Guild Wars 2

Charismatic Harm.9683:

If your argument is that there are substitutes for those items, I’ll agree….there are. There are also substitutes for weapon skins too….LOTS of them. A substitute is something similar, but not exactly the same….right?

That’s not really the argument though. The argument is that THESE skins are not available anywhere else. I see that as a good thing….a VERY good thing, in fact.

All weapons skins are not substitutes for all other weapon skins.

This short bow is really cool looking in my opinion:
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/gallery/image/4387-fused-shortbow-skin/

What skin would I go buy that is similar but maybe not quite as cool? I don’t see anything on Argos Soft that has the same flame forged industrial look to it.

The destroyer bow is flame forged but organic looking.

The avenger’s bow is sort of mechanical looking, but it’s too shiny and sleek.

There’s nothing wrong with rare. There’s nothing wrong with me not being able to afford everything I want. The problem is that I could spend millions of gold and not get that skin or anything that even comes close to being that skin. That’s why folks are upset.

Is it evil/unethical/unfair? I don’t think so. It’s just not a happy situation and I don’t think it’s irrational for folks to be disappointed or upset about it.

Edit – Sorry I missed this part:

Charismatic Harm.9683:

If they don’t like how much it costs, don’t buy it.

How much does a fusion weapon ticket cost? That’s the crux of the matter.

Nefertiti.4652:

Kurow.6973:

Sounds like some of you just want revealing town clothes.

Not like there’s female/male versions of each armour or anything…right? So pretending like there isn’t, isn’t going to change that.

Not even close in the range of things. As a matter of fact the Armor choices are far more revealing then that of the clothing worn by the Npcs. I dont think its that far of a stretch to have the fashions of the NPCs available for players to purchase.

As someone who bought every single costume pack in COH, I’m with you on this one. I would like more town clothes options that look like leisure clothes appropriate to Tyria (i.e. not hoodies or ball caps). Yes I’m a dragon slaying hero when I’m outside the city, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to own a party dress.

Charismatic Harm.9683:

These skins are not the only items exclusive to the Black Lion Chest. Here is a list of all of the other things you can only get from the chest (Source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Black_Lion_Chest):

• Tonics
  • 1 Endless Mystery Tonic

You can get something similar enough with vanilla mystery tonics which are common and craftable.

• Boosters
  • Armor Booster
  • Speed Booster
  • Strength Booster

Consumables that are nice, but don’t give you something permanent.

• Backpacks
  • Pink Quaggan Backpack Set
  • Tiger Charr Backpack Set

You can buy items that are very similar/the same.

• Influence
  • 1 Small Guild Discovery
  • 1 Medium Guild Discovery
  • 1 Large Guild Discovery

• Tools
  • 1 Black Lion Harvesting Sickle
  • 1 Black Lion Logging Axe
  • 1 Black Lion Mining Pick

You can buy influence and harvesting tools (although the extra chance of a rare harvest is nice, the low stack size stinks).

• Everlasting items
  • 1 Permanent Bank Access Contract
  • 1 Permanent Black Lion Merchant Contract
  • 1 Permanent Trading Post Express Contract
  • 1 Permanent Hair Stylist Contract

These can be bought from the TP right? (I’m not positive about all of them not being account bound)

I’m not arguing the point about chests always containing something – I agree that viewing keys as a “chance to win” doesn’t really sync up. My point is that all of these “only drop from chests” items are either temporary or have a substitute that can be purchased outright.

Ursan.7846:

Do you know what are the odds of a Booster Pack in Yugioh containing a rare card?

Well, not to pick nits, but the odds of a rare in a booster pack are published/known:
Yugioh booster pack content

MTG booster pack content

As to which rare thing was in the pack, well you could calculate out the odds because the pool of cards the pack draws from is known and the make up of the packs is known.

The general contents of a BLC are known, but the problem is that even though there’s a known pool of items that can go into a particular slot, we have no idea how rare a particular rare is, and we have no guarantee that the chest will contain at least one rare or uncommon.

FourthVariety.5463:

Does the BLC constitute gambling as defined by German law: YES.

What’s your source for this? Is there a court case?

Syeria.4812:

Pandemoniac.4739:

There are a lot of bags available that have the same style as a Gucci bag. If I want a Gucci bag and can’t afford the real thing, I can buy something close enough for the money I have to spend.

Knockoffs are still knockoffs, and are illegal in many (if not most) countries.

Something “in the style of” is not a knock-off. I was referring to the same style bag without a fake Gucci on it, which is just good old fashioned competition, not illegal.

Some folks were upset that only one color of the quaggan backpack was available for purchase, but many players just bought the one that was available (maybe after a few attempts to get the rarer one from a chest) because it was close enough.

Syeria.4812:

Gucci bags aren’t the only bags available but molten skins are the only skin in the entire game? Do you read what you post?

There are a lot of bags available that have the same style as a Gucci bag. If I want a Gucci bag and can’t afford the real thing, I can buy something close enough for the money I have to spend.

It’s kind of pointless to argue about price anyhow, because I could spend millions of gold on keys and still not get the skin.

I would be happy if we could put them in collectible storage and they stacked a bit higher. Like at least high enough that one stack of them bought something worthwhile…

munkiman.3068:

They have with me as well, I applaud them for many risks they took and benefits of playing this game brings to my life. But it really does teeter on ethics bounds when you get a stack of chest over the course of your playing time and less than 10 keys. It basically screams spend money to open me! Look at the disparity between Gold to Gem conversions (yet another thing anet can control) it too actually begs at the fact that they only logical way to get keys it to spend real cash.

Well the way I see it, it’s just business to offer something that folks want to get them to pay you for it. As long as you aren’t gouging folks for necessities, I don’t see it as unethical. For example, if they only way you could use a way point was to have a stash of portal stones that were equivalent in cost to the keys, that would be unethical strong-arming of your players.

I also think that saying ANet controls the gold->gem conversion is a little bit of a red herring. They set up the system and could change it if they wanted to, but it’s really player demand for gems that’s driving the price up, not ANet. Keys being expensive isn’t the problem. The problem is that there is no sure way to get what you want or something close to what you want.

I think it was a bad decision that angered a lot of their customers, but I don’t think it was unethical. I think the thought behind it was to add something really rare and special to the game, but they failed to anticipate how obsessed some folks can be with obtaining a purely cosmetic skin. It’s completely the player’s responsibility how much money they throw away chasing that skin, even though it stinks that we can’t buy it, or something like it out right.

So now they’re stuck. If they make the skins purchasable or tradeable now, how are the players that threw hundreds of gold at black lion keys going to respond? The only thing they can do now is chalk it up as a mistake and move forward.

Syeria.4812:

munkiman.3068:

We can both make comparisons all day, but i’ve invested time and money into this game, if they continue this practice, I simple cannot continue this path of destruction, aimed at my wallet. Say what you will about it, it’s not going to change the ethics or the practice by defending it.

Honestly, if you actually believe the claims you’re making, I think you need to seriously rethink and reeducate yourself about the relationship between consumers and suppliers.

Well you’re both a little bit right and a little bit wrong. I don’t think that ANet has crossed the line into being unethical, but I’m big on personal responsibility. I also think that part of the relationship between consumers and suppliers is “good will” and not just rights and obligations. It’s not wrong for a consumer to complain when some practice by the supplier leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

The company I work for values the customer that tells us calmly and without name calling when there’s something that they don’t like. It doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll change what we’re doing, but it definitely starts an internal discussion on how we can serve that client better.

ANet has a great deal of good will built up with me, so while I’m not thrilled about this situation, I don’t believe there was malicious intent. I think they really care about their players and are passionate about making GW2 the best game it can be, so accusing them of being unethical and of trying to take advantage of their players probably cuts them pretty deep. Can we complain without assuming bad intent?

FourthVariety.5463:

Again, the German legal text as handed down from the government, to the public, to my lawyer friend, to me.

(1) Defines gambling as a game of chance with an entry fee.
(2) Defines when gambling is to be called public.
(3) Defines all gambling resulting in money and real world prices as lottery, everything else is still gambling
(4) Defines that if you can participate in Germany the gambling happens in Germany no matter which offshore server you use. Anet uses server in Frankfurt, so go figure.

The thing about the law is that the devil is in the details. Edit – I did try to translate the German that you included, but the translation was too mangled by Google for legal discussion. My German is poor – I know my numbers, how to politely order a beer, and a song about ducks swimming over a dam I learned in 2nd grade when we lived in Ramstein and that’s about it

First you have to get opening a BLC judged to be a game of chance. Without the German legal definition of a game of chance, we can’t even speculate. The chests always contain something, so my guess is that they wouldn’t be classified as a game of chance.

Second you have to judge whether a video game that you have to pay to get access to constitutes a public venue. Yes there’s no subscription fee, but you do have to buy the game, and you agreed in the TOS to keep your login credentials private, so there’s an argument to be made that it isn’t public.

Also while it seems reasonable that ANet having a game server in Frankfurt would mean it takes place in Germany, I’m sure if it went to court there might be an argument that the actual act takes place on the client machine, and therefore doesn’t happen in Germany unless the client is also in Germany.

Citing the text of the law is uninformative. Ask your friends if there is any precendents that might apply.

Astral Projections.7320:

I think the other part of your post, about the items being account bound, is also part of it. If the tickets could be sold on the trading post, fewer people would be upset by the RNG nature of it.

Yeah that’s what I was sort of getting at in a round-about way. It wouldn’t be so bad that it’s rare if you could buy them from the people who got lucky and would rather have a big pile of gold than the ticket. It probably would be OK if there was a version of the skin that could be bought that was almost the same, but a different color or didn’t have an effect, etc. so that you could still get the style of the skin even if you don’t have the flashiest version of it.

whiran.1473:

Out of curiosity what is the current gold to gem exchange ratio?

http://www.gw2spidy.com/gem – average numbers. If you want the exact number, you should log in to the game

Astral Projections.7320:

Opening the boxes takes money. And that feels like real life. People value money, sometimes very deeply. The emotions concerning it can be very strong. So when you have a feature in game that people feel like is cheating them out of their money, then a lot of emotions come out.

Well, I think it’s strange to feel cheated – it’s not like you opened the chest and got nothing. The point about it costing gold to be able to open the chest I think gets to the heart of the problem though. I agree with folks that only being able to get a skin through a BLC is not a great idea. It would be better if there was a chance to get them through other means in addition to the chests, like participating in the Living Story stuff.

Not only is it a rare drop, but you’re also completely at the mercy of the gold->gem conversion. The more people that want it, the harder it is to get a key to get a chance to get the skin. I don’t mind things like the HOMM rewards that require you to do certain things to earn them. I don’t mind really rare items like precursors where you can either get lucky or work hard to earn a bunch of gold. The more I think about it though, the less I like sticking unbuyable rare content in the BLCs. It would even be OK with me if the BLC only skins were just a variation on something you could buy, like the quaggan backpacks.

Syeria.4812:

Pandemoniac.4739:

Well I didn’t pay any attention to the little red date either. I’d rather see old threads ressurected than have a new thread on the same topic every two weeks. Not sure why this one was raised from the dead, but maybe, just maybe, someone manged to get the search function to return a useful result.

I thought it was funny because the quoted section referenced “the Black Friday sale,” but that didn’t seem to raise any red flags either. My point was simply that it’s extremely unlikely the OP is going to ever see the aggressive, negative response because it has been 4 months since the post was made.

I intended my response to be a little more light-hearted than it comes across now that I re-read it… Anyone have a scroll of Banish Undead handy?

Well I didn’t pay any attention to the little red date either. I’d rather see old threads ressurected than have a new thread on the same topic every two weeks. Not sure why this one was raised from the dead, but maybe, just maybe, someone manged to get the search function to return a useful result.

munkiman.3068:

@Pan MF only affects drops off monsters, chest loot is just whatever the chance is.

Oh yeah, thanks for pointing that out. I started mixing up chest farming with boss farming. Most of my farming was D2 Mephisto/Baal runs… It’s weird that I don’t really have much desire to farm bosses in GW2 or do the same dungeon path over and over. I’m much less focused on one particular thing. I blame ANet for letting me get stuff just by wandering around aimlessly.

I’m also a weirdo that likes a lot of the cheaper/more common skins better than the super rare ones.

Well I think though that even if you are farming for something specific, the boss chest at least drops things you can turn into gold that you could use to purchase Final Rest if enough of your runs didn’t turn it up. There aren’t many bind on acquire drops that are pure RNG that are highly desirable other than items from BLCs (I can’t think of any, but there’s probably one). Also I wonder if being able to boost your MF to give you a better chance makes it more palatable.

munkiman.3068:

I don’t know of any soul bound items that drop from boss chest (unless you include ones with runes only available for dungeon tokens, like monk runes).

Well I tossed that in there because you can’t sell the contents that you get from a BL chest, which might be part of the reason folks are upset. You can’t directly compare opening a boss chest to a BLC simply because everything that comes out of the BLC is account bound.

munkiman.3068:

Not everyone can buy keys (or wants to), but everyone can farm boss chests, freely. The playing the game part is the difference really versus sticking coins in a slot for the big prize. I’d personally rather play the game.

Edit – Oh duh, I totally missed your point about boss farming not costing anything. It costs something potentially in repair costs and way points and such, but there is no need to purchase a ticket to participate. That’s a good point.

Everyone can buy keys with in game gold, and sometimes get them dropped. I think that most folks have purchased items from the TP, so I just don’t get how that’s counted as OK from a “playing the game” perspective, but buying a key to open a chest with the gold you earned by playing the game doesn’t count as OK. Not many folks complain when they buy 50 moldy bags and don’t get a single (fill in rare crafting material) that they wanted dropped. Plenty of folks have lost a lot of gold on moldy bags while some folks have been luckier, but it’s not perceived as a problem.

I’m one of the folks that doesn’t buy keys, although I don’t have any particular bad feelings about them. I just think my gold is better spent on other things. I do use every one I get dropped though and got a nice chunk of influence for our personal guild, a total makeover kit (which my husband wanted, but I didn’t particularly want), revive orbs, money bags, more keys, and many other useful things. A lot of junk too which is a bummer because the only option is to destroy it.

I guess all of my BLC openings have been pleasant because I wasn’t looking for something in particular. Which circles back around to my original question of why it’s so much more painful to open a BL chest and not get what you want than it is to open a boss chest and not get what you want. Thinking about it as I’m typing all of this out leads me to feel more strongly that it has to do with everything from the chest being account bound and unable to be coverted into something more useful.

I did a quick and dirty calculation for one of the legendaries and came up with the account bound components adding about 646G. It’s probably less for the less popular legendaries, but it’s likely still a significant chunk of cash. I took it from the perspective of how much you would make over just selling all the components. It would be a bit different looking at it from the “what if I bought all the components to make it?” angle because you could use buy orders to get a lot of components slightly cheaper than the going price.

Pandemoniac.4739:

My back of the napkin calculations indicate that if you got a lucky drop of the precursor The Colossus, you could take your skill points/laurels/dungeon tokens/karma and turn it into 760G by crafting the legendary the Juggernaut. Edit – Actually I forgot to take out the 15% of the sale for the precursor, materials and legendary, so only about 646G instead of the 760G

If you sold the lucky drop, it would be worth about 700G. If you sold all of the materials that can be sold instead of using them to make the legendary, it would be about 840G. If you made the legendary, it’s going for about 2300G right now. It’s just a ballpark estimate – markets change and I don’t have the data to make a super accurate guess.

aelfric.8536:

I don’t have problems with rare items. But rare items should drop from boss chests or something “epic”. And not “farm gold to buy keys to open chests and then there may be a skin.”

My opinion.

Yeah but I’m curious as to why it’s different in your mind. What’s the difference between a rare “soulbound on acquire” drop from a boss chest and a drop from a BLC? Folks can run a boss chest 1000x and not get the drop they’re looking for and don’t get particularly angry about their lack of luck. Unless of course the drop they’re looking for happens to be a rare component to make something really rare. Which is also odd in my opinion.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I’d buy up all the pre-cursors and ACTUALLY control the precursor market so that all those whiners on the trading forum would understand what real manipulation was like as they suffered under my iron fist.

I <3 u Zudet

Don’t forget to buy up all of the exotic greatswords and hammers so Zommoros is also cut off.

aelfric.8536:

@Charismatic Harm

You are right, people will complain. But they should sell the skins for a fixed price on the TP. It can’t be, that players spend money for hundreds of keys and don’t get a skin.

I’m confused as to why folks have a problem with items being rare. Would you feel the same if the skins had a super small chance of dropping from a particular boss chest? How is getting together the gold to get keys to open chests different from waiting for dragon timers to get a chance to open a chest? I think the chests are in a way a bit nicer because you can get a bunch of keys together and open them right after another without having to spend time killing mobs to get to the chest.

I’m curious as to why folks feel differently about BLC drops versus boss chest drops. Is it because the stuff that comes out of the BL chests can’t be turned into gold (or back into gems)?

Kuro Kami.8436:

I can’t see how they’re going to “dramatically” alter the prices unless they just straight out ban the kitteners that purposely increase the price of precursor weapons. Those imho, are the true scumbags in the game.

You mean the players that really really want a precursor and are willing to pay top dollar for it? Ban the rich (or at least the folks with more gold than I have)! Where’s my pitchfork and torch? (yeah, I’m rolling my eyes right now).

You can post a precursor for any price you want if you can afford the listing fee – that doesn’t mean that someone will buy it. Certain precursors are really expensive because they are rare and lots of folks want them more than they want 700G or whatever they’re going for. What you don’t see on the TP is the buy orders that are getting filled – you only see the sell order that sits there for a while because it’s priced to high to sell right away.

The “prices are high because of manipulators” conspiracy theory has been beaten to death in the Black Lion Trading Co forum. I think Prices of Ectos being controlled? thread is probably the most comprehensive. The “Dawn Price” thread got interesting after John’s first post.

I love the music in Guild Wars, so when one of my guild mates brought Jeremy’s Kickstarter to my attention I was pretty excited. He’s already made his goal, so the project is underway. While I do like soundtracks, they tend to be a little disjointed because the tracks have to fit a location or character in the game instead of taking you on a journey like a symphony does. I’m looking forward to the release of Soule Symphony No. 1.

I found this FAQ from the Kickstarter page interesting

If Beethoven were alive today, would he have used Kickstarter to fund a symphony?

“Absolutely! It is liberating to know that people that love music can also make symphonies possible again. Unfortunately, the symphonic medium has almost disappeared because of a lack of patrons or funding sources. And without private patrons, all that are left are orchestral organizations and their limited resources. That said, most major orchestras don’t contribute to the creation of symphonies. Why? Symphonies are expensive in today’s economy. So I think in this era, Beethoven may not have written any symphonies whatsoever due to a lack of funding. And if this weren’t to be completely true, any symphonies he may have produced on his own wouldn’t have been done with the kind of absolute focus required for these masterpieces, I suppose. In other words, imagine Beethoven with a day job… how would this have affected his music? Hard to say. But, I feel that it would have been a factor.

Syeria.4812:

I’m not an expert on EU law, but I’m certain you have no specialized knowledge in that area either. However, Anet’s cadre of lawyers that everything like this passes through are experts in that regard.

Essentially, the Black Lion Chests are less gambling than McDonald’s Monopoly game, or any other fast food restaurant contest. Those contests aren’t gambling because there is no purchase necessary to win. If you send a self-addressed stamped envelop to the proper address, they’ll send you a game piece for free. In Guild Wars 2 you can create a new character and do the first section of their personal story to nab a free key, no purchase necessary.

Actually it’s a little different – you will always get something from a BLC, it just may not be what you wanted to get from it.You aren’t paying for a chance to win something, you’re paying for a box with unknown contents that has a chance of having something rare in it, but will never be empty. It’s more like the folks that bid on abandoned shipping containers without knowing their contents. They’re gambling that there’s something in there that will be worth more than they paid for it, but they aren’t legally engaged in a game of chance… Well at least I don’t think so here in my Groklaw armchair. The law is never clear until it has been tried in court.

Aeneas.6852:

From what I recall being told, the Gems purchased for Gold are the same pool as the Gems sold for Gold.

You recalled correctly, John has talked about this before

As a quick aside. Gems in the currency exchange are finite. You may buy gems with real money to your hearts content, but if you don’t put any of them gems into the currency exchange the currency exchange’s stock of gems never changes.

The currency exchange pool is independent of how much gold players earn in game and how many gems players buy with real money. The only thing that affects it is when gold is converted to gems or gems are converted to gold.

And from another thread talking about how sales in the gem store impact the conversion rate (also, this probably applies to new items being added, not just sales)

John Smith.4610:

With the sale on bank and bag slots, the demand for gems increased dramatically. Inside the currency exchange as players receive gems for their gold, the gems become more scarce and the exchange rate is adjust to reflect the different level of scarcity. This in turn creates a better rate for Gems -> Gold in which the players will receive more gold for their gems. This generates additional demand for Gold. So the sale has created two distinct increases in demand, for both gems and gold.

Shuguard.7125:

Pandemoniac.4739:

Shuguard.7125:

The meat of my post that i was trying to get at was: Why hasn’t this solution(or at least some variation) gone through yet? I’m trying to figure out logically a reason for this.

Because while a precursor is high priority for you, it’s not broken enough for ANet to rush for a solution that may cause more problems than it solves and delay other content? I can think of several more reasons, but that’s my front runner right now.

Give me more then, because it is not just me who is in the exact same situation and have given input on this over time in numerous threads. Also any solution will probably be considered “rushed” because hind-sight does that, in fact I consider the band-aids were rushed.

Ok, I can rephrase the most likely reason… While it’s high priority to you and some other folks on the forums, it’s not broken enough to rush a solution that may not solve the problem entirely, may cause other problems and will delay content like SAB that many players found more interesting than trying to get one of the three most popular precursors.

Not all precursors are outrageously expensive, and the vast majority of players don’t post on the forums. Just because some folks grouse on the forums doesn’t mean that a fix is urgently needed. I’m not saying no fix is needed, I’m just saying that number of posts on the forum is not a measure of urgency.

If ANet let the number of forum posts dictate their priorities, I’d say the reason for the delay in changing the supply of precursors would be because ANet was scrambling around trying to get mounts into the game and making it rain BLC keys.

OK, that was snarkier than I intended – sorry. My point is there is a lot of stuff folks are complaining about, and changing the precursor situation will impact the entire GW2 economy, which impacts every single player whether they’re interested in getting a precursor or not. As someone who has no interest in fancy great swords or hammers, I would like ANet to be thoughtful about how they proceed.

Shuguard.7125:

The meat of my post that i was trying to get at was: Why hasn’t this solution(or at least some variation) gone through yet? I’m trying to figure out logically a reason for this.

Because while a precursor is high priority for you, it’s not broken enough for ANet to rush for a solution that may cause more problems than it solves and delay other content? I can think of several more reasons, but that’s my front runner right now.

Empressium.5482:

there was only a single The Hunter listed few days ago and naw POOF several The Hunter appearred out of nowhere? as well as other precursors.

Well, precursors do appear out of thin air. It’s not like there’s a blacksmith somewhere churning them out.

Maybe the buy orders got too low for folks to want to fill, so they’re coughing up the 5% to make a sale order. You can’t tell what’s really going on, because we don’t have any data on the actual sales of precursors. All we see are orders that can change for reasons other than an actual sale taking place.

munkiman.3068:

Pandemoniac.4739:

It’s entirely possible very likely you could invest that capital in several other ventures with less risk and more upside.

Not really, the stock was out a week before. I can’t really say if it was an intentional buyout or what, but in this particular case, the risk was minimal. You won’t earn 65g on one item in a day under very many conditions. The most i turned in a day was around 27g, which is mere pittance to people with the money to buy enough precursors to risk the minimal 45g loss

Well if someone saw the opportunity and jumped on it, good for them. This isn’t a normal situation that you can take advantage of regularly. Folks who have enough capital to tie up hundreds of gold to make 65G didn’t make it by betting hardways every time.

munkiman.3068:

When people see an item sold for 900g (regardless if it is a pulled price (remember there is limited data available here) they will push up the price of buy orders, it’s pretty simple. I can’t help you with the math.

Yes this is true, but what you aren’t taking into consideration is that arranging for there to be a gap is difficult and requires exactly the right conditions at exactly the right time to make enough of a profit on the money it takes to make it happen to make it worthwhile.

It’s entirely possible very likely you could invest that capital in several other ventures with less risk and more upside.

Ursan.7846:

Pandemoniac.4739:

I can see how it would work with items that had very few sell listings and a bunch of buy orders. I think there’s a reason why it would have been done with The Hunter instead of say Dusk. It’s a tricky niche though. You have to count on there not being a lot of supply to have to buy out, and count on demand to be high enough that folks will raise their buy listings significantly enough in a short enough period of time. Very risky.

I’m going to re-iterate my whole point. Of course it’s possible, but the risk is huge and the potential profit is very minimal considering the size of your investment.

Yes, we’re in agreement. I’m working on being more succinct, but I’m female and it’s hard for me

Ursan.7846:

And this is not mentioning the fact that if you just post an item for 900G, it will not show up at ALL because there’s most likely lower sell-orders than that. What are you doing to make sure that 900G listing is the lowest? Buying up all the sell orders? Your profits suddenly go way negative.

Your method has so many holes, I’m actually kinda shocked that you’re insisting on this method, because it’s a great way to lose money.

I can see how it would work with items that had very few sell listings and a bunch of buy orders. I think there’s a reason why it would have been done with The Hunter instead of say Dusk. It’s a tricky niche though. You have to count on there not being a lot of supply to have to buy out, and count on demand to be high enough that folks will raise their buy listings significantly enough in a short enough period of time. Very risky.

The 15% is already figured into the price, so you aren’t losing anything. If you sold it off-market, you’d have to sell it for less and because there is no secure trading other than the TP, you’d be taking the risk of a 100% loss.

ANet will not return your item or money if you get scammed in a player to player trade.

munkiman.3068:

Looks like someone tried to push the buy order prices up and succeeded for a day and sold off a couple for 100g more. The prices will always show the highest sell order and that person only took a listing fee hit, still making him/her a good return. When you put in a ridiculous price in the sell orders the people that don’t pay attention to the market shove up the buy listings, but then they settle pretty quickly.

Seems like the most reasonable scenario. This technique wouldn’t work as well if we had trade information. It would probably still work though because there never seems to be a shortage of folks that don’t “get” how a market works. I think a lot of folks are still stuck thinking buy orders are the same as bidding on a single auction. I think many more precursors change hands every day than most folks assume.

Part of the problem that leads folks to think there is manipulation is that we don’t have any trade information; we only get to see bids and asks quotes. Did a precursor get bought and relisted or did someone buy the lowest sell order and now only the 900G one is left, or did someone buy the low priced one and a different person list the 900G one? There’s no way to tell with the information we have.

The timing of events tells us very little definitively.

Sort of related… What happens if you cancel a buy order? I’ve never had one that wasn’t filled, so is there a fee for pulling one and relisting?

I got around to downloading it (and scanning it!) and it’s pretty darn cool. I may have to lift your code and see if I can put it into The Big Chef Spreadsheet of Foods to get a crafting versus buy cost for my chef.

Traders are unlikely to flip an item that they aren’t anticipating will trade fairly quickly. While flipping doesn’t harm sellers and buyers, I think it’s a stretch to say buying up goods priced too low on the TP helps the seller.

Lots of trading activity typically only benefits folks with a large supply of an item that they can sell as the price rises or folks that need a large supply of an item and have the gold to buy when the price falls. Basically, the folks in a position to take advantage of small short term price movements.

In my opinion, this is the right forum and it doesn’t count as bumping if you’re adding information

I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet, but I appreciate you sharing it with us.

Morrar.1764:

Ursan.7846:

Hey guys,

It is legally gambling only if you can cash out. With actual money, not virtual skins.

Since all virtual items in-game are legally owned by Anet, so no, legally these chests are not gambling.

It is not so simple. In a earlier case where virtual property was stolen from someone in an MMO called Runescape, the judge ruled that virtual goods are equal to actual property.

I found that really interesting so I dug up the article.

From the Google translation of the findings (which were in Dutch)

For the victim, the suspect and his co-defendant in the game through their effort and time investment assets accumulated fair value. This can them be removed. The victim in the actual game and exclusive control over those objects. Through the actions of the defendant and co-defendant is the victim who lost power. According to the Supreme Court, the Court may conclude from this that there is theft.

Saying that it’s theft if someone removes something of value from you is not the same thing as ruling that virtual property is equal to actual property. The precedent was:

Art. 310 Sr protects the disposal of the holder of a well. Under previous law, a well, a non-physical object.

The translation makes it difficult to understand what the court was comparing it to… Any Nederlanders around?

I think this is a great idea. I’ve been playing Skyrim lately to get my crafting fix, and I’ve been surprised at how much time I’m willing to take to read the various books that are scattered around the world. I like the idea of a library, although I would put it in the Priory HQ and not Lion’s Arch. I think pirates are more interested in selling historical artifacts than in preserving history

Fans.5462:

At no point is anyone hurt by flipping. I can only buy and sell at what people are willing to accept.

This is an important point. Half the folks that have problems with traders complain that they make prices too high and the other half complain that they make prices too low.

Some folks don’t seem to understand that active trading in an item only changes the price for a short period of time unless something has changed on the supply or demand side. Traders make the little squiggles on the price graph, not the overall trend.

You don’t pay more than you post to create the buy order. The tax comes out of what the seller gets. You just need to make sure that the price you offer is still attractive after the tax has been deducted if you’re trying to buy an expensive item.

laokoko.7403:

How does the price of something no one want justify the price of something people wants being too expensive.

Maybe Anet should double the drop rate of precursor and triple the rate of mystic forge and make venom 10 gold and dusk 200 gold.

So, I think the discussion is at an impasse. Some folks think having something that is so rare that it is unobtainable by most players is a bad thing and some folks don’t. I think we all agree now why certain precursors are expensive, but I doubt the two sides will ever see eye to eye on whether that’s how it should be.

ANet could try to bring the price down by making certain precursors easier to get, but whether it would be a good thing for the game is a matter of opinion. (Edit – because we don’t have the information to do anything more than speculate on what the impact would be)

It’s interesting that making a component to craft a legendary really rare upsets more folks than if the legendary itself was a really really rare drop. I don’t remember this kind of outcry in other games about items with very low drop rates. Maybe it’s because you have to get lucky AND put a lot of effort in to make a legendary that makes it seem unfair to some folks.

As loath as I am to bump this thread any further… watch the left side of the screen at 2:01 to 2:02. That’s one of many problems. I’ll keep the rest to myself just in case anyone else wants to play “find the bad blend”.

All in all a pretty crappy editing job.

When you’re PvPing against engineers, it’s nice to have a clue what kit they have equipped before you get a face full of flamethrower. A kit is not a back piece.

Geotherma.2395:

“Tangential learning is the process by which people will self-educate if a topic is exposed to them in a context that they already enjoy.
(snip)
Is there a time (other than other player discussion) that the game itself taught you something you would have possibly not learned had you not played it? And at what point, if any, have you every looked up something to see what it was referenced.

To be honest, I am a naturally self-directed learner to a degree that’s way on the outside of the bell curve. It doesn’t take much to send me on an Internet scavenger hunt.

Things in the game that have made me go outside the game looking for information (that I remember):

The BLTP is a pretty darn accurate simulation of a real market, and I’ve found myself digging into some aspects of real world trading that didn’t really interest me before.

Some of the cooking recipes/discoveries have sent me to Yummly to look for recipes and/or hints for recipe discoveries (which, I know was totally unnecessary as I could have just looked up the ingredient. I found it more fun the hard way).

I looked up the correct pronunciation of Orichalcum (which I then refused to use) and learned it was a metal referenced in some writings about Atlantis. Neat!

I have looked up some conversation references that I thought might be nods to something in pop culture I wasn’t familiar with, but I don’t remember exactly what they were.

I think it’s a good idea. I usually get around the confusing/targeting mistake by mapping the stow weapon toggle to something convenient. It will interrupt your auto-attack. Besides I think some of my characters look cool when they’re walking with their weapons out during an escort