Guild Wars 2

You can remove the up-vote by clicking on the +1 from the list in your profile. I’ve come across threads where the poster inserted some javascript to automatically upvote it whenever it was viewed, but I haven’t noticed posts I’ve never looked at getting upvoted. I’m checking my list now…

marnick.4305:

I always wonder how the US manages to take ages to implement very basic stuff. Debating about whether something’s tangible or not has absolutely no relevance to the fact that a sale took place. As such, it can be taxed, plain and simple. Whether it should is another discussion entirely, but don’t forget that the government basically makes the internet work …

The US government is not debating tangible versus intangible. The fact that folks misinterpret a business not charging them sales tax as not owing sales tax has nothing to do with the actual tax code. Many states require their residents to pay taxes on purchases made out of state, whether you did it over the Internet or by driving across the border. Very few people pay those taxes because it’s virtually impossible to enforce the law. So, congress makes a law requiring businesses to collect sales tax for localities that they have no presence in.

Well I already get charged tax on my gem purchases, so likely it will just mean that folks who haven’t been getting charged won’t have to fill out their use tax forms after it goes into effect. Ya’ll have been filing your taxes right?

This isn’t a new tax, it’s just the states foisting the cost of enforcing their local tax code on businesses who get no benefit from those taxes getting collected.

The best way to tighten the spreads is to publish the trade data instead of making folks guess from existing buy and sell orders where they should be pricing their goods. Unless you’ve sold or bought a particular item before and have some information on how quickly it sells at different price points, you don’t have enough information to make a good decision when placing an order.

Edit and I apologize to ANet for sounding like a broken record about this… I know it’s not a simple thing to do

I think this is a great idea, and I hope you can find some like minded folks to participate. I’d volunteer, but I’ve got a crisis brewing at work that prevents me from being able to make the time commitment something like this would require.

I have never run into a situation where what seems obvious in theory matched reality when you add team dynamics into the mix. I’m really interested in what your results might be.

Fortunately, Google indexes these forums, so I just use it with the site: parameter. You can’t easily limit the search to a particular forum, but it’s much easier to find relevant posts.

Farzo.8410:

Only thing that annoys me is that there has to be a book that wastes bag and bank space. They obviously did this to make our bags and bank more full so we have to buy more slots.

I don’t think that’s obvious. They already have a framework for toys that change your skills, so the book is probably the easiest way to implement “teaching” dances to a character. Why would they write a completely new system when that effort could be directed toward other fun things?

I’m not a hot pants type myself, but I fully support you in expressing yourself.

Out of curiosity, how would you feel about cultural skins in the gem store? It seems to me like it might require a lot of work to make an outfit that fits all races. Would it be annoying to have more outfits available, but have some that only can be worn by a particular race?

I think it would be a good way to test how desirable an outfit is to the players by offering say, Sylvari only hot pants, and seeing how they sell and whether folks request a Charr version. I have no idea whether that makes sense from a technical perspective, but it seems like we would get more choices more quickly and help ANet focus their effort on what is popular.

Einlanzer.1627:

Regardless, if you use the average, players with lower MF ‘drag down’ the players with higher MF in the exact same way that players with lower combat stats ‘drag down’ players with higher combat stats. They would be ‘taking advantage’ of your MF in the exact same way you would be ‘taking advantage’ of their superior combat prowess.

This is exactly how it should work. I really am running out of ways to make it more clear.

I can quantify how much averaging MF across the group impacts me. You have nothing other than your perception that me having MF on my gear impacts my performance at all. You don’t know my build or my play style and I’m fairly confident I could change my MF significantly mid dungeon and you would never notice.

You should look at what behavior your solution encourages, not how it would work ideally. Folks would want everyone else to have high MF while they themselves had the highest DPS so they could get more damage contribution for drops and still have MF. Encouraging DPSers to take advantage of the MFers is not a solution.

A better solution is for like-minded folks to play together, as suggested by someone earlier where the team could decide to accept greater challenge in exchange for more MF.

Szamsziel.5627:

Wanna bet?
1 player has 50%. 1 has 40%, 1 has 30% and one have 5%. The last one have x%. If x=0 then sum is 50+40+30+5 = 125. So on average 125/5 = 25%. 1st player before share was 50%, after is 25%. – cut in half

I said “cut in half” as an example, not as a calculation of every possible team make up, and I was talking about my personal MF not the team’s MF.

Let’s look at the median versus average
50%, 40%, 30%, 5%, 0% -> median is 30%, average is 25%
50%, 30%, 30%, 30%, 0% -> median is 30%, average is 28%
50%, 10%, 10%, 10%, 10% -> median is 10%, average is 18%
50%, 50%, 50%, 50%, 0% -> median is 50%, average is 40%

If you use the average, players with no MF drag down the player(s) with a lot of MF. You can not convince me that one player without MF on their gear can make up for 10% of 4 other players. Folks without MF will just be taking advantage of folks with a lot of MF.

Drops are not shared among the team, so MF should not be shared among the team. If someone on your PUG isn’t pulling their weight for whatever reason, replace them after the run. Most of the time, the reason I didn’t want to be on a team with folks that has absolutely nothing to do with their gear or how much MF is on it.

Einlanzer.1627:

Pandemoniac.4739:

If you use an average, then won’t you run into the opposite problem of folks with no MF getting kicked because they’re bringing the group down?

I wouldn’t think so, because without MF you are more potent in combat. It’s a tradeoff. You’d run into a few elitist pricks I’m sure, but I don’t think it’d be any more prevalent than berserker gear for sure.

I for one think it’s an interesting choice and I’d hate to see it removed.

So do you think that one person without MF is “potent” enough to make up for a 50% loss in MF for 4 other people? We’re not playing the same game if you think gear has that big of an effect. The group I play with can carry one player through a dungeon, but there is no way I’m going to have my MF cut in half for one other player who claims to be so uber that they can generate enough drops to make up for a 50% loss of MF for 4 other decent players. And I’m not elitist at all, that’s just not fair.

Averaging is not the best way to get what you’re after. That will just encourage folks to look for players with the same amount of MF to be more efficient. At least suggest using the median instead of the mean.

Einlanzer.1627:

Nay, it’s an average so everyone always contributes. A party with 5 people running 50% MF has a party MF of 50%. A party of 5 with only 1 person running 50% has a party MF of 10% but better overall combat potency.

If you use an average, then won’t you run into the opposite problem of folks with no MF getting kicked because they’re bringing the group down?

Group sharing of MF from gear is a bad idea. Take the MF off the gear and make it a stacking buff you earn by killing challenging mobs. The faster you can take on challenging content, the quicker you reach the MF cap, and the more mobs you kill with max MF. Dying resets your personal buff stack back to zero. No need to sacrifice effectiveness or have multiple sets of gear. Good teams/players get rewarded, and you don’t need to farm gold/laurels/karma/whatever to buy a decent set of MF gear.

Thanks for sharing your experience. It was interesting to read how you’re adapting available technology. You might want to take a look at the Logitech G600 series mice. They have the thumb buttons like the Nagas, but the also have an extra button under your ring finger that can shift the mouse to a completely different mapping. I’m still trying to get the hang of it, but it does give you a lot of hot keys under one thumb.

D3 does have a magic find mechanic that works well, and it’s not a group-wide average. While you do get a flat bonus for being in a group and doing increased difficulty runs, there is also a buff you get for killing elite packs that gives a bonus to MF and XP.

I think that concept could fit into GW. You get up to a stack of 5 that lasts 30 minutes. There’s a cap on your maximum MF, so you feel less compelled to put it on your gear because that extra bonus is wasted once you’re at 5 of the buffs. Killing a champion, completing a group event, killing a boss in a dungeon, etc. adds 1 buff and resets the timer to 30 minutes.

I think with a little tweaking it could work in GW2. It’s a bit easier to “charge up” the buff in D3, so the ANet folks would have to figure some way around that. Maybe killing some of the mobs in dungeons on the way to the boss would give you a charge. I’m not sure about the implementation details, but it seems like the buff system would offer an incentive for folks to move through the content efficiently as a team if it was designed correctly.

Solo.9027:

Pandemoniac.4739:

I’m just playing and having fun and whatever I accumulate is fine, as long as I feel my net worth isn’t dropping. It could be dropping in reality, but as long as it doesn’t feel like it, I don’t care.

If we could extrapolate this to the real world we would be living in a utopia. In reality there is uncertainty and my kids are hungry and rents late and gas keeps going up etc.. Just playing the game itself is a goal for pretty much everyone who plays a game, in real life work is not something people enjoy unless indoctrinated from an early age or they are motivated by fear or hunger.

I’m fortunate in that’s how I live my real life too. I grew up poor (although not destitute or hungry) and learned the value of having enough money by watching my parents work their way into upper middle class. I also learned to appreciate the value of things that can’t be bought, because I never felt poor. I wish that everyone could have had at least as good a life as I have had so far. Unfortunately, reality sucks.

My point is that not everyone values accumulating a lot stuff, and although folks like me participate in some profit seeking, it’s a gradient and not a yes or no question whether folks are profit maximizing. Sometimes I am and sometimes I’m not when it comes to money.

I think most folks are profit maximizing, but the profit isn’t always measured in money (or time). I value transactions that save me inconvenience, even if they don’t save me much time. For example, I always over tip if the service was decent. Sure I’d have more money in my pocket and the person providing me service would still feel appreciated if I calculated out exactly 20% or 18%, but I can afford it and I don’t care enough to be bothered even though it would take seconds. I’d rather have my brain occupied with something else.

Filling a buy order saves me the effort of looking at the market and thinking about how much would maximize my profit while minimizing the time I have to wait for it. 99% of the things I sell aren’t particularly rare or valuable, and the amount of profit per transaction doesn’t motivate me enough.

I am complacent because I can afford everything I want. I have no need for a little bit more on every transaction because I’m not working toward anything, I’m just playing and having fun and whatever I accumulate is fine, as long as I feel my net worth isn’t dropping. It could be dropping in reality, but as long as it doesn’t feel like it, I don’t care.

Solo.9027:

In the real world a person can invent demand of worthless byproducts and make himself rich without the deus ex machina of a patch update or developer forum post that also affords that avenue to everyone else. There are no patents on crafting recipes.

Gasoline was once just a byproduct of the refining of kerosine, now it is a primary commodity. The entire computer industry was created by the exploitation of tech foreveralones tinkering in their parents garage by corporate exploiters.

Basically I get your point but I believe resources are only as finite as we are lazy, just like in any game world. If you look at the third world and see some simple solutions they have to problems first worlders have huge convoluted systems to solve you can see what I mean.

I think your point about creating demand is interesting. In a more sandbox type game like Second Life, it can be possible to simulate that in a virtual economy. There’s a MOBA game out there that allows players to create new skins and sell them (unfortunately the name escapes me).

I think it’s difficult to discuss a virtual economy without knowing what type of game it’s a part of. EVE is a game that was designed with a player driven economy and political system as the central feature. Trying to compare that with GW2 is hard, because the game wasn’t designed to drive the economy. I could completely ignore the TP in GW2 and still enjoy the game.

How about a recipe to downgrade them to a lower tier? I haven’t looked at the prices in a while but I had a hard time finding the mid-tier cloth and leather when I was leveling my tailor and leather worker.

The issue with the T5 stuff is most likely because they are by-products of salvaging for ectos. Ectos are getting cheap, so a little less supply should be coming in, but that doesn’t solve the problem with the excess that’s already there.

I think you’re confusing GW2’s model with a free to play model. As long as there are desirable items in the gem store, I’m sure ANet is bringing in enough without having to offer discounts. I don’t remember anything in GW1 getting discounted.

Would it be fair if the folks purchasing gems with gold got a discount that the folks using cash didn’t? I could make an argument that pulling more gold out of the economy might be better for the game than rewarding the high cash spenders.

Calae.1738:

munkiman.3068:

Well in games like this, the control is in the creation of items (ie drops, increasing resource node spawns, etc.).

In the real world, demand is infinite and resources are finite.

I’m not convinced that demand is infinite in the real world. There are a finite number of people, and even if you look at a good like rice, there is a limit to the demand, even if it might exceed the current supply.

Calae.1738:

In a virtual world demand is infinite and resources are infinite. The only thing that has any real value in a virtual world is time. Each person values their time differently than others.

Even though resources are theoretically infinite, they are limited by the number of players and the time they can play. Resources are infinitely available and limited by the time it takes to collect them and use or sell them.

In a game where you can convert gems to gold, bulk discounts would be unfair. It’s great that we can purchase gold legitimately, but I don’t think gold should be cheaper for folks willing to spend $100 instead of $10. The only other game I know that allows you to purchase in game gold is D3, and they don’t have a proxy currency.

To be fair, you’d have to let it go the other way and give folks buying gems in bulk with gold a discount also. I think that would really mess up the conversion rate calculations.

Astraea.6075:

Pandemoniac.4739:

Mad Rasputin.7809:

I find it a little hard to believe that half of the people want to put in the amount of gold they want to spend versus putting in the amount of gems they want to purchase.

Most people I know are not just randomly converting a set amount of gold to gems. They are trying to acquire a set amount of gems.

Unfortunately, most of the folks you know are not a representative sampling of the entire player base. Some folks convert their excess gold to gems a little at a time so they don’t get stuck with an unfavorable conversion rate the next time something cool is added to the gem store, or they can take advantage of an improved gem to gold rate when it happens.

I’m one of the people who convert excess gold to gems a little at a time in order to avoid exchange rate spikes, but even then I buy a set number of gems. I’ll admit my behavior might not be representative, but it’s a personal preference to have a nicely rounded number of gems stocked up.

Everyone has their own system. Some folks like to keep track of the gold so it’s easier to figure out when they get a decent return converting back. I believe JS when he says it’s pretty evenly divided.

Mad Rasputin.7809:

I find it a little hard to believe that half of the people want to put in the amount of gold they want to spend versus putting in the amount of gems they want to purchase.

Most people I know are not just randomly converting a set amount of gold to gems. They are trying to acquire a set amount of gems.

Unfortunately, most of the folks you know are not a representative sampling of the entire player base. Some folks convert their excess gold to gems a little at a time so they don’t get stuck with an unfavorable conversion rate the next time something cool is added to the gem store, or they can take advantage of an improved gem to gold rate when it happens.

I was looking over the description of changes to the +1 system in the news forum, and learned that the popularity of a post is relative to the number of +1s in the thread, so you can affect the thumbs up icon by posting an opposing view to a popular post and having lots of folks agree with you.

It’s kind of a cool system actually (IMO of course

I thought being able to switch crafting professions without losing your progress was an awesome feature; none of the other MMOs I’ve played had it. The 40s fee seems like a small price to pay, and as other folks have pointed out, you can have characters that just sit in town and craft. There’s no level requirement to be a 400 craftsman. My artificer and jeweler is a level 20 something who hasn’t left the grove in 15 levels.

Actually in GW2 there’s an argument to be made that crafting sub-80 gear makes items less valuable than the materials because you are extracting the XP instead of adding value.

I agree with the folks above that the analysis is flawed. It seems like he knew what answer he wanted to get before he started analyzing.

Essence Snow.3194:

I think it’s fair if you are not willing, but if you were willing and I kept pushing the goal line further and further away from you, then I wouldn’t.

Tbh I don’t think they should be for sale via a player influenced market. That would ensure that one’s chances to obtain one were not altered by anyone else, but ofc that would detail relying on this game’s rng……which is a whole other can of worms which would need to be addressed.

The unbalanced high prices funnel players into specific avenues that perpetuate the cycle of….unbalanced high prices>funneled avenue>unbalanced high prices.

Yeah it is rather ironic were are on opposite sides of the fence advocating the other’s side and not our own….lol

I think discussions are more interesting when the arguments are made from principle rather than self interest, so we should pat each other on the back.

Let’s forget that precursors exist for a minute and talk about a really rare dropped item. Folks that play more will have a better chance of getting that item. I don’t know of any way to change that. The farmers will put their extras on the market, and after a period of instability while folks figure out what the item is worth, the price will stabilize.

Now imagine this hypothetical item is only useful to maximum level characters, and it takes a significant amount of time for folks that only play a few hours a week to get to that level. As more folks level, the demand goes up, so the price goes up. That makes it harder for some folks to buy the item, but it hasn’t changed how difficult it is to go find one.

The price is higher, but it should be, because there are three items available and 300 people want one. During the time that it took a casual person to level, the hard core folks have earned triple the amount of gold the casual has. I don’t see any way to fix that either. Even if they earn the same gold per hour, the hard core player plays 3x as much, and will be able to afford the higher price. How do you change that reality?

The only circumstances I can think of where the casual player ends up with the short end of the stick unfairly is if they couldn’t gain access to the content where this rare item drops because they don’t have the time to play, for example, they can’t commit to raiding every Weds and Fri.

Essence Snow.3194:

I don’t buy the argument that you are entitled to every bit of content in a game because you paid for a game.* I own every GW1 campaign, should I be entitled to all of HOM rewards* even if I don’t want to do the things to get all of the points?

I think that blaming the hard core folks for driving up prices and ruining your game experience is a flawed way of looking at the situation, but I need to chew on it a bit more to figure out how to explain why I think that.

No one is saying something for nothing (your the one adding the striked through part)……I shouldn’t be infringing on your ability to gain those rewards if you want them. I shouldn’t make your rewards take longer than they would have had I not been able to do so.

Btw I am so far from casual it’s not even funny….I just am able to see what is happening to them and feel it’s very unfortunate.

Some of the HOM achievements take quite a bit of platinum to get. I’m not willing to do what needs to be done to make that kind of money, so I don’t have a black widow. I think that’s fair.

So would you feel differently if legendaries weren’t crafted and were just really rare drops? They would probably be just as expensive.

The way I see it the hard core folks are making it easier to get a legendary. If folks weren’t farming and tossing tons of rares into the forge, there would be less supply of precursors and other materials needed for a legendary.

The high prices encourage folks to attempt to get precursors so they can make a profit. How long do you think it would take to make a legendary if you had to find the precursor yourself? Probably longer than it would take to get together the gold to buy one unless you got very lucky. How many legendaries do you think would be for sale if they were worth less?

I a casual player (in terms of time, I’m hard core when it comes to being informed about the games I play). I think it’s funny that I’m on the other side of this discussion from a hard core player who feels sorry for me

Essence Snow.3194:

It’s part pf the game that everyone paid for…thus they have paid for the right to be able to obtain everything in it. Now I’m not saying that it should be in the same time frame, but they should be able to obtain them none the less. It just so happens that the way it is set up creates a divide where one group effects the other’s ability to do so. Imo it wouldn’t be such an issue if it didn’t take an already very long process and make it longer. Imagine the shoe being on the other foot…..if casual players made it take longer for non casuals to obtain something.

Well with the introduction of laurels, there are some things that force hard core players to be on par with more casual folks.

I don’t buy the argument that you are entitled to every bit of content in a game because you paid for a game. I own every GW1 campaign, should I be entitled to all of HOM rewards even if I don’t want to do the things to get all of the points?

I think that blaming the hard core folks for driving up prices and ruining your game experience is a flawed way of looking at the situation, but I need to chew on it a bit more to figure out how to explain why I think that.

Essence Snow.3194:

Atm what we have is the tp players and the “hardcore” farmers are creating a rise in prices for the things they work towards. This not only effects them, but the rest of the population. So in essence they are actively keeping prices high and at the same time they are infringing on all other players these higher prices. So what your are hypothetically stating “doesn’t seem fair to deny hard core players” is exactly what is actually happening to casuals now.

I don’t understand the thinking behind everyone should be able to attain a legendary weapon. Anything a casual player can do, the hard core player can accomplish in a fraction of the time., so what might be a long term goal for a casual player isn’t one for a hard core player. You can’t have a game that caters to both play styles without the casual folks not being able to attain some of the things the hard core players can.

There are lots of cool things within reach of the casual player – some of the mystic forge weapons are completely attainable in a month for someone that doesn’t have time to play 5+ hours a day. It makes no sense to me to focus on hard core goals when you’re not a hard core player.

Ohoni.6057:

My point isn’t that you’re wrong, it’s just that defining an “optimal” economy using the concept of a typical player when we have no idea what a typical player looks like isn’t particularly illuminating.

Perhaps, but the only ones who can define a “typical player” work at ANet, and so far they haven’t. Until then I have to imagine what a typical player likely is, based on what I do, and don’t do, and what others claim to be doing, that sort of thing. It’s a rough guess, at best, but it’s all I have to go on, and I’m fine with that until better numbers come in. I’m not just going to throw up my hands “welp, no numbers, not allowed to have an opinion!”

Everyone is entitled to an opinion. It’s just difficult to discuss an idea when the underlying argument is based on something that different folks perceive differently. Instead of saying the “typical” player, you could say nothing should cost more than 500G, which is what I gather you believe a typical player earns in a month. That way when we’re discussing things I’m not thinking you mean nothing should cost more than 2000 G which might be what I think a typical player earns in a month.

It doesn’t matter that we don’t know for certain what a typical player looks like, it just matters that we understand each other.

Ohoni.6057:

I think in GW2 the necessities are almost too affordable, and the “nice-to-have” things start looking like necessities, and there’s not much in between those and the high end luxury items.

That’s the thing, I think that the entire concept of “high end luxury items” is ridiculous in a game. What defines which players are eligible for “high end luxury items” and which aren’t?

It’s not a matter of deserving, it’s a matter of having a range of goals so that different players with different play styles all have something to work toward. There are players out there that will achieve everything in a week that your idea of a typical player can achieve in a month. Should they not be welcome in a game just because they have more time or more tolerance for doing repetitive stuff?

It doesn’t seem fair to me that the hard core folks should be denied something to work for because the more casual folks would have to spend a really long time to get it.

Ohoni.6057:

So how much does the typical player make in a month? I’m guessing you believe you are typical, or probably above average. That’s human nature. That’s also a terrible yardstick to use, because it is entirely possible that the typical player makes far more than you think they do in a month.

Perhaps, but I doubt I’m wrong in thinking that the average player makes less than 500g per month.

My point isn’t that you’re wrong, it’s just that defining an “optimal” economy using the concept of a typical player when we have no idea what a typical player looks like isn’t particularly illuminating.

For me, an optimal virtual economy is one where the majority of players can afford what they need to experience all the content of the game, and have some money left over for non-essentials. For example, every player should be able to get their training manuals without having to farm dungeons or play the market, and they should be able to have some money left over to buy dyes to customize their armor. Maybe they can’t afford Abyss or Celestial, but they should be able to get something more to their taste than the basic colors they start with.

I think in GW2 the necessities are almost too affordable, and the “nice-to-have” things start looking like necessities, and there’s not much in between those and the high end luxury items. That leaves folks with expendable income that isn’t enough for the high end items, but isn’t needed for anything else. I think that the problem isn’t that precursors are too expensive, but rather there just isn’t anything a little less expensive that is desirable enough for us to spend our extra gold on.

Behellagh.1468:

First of all FourthVariety, if you use the popular definition of currency then yes we have a currency, coin. Otherwise we would be trading copper ore and logs directly directly for armor, weapons and additional gathering tools. A currency is needed as a mediator for trading commodities and all that’s need is wide spread acceptance.

An interesting contrast is the Path of Exile beta, where there is no gold at all. Every currency item has an alternate use. For example, vendors will accept ID scrolls as payment for some items, and town portal scrolls for other items. Instead of embracing a system that lets you trade your excess consumables for something you want, folks are still trying to figure out a way that 5 ID scrolls = 1 whetstone = 1/10 chromatic orb (totally made up numbers), so that when they’re making a trade they can determine whether they’re getting “ripped off”.

It doesn’t seem to matter that a person who really wants an ID scroll and has 400 town portal scrolls could easily part with 10 portal scrolls which might be double the going rate. Folks still want to know what a trade is doing to their net worth relative to how the market values what they have, even if they value it differently. Even if a virtual economy forces players to trade copper for armor, players will come up with some sort of currency.

So how much does the typical player make in a month? I’m guessing you believe you are typical, or probably above average. That’s human nature. That’s also a terrible yardstick to use, because it is entirely possible that the typical player makes far more than you think they do in a month.

Essence Snow.3194:

Syeria.4812:

Snip

What stance was that showing? Exception? Norm? Assumption?

Just curios…I couldn’t make heads or tails to the justification.

Edit…just saw there was a preface on the previous page……..so from what I am gathering ……. basically none of us are qualified to pass any judgement unless we are certified economists?

My interpretation was that looking at the economy as a whole through the lens of what you would personally like things to cost leads to a definition of an “optimal” economy that is only optimal for you and folks that value things similarly.
(and I mean “you” in the general sense, not “you the person I quoted” )

Draygo.9473:

We need to tie back in that line of discussion with the topic of the thread.

Are there examples of artificial scarcity in real life? Or is the artificial scarcity of certain items in game a reflection on actual scarcity in real life?

My point was (although I wasn’t explicit) that virtual economies are different because folks know that that resources are artificially limited, where in the real world no-one can wave a wand and make more oranges appear if this year’s orange crop has failed. I think it makes for a different dynamic.

Ohoni.6057:

Supply is 100% in ANet’s control, so if they’re aware of the demand, and they should, they can provide supply as close or as far from demand as they choose. All scarcity is artificial. This is why people get upset with ANet when certain high-demand weapons and other gear rise to outrageous prices on the TP, because this is clearly an example of supply not coming even close to demand, which should signal ANet to pump up the supply on those goods increasing the rate at which they drop into the world, but so far that doesn’t seem to be happening.

I think that the problem with artificial scarcity is that folks don’t understand that scarcity of resources is absolutely essential for there to be a game economy, and I would contend, necessary to make a game like GW2 interesting. Yes ANet could flip a switch and increase the supply of anything, but it wouldn’t be good for the game.

The problem isn’t that ANet is being mean and not listening to their customers, the problem is that like kids that want to have ice cream and candy for dinner, folks don’t understand the negative impacts it would have if they got what they wanted. Sure, it is within Mom’s capability to feed her child ice cream every night, but she knows that while it would make the child happy in the short term, it wouldn’t be good in the long term.

(and I’m not saying that precursors don’t need tweaking, I’m just saying in general that artificial scarcity causes discontent because folks don’t understand it’s necessary)

Vine.7263:

I would say that the primary way that MMO economies are similar to real world economies is the presence of lots and lots of people making independent decisions about how to spend their money. People who all have different (and this I think is key to lots of forum arguments) priorities and goals. Not only do they have different goals, but they have different preferences about how they want to meet those goals (Trading, Farming, Dungeons, etc.). Therefore, we can use theories developed in the real world to understand the behavior of aggregates of people in game.

I think this is where GW2 in particular stands out from every other game out there. Because the market is across all of the servers, and the items are commodities instead of every piece of gear being unique we can really see the invisible hand at work. So much so that folks keep getting the idea that there is a mysterious cabal out there manipulating prices.

I think that having a virtual world where the changes are deliberate, and the goods and means of production are much more limited than the real world makes it easier to study how people respond to different market situations, and that might tell us something about the real world markets. In my opinion, it’s not so much that the theory developed in the real world can tell us something about the virtual economy, as it is the virtual economy can act as a model that can be used to validate or point out problems with those theories.

It also makes the gem→gold conversion rate more attractive which may encourage folks to spend money on gems they might not have otherwise spent.

Ursan.7846:

I personally think the GW2 economy is quite fascinating because of it’s incredibly efficiency of its global trading post. It means that market inefficiencies, to my knowledge, are nonexistant and any movement in the market is purely as a result of the collective actions of the entire playerbase.

I’m not economist, just an engineer, but we often do use ideal models to learn more about complex real systems. And I feel like this is the equivalent.

I feel the same way. I don’t have much curiosity about the real world market movements (even though I work as an engineer for a financial firm) because it’s just too complicated and complex to look at in the macro sense with any sort of confidence that you really know what’s going on.

I find the GW2 economy has abstracted out enough complexity without being so simplified as to be uninteresting. I imagine there is a lot you can extrapolate to real world markets.

I think the gems are removed from the pool for the purposes of calculating the conversion rate at the moment that someone purchases them for gold, not afterward when they are spent. Gem store purchases are completely separate from the gold/gem conversion. That is, when I bought gems with cash to buy my molten pick, that had absolutely no impact on the conversion rate. Likewise, the folks that already had a balance of gems and bought the pick had no effect on the conversion rate.

I think John said a while back that the initial pool of gems and gold for the conversion was large enough that it was extremely improbable that either would run out (or get close enough to running out to be a problem), but I can’t find the quote.

marnick.4305:

Spifnar.4712:

I’d say that the best “bundle” of goods to compare inflation to is the cost of equipping a char with L80 exotics (or masterwork or rare or some mix in between).

Pandemoniac.4739:

Which type of gear? Heavy Zerker’s? I think gear would not be a good choice because the popularity of different builds and activities change the prices frequently.

How about a light, medium and heavy armor set, breaking down into components with equal parts for each t6 material. It wouldn’t be real, but it will cover most crafting materials.

I’m wondering if my understanding of what the bundle should consist of is correct. My thought was that you would want a set of goods that has stable prices that haven’t been impacted by a game balance change (butter for example would be a bad choice). I was thinking that some of the sharpening stones/oils/crystals might be good choices if you picked the right tier (the volatility in dust lately might be a problem).

Because we know that the crafting materials track the price of the finished goods very well, we can just use the raw materials in the bundle directly instead of trying to break down particular gear right? I think what’s important is that the prices are at equilibrium, and not necessarily how useful the particular good is to a player. Looking at how the players use the items is good for identifying candidates for the bundle, but I think you also have to look at the prices and make sure that they aren’t fluctuating wildly.

I would probably disregard all of the data up until maybe November. I think it took at least that long for things to stabilize as folks worked their way up to the later part of the game and got a feel for how rare and how useful/desirable different items were. Well, at least that was the time frame that I remember not being completely mystified by the prices on the TP for various things.

So my thought was to come up with a set of goods, sample their prices since November, average them into one price (or use the median I haven’t really gotten that far), plot the results and see which direction it’s going. I haven’t taken the time yet because I’m pretty sure I know what the answer is going to be. It’s more of an exercise to see if I can figure out how to do it than getting an answer I’m curious to know.

I agree with munkiman that one of the key differences is that your choices in a virtual economy don’t have the same impact on your life that choices in the real world do. Even if it impacts your avatar, every game has to allow a player to start from nothing or you would never be able to join the game after launch. A game wouldn’t be very successful if your account was deleted if your avatar starved to death.

Another key difference is the way the cost of creating value is simulated. In the real world there are investments in R&D to develop new products, infrastructure investments to set up new businesses, education investments to work in particular fields et. al. Games simulate different costs of items with rarity and sometimes fixed cost components that you can’t directly reduce the cost of by innovating or being more efficient.

I also think that games are different because everyone works for themselves. There are no 9-5 jobs where you collect a paycheck and let the owners of the company figure out whether your work is worth what they’re paying you.

I’ve got more ideas, but posting from my phone is a drag. I just lost a paragraph by touching the wrong spot on my screen, so I’ll leave the rest until I get home.

munkiman.3068:

So, he’s assuming the disparity between the 2 is somehow a gold sink? The only way i could see that is if people bought gems with gold then converted it back (for a loss unless they wait till it’s profitable). From what i understood about the gem store, people that put gold in for gems, comes out when people buy gems and turn it into gold. The disparity doesn’t destroy the gold like the fees in the TP, from what i understand of it anyway. I may be misunderstanding it though.

I wouldn’t consider it a gold sink, but the way it’s set up, I don’t think it causes a big increase in the gold supply either.

After messing around with the D3 AH, I have a new appreciation for the GW2 economy and how much thought went into the design. I can buy 1 million gold in D3 for about a 25 cents and it is not a good thing. All of the checks and balances were designed from a game design perspective and not an economic perspective and really don’t work that well. You would be surprised how much impact choosing not to split the currency into gold, silver and copper has.

D3 has a gold to money exchange system also, but there are no gems, so there is no pool that can be used to measure the relative demand. I can’t explain in economic terms why having that buffer between real dollars and gold makes such a difference, but it does.

munkiman.3068:

marnick.4305:

Gold isn’t put into the economy by gems> gold but rather sinked. Every gem/gold transaction destroys 30% of the gold involved!!! This a very important point you don’t seem to get. As long as you don’t acknowledge that, further discussion is moot.

What 30% are you on about? When you buy gems with cash there’s no 30% fee. If you’re talking about gold->gems there’s still no fee. There is just the disparity between the 2 to keep people from creating endless wealth in gold.

I agree that it’s not a straight gold sink, but there is maybe an argument to be made that because gems to gold transactions make gold to gems conversions more attractive, the net effect on the gold supply in the long term isn’t that large.

I think after the recent spike in gold to gem prices, more folks might start buying gems in anticipation of new things becoming available in the gem store instead of waiting to see what it will be. So, folks dropping the conversion rate by buying gold might actually be causing more transaction fees…

Ugh economics twists my brain. I should stick to my signal processing and Fourier xforms. People are so much harder to account for than noise.

Ethics.4519:

Mostly people do it for look or storyline. There are some class specific skills/heals/and elites, but I don’t think they are commonly used or put into builds.

They can be a factor though if you’re a min/maxer. For example, an Engineer doesn’t really need the Sylvari seed turret, but one of the Asura racial skills puts an awesome confuse on your toolkit. It really depends on whether you’re more interested in the look and lore, or squeezing out every last drop of utility for your build.

So instead of saying I hate pets, maybe you could have proposed a new class mechanic for the new class? There’s a lot more to a class than bows and medium armor. What is the theme for the utility skills? Every profession has different weapon skills, how would the archer be different from a petless ranger?

The thread devolved into a rangers without pets discussion because that is what the original post was about as it was written: A class that can use bows without pets.

Spifnar.4712:

I’d say that the best “bundle” of goods to compare inflation to is the cost of equipping a char with L80 exotics (or masterwork or rare or some mix in between).

Its a baseline that most characters go through in their development.

Its probably pretty involved getting to that number. Crafting vs price of drops being just at a point in time being just one complication.

Which type of gear? Heavy Zerker’s? I think gear would not be a good choice because the popularity of different builds and activities change the prices frequently.

My bundle would probably have wood and ore in it – I haven’t done the research to figure out the tier for each. It makes sense to me to use those as part of the bundle because they seem less entangled with other goods (the price of harvesting tools is fixed). I’ve excluded lots of items from my bundle like ectos, but I haven’t had the time to research the price history to pick other goods that might work. Are Karka shells at equilibrium yet?

Aurisai.3416:

I speak under correction, but as I understand it the gem->gold buy rate is based on the real value of the gold. As John has put it in a previous post: i.e. 1 real gold buys a stack of ore. So if it takes 2 in-game gold to buy that ore stack, and assuming 100gems buys 1 real gold, then the rate would be 100gems->2g. So a rising gold rate implies that you are not able to buy as much with gold as you were previously. If you look at a graph showing the gold->gem and gem-> gold prices over the past 8 months, you will notice that they are perfectly proportional to each other with a loss on the gold->gem being factored in. This implies that both conversions use exactly the same real value conversion formula. So basically, if prices go higher, gem/gold conversion rates go higher.

I think you’re confusing measuring inflation (or lack of it) with how the gold/gem conversion works. The actual price for gold to gems is based on how much demand there is for the gems available in the pool, not the Real price of gold. Don’t mix up Real value, the economic term, with real money, the uh gamer term.

I think there is an expectation problem here. It didn’t take me less effort to equip my main that I’ve been playing since launch than it takes for me to equip an alt. I just have less patience for it because I’ve done it all before.

Accumulating a big pile of gold to buy a complete set of exotic gear for an alt is a shortcut. You don’t have to do it that way. You can just play the game the way you enjoy playing and upgrade a bit at a time.

Sure folks that farm or play the TP might earn ore gold per hour than I do, but the point of a game is to have fun. If you can’t have fun because you can’t buy all exotic gear or get a legendary on a time scale that’s acceptable to you, then maybe it’s time to take a break. I like GW2 because I don’t have to do the stuff I find tedious. I make progress toward the stuff I want every time I play, even if I can’t match the earnings of folks that don’t mind doing nothing but COF runs.

I don’t see how you can increase the gold/hour rate for folks that aren’t as willing to “work” at it as other folks, and aren’t willing to buy their way out of the tedious stuff with real money.

I can either suck it up and cut my lawn myself, or I can pay someone so I don’t have to do it. My fairy godmother who should be here waving a wand so I can play games on Saturday and get my lawn cut and still have my $35 has yet to make an appearance.