Guild Wars 2

Wanze.8410:

pdavis.8031:

I may be repeating a question, but couldn’t find it anywhere. Was there an economic reason for ascended gear being bound (Soul/account) and not tradeable on the TP? And if so, what were those reasons? Maybe a way to minimize a “pay to win” scenario? Or to avoid having a bunch of new items that would reach the cost of legendaries and be seen as unobtainable by the player base?

It was clearly a game design and not an economic decision.

Mckeone.9804:

In general, do you consider the impact of magic find when deciding on rewards for LS & seasonal events? For example, in deciding to change Queen’s Pavilion from mob drops to event reward chests.

Nope. Changes like that aren’t made because of magic find, they’re made because it’s superior design.

captainteemo.6537:

First I wanted to say it’s great you’ve talked to the community so often and in such a straightforward fashion.

I don’t know if my question has been asked before, the posts have become quite long and if someone has an answer that would be great.

After the transition to the new wardrobe, Several items have become a burdern to player inventories such as armors bought with karma and even armor bought with gold. Does it seem detrimental if these items could be salvaged?

1) Gold cost of buying cultural armor and even armor skins from each order doesn’t seem like it would offset the possible ‘ecto’ gain of salvaging. Would this be likely to happen in the near future?

2) If karma armor could be salvaged only to remove upgrades added to the armor (and possibly not runes that came with such an armor) be possible in the future? Or is it mainly the fear of possible unknown exploits that’s keeping this from being implemented?

Large game systems often require consistency, like following coding standards when programming. It’s a giant collaborative process and consistency protects us and the players.

Michael Walker.8150:

Hey John, thank you for answering the questions here and talking to the community in general, it’s appreciated.

1. When you came up with voluntary/charity gold sinks, how far did you take it in concept and did you turn down the idea of more visually impactful donations? Such as speeding up reconstruction of certain parts of Lions Arch or rewarding donors with a name/donor’s plaque, depending on how generous donations were.
   Did the money that went to Heal-o-tron actually had an impact on reconstructing Lions Arch?
   If the Asura ever decide to crowd found a biggest-mega-laser, I’d be happy to speed up construction and fuel corruption.
2. Why does a bottle of Elonian Wine cost 25s 4c instead of a flat 25s or 24.99s?
3. What was the hardest decision you had to make since Launch?

I have searched through your messages by highlighting “hobo” and “heal” but I didn’t find anything. Didn’t look for the other questions.

Have a great weekend

1. We prototyped several ideas, but ended up going pretty basic. I really like the idea of charity sinks that have a larger visual affect on the world or help surrounding people.

2. I’ve been meaning to check up on Heal-o-tron. That money should have been used properly, but I did see him recently with what appeared to be a very expensive fur coat, definitely need to follow up on that.

3. It never occurred to me to think about it, I have no idea.

4. Identifying exploiters early in the game had a lot of very hard decisions involved.

Supermagnum.3458:

John Smith.4610:

Supermagnum.3458:

John Smith.4610:

Mckeone.9804:

Has anyone ever given you an award for good communication, ie, giving straight answers or, if you don’t have a straight answer, admitting it and explaining why?

No and while I’m here answering questions often, tact clearly isn’t my strongest skillset, so I’ll need to continue developing that before any awards are in order.

Well it’s about time we fixed that.

I will treasure this.

Well its obvious that you deserve it. With this recent backlash I’ve seen plenty of references to the effort you put into this section.

“While some forums get Anet attention and dev interaction (ex: BLTC forum)…”

“I’ve loved the back and forth with John Smith in the q&a thread over there, it’s been pretty fascinating even with the understanding that he WILL NOT answer questions about anything specific that might affect the current economy or future releases.”

That was just in the last 2 hours and if the search function worked properly I could probably find the rest.

Also for Christmas, can you convince Anet to rebuild Fort Marriner Waypoint. I’ll donate all my bloodstone bricks and some gold to have it reconstructed.

I truly do appreciate this community’s support. The positive reaction here from all the players is what allows me to continue posting despite my numerous errors. Thank you for reading, playing and supporting us here at ArenaNet, you all rock.

I’ve answered all these questions before, several times. Does anyone have the links for those answers? (Even I don’t want to comb through my entire post history )

Wanze.8410:

John Smith.4610:

Wanze.8410:

Are there still Mystic Forge Recipes/items that havent been discovered yet that are not recipe sheets for food feasts/pots/trays or recipe sheets for satchels/boxes of armor?

Does Zommoros still have some secrets up his djinny sleeve?

Yes.

Is it Mounts?

It’s the Christmas present you always wanted, but never received.

Wanze.8410:

Are there still Mystic Forge Recipes/items that havent been discovered yet that are not recipe sheets for food feasts/pots/trays or recipe sheets for satchels/boxes of armor?

Does Zommoros still have some secrets up his djinny sleeve?

Yes.

eekzie.5640:

My only real concern with the current economy is that I think the following is a huge flaw, and I would like to see your opinion about it.

The Watchwork Mining Pick, an infinite use mining tool, gives a clear advantage over other infinite mining picks. Big enough, in it’s current shape, that the ‘’Return on Investment’’ is drastically shorter than any other (I don’t really like to use that term and I’ll explain in a bit). The other issue I have is that because watchwork sprockets are a wanted item it will maintain a certain value that I believe will hold for a considerate amount of time. Now this is a good thing, that items are desirable, but I don’t feel like the mining pick should come into this equation.

The reason why I don’t like to use return on investment for an infinite mining pick is because in the original design it was a convenience item. Therefor the return would be irrelevant. However, with the Watchwork Mining Pick it doesn’t feel like this to me.

Can you perhaps share your vision regarding this item?

I’m sorry, I don’t have an answer I can share about this one.

Mckeone.9804:

Supermagnum.3458:

John Smith.4610:

Mckeone.9804:

Has anyone ever given you an award for good communication, ie, giving straight answers or, if you don’t have a straight answer, admitting it and explaining why?

No and while I’m here answering questions often, tact clearly isn’t my strongest skillset, so I’ll need to continue developing that before any awards are in order.

Well it’s about time we fixed that.

I heartily endorse this post.

Another serious question:

Do you have different measures of money supply that you track? For example, M1 = all gold in player wallets, M2 = all gold in player wallets + all gold tied up in TP bids, M3 = all gold in player wallets + all gold tied up in TP bids + gold held in the gem exchange?

Also, do you track the value of tradable assets held in player accounts?

Yes, and it is pretty close to what you’re saying, but the manner in which I track is a bit different since we have to apply some weights. For example, accounts that have achieved X or haven’t played in Y time to kitten raw wealth or realistic liquid wealth.

Supermagnum.3458:

John Smith.4610:

Mckeone.9804:

Has anyone ever given you an award for good communication, ie, giving straight answers or, if you don’t have a straight answer, admitting it and explaining why?

No and while I’m here answering questions often, tact clearly isn’t my strongest skillset, so I’ll need to continue developing that before any awards are in order.

Well it’s about time we fixed that.

I will treasure this.

pdavis.8031:

So I was thinking about the introduction of precurser crafting. I know that John Smith cannot answer specificially concerning such things, but my main concern would be a price shock if/when an annoucnement is made. I would think that even an announcement of such a thing would cause MANY people to rush out and buy up as much T6, Lodestones and whatever else may be thought to be used in such a venture.

My question is would the economy be able to handle such a thing? Would prices climb dramatically for a short period and then stablize? or just spiral upwards out of control? Are these things even considered when discussing the possibily of precurser crafting?

I understand that some of these may not even be able to be discussed in depth, but I am just curious as to how the economy would react to something like this. Thanks!

I’m here to protect the game from major problems like this. Any major feature that would affect the economy of the game I’m brought in to help with.

Mckeone.9804:

(a) Does anyone read the “what we would like in the gemstore thread” and take the suggestions into account?

(b) Has anyone ever given you an award for good communication, ie, giving straight answers or, if you don’t have a straight answer, admitting it and explaining why?

A. Yes, people are constantly reading that thread.
B. No and while I’m here answering questions often, tact clearly isn’t my strongest skillset, so I’ll need to continue developing that before any awards are in order.

Hermes.2157:

The lowest listing of items you put on the TP only takes into account the last 100 items when calculating the total amount listed. Will this be changed or can it be changed?

We are aware of this bug, but I cannot comment on when/if the fix will come in.

juno.1840:

QUESTIONS

1. What gold threshold would you use to classify a GW2 player as “rich” (yeah I know this is subjective, but let’s use the RL equivalent of multi-millionaires — my guess would be 6000g-ish, enough to buy a couple legendaries off the TP)

2. Roughly what percentage of the GW2 player population would fall into this “rich” category (probably tough since “smart” players would have their wealth in inflation-proof investments instead of cash in the vault — an educated percentage based upon your view of the data would be more than satisfactory)

3. How does this category of players effect the economy? (maybe a good/bad/neutral type of classification with a brief reason or two as to why)

Thanks!

These are value statements, and I don’t feel comfortable making value statements.

The ecto rate has not been modified.

Astraea.6075:

Another question for John:

What do you see as the main challenges/risks faced by MMO economies, and how well do you think GW2’s economy has fared against these?

The standard challenge is always hyper-inflation. I would argue that GW2 has tackled this challenge very, very successfully.

Second, a major risk is cartels controlling your economy(ies) and I would argue that we’ve done an excellent job there as well.

Minos.5168:

John Smith.4610:

The gem pool expands when players trade in gems for gold. If you assume two stockpiles of currency, it works pretty much exactly like you would expect.

You have mentioned in the past (if I recall correctly) that the Gem/Gold ratio isn’t purely based on the exchange, though.

Are there restrictions in place to prevent the rate from dropping too low?
(i.e. Let’s say a group of people collaborated to buy millions of gems and trade them for gold in an attempt to drastically reduce the ratio of Gold to Gems.)

If they all hit “Exchange” at once while the rate was very favorable, they could amass a large amount of gold prior to the rate dropping.

If, say, 100 Gems then dropped from being worth 10g to 1g… They could easily buy back gems and, in effect, cheat the system.

Are there restrictions in place to prevent this?

Yes, there are restrictions to prevent any major player from forcing the exchange into a place they could flip money back and forth to generate wealth.

MFoy.3284:

I’ve always wondered what drives the Gold to Gems conversion rate? I remember someone (you?) stating it started with a large pool of Gems and no Gold. Now, almost two years later it would seem to have changed to the other way around.

I would expect when we spend our converted Gems at the gem store they go to Bit Heaven and now are out of circulation. So, where do new Gems come from that affect the conversion rate? If players convert Gem into Gold that adds back into the pool right?

Not complaining at all. In fact, the Gold to Gem exchange has always seemed more than fair as a concept regardless of the exchange rate or other white noise in the system. As a player I commend both you and Anet for supporting the Exchange. But I am curious under what conditions does the Gem Pool expand?

Thanks John, you do a stellar job keeping the economy humming along and show your commitment to fair play with posting in threads like this. Much applause.

-M

The gem pool expands when players trade in gems for gold. If you assume two stockpiles of currency, it works pretty much exactly like you would expect.

Wanze.8410:

Question:

I dont know how involved you have been with the chinese version of the client but in terms of game economics/mechanics (for example crafting or forge recipes), was there something that was implemented differently than in the US/NA client?
I know that you cant comment on future changes, so i dont want to know which changes might be coming over to us but maybe there is something that you handled differently over there because the market and economy was starting from scratch and when implementing it over here, it would cause too much upset to price equilibriums.

China is largely the same game. We felt like we did a good job with the original GW2 and so we carried that over. What China did get was all the adjustments we made over the last year+ to fix mistakes in the west, so they started on a better foot over there.

I think the topic of this thread has digressed a bit, let’s stay on topic (I know, black pot here).

Rauderi.8706:

John Smith.4610:

We have a big data solution to help me manage the obscene quantity of data involved. I have a mix of third party and proprietary tools, but one never fully escapes excel. I’m oldschool and have an unhealthy love for excel, though it has many limitations, so if I need to do more advanced statistics I need to use more serious software.

Excel <3

Anyway, so so glad to see engagement with the red-posts. Why’s this popular? Because FEEDBACK.
So, thanks for all the time you take on this, JS, and even going so far as to explain when policy limits your responses.

As for a question, would you be at liberty to discuss the growing gulf between gem-to-gold and gold-to-gem rates? There’s definitely a bit of perception-rancor that I wouldn’t be getting value for my gems relative to those using gold to purchase gems. It’s stopped me in the past from making that conversion.

Was it intended to be an additional gold sink or it is just a proportional effect to gold inflation? Does that gap lower the volatility of gem prices?

I’m not sure what you mean by growing gulf between the rates, the gulf has always been the same.

The gold/gem rates have very little to do with gold inflation inside the game.

Atlas.9704:

John Smith.4610:

Step 3 don’t skimp on the extras, advanced statistics and programming. You want to know SQL and python (for now), but you’re way better off with a more fundamental programming education and that means c to c++ to c#, then branching to sql and python.

I apologize for the off topic question, but how difficult is python to learn?
I’ve dealt with C++, played around with C#, and currently working with classic ASP and ASP.NET.
I have been told that if I know C# I should be able to grasp basics. I didn’t know how accurate that was.

Python is not hard at all to learn. If you’re used to programming it will come as quickly as c# from c++.

wwwes.1398:

This probably falls under the category of “questions you can’t answer”, but… given the proven poor value of the recent Tyrian Explorers Knapsack update to the gem store, is it simply that you feel adding an “Empty Box” item to the store for 100 gems is too gauche?

I kid, a more serious question regarding that might be, what goes into deciding what the precise value of items in the gem store should be and the balance between what an item may be actually worth in relation to similar items and what its price is set at? Are there times when something is priced at a point specifically to influence purchases of other things?

Also, add my name to the list of amazed and envious in regards to the massive amounts of data analysis and manipulation at your disposal.

I cannot speak on the details of the gemstore.

Astraea.6075:

John Smith.4610:

There is almost no data that I cannot link together for analysis.

This week I created a table composed of multiple in game interactions that was larger than 800 billion rows.

I think I might be suffering from data envy… we complain when our users start creating queries that contain a few million rows.

I’ve been there, not fun times.

phys.7689:

How do you feel about non item based trade, such as the selling of services, player to player.
like dunegeon completion, puzzle portals, guided tours, whatever else people can come up with.

Would you ever attempt to formalize the system?

I think I would have to get together with others and discuss the cost benefit of those actions, I don’t have a statement to make on them at the moment.

Essence Snow.3194:

John Smith.4610:

AngelsShadow.7360:

As someone who is very much interested in a career in economics, how did you get involved in MMO economies? Also, what would you consider your basic day-to-day routine?

Step 1 is definitely play MMOs. Play them a lot, play many different types, be the best at them. Learn to understand them from every perspective, not just your own.

These are all of course suggestions that come from (and essentially describe) my personal opinions on the matter. You could, arguably, get a job without accomplishing these, but you’ll be much better at that job if you do.

Does that include understanding mmo socioeconomics, reward psychology, and how the two relate?

That’s going to be really hard to learn without a mentor or a lot of experience. There is some good information, but I wouldn’t call it complete. It also changes drastically between cultures which is another hurdle.

AngelsShadow.7360:

As someone who is very much interested in a career in economics, how did you get involved in MMO economies? Also, what would you consider your basic day-to-day routine?

Step 1 is definitely play MMOs. Play them a lot, play many different types, be the best at them. Learn to understand them from every perspective, not just your own.

Step 2 actually learn economics. There are many ways, choose the one that will work for you. A good portion of economics is intuitive and mathematical, but a lot of real value comes from the ability to understand what’s happening when that isn’t true.

Step 3 don’t skimp on the extras, advanced statistics and programming. You want to know SQL and python (for now), but you’re way better off with a more fundamental programming education and that means c to c++ to c#, then branching to sql and python.

These are all of course suggestions that come from (and essentially describe) my personal opinions on the matter. You could, arguably, get a job without accomplishing these, but you’ll be much better at that job if you do.

Elrey.5472:

Would it hurt to share some of the info? And here i’m thinking in dumb funny info just because i’m in the mood of having a laugh with the data.

As examples:
How many players sold a legendary at a really cheap price by misstake? (150 gold instead of 1500 or something like that).
How many players destroyed precursors because they don’t know what they are?
How many times someone bough the same unique item because of lag or another reason?

You know, that kind of data that makes you smile in the morning ^^. I guess there is better ones but i’m sleepy at the moment.

It would have to be numbers that I could look up that weren’t polluted by goldsellers.

Astraea.6075:

John Smith.4610:

Mckeone.9804:

What kind of tools do you use to manage the economy? Did you develop them in house, get them from a third party, or is it just excel gone wild?

We have a big data solution to help me manage the obscene quantity of data involved. I have a mix of third party and proprietary tools, but one never fully escapes excel. I’m oldschool and have an unhealthy love for excel, though it has many limitations, so if I need to do more advanced statistics I need to use more serious software.

As someone who works in the BI/DWH field, I’d be extremely interested in any more details that you are able to provide about the tools you use, so I guess my question would be around the scope of the game data you’re able to access with these tools.

For instance, are you able to link data about how players spend their time in game with data about their “economic activity”, and thereby observe trends and patterns that might not be obvious otherwise?

There is almost no data that I cannot link together for analysis.

This week I created a table composed of multiple in game interactions that was larger than 800 billion rows.

TChalla.7146:

I’m no economist by any stretch of the imagination. Mathematician… yes. Economist… no way. However, I’ve been enjoying this particular topic quite a bit, so I’ll throw my own question into the mix.

In general, what determines whether or not a particular item will be tradeable? Is it a complex list of criteria, or is it relatively simple?

I’m honestly of the mindset that the vast majority, if not all of the items, should be tradeable, but I also know that might be a stretch overall.

It isn’t simple. There’s a lot of factors that go into the decision. The intent of the item, the reason or goal behind it’s creation, usually leads us in the direction of deciding.

Wanze.8410:

QUESTION:

How long does it usually take to implement big changes to the economy from the point that Anet decides that something has to change until the patch goes live?
As the question is propably too generic, i will give 2 past examples, you maybe are allowed to comment on:

1. The change of making ectos salvageable into t6 dust. How long did you monitor t6 dust until you decided that their droprate in general is too low and how long did it take you to come up with the idea of salvaging them from ectos instead of raising their droprate across the board? And over a year later, did it work out as expected in the long term?

2. How long did it take to implement ascended weaponcrafting from the decision to implement it until it went live in september last year? And how much did you have to prepare the game economy for it? I guess the 2 patches before it (Pavillion and Invasions) where a way of injecting lots of mats into the market in preparation.
Had the introduction of Essences of Luck a big impact on the way you decided to implement ascended crafting or were these changes rather unrelated? I also guess, you already had a good plan on how to implement ascended armorcrafting 3 months later before you released ascended weaponcrafting. How much changes went into armorcrafting between september and december?

1. We were monitoring the situation for quite awhile, brainstorming solutions. I cannot take all the credit for that change either, Izzy is the genius in this situation. The change has worked exactly as we hoped it would.

Psientist.6437:

‘, Thank you in advance for any answer and inclination to answer
I am an economist onlyif economists accept currency as the anative function of reality
please be generous with your answer breadth
would I know what I am not asking

1, Hello?
2, Do you have a character avatar?
3, Do you consider yourself Tyrian?
4, Would you consider anative RMT algorithm a system rational Tyrian?
5, 4 and why?
6, What is 6 afraid of?
7, as phi’1,pi’1,phi as
8, How would ‘4 as yes, be named?
9, I xp synesthesia with words on paper, am I typical,atypical?

edit for lovinglilyliveredlovelilies

What I can answer:
1. Hello to you sir.
2. I have an two accounts that are play accounts neither is this account (if that’s what you mean)
6. Me
7. 0.61803
9. No, as atypical means unrepresented by a group, you would be represented as a group of people who experience synesthesia. (For those that don’t know, synesthesia is when someone experience words with multiple senses, think of it as tasting the words your write.)

Zaxares.5419:

Question: Just how old are you, John?

“The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which mean never losing your enthusiasm.” – Aldous Huxley

:)

Mckeone.9804:

What kind of tools do you use to manage the economy? Did you develop them in house, get them from a third party, or is it just excel gone wild?

We have a big data solution to help me manage the obscene quantity of data involved. I have a mix of third party and proprietary tools, but one never fully escapes excel. I’m oldschool and have an unhealthy love for excel, though it has many limitations, so if I need to do more advanced statistics I need to use more serious software.

Mbelch.9028:

John, I just have to say thanks for taking the time and effort to answer some of our meager questions. As someone who does tend to flip items when I can make educated guesses on what to flip, I take great interest and often read this sub forum .

I’m also a person who has had a monopoly on an item for a time. It’s quite profitable, but I’m curious (and yes, this is my question) as to if you/your team does anything if it notices a monopoly; I.E. one or two people working in tandem to control a price.

My followup is: has this been an issue insofar that you’ve noticed it and had to take action?

Thanks for your time again, and here’s two notes—
-As a journalist by profession, my follow-up might seem redundant but it is necessary.
-As a reader of this forum, I appreciate your sometimes snarky responses to those who earn them. I’ll never likely earn one, but if I did, I’d add it to my signature.

Monopolistic or cartel control isn’t really an issue in guild wars 2. Most of the markets won’t bare it for long enough for us to even get around to fixing it, and 99% of the time people trying lose huge quantities of money. I wouldn’t say that we’ve never had to do anything about it, but the details I’m not currently allowed to speak on.

Mckeone.9804:

John – (1) how do you view your role in economic management . . . although a micro person, how much, if at all, do you incorporate macro modeling into your work, (2) do you have any real life role models that you follow, and (3) what papers/blogs do you read?

1. The majority of my work ends up being on the macro side, mostly due to limited time.
2/3. Does Urijah Faber count?
I enjoy reading about Nate Silver’s work and I am a big fan of Paul Krugman. I’m not sure I would call them role models because our work is so vastly different, but I would reference their traits of success and excellent work as something to look up to.

John Smith.4610:

Conncept.7638:

but there is no way you have the numbers to claim that the players think so, from a psychological perspective.

You’re adorable.

Economists have ways to measure how much your parents love you and the scariest part of all… it works.

I’ve gotten a lot of mixed feedback about this comment and I wanted to agree that it’s unnecessary. It’s an overly caustic response to an accusation (which isn’t the worst thing in the world), but it’s been pointed out that this isn’t a two way street which changes the situation entirely (and makes it really bad). My community team are saints and allow me the time and medium to interact with the players, I’ll be focusing more on providing positive responses as much as I’m able.

Cheers all, questions welcome.

phys.7689:

John Smith.4610:

Psientist.6437:

John Smith.4610:

Ayrilana.1396:

He’s referring to the conversion rates of gem and gold within the gem store most likely.

Ah, I see.
As a note, while RMT is accurate, it is generally used to refer to third party traders, hence my confusion.

This is not a returned volley:

Thank you John Smith for asking for clarification, thank you Ayrilana for providing clarification, pardon me not clarifying myself in a timely manner.

The RMT label is accurately applied to Arenanet et al. ‘You’ have collapsed the traditional third party responsibilities of RMT into the responsibilities of Arenanet et al.

Question

Have you as a game theory economist ever considered partnering with other game theory economists to create the backbone for a third party neutral RMT company that would provide RMT services to participating game worlds?

I have thought of it, I think it would be very interesting to have new worlds to work inside constantly and honestly more games need to start using economists. I also have extremely negative feelings about third party RMT because I watch them steal and destroy what players have created and it sickens me. Competing them out of business would be worth it alone.

how could you compete them out of business without having similar effects, and employing similar tactics?
Essentially how can you compete with people who operate above the laws, in a completely self interested fashion?

Their tactics must be combated inside the game as well.

Ask Dons Mop.3601:

Hey John! I have a question about limited time items, or items with no current way of acquisition other than the trading post. Alot of these items will continue to go up in price on the TP, the Halloween 1 skins for example, but there are also a few with no real demand for but are still unobtainable by other means. The current LS1 items are on the laurel vendor now(Which I personally thought was a very good way to deal with them). Are there any plans on re-implementing this idea on the other items that are unobtainable? Or would the re-introduction be too volitile?

I’m sorry, I can’t comment on future content.

Edit: I didn’t see that response above.

Psientist.6437:

John Smith.4610:

Ayrilana.1396:

He’s referring to the conversion rates of gem and gold within the gem store most likely.

Ah, I see.
As a note, while RMT is accurate, it is generally used to refer to third party traders, hence my confusion.

This is not a returned volley:

Thank you John Smith for asking for clarification, thank you Ayrilana for providing clarification, pardon me not clarifying myself in a timely manner.

The RMT label is accurately applied to Arenanet et al. ‘You’ have collapsed the traditional third party responsibilities of RMT into the responsibilities of Arenanet et al.

Question

Have you as a game theory economist ever considered partnering with other game theory economists to create the backbone for a third party neutral RMT company that would provide RMT services to participating game worlds?

I have thought of it, I think it would be very interesting to have new worlds to work inside constantly and honestly more games need to start using economists. I also have extremely negative feelings about third party RMT because I watch them steal and destroy what players have created and it sickens me. Competing them out of business would be worth it alone.

Lodius.5392:

As part of economy and growth is there any “Guest Pass” or “Free Weekends” so that I can tell my friends about it.

This would help increase the rate of new players coming into the game.

How about offering incentives to recruiting people?

I am interested in the economy because I enjoy the game and do not want to see it ever die.

This is a bit beyond my scope, sorry. Also it falls into my future things coming out clause, so I can’t answer twice, but I’m sorry twice as well and I hope that makes up for it.

Ayrilana.1396:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

For clarification:
John, is the fact that profit from the traiding post is shifted value, unlike the reward from other activities, which is newly created value, the justification for traiding post flippers to have, in theory, unlimited profit?

Followup:
What is the justification for traiding post flippers having an exponential maximum-reward-curve, unlike any other activities which all have just a steady, constant maximum-reward-curve?

Followup:
If skill is the justification, do you want to express that the traiding post is the most skillful activity in this game? Based on the formula that the most challenging activity should be rewarded the most? Does that mean that traiding post flipping is considered as “endgame content”? So is any other activity in this game worth less and at its core only exsiting because it fuels the traiding post? Doesn’t this mindset lacks the true meaning of a MMO, playing together to achieve more?

You’ll likely find your answer here but I’m sure he’ll elaborate when he has time.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Why-manipulate-that/page/2#post3175493

I have already answered my opinions and the facts on flippers, but I would point out that flippers do not have an exponential gain curve. I am definitely not making a comment that the TP is the most skill portion of the game. I have previously implied that since the amount of profit is very finite and split between those participating, the fact that anyone makes a decent amount of profit indicates a barrier to entry that could be skill based.

bri.2359:

I am not sure if this has been asked yet, but I have some questions for John regarding RNG as implemented in GW2.

Were you involved with the initial design of this, and if so, were other options discussed? Was the decision to implement the current version based on economic or game design factors, or a bit of both?

Is the algorithm constantly monitored and tweaked, or is set and let run for a certain period of time while you collect/analyse data?

I’m not sure what you mean, do you mean implementation of the RNG code-wise or specific instances of it inside the game? I think some more specifics would help me.

VincentDW.9376:

Ongoing thanks, John! Also, another one for you:

As part of your in-game economist duties, do you have any input into more “meta-economic” decisions, or things that will have ramifications for the in-game economy but aren’t always though of as being directly a part of it? For example, are you consulted on things such as when to offer a sale on the box price of the game (since an influx of new players surely shifts the supply and demand curves of the in-game economy), or is this solely the purview of other departments like marketing? In the same vein, are there other areas of the game that you consult on as an economist that you think would be non-obvious or surprising to the average player?

I very often act as a statistician for all kinds of projects inside the company, providing data analysis on everything from art to audio to business. Though something as far away as box sales is more something that I would be informed of.

Nefara.2186:

Nefara.2186:

Since you’ve mentioned that “silk wasn’t an accident”, I’d love to know some of the reasoning behind that. When you say you want to add volatility, I’m very curious as to what the benefits are to putting an immense amount of demand stress on to a specific commodity. Doing so effected the price of all cloth (except jute), since Damask is so profitable to craft. However, it is more than triple the price of other ascended materials and all cloth is at least twice as expensive as its counterparts. it’s been terrible for newbs who want to level up their armor related crafting. I don’t understand the need for the imbalance so I’d love some illumination.

On a related note, is there an economic reason why superior runes and sigils are not able to be put into the mystic forge? Adding a mystic forge recipe would help equalize the prices of all of the superior runes, adding value to the, well, crappy ones and adding supply to whichever ones are currently en vogue. Was this inequality something else that was planned and if so, why?

If you get the chance I’d still love a response about the benefits of cost imbalance, it’s something I genuinely would like to understand better!

I’m not confident I can adequately explain the concepts you’re asking about in this forum without a significant time investment. Remind me of this question at a later date and I’ll put some thought into it.

TooBz.3065:

Hi John,

How does wealth / material distribution affect how you think about sinks?

For example, I imagine that gaining wealth for the sake of gaining wealth could be, under some circumstances, be very similar to a sink – as wealth and materials are held outside the market. The problem being that at anytime those materials and gold could flood back in. Or is this a self-correcting problem that you don’t need to worry about?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you’re asking if the sink is likely to sink from the rich/poor/middle/everyone, is that a factor of the design?

Where the sinks hit are a major factor of the process. Imagine the difference between HoHo Tron allowing people to donate to kick off the event faster and requiring anyone who wants to participate to donate.
It’s good to think about sinks and faucets in terms of wealth and potential wealth, both must remain balanced or you lose sleep over the possibilities.

wwwes.1398:

It’s hard to think of more questions, you’ve done such a thorough job.

Can you talk more about your role within the development process? You’ve alluded a few times to what seems like very specific periods of input to the process, do you have daily discussions on a project like Dry Top as it’s being developed or is it just an advisory role at the beginning and end?

On a different note, how involved do you get on a day to day basis? Do you operate like a stock trader with 3 monitors of different markets or just look at a daily snapshot of activity? Is part of your job identifying major anomalies or abuses in the system as they happen and flagging them for developers to take care of?

Again, this is fascinating to math/programming nerds like myself that frequent these boards, so thank you! I wish we had more threads like this with developers/writers, it makes the game more enjoyable to hear about how much care goes into it.

How much input I put into a project is dependent on the project and it’s possible economic interactions, it can go from a talk at the start middle and end to meetings every day. We have great designers too, so they are checking for economic interactions as well.

I’m hesitant to say that finding anomalies is part of my job, but being a person who recognizes patterns and anomalies is a must in this position.

I’m glad people are enjoying this mini Q&A, it’s great to see people interested!

Lodius.5392:

@John Smith

It appears you are responding to these questions in this post… So my quick question in regards to the economy is this.

The economy centers around wealth of the players. This could be graphed on a bell curve (but that is outside the spirit of this post).

To craft a legendary weapon people are required to earn around 2000 – 3000 gold. Which, when not considering drops, would require a person to run around 1,000 dungeons.

My questions are centered around gold making:
1) Dungeons. Are there talks / will there ever be an increased incentive to run dungeons? You cannot run more than the same path once per day now to get rewards. The 1.25 – 1.5g takes a while to amass any amount of wealth.

2) T6 material. There are no place to farm for T6 mats. The drop rate on these is extremely low, even in the Level 80 areas. Is there any talks to increase the drop rate or make these more “farmable” to lower the price on the TP? I mean… up to 55 silver a piece for some of these mats is getting very expensive.

3) Laurels. Tons of things require Laurels… from Ascended Accessories, to Ascended Armor/weapon recipes, Heavy Crafting Bags for people working on Legendaries, etc etc. Is there any thoughts to increase the amount of laurels that a person receives?

I can’t answer questions about our future plans. I’m more here to answer questions about our/my process in the economy, how the economy works, the past and other interesting ideas that don’t require me to violate an NDA.