Guild Wars 2

Pretty sure this has been discussed already with official responses as well, someone should link them.

Pie Flavor.1647:

And why do they have more disposable income? I thought the entire concept of First World meant that people on the First World would have more disposable income, yet again, a “statistic” not backed by any source

Economic Sidebar: While I don’t know about “First World” as a concept, there are several official ways in which economic development is measured.

continue on.

John Smith.4610:

A very likely possibility.

Shut up!

A very likely possibility.

RoyHarmon.5398:

John Smith.4610:

insanemaniac.2456:

John Smith.4610:

Actually 9 have sold in the last 24 hours.

omg specific market velocity info

i can feel the chains of your NDA loosening

I have two just in case the first one breaks :P

This was interesting when, at first glance, I read it as “DNA loosening.” And yes, of course you have two, since most eukaryotic DNA is double-stranded. But why all this concern over John Smith’s mitosis?

Well, why not?

When there’s two of me, one will leave to fix other games. Soon there will be no cartels in the gaming industry.
Alternatively, one could be evil and try to take over the world, just throwing that out as a possibility.

Nike.2631:

Wanze.8410:

Nike.2631:

To a Good Home

First of all, this is way too complicated to implement (2 stacks of each item).

Fortunately we have these things called computers to handle minor bookkeeping, and second the WHOLE POINT is that if you buy it this way you intend to use it, not sit on it .

Then i dont see who benefits from it. It wont ban flippers or speculators from the game, if that is your intent.

Its not, and it never was – it’s to create competitive pressure, to introduce a class of sellers whom you cannot simply buy-out to eliminate their offers.

And for any crafting material, it would still give me the possibility to craft something out of it to turn a profit.

That is also deliberate. It provides incentive to move items through the production cycle, buying cheaper to a good home materials to sell in a more refined state.

As transactions would still be anonymous, no relationship will be established between buyer and seller.

The sale itself is the relationship. It not to start up being pen pals .

If you care about your item not being bought by flippers/speculators, just post a sell listing and dont sell to the highest bidder. That way, most of the time, it wont be bought by a flipper/speculator.

There is a world of difference between “most of the time” and “never”. Further it adds an additional check against market manipulation.

Just because you seem to have moral issues with selling your stuff to someone who benefits from it by flipping, speculating, this is an awfully complicated system and i dont think it will be frequently used.

You and I have very different scales if you consider a pair of check boxes “awfully complicated” .

Most people that sell their loot to the highest bidder do so because they want a quick gold return, they wont sell it for even less while having to even do one more click to check the good home box.

To a Good Home is not intended to serve “most people”. It’s intended to provide options so the Trading Post can better serve more people than it does now. If you don’t approve of economic PvP, your options are relent or not participate at all. This provides at least a little bit of a middle ground.

There’s a lot to say about this idea. I like that you’re attempting to find a reasonable solution, but the one of the biggest problems is that nobody would do it. Secondly, (this has been said) if you want your item to not be flipped, actually sell it at what it’s worth. Don’t take less money for fast return, that’s how those markets are created. In the end, this is a very hard to explain, very hard to implement, very complicated solution to a “problem” that can be solved by just selling items at the correct price.

Many people are happy to take less money for instant return and that’s fine if that’s your preference, others are willing to wait, and someone will work in the middle to make the market more efficient. It’s a good system and it works very well, forcing people to not trade they way they want to wouldn’t be better, it would be much worse. (not that your suggestion is forcing people, this is just a general comment)

PS any flipper that’s attempting to make money on luxury items isn’t good at flipping. It’s a slow, dangerous, rarely-profitable way to attempt to make money (that’s why nobody does it).

insanemaniac.2456:

John Smith.4610:

Actually 9 have sold in the last 24 hours.

omg specific market velocity info

i can feel the chains of your NDA loosening

I have two just in case the first one breaks :P

I’m assuming that your love for me stems from the fact that you just had to chug about 8 beers and are now very drunk.

tolunart.2095:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Behellagh.1468:

Ah! This topic again.

takes a drink

No one told me we started a drinking game. Was the word of the day “manipulation”?

And chug a beer every time JS says “no.”

Seriously though, I’ve never seen a compelling argument that making TP items account bound would be anything but devastatingly bad for this game and its players. There are of course many biases in any setting, especially a forum setting, but you know that my goal is to make the best possible game.

Actually 9 have sold in the last 24 hours.

Behellagh.1468:

But posters will see 53,000 and choose to post under it’s price for a quicker sale. Psychologically it still acts as a wall that you would want to post beneath it. As long as enough players are posting under it, even at the velocity JS is talking about, it may take a bit longer to wear that wall down than a few hours.

Agreed.

Coming in a bit late, but it would only take a couple of hours for 53k ectos to clear in our market. Don’t underestimate velocity.

I checked Thick Leather Sections are only 2169 Items

Given the input/output of materials and their value to players I would hypothesize that players find many outputs of crafting worthwhile for one reason or another.

An example, I pulled the approximate amount of crafting materials destroyed in the time I took to read this post and the number I received was 136,909 items. There’s a high demand and velocity of crafting materials, which I would say is good evidence that there must be something to do with those crafting materials.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

When a player fills a Buy Order, he “lists” it at that price, and the order is filled FIFO. It’s not a matter of selling it directly to the other player. All transactions MUST go through the TP, so anything that gets sold first has to be “listed”.

This is the first and foremost reason (though there are others). Changing UI options doesn’t change what action you are taking. You simply state you are willing to sell an item for price X, the listing is created and either goes to the highest purchasers or persists visibly on the TP, but the either way it’s a list.

Svarty.8019:

Could you give an example of a secret mechanic in the Guild Wars 2 please?

There is a chicken in Tyria that you can try to kill, but you just make him angry, and you won’t like him that way.

Buttercup.5871:

OK, I know this is in the area of tinfoil hats and everything, but in my experience, the results of the first BL key is usually pretty good. This got me wondering – because if it’s programmed like that, it would be pretty smart right? (you get the taste of success, so you continue gambling!). So I tested it, because using 25 keys at once rarely got me anywhere.

So, I used 1 key a day. Surprisingly, this netted me with consistent scraps, I’d say one to two full tickets per 25 keys. And if I didn’t get a scrap, I got another good result (e.g. an expensive BL item). It was slow, but at least I got my scraps. In this manner, I got at least twice as many scraps as I would opening many BL chests all at once. I’d really like to see the test results of others over, say, 25 days, but I also realize noone would be even remotely interested to replicate my crazy tinfoil hat experiment. Plus, this experiment was done before the recent overhaul, so it might be completely outdated information anyway.

I promise you, there are no secret mechanics involved in the chest openings.

I think there are some interesting points here. While I would say GW2 has a fantastic free market style economy, that’s incredibly efficient blah blah blah… It is valid to say, while the economy may be efficient, is a free market economy the best choice for an MMO? There isn’t anyone in the world qualified to give a definitive answer to the question. What I can say is that the free market design that GW2 uses is MUCH more effective than a barter system in keeping players engaged and happy as an aggregate. No system will ever please everyone, but this system works very well from my point of view as a designer and economist and as a person who wants to play a great game, and the statistics that I have access to agree with that.

Please note I don’t mean to imply that other systems aren’t or can’t be effective, I only mean to say that I think the system we have is very well executed and is itself effective.

Dragonar.1342:

The discussion is about almost all rewards being buy/sell -able.
Most important topic: a legendary
Resulting in grind/farm.
Imo money (gold) is way too dominating in this game.

@john
I would like to see you a bit more open-minded in these threads.
This subforum will never work (productive) if you continue to react this way.

PS
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/How-to-make-200-600-gold-a-day/first#post3469037

I don’t feel I’m being close minded, I feel that I’ve already provided answers to the questions/discussions occurring here. I haven’t even given what I would consider an opinion, I’ve only stated what things are true and I haven’t seen any convincing evidence that those facts are not true, nor do I expect to (that’s why I’m referring to them as facts).

Let’s calm down a bit.
I’ve already had a long post explaining why TP traders are good for the game as well as limited, if you haven’t seen it, you should look it up.

As far as other ideas like the GW2 economy has rampant inflation or there are other virtual economists online that don’t approve of this economy, that’s simply not even close to true.

They aren’t being tracked for any specific reason and there’s no relevant outcome, it’s only for fun we took a look.

Doesn’t take more than one person to put up a couple of hundred thousand buy orders at 4c.

Anen.1742:

TP is shared by both NA and EU.

This is correct.
The trading post is currently global, There is only one trading post.

Unfortunately I’m not permitted to release these statistics at this time. I’m sorry, I’m sure one day it will be available.

Essence Snow.3194:

…PS increasing something like .0000001 to .00000012….

That’s a 20% change. I don’t understand your simile.

Lampshade.7569:

“Hey let’s rez this old thread to point out the promises not kept and hope that this time they will take a hint and change things for the better.”

To which I can only say : Roflcopter.

After that post the Mystic forge rates on precursors were increased. We’ve moved into more longterm plans for precursors (we’re still watching), as you know, but that promise was upheld.

Account.9832:

John Smith.4610:

I can’t go into details, but we have plans for insider traders.

Unfortunately, “I can’t go into details” is typical game publisher code for “we’re not going to do anything about it but we’re also not going to say anything, so people think we’re doing something about it”. Of course, that applies mainly to games with subscriptions (where the publisher doesn’t want to lose income, so they value cheaters the same as honest players). GW2 isn’t really subject to that kind of pressure.

Still, if you do intend to punish them in some way, announcing that would act as a deterrent.

Will you ever “go into details” ?

I have a proven track record here of taking action when I say I will take action. I’m not sure where your idea of a typical game developer response derives from, but given that assumption we’re clearly not typical.

I’ve already banned Martha Stewart, so we’re ahead of the game.

As a quick note, this is NOT inside trading. I wouldn’t say that insider trading doesn’t exist, but 99% of the time it’s speculation you’re seeing rather than insider trading. I can’t go into details, but we have plans for insider traders.

FirstBlood.7359:

Remove the market, and appoint John Smith as our central planner.

After I’m elected, bribing me will be considered a “gold sink”

:)

Ensign.2189:

Pearl exotics are one of the byproducts of throwing rare weapons into the mystic forge in an attempt to generate a precursor. Selling them for 2 gold each is in fact profitable once you take into account the value of the precursor you’re after.

Crafting for levels was only a big driver of the exotic economy immediately after the patch introducing exotic weapons, and the excess exotic weapons were sucked right back out to be fed to the forge; these days the forge/precursor market dwarfs the exotics from people crafting to 500.

Beat me to it! In the last 36ish hours more than 200 pearl cleaver’s have come from the mystic forge, not an insubstantial amount.

Here is my stance on this subject:
The TP is part of Tyria and is a part of the game. Spending your time learning to interact with it is a fine way to play the game if that’s what you enjoy. It has ups and downs (including no exp, karma, achievements).

The amount of money to be made on the TP is finite. There is no way it can’t be, the TP only ever sinks money, it never creates it. The TP offers convenience to trade outside of equilibrium pricing, and if a player decides to step in and take the time and effort to consume that trade and push the trade into equilibrium, that is great for the economy. It pushed prices towards equilibrium, provides a service to those who want convenience and sinks money all at the same time.

Trading takes skill, and lots of it, it cannot be argued otherwise and here is why. Because the profit is so limited, the profit has to be split between all the people effectively trading. The lower the skill cap, the more people trading effectively, the less profit individuals make until there’s no longer a real market. If one argues that there is money to be made, then you are arguing that skill is involved.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Vol.5241:

John Smith mentioned this awhile back, and he said that constructing an infographic like that takes a lot of time and translation (not sure why that is so tough though)

Taking a snapshot of complex economy data and translating it into a visualization that will enlighten rather than mislead is actually way more work than it sounds like. There is a lot of expertise and thought required even for things that seem simple like whether to use a bar chart or a pie graph.

And then there’s the part where John probably has other work responsibilities that take up his time. If he really loved us though, he stop wasting all that time sleeping and interacting with his friends and family and give us some brightly colored charts to pick apart

This.

Changes to the game’s economic systems are often made for various and complex reasons. It’s not so simple as to say “we did A due to B”. What you’re asking for would be very hard to do, though we do encourage discussion over on the BLTC forum area.

Behellagh.1468:

“game to the correct conclusion”? Freudian slip? :p

Lol, that’s good enough that I’m not going to edit the mistake

Any changes to the economic systems of any kind will be in the patch notes. This was an error, there are no economic changes that are intentionally kept from patch notes.

We did consider using the same method for the exchange and TP. I’m not currently at liberty to discuss all our rational, but I will say that we game to the correct conclusion that using a standard trading system would have been a mistake.

TooBz.3065:

John Smith.4610:

The gold to gem rate on the exchange is not a measure of inflation. If you consider how the exchange works and interacts with players you’ll realize that it’s a great measure of only one thing…

You tend to answer a lot of questions this way. Almost Socratic (I’d think you were a lawyer if I didn’t know you were an economist).

I wish you would complete the thought, become most of us don’t think in economic terms. Although I’m sure repeating yourself over and over gets old.

I often leave the answer open for others for two reasons:

1. There’s lots of smart people here who know the answers and they should get an opportunity to demonstrate it.

2. It further reinforces the point when some of the community knows and understands what I’m attempting to convey and can demonstrate it without my help.

The answer is the demand for gems vs the demand for gold, but the kicker is only in the subset of players participating in exchanges in each direction.

/nod to azurrei.5691

The gold to gem rate on the exchange is not a measure of inflation. If you consider how the exchange works and interacts with players you’ll realize that it’s a great measure of only one thing…

A couple of people underestimated the velocity of the market and it cost them quite a bit of gold, this is what happens 99.999% of the time in GW2.

Hello all, I looked into this because we intended to have a release note for the changes to the champion loot.
We did modify the gold and bloodstone dust coming from champion bags, and a release note will be added shortly.
What I can tell you is that we made a mistake, this one fell through the cracks and I’m truly sorry. I’ve promised before that we won’t make stealthy economic changes without notes and I mean to stick to that promise.
Thank you all for pointing out the error, we will be more vigilant in the future.
Good luck in your adventures.

I’m not sure I entirely understand what the problem is, if someone could elaborate objectively on the argument I would appreciate it.

For anything regarding the currency exchange I will say that the currency exchange is NOT a good indicator of market prices or inflation, it wasn’t designed to be.

Isaiah Cartwright and Linsey Murdock put a lot of work into this and they are the ones that deserve your praise.

I’m happy that you are liking the new content!

Broadicea.8294:

Essence Snow.3194:

I stopped bothering to listen to him a while back as there is nothing of worth to gather from the words he is permitted to say to us. Kinda like the words of a fortune being meaningless as they are so generalized that they may apply to anything.

Yup, precisely. John is barely allowed to tell us anything and when he does it’s so vague and cryptic that it’s essentially worthless.

I can think of absolutely no reason why the player base shouldn’t be permitted access to basic information about the economy. His remark about the median returns from gauntlet farming is a perfect example. The median alone tells us almost nothing. What was the mean? What about gold earned by the top quintiles or deciles and the population statistics to match?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Economy-concerns/page/3#post2642294

Ensign.2189:

Saint.4789:

Other then physically destroying currencies, in real life there’s no “money” sink, as mostly everything ends up having value and no money is physically removed from the economy (except the money destroyed, as I referenced above).

This game, anything bought at a vendor, anything traded on the trading post, anything that involves trading currency with an NPC is a subtraction of the currency from the economy. This means that it’s gone, it’s literally out of the flow.

If we ignore credit (which is a huge oversimplification in the real world) this is more or less correct.

In both cases the rates are related by a simple relationship:

Accumulation = Generation – Destruction

In the real world economies, as you pointed out, the rate of currency destruction is low. That means to keep accumulation low, generation must also be low.

In GW2, generation is enormous – just look at the amount of raw gold created every time you go out to play. This means that destruction must also be enormous if accumulation is to be kept in check.

The strength of GW2’s money sinks rests on the 15% TP fee – because it scales up with the amount of money in the economy. Even T3 cultural armor is only a one time sink, and only pulls a flat amount of money out. The TP fee takes 15% over and over and over again – the game cannot generate more money than the TP fee can sink.

Saint.4789:

Secondly, as player base increases, wouldn’t inflation go down as the money is spreading out.

If the amount of money in the economy was fixed that would absolutely be the case.

It isn’t fixed, though: the rate of gold generation scales with the number of players (more players farming = more players generating gold). So if you doubled the number of players, you’d also double the rate of gold generation, and double the rate of gold destruction, and with the way these things scale you’d have roughly double the amount of money sitting around in the economy.

Saint.4789:

Can someone correct me here if I’m wrong? as I understand it, unless core components of the economy change (TP fee, where the money goes when buying from a vendor), all inflation is temporary.

You’re right that all inflation is temporary – in the real world central bankers work really hard to balance money flows to keep inflation within an acceptable range. Since WWII they’ve done a pretty remarkable job of keeping inflation in a controlled range, enough so that most people kind of understand slow, stable inflation to be ‘normal’.

But it’s all temporary. In reality there are a bunch of different market forces pulling on supply and demand on a large scale, and those are all changing over time – not just when something big changes, but as people accumulate wealth and their goals and farming patterns change. Big bursts of inflation, or deflation, in the economy these days are going to be from something changing – and recently we’ve had a lot of big changes.

This is a great post.

Overall yes we know there’s a change in short run income for players, though it’s not as severe as speculated. No, we aren’t surprised. Yes, there are plans in place to make sure the economy doesn’t experience permanent, hyper-inflation.

As far as the median numbers go, remember that how much information I can give out on the forums is often very limited. I do my best to give you a picture that you can work with. I described exactly how to take the one number I gave out and create an accurate model of what’s happening. The uncertainty in your model is unfortunately unavoidable (but can be minimized) as I can’t always post the full picture of everything that’s happening.

Here’s Legend as well:
The columns are
Day (obvious, but it’s UTC of course)
Buyers is how many unique users purchased, if it’s less than the total sold then someone bought 2
sellers is the same