for bank space. I bought all influence with what i farmed and I’m Upgrade IV or V in everything but PVP..

As for the word grind.. It lacks value in this game as everything is achievable in very little time with minimal effort. Excluding legendarys, but that’s another thread.

FFXI=Actual Job
EvE=Not sure what to concider grind, ore farming? idk..
WoW=mid range grind+
Aion=Grind or buy your way through game
GW2=Ability to level a character to max in 1 day, acquire best non ascended gear in 1 day. Ability to outright buy the best “looking” legendarys (crazy, but possible). Ability to have a full ascended set in a matter of months. Ability to “beat the game(story)” in a matter of days/weeks.

There is a balance, they will find it, with or without the qq.

On the Enjin App there is an app that shows you what boons and conditions do and allows you to calculate some of them while in game.
http://www.overwolf.com/Appstore/#appId=Greatheart_GW2_Boons
http://www.enjin.com/client
http://www.gw2bnc.com/

Would it be possible to add rewards for purchasing Gem Cards at our local gaming stores? I know that the cards cost some small fraction of a cent probably to make, but I think it would bolster the sales of cards and help further support the game.

Nothing game breaking of course, but I was thinking maybe one of the following:

Mini 3 Pack (Currently 300 gems on store)
Dye Pack (Currently 200 gems on store)
5 Fine Transmute Stones (5/200 Gems on store)
Booster Multipack (300 Gems on store)
10 Unidentified Dyes
Maybe a Karma Consumable item? (Not sure if this would hurt anything too much.) Maybe 1 Jug, not sure. Although this might be considered p2w sort of, if so disregard :P

Any of those or perhaps special minis/items that can be found by buying the cards. Since NCsoft sold all their stocks to create a western company, maybe offering more US rewards and perhaps EU would get more gamers to buy gems in stores.

The items listed are just ideas, and maybe there are better/more ideas that fit as well. Or possibly every month it could change, who knows. I’m just curious if Arenanet would do something like this and what players think. Just so people know this is something that NCsoft does for the games Aion and Lineage II. The codes are sent via email and applied to the account. I’m not sure if Arenanet could incorporate this the same way but maybe there are better ways to do as well.

What do you think?

PS I know this is a “suggestion” but it applies directly to the Black Lion Trading Company.

Edit: I was just thinking Guild Influence couldn’t hurt as a reward, that would help smaller guilds for the new Missions. Maybe through consumables like we have now, a “Commendation” or w.e worth 1,000/2,000?

thehipone.6812:

Thanks to OP and others for doing all the work.

But you can’t be sure that Anet’s random number generator algorithm is not influenced by:
How many ballots it takes for the cardinals to elect a pope, The maximum soda size that you are allowed to purchase in NYC, The phase of the moon,Local tide tables, Solar flares, the presence or lack of extraterrestrial life, bigfoot, Nessie and drop bears. (joking on all of these)

Anyways, this test and others that I have seen all seem to be converging around the BL = 1.25 ecto/rare and Master = 0.9 ecto/rare average rates. Since we are in the trading forum, I’d suggest that these are reasonable numbers to use when calculating the expected return for the sell or salvage decision.

I feel like we both read the same CNN page this morning. :P

They can’t and won’t approve any third party app/program etc. it’s not because they don’t want to, it’s because they don’t have the resources to test and try out each individual program. You will get the same response every time and that is:

“We cannot approve/deny any application to be used with or in conjunction with the game. We do not have the resources to vet every program and allow players to use them. We realize that there are helpful programs and things out there that are perfectly fine, but we cannot specifically say which is ok/good/bad. If you require further information please see the terms of use and FAQ. We are sorry we can not further answer your question at this time but this is all the information we have available.”

Pretty much don’t use something that gives you an unfair advantage to anyone else. If you get in trouble you are always able to appeal and explain your situation.

On a side note, if Arenanet DID approve an app they now are responsible for making sure that every single update to that app is allowable, working as intended, and does not interfere with the game. Simply put, they cannot do this.

Ursan.7846:

Geotherma.2395:

I’m going to suggest that the back and forth may not be the most constructive way to post in this thread, and is more likely to rack up infractions than have a good outcome. If anyone was wondering about where/when I did my own tests they were all at once acrossed several kits (They stack at 25 only) in the same place(as shown in the videos.). However I would assume that time and date don’t have a factor, although i can admit i could be wrong. But a dev or someone could clear this up easily by posting if this thread doesn’t get locked due to bickering and off-topic conversations. And just so people know I’m definitely no math whiz, these were all via calculator ^^ But thank you to those who contributed to sorting out my numbers in a more meaningful manner.

I did get a bit overzealous in defending your (and Syeria’s) sample sizes. I apologize.

Though if I may suggest one thing. I’m not sure how you’re storing your data, but I suggest attaching all the information you can on each data point. Weapon type, level, time stamp, etc. Just so as you accrue these data points and want to do some analysis later, you’ll have all the info on hand.

I have no problem with defending :P

I have the research on Excel and Word. But there is a limit to how much data I’m willing to work on as I’m doing this at a serious time/cash cost for the benefit of others without pay. I am a full time college student, husband, father, so I’m limited on time. And if I’m spending 6 hours on “video game research” I’m probably lacking in one department or another ^^;

While I have no problem with being helpful and altruistic in and out of game, I do have my limits which are based on responsibilities that outweigh the needs of gamers. I’m sure Arenanet will never give exact numbers as people would find some way to manipulate the information. But I hope this post has given at least some decent evidence to support the fact that the developers and wiki are at least somewhat accurate.

And as I mentioned in the beginning post all these rares were various types of Armor only (except the Master kit 2) and were all level 80. They were done in one time frame and I did not stop until all 200 were salvaged. Test 1 of both kits were done on the same day, as was test two of both kits. I’m unsure if any of that changes the results, again I’d need an answer from a designer or dev or whatever. Which I do not know if they are willing, but I don’t expect them to be really. they have enough on their plate ^^

I’m going to suggest that the back and forth may not be the most constructive way to post in this thread, and is more likely to rack up infractions than have a good outcome. If anyone was wondering about where/when I did my own tests they were all at once acrossed several kits (They stack at 25 only) in the same place(as shown in the videos.). However I would assume that time and date don’t have a factor, although i can admit i could be wrong. But a dev or someone could clear this up easily by posting if this thread doesn’t get locked due to bickering and off-topic conversations. And just so people know I’m definitely no math whiz, these were all via calculator ^^ But thank you to those who contributed to sorting out my numbers in a more meaningful manner.

Tomoyo.3482:

morrolan.9608:

Dante.1508:

Hoodies and riding gear??? gotta wonder who has control of this cash shop? and how out of touch they are…

whatshername from Maple Story and yeah she is clearly out of touch.

Was thinking the same thing~

If they did the skins like in GW1 I’m sure more revenue would happen….. For as it stands now the town clothes are kinda junk. I would say the Costume Brawl would be a reason to get one but tonics do just fine. The Quaggan and Tiger backpacks are a nice start, but just wish they would add true armor outfits to the shop.

I think there is a balance between “cool skins” on Gem Store and “cool skins” in game that they are trying to achieve. Imagine the frustration of someone who cannot afford the “new” skin on Gem Story which may or may not blow all the dungeon skins away. Like Arenanet mentioned they do not want the Gem Store to be a place where you can have things that people within the game cannot get, or cannot get something similar with “effort”.

I do agree they could make some more armor skins and more interesting items, but they don’t want the Gem Store to be our content. They want the game to supply most of the interesting things, which they are working on right now. Soon enough a nice balance will be had between in game content and purchasable items. But it isn’t an overnight sort of thing.

Its not perverted, it is an NPC continually looking at the prices of legendarys on the trading post and moaning.

Added Master kit test 2 results.