Guild Wars 2

Ema.4953:

Why aren’t we earning interest on those savings? By following the economic principles of taxation and free market trade, why not complete it with interest rates?

Actually, too much saving has a negative impact on the economy. Why would you want to encourage people to hoard their money instead of spend it? Lots of people buy a lot of stuff off of the TP just to put their gold to work. If they were getting a fixed return letting it sit in their bank, they would buy less stuff, folks would sell less stuff, and everyone would suffer.

The only reason a bank gives you interest is because they are paying you for letting them use your capital. Virtual gold sitting in someone’s stash does absolutely nothing to improve the game’s economy, and should not be encouraged. Actually it would actually hurt the game’s economy, because gold sellers would have a huge advantage over your typical player.

I find it surprising in the current “stick it to the rich” environment that anyone would advocate “let’s give the people with lots of money even more money”. Maybe you didn’t think through all the implications?

DarkSpirit.7046:

Ok, granted that no one has actually done a scientific survey on the maturity of the player population, we can’t say that it is a minority or a majority. But still I prefer the game to provide options for players to make informed decisions than a game to have limited options just to protect the stupid.

I know you don’t see this, but what you’re talking about doing is setting up a way for scammers to easily identify folks that have very valuable items they want to sell and who are willing to forgo the protections of the TP. While you may be honest and acting in good faith, you’re setting up a situation that the people who aren’t acting in good faith will have a much easier time duping folks. And those folks aren’t stupid, you’ve just misled them (unintentionally) into thinking they’re safer than they actually are because they’re participating in an organized broker network.

If you, as an individual, want to broker deals for folks using word of mouth, you’re absolutely able to do that without help or hindrance from ANet. In my opinion, you need to consider the ramifications before you start making it something bigger than that. You might be doing more harm than good to the folks you’re trying to help.

Rajani Isa.6294:

John Smith.4610:

Prioritizing a bug fix that doesn’t actually affect the TP usage at all over any fix in the game that does affect players would be irresponsible.

I know it affects how I use the Trading Post.

I’m curious. Could you be more specific? The only thing I can think of is that you want to use the TP as a vendor, and that’s not really what it’s designed to be.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Ursan.7846:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

But Ursan, there’s a couple of intangibles that isn’t accounted for in math. And that, my friend, is the fun of throwing stuff into the Forge, and that feeling of the anticipation of waiting for that precursor to pop on your screen. It’s like an addiction!

As someone who frequents Vegas, I wholeheartedly endorse this post.

The Mystic Forge is like Megabucks. I keep throwing Franklins at the machine, and praying that the icons line up. That feeling when two icons line up, and the third one stops half way down…

Now there’s an idea… What if Z-man gave us a spinning wheel of all the stuff he could give us before he sticks us with junk? And if someone does get a really rare item out of the forge, maybe some fireworks would be in order

Dad always made me drop a buck in the Wheel of Fortune machines when I went to Vegas for trade shows. Z-man could learn a lot from those casinos when it comes to emptying your wallet and still have you walk away smiling.

John Smith.4610:

Pandemoniac.4739:

What’s the harm in trying?

Grey markets are not created in vacuum. Even if you, yourself become a trusted broker, creating that market creates opportunities for players to take advantage of each other. We know that goldsellers will lie, cheat and steal to get money, this market will be no different.

Well, I guess there is some harm in trying. I suppose there’s not a lot of harm done with a few folks doing an occasional brokered trade, but organizing some sort of network to help folks trade off market would be like staking out the sheep for the wolves.

I prefer the way it works currently. Before I start a play session, I deposit all but 1G in the bank for that character, which helps me track my earnings while I play. Before I shop on the TP, I withdraw a certain amount, which helps me keep within a budget for that character (and prevents costly mistakes). My finances are a little muddled because I don’t have a dedicated character for trading, so one character might pay the listing fee and another might pick up the profits, but normalizing everyone to one gold seems to even it out.

It’s not that much of a burden, especially in the Grove or Rata Sum where the bank is close by.

I think this horse is dead. I think both sides understand the points made by the other. A broker network is certainly possible, although many of us question whether it would be worth the time and effort to set up. If someone wants to move forward with it after weighing the pros and cons we’ve discussed, I’m not going to keep trying to discourage them.

Plenty of folks have been wildly successful with ideas many told them wouldn’t work. Plenty have gotten a big bite of “I told you so” too. It’s hard to predict with certainty how things will turn out when you’ve got a strong opinion about it. What’s the harm in trying?

Rosella.9780:

It’s more then cosmetic when there are hundreds of some items for sale at less then the vendor trash price, since it prevents anyone from selling said items on the TP making the value of those items permanently tanked at vendor sale prices.

If they were worth more than 1c above vendor, there would be buy orders that could be filled. Unfillable buy orders is not what made those items worthless. They’re worthless because no-one wants to buy them.

nastyjman.8207:

If you can’t afford the initial 5% seller’s fee, it would be best to save up the money for it or borrow money from a close friend that you see face-to-face on a daily or weekly basis.

You can always fill a buy order if you don’t have the cash up front. You might not make as much as you could, but if you’re strapped for cash and the buy order is reasonable, it’s an option. It also insulates you from the price of the item dropping before someone buys it and being stuck with an overpriced listing that is cost prohibitive to remove and re-list.

Alright this isn’t a solution, I was confusing GW2 with something else. Filling buy orders can be a good strategy, but you’re still going to have to have the listing fee up front.

Karizee.8076:

Champion Victurius and his Branded Army in Iron Marches might be a good challenge for a solo encounter.

He’s an awesome solo fight – my ranger did it (well almost, a pair of folks came by and got the last three or four hits in on him, but the point is I could have done it). He will keep spawning army mobs that you have to kill before you can keep attacking him, and all the while he’s walking through a branded infested area. I used every trick in my bag and had a blast doing it.

BlasiuS.8961:

The last 3 are of the type I’m looking for, thanks.

Are there any utility nourishment items other than crystals/stones/oils?

Yes, slayer potions. There are a lot of them, but they all have some level of increased damage to a specific enemy type, reduced damage received from a specific enemy type, and an XP bonus (on most of them).

GW2DB is your best resource for lists of things. The link also includes items that aren’t really what you’re looking for, like ash legion spy kits, but you should have a better idea of what’s out there if you look it over.

I think this is an interesting idea. The world is quite large and panning the map around causes me to sometimes click on way points that I don’t intend to as I’m panning. That’s not a big deal, but a favorites list would be convenient.

It would still be useful to me even if clicking on the favorite just opened the map and panned to the way point, similar to what happens when folks link way points in chat, instead of taking me directly to the way point.

gamerchick.3580:

When watching all the videos I was impressed by the Mesmer , Thief and Engineer.
So my preferred playstyle is very open ie both ranged and melee

With GW2, you don’t want to pick your class based on ranged/melee primarily. Pick the class mechanic that appeals to you the most. The wiki has a good summary

Each of the professions has traits that can significantly change how you would want to play and gear your character, but I think if you completely ignore the class mechanic, you won’t be as effective as you could be.

Syeria.4812:

DarkSpirit.7046:

Then he would be incredibly short sighted. The broker commission that he could have accumulated over the months and years would far exceed the price of the legendary.

But then you come back to the time value of money issue. A Dusk and 600g are worth a lot more right now than 2000g made over a period of 18 months. If you really feel you need more money than those provide, you now have 600g to start investing to try make more money, and you don’t have to waste time and effort doing anything to keep it.

I think it’s difficult for folks that get a lot of satisfaction out of earning money through their talent/diligence and that enjoy having a good reputation to grok people that just don’t care how they get the money or how many people despise them as long as they don’t get punished.

(Edit – just re-read that and thought I needed to clarify) The time/money calculations don’t account for everything for the folks that are also getting satisfaction from being a good broker, but I think there are fewer of those folks than the other kind…

Actually, I’ve stopped doing dragons and temples now that they’re power point slide shows for me. Most of the time I couldn’t even see the mobs, I just mashed my auto-attack in the direction everyone else is attacking. Not fun, and not particularly rewarding because I don’t get the drops I used to. It’s gotten so bad that people are actually messing with the Dragon Timers so they aren’t accurate.

Everybody has gotten crazy over these chests, and I don’t understand why. I get more money and have more fun just running around in my magic find stuff. In 30 or 40 minutes of running around I end up with 1-4 rares, plenty of T5/T6 crafting materials, karma and cash from events, a bunch of greens to flush down the mystic toilet, and a bunch of blues to vendor. I didn’t spend a bunch of money hopping from way point to way point either.

Basically, my point is that there are more forces at work than a simple X chests * Y farmers = X rares per day calculation.

Where are you getting 2s? They used to be close to 40s and now they’re around 20s.

Kurow.6973:

I used to use Razer Naga, but after going through 2 of them within about a year and a half, and encountering the double click issue on both…I tried G600.

We’ve ditched two Nagas also. Not only do they not stand up to a lot of left clicking (both ended up with some bounce that caused most single clicks to be double clicks), the buttons on the side are not nearly as easy to use as the G600. The G600 buttons have some shape to them, so you can tell where your thumb is without looking. I only used the first 4 buttons on my Naga because those were the only ones I could reliably find.

And I think the back lit buttons are cool as well as being useful in a dimly lit room. You can associate different colors with different modes, so it’s easy to tell what mode you’re in.

All in all, a good quality and well designed mouse for not an exorbitant amount of cash.

I know it’s not on your list of options, but I love my G600. The number buttons under your thumb are just too convenient, and it has an extra button under your ring finger that can change the meaning of left/right click. The form factor is nice, and the buttons let me wasd around while using my skills. My husband has a G13 but I never could get the hang of the thumbstick for moving, so this mouse is perfect for me.

It’s more expensive, but worth the money.

Put it back in the forge. The forge can generate items you would normally get from a Karma vendor, which are soulbound on acquire. If it’s something you can use, check the skin before you toss it back in. Sometimes they’re interesting.

If you want to be guaranteed the same type of item you put in, you have to match them, e.g. put four medium gloves in. You’re straight up gambling when you toss random items in there. I enjoy it, but it’s not really a good way to make money or upgrade your gear

Dante.1508:

They also make jump puzzles insanely hard to do…

Passive or Aggressive makes no difference mobs hone in on them and still cause issues

If you aren’t in combat, you can stow them instantly. Stow them before you start the jumping puzzle. Stow them when you’re planning on running through an area to get some place. It’s really not hard.

If you do get hit while you’re running through a an area causing your pet to become unstowed, put some distance between you and the mob, then swap your pet and it appears where you are. This is another advantage of leaving your pet on passive, they just keep running with you, they don’t stop and aggro more stuff.

I’ve kept my starter shoulder armor skin on my guardian for 65 levels. You should be able to do it, so there’s something wonky going on. I would recommend unequipping the item you’re wearing and making sure both shoulder pieces aren’t in an invisible bag (it shouldn’t matter, but who knows).

I thought I had a similar problem once with a back piece, and then I realized that I had clicked the new back piece’s appearance instead of the old one. It wouldn’t let me transmute it because it was the same piece (thanks ANet! you saved me).

Pay careful attention to the red text. It’s hard to read but there should be a clue there as to why it won’t transmute. Make sure you’re using a fine transmutation stone if it’s a level 80 item.

Vancien.1980:

However, due to the numbers of what Mike said… That he within an hour can wipe the entire market clean of any bags being sold period, a few trickle in each time by several hundred ( making your points valid) and then all of the sudden, 1750 seem to hit the trade post. And by his claim this has happened plenty of times over the course of several hours.

How many bags do you have to buy to clear the market? Once you’ve bought all those bags, are you going to list them one at a time? It doesn’t sound nefarious to me, it just sounds like there are traders speculating on bags. One trader starts buying them, and another trader decides to liquidate his stock at a profit. It makes sense to me that it would be a predictable number that gets liquidated if the bags were bought and not gathered.

I also think it’s likely that there are a number of traders waiting on the price to cross the same threshold, and that there are also pulses of bags listed when an event that generates lots of bags ends and people stop to clear out their inventory.

I honestly don’t think you grasp the scope of how many folks are participating the in market. Being able to list items from anywhere in the game world and having the market across all servers will cause patterns that might look like they have some intelligent agent behind them even though they don’t.

The vast majority of folks listing items on the market aren’t listing them because they’ve analyzed the trends and they see an opportunity to profit. They’re buying or selling skritt bags because someone told them they gave a good return, or they don’t care, they just want them out of their inventory and can’t be bothered to double click them all.

DarkSpirit.7046:

Pandemoniac.4739:

After reading through other folks’ ideas and thinking about it for a bit, I remain convinced that the TP is unequivocally the best option. The only items most folks would be willing to go through the hassle of finding a buyer and broker for are so valuable that the temptation to take the money and run is just too great.

Maybe I am naive, but I believe that there should be more people who would not be tempted, since I know I won’t be. Once a working process is setup, there is not a lot of work for the broker to do, to broker a transaction.

I wouldn’t say naive, just optimistic. I’ve been involved in on-line communities for, ahem, more years than I’m willing to admit to as a woman who stopped counting her birthdays a while ago, and it has probably made me overly cynical.

The work for the broker isn’t much once you have the deal. The work is in getting the buyer and the seller together and having them both know about you and trust you so you that you can broker the deal. I can’t imagine how you would get traction across so many servers and time zones, when the TP is just so easy to use. If you can pull it off more power to you.

DarkSpirit.7046:

Then he would be incredibly short sighted. The broker commission that he could have accumulated over the months and years would far exceed the price of the legendary.

Yes, you’re correct, but then most people are incredibly short sighted. Think about all the people that spend money on lottery tickets every week. If they invested that $20/week or whatever they’d have a lot more to show for it, but oddly this tax on folks that are bad at statistics manages to rake in the money.

It stinks, but most folks have trouble thinking long term. They’d rather have a little money now than 10x as much coming in regularly a year from now. Building a business is hard work whether it’s in the virtual world or the real world. Stealing is easy, especially in a virtual world.

After reading through other folks’ ideas and thinking about it for a bit, I remain convinced that the TP is unequivocally the best option. The only items most folks would be willing to go through the hassle of finding a buyer and broker for are so valuable that the temptation to take the money and run is just too great.

If the 15% fee is large enough to give you pause, just think how hard it is for folks to have 100% of the sale money AND the item in their hands and settle for a 1% broker fee. Especially when it is “just a game” and the victims aren’t going to have any serious or lasting harm done to them (although I imagine it would be devastating emotionally, you aren’t going to end up homeless or unable to send your kids to college). I think the risk-reward ratio falls squarely on the side of the dishonest person here.

On top of that, I think it would be really demoralizing for the folks that worked hard to put together an honest broker system to have a bunch of unethical jerks ruin it. While it’s an admirable idea, I just don’t think the effort and cost to make it work would be worth it. If this was Diablo 2 and there was no safe alternative, it would be worthwhile. I just don’t see how you could add enough value to make the broker service more attractive than the TP to a large number of people.

Kendra Nightwind.8734:

Simply put, a pet accounts for anywhere between 30 to 55 percent of the damage you can do depending on wich pet you choose.

I think another thing the folks that just leave their pets on aggressive don’t consider is that if you put them on passive and use your F1 key they don’t switch targets when you do. Not only does this let you attack two different targets at the same time, but it allows you to position your pet on the battlefield.

I don’t understand all the rangers running around with dead pets. Between being able to swap them, make them return to you, and make them attack specific targets, they usually only die when I’m not on the ball or in a fight with a lot of red circles on the floor.

DarkSpirit.7046:

Dishonest brokers are short-sighted since nobody would trust them anymore if word gets out that they have ran off with the items and gold. I prefer to keep my integrity and continue to earn my broker commissions which are lower than the TP fees.

In theory it’s great, and I’ll just say again I’m not opposed to brokers before I get all cynical. I do believe that there are plenty of honest folks out there that will broker a deal in good faith.

Every day folks get taken advantage of by liars that have managed to convince them that they’re trustworthy, and that’s in a world where there are legal repercussions if you get caught. Some folks are incredibly short sighted and will scam people until they have run out of people that aren’t aware they are a scammer, then they’ll hop servers and start again.

The only folks that have access to data that can prove that someone has been scammed is ANet and I think they’ve got their plate full already. It’s not fair to ask them to police the grey market, so it still comes down to trusting someone who is completely anonymous and has very little chance of any consequences for ripping you off.

You could set up something like the “Better Broker Bureau” where folks could register complaints, but then again, you have to deal with bad apples trying to discredit honest brokers, and they only folks who can prove otherwise are ANet, and it’s not fair to ask them to get involved.

The Internet just brings out the worst in some people. A broker guild might work on one server with a limited number of folks where you can build a reputation and vet your members carefully, but as soon as it grows, it gets harder to manage. It’s not impossible though. I think playing too many MMOs has ruined my faith in humanity

DarkSpirit.7046:

Whether something is worth the 15% tax should be determined by the seller on a per-case basis.

Is a 150g tax on a 1000g sell transaction worth it? Not to me, but again, that is subjective.

It already is determined by the seller. If the 15% isn’t worth it, you try to sell your item without using the TP and take your chances. The community has already organized an unofficial LFG forum. I’m sure there’s a grey market out there somewhere (although from what John said earlier, it may be infested with RMTs).

The 5% listing fee I have mixed feelings about. On one hand, it puts downward pressure on the sale prices because if you list your item too high, you’ll just have to take it off the market and list it again when it doesn’t sell and that will take a big chunk out of your profit. On the other hand, if someone who doesn’t have the cash does have a valuable item, it prevents them from being able to list it at the going price. But then they could always just fill a buy order, so while they aren’t getting the best price, they aren’t completely excluded from the market unless no one wants their item enough to put a reasonable buy order in. I think that’s unlikely for something that’s truly valuable.

I’m not particularly opposed to the idea of a group of folks offering to broker deals for people. I cringe to think about the number of support tickets and forum threads it’s likely to end up generating though.

DarkSpirit.7046:

The problem with the TP though is the 15% total tax, which may not seem like a lot but if you are selling items that are really valuable, it makes a lot of difference!

For normal items, the TP is probably your best choice.

But it’s for the really valuable items that the TP is most useful. A 15% tax ensures that the seller gets the widest possible audience of interested buyers for their item, and protects both the buyer and the seller against getting scammed. Many auction houses in real life charge 30%.

Just factor the 15% into your pricing. In my opinion, it’s well worth the money to bypass the hassle of advertising it and the risk of dealing with an anonymous stranger without any recourse if they rip you off. Would you rather have the 130 gold or an e-mail from support explaining there is no way they can replace the 150 gold item that was stolen from you?

I think for a lot of things, if you used the time you would have spent finding a reputable buyer and negotiating the deal to farm a little, you’d make back most of the 15% fee and you wouldn’t have the risk of getting scammed.

I believe it is Commando’s jacket and the wiki says it is a level 77 story quest reward. It looks like it is also a PvP skin, so you should be able to check it out in the Heart of the Mists to see if it’s the right one.

There are some mini-dungeons in the world, they just aren’t instanced. Each has a bit of a story around it, puzzles to solve and a chest and/or achievement. Some have champions, but I’ve been able to get them done. Because they aren’t instanced, often you’ll have other folks to work with without having to put a party together in advance.

Crossplay.2067:

You’ll notice that T4 and I believe T3 items sell more than T5. This is because not as many people mid-level zones anymore.

I don’t know if it’s necessarily due to the progression of folks through the game now that it’s been out a while.

I’ve always had problems with T3 materials, and I generally collect my own for my crafting instead of buying them. There’s something about the progression from just normally playing the game that causes my characters to spend a lot of time in T1/T2 and in T5/T6, and not much time in the T3/T4 areas.

I’m not able to put my finger on it, but I think it’s related to the level scaling making the T2 areas viable long enough to get you to the point where you’re over-levelled by the time you’re ready to start the T3/T4 areas (assuming you’re an obsessive map completionist like me – I hate leaving them undone). It seems like you can’t get to T3 by doing one T1 followed by one T2 area, but if you do more than one T2 area, it pushes you past T3. And then the dungeons open up, and you blow right past T4.

The good news though is that it makes the T3 mats worth something if you need to pick up a little extra cash. And the level scaling allows you to still get some karma, money, and skill points while you’re gathering even if you’re level 80.

DarkSpirit.7046:

One of the things that I don’t like about this game is that there are lots of little traps like these, that casual players are not aware of. I used to be new to the game, did the promotion and lost gold as a result until I started calculating.

Folks that don’t do their research will tend to do things that cost them in ways they aren’t aware of. I think the folks that just accept what other folks tell them is the “best” thing to do get burned a bunch too. I’ve seen a number of TP related blog posts that look like bare faced pump and dump schemes to me.

The possibility exists that promoting crafting materials could be profitable, so I don’t really see this as a trap. Is salvaging a rare for the ectos now that the price of them has plunged a trap? It used to be profitable. If you want to be certain what you’re doing makes economic sense, you have to do the math (or convince some kind soul to do the math for you)

Pancake.2835:

I don’t like the aesthetics of pets. If they didn’t look so kitten I wouldn’t mind them.

Well you won’t enjoy the Ranger much then, because that is their class mechanic, and if you ignore it you will not be very effective. My ranger’s pets are carefully selected to be part of my build. I don’t really see them as pets, but rather just another weapon that happens to go where I tell it to (most of the time), provides me with two additional skills, and generates effects when I swap it.

There are other classes that can be effective at range, why were you thinking Ranger? Did a particular skill or trait appeal to you?

Actually, the fastest way to get to 80 is to go into the Heart of the Mists. Instant level 80 character that you can build any way you like, and a bunch of areas to try out different skills.

My husband leveled his 5th 80 mostly with crafting, but that’s just because he’s done all of the areas and most of the events and didn’t want to do them again just so he could try out his idea for a build. It’s not a great way to level unless you’ve already played through the game a bit. You don’t get karma, you’re a little short on skill points, you don’t make any money, and you don’t learn the nuances of the class. It’s also mind numbingly tedious.

Things that folks don’t take into account when they’re trying to level fast:

• Exploration and zone completion give significant XP
• Harvesting crafting materials gives significant XP
• Killing creatures that have been alive for a while gives significant bonus XP
• You can have both a food and a potion on, and the XP bonuses from them add up if you kill lots of things

GW2 rewards you for going off the beaten path instead of sitting in one place and grinding out XP. Move around, talk to some NPCs, detour for events (heck, talking to NPCs often starts events), poke your nose into caves and uncover the map. Kill creatures even if they aren’t hostile. Odds are folks have ignored them and they’ll give you nice bonus XP. Make sure your weapons are the best you can afford and close to your actual level, especially if you’re playing in an area where you’re downscaled. Armor you can let get old, but having shoddy weapons really slows you down.

Vancien.1980:

Many were saying that 1 million (millions of) players, farming Skritt for an hour will produce 1750+ bags easily justifying the sudden dump of said bags on the Trade Post. That is an illogical method of thinking based on how the game works on a such a gambling loot system. And as stated previously, a player can only further increase their odds for rare drops which in turn replaces “junk” or regular drops substantially. It does not necessarily mean they will then procure more Skritt Bags. And I find it hard to believe across millions of players there happens to be that many player farming Skritt anyway. If that is the case, they’re bots.

I think that your impression of how many players it takes to generate 2000 skritt bags for the market is wrong. I don’t farm, and I don’t have a ton of magic find, and in the course of normal playing in an area like a skritt or dredge cave I can end up with 20+ bags in 30 minutes, more if a couple of events spawned. It doesn’t take a bunch of bots, or a million players to generate thousands of skritt bags a day, especially if the prices that people are paying for them are high enough to make it worth a farmer’s time to go look for them.

Stars.2179:

Pandemoniac.4739:

GW2 has finite combinations of characteristics for every single item in the game.

Guild Wars 2 is not the only game that has finite combinations of characteristics.(snip)

Pandemoniac.4739:

I can be absolutely sure that I am buying the “best” level 35 shortbow with the stats I want on it

I’m not so sure about that. The stat you want might not maximize your effectiveness. Is it better to go soldier’s stat on your next piece of equipment or is it better to go for Berserk’s stat on your next piece?(snip)

I think you missed my point. I didn’t say GW2 was unique in having commoditized items, just that it was different from games where items randomly get assigned their stats from a range of possible values. Because the items aren’t generated randomly, once I decide on a piece of gear I want, I don’t have to search for the version that got randomly assigned stats at the top of the possible range. I just go buy a carrion shortbow and it is exactly like every other one on the market.

There is only one possible set of stats on a masterwork level 35 carrion shortbow. You can’t have one that is better than the other. There is no carrion shortbow that dropped with magic find on it instead of condition damage. There is no version that dropped with more condition damage on it than some other version of it. If you compare that to a game like Diablo where rare items can not only have different values, they can have completely different attributes, it’s a lot more difficult to find a level 35 shortbow that has some particular stat at a particular level and feel confident that someone hasn’t listed something better at a lower price that you missed in your search.

Am I clarifying or just making things more confusing?

CassieGold.7460:

Not sure about tracking items, because there’s still a need to match items to sell orders. Incrementing counters makes sense as an approach, but the flip side of managing the orders that pertain to the items that are created / destroyed via this method…. it kind of makes my brain hurt.

I guess it’s not how I would build it, it does have an advantage of database size management, but I think from a process prospective it would complicate other interactions.

Software development is much more of a creative endeavor than most folks think. It would make sense to me to track sell orders without associating them with a particular instance of an item, but we have no idea of the requirements and constraints of the entire system, so it’s all just speculation. It is interesting just as a thought exercise, but maybe we shouldn’t bore the non-developers

CassieGold.7460:

My greater point, without getting sidetracked into implementation, is that it makes little sense for A-net to either produce more goods than occur through game play naturally (injecting goods into the market via the TP) or to buy items out of the TP (having a dummy buyer vacuuming up items.)

Only Dev comment towards this that I can point to is one made several months back when Lindsay was talking about the desire they have for people to huck things into the mystic forge to destroy items…. they don’t need to write code to do such things, they create vehicles for players to choose to do those things for them.

I think we’re in violent agreement here. Remember the temporary forge recipes a while back during the butter boom? I’ve been very impressed with the amount of thought ANet puts into the changes they make to encourage or discourage certain player behaviors. I don’t think a ham fisted direct “take stuff off the market” would be nearly as effective as getting the player base to take care of it.

CassieGold.7460:

Item duping (exploiting game code to replicate items) has been an exploit in many MMOs and other online games. Many games can trace item duping because each item created in the game has an item identifier associated with the item.
(snip)

Simpler explaination: It’s easier to track Unique Item IDs and transfer which target they’re assigned to (Player A, TP selling area, Player than it is to destroy an item when assigned to the TP, and re-create that item when it sells.

There’s a big difference between GW2 and the games with duping – the items’ characteristics aren’t randomly generated. If you get a masterwork Carrion shortbow dropped, it will have the same stats as every other masterwork carrion shortbow of the same level that drops. GW2 has finite combinations of characteristics for every single item in the game.

This is a really good thing, because it commoditizes items. I can be absolutely sure that I am buying the “best” level 35 shortbow with the stats I want on it without having to search the market for hours comparing shortbows that can’t really be directly compared because they don’t have exactly the same stats on them. It also helps with pricing items I’m selling, because folks can order specific items, and know that they exist. You can’t do that on the WoW or Diablo auction houses. They don’t have a “only show available” box, because they can’t enumerate everything that could be available.

I’m inclined to believe that when you list an item on the TP, it doesn’t preserve that particular item, it just increments the count of the item listed at the price you listed it at. When someone buys it at that price, they get a new instance of that item and the count gets decremented. That is what makes the most sense to me in terms of keeping the database size manageable. There’s no reason to keep a unique ID around for something that is not unique.

If that’s the case, I’d say it’s likely that the contents of the loot bags don’t get generated until you open them, so when you buy them, you’re actually buying the opportunity to open them, not their contents.

Also the iron plated dowels for inscriptions count as masterwork items, so you only have to make half as many inscriptions as insignia. Mostly it just matters what you have already collected. Each of the crafting professions except chef has low level masterwork things to craft.

I would not like to be be shown offline just because I’m not representing. I’m in several guilds, including a personal 2 person guild my husband and I put together to have a shared bank, and I would like the folks in the other guilds to be able to see me online regardless of who I’m representing.

None of the guilds I’m in seem to mind. I do rep each one when I first log in, so they get the 10 influence or whatever it is. I think taking away the ability to see if a member is on-line and not representing is unfair to the folks that want to organize a hard core guild with dedicated members. That’s not the guild for me, but I don’t see why a member should get the prestige of belonging to the tougher guilds without making the commitment.

Well John, you tried. Can we jump now?

Honestly, I’m having trouble following the argument, so I don’t have much to add. I can suggest that if you want a constructive discussion, you’d have better luck not painting ANet as corrupt profit mongers.

Bots flooded the market with gold, I got that part. Although from John’s response, it sounds like flooded is too strong a word. Endurance is upset that the ill gotten gains weren’t deleted. I got that part, although I’m not sure how technically feasible removing the “bad” gold from the market is…

Someone buys gold from a RMT and uses it to dump a thousand swords into the forge and sells a precursor to an innocent bystander, how do you take that gold out of the market? Do you take the money away from the thousand sword sellers or take away the precursor? Ok, let’s put a pin in that for a minute.

What’s the next part of the argument? How exactly does the price of gems come into it? Why would I buy gold to buy gems, when I can just buy them directly? I’m not being snarky, I’m trying to understand. The gold infusion by the bots would have spread out over the entire market, and after a little turbulence, settled out right? I’m not understanding the problem.

The advantage of adding them to your friends list is that you only need their character name, you don’t have to select them at all. You just type the name into the “add” box and you can easily right click and report then remove them immediately. Unless they’re checking their followers, they’ll never know. I like to keep them on for a while to see if they ever stop logging in.

I also think it helps to get the account name and fill out a support ticket so you can explain that they’re a teleporter so the ANet folks know what to look for.

Tolmos.8395:

I would like to see an “inspect” option as well… but not one that shows stats, but rather one that shows the names of the skins the player is using to get their current look. An aesthetic inspect, if you will.

Also, the dyes they’re using. Previewing on the TP is great, but some look very different on heavy/light/medium.

RedSpectrum.1975:

You don’t ingore the skimpy armor. No one ignores it we just learn to stop staring:p
anyway, I could argue that the TP promotes uniqueness since it lets us buy armor to mix and match

Exactly this. In the other MMOs I’ve played my character always looked like they got their outfits by dumpster diving. I’ve got a low tolerance for farming, so I was stuck with the best pieces I got dropped mixed with the couple of nice things I could afford.

With the TP, dye system, and transmutation stones I can put my terrible fashion sense on display for everyone to see

We caught one by adding the character name to friends to get the account name, reporting from the friends interface context menu, then following up with a more detailed report through the support website. After a few days we never saw that account online again.

If you miss their name when they first teleport in, watch the next closest node for a second shot.

Could be someone cashing out and causing other folks to jump on the band wagon, it doesn’t have to be a bot. Totem farming was really hot for a while and I think but don’t know for certain the items you can make with totems are not as demanded after the latest patch.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

As I said in my Crafted cheaper than mats thread is that an armor piece shouldn’t be cheaper than the mats required to craft that armor, in other games this works fine or even they don’t even exist at the marketplace so you have to craft them.

Why shouldn’t a specific item be less expensive than materials that could be used to create any number of things? My husband just crafted his way from 25 to 75. He sold the things he made to recover some of the costs of buying the materials, but he didn’t care if he made a profit on items because he had already gotten some value out of them from the XP he gained by creating them.

GW2’s crafting has significant differences from crafting in other games. Everyone can gather crafting materials and lots of materials are gathered just by regular play. Everyone can do all of the crafts. Crafting and gathering gives a significant amount of XP, and is part of the dailies.

When you craft something in GW2, you don’t add much value to the materials you crafted it from. In some ways you actually make the materials less valuable, because you turn them into a specific item that appeals to fewer people than all the possible items that could be made from them, and they can’t be used to level up any more. It just isn’t that difficult to make the items for yourself, so most of the profit comes from providing convenience.

I’ve had better luck selling insignia and inscriptions than selling items made from them. A single insignia can be made into 18 different things (6 pieces of light, medium, or heavy armor) and I know a lot of folks that buy materials to give to their guild mates to get something specific crafted. The market is larger than it would be for say medium shoulders crafted from that insignia.

Death Reincarnated.3570:

‘Old Sledge Site’ Waypoint in ‘Mount Maelstrom’ has lots of bugs and frogs if you’re sick of knocking out bunnies dead cold.

It may be a bit ghoulish, but freezing bunnies makes me giggle. The death animation is priceless. And yeah, those bunnies are probably descendants of the evil GW1 bunnies and totally deserve it. They’re planning world domination while tricking us into thinking they’re harmless.

I have a female Norn, and was sorely disappointed when there was no “Yarr!”. I’m guessing it was an oversight when they were putting together the script for the voice actors.