You guys don’t really know what you’re talking about. The economy isn’t suffering inflation. Certain items are going up because of demand, but most items are actually going down as low as they possibly can so individuals will not make much profit selling them. this is deflation. Money is becoming more valuable because there are a glut of items due to masses of bots farming and dumping.
Why has the economy utterly crashed? Why are pretty much all items except complicated to make high level stuff or the few rare dropping things selling for as low as they possibly can and its just as good to vendor stacks of things you farm?
Plain and simple, its because gold farmers. Just like most other MMOs, they’re going to eat Arenanet’s lunch if they don’t get off theirkittenand do something.
Unlike players, goldfarmers have the resources of a corporation. Because they’re not an individual they can give incentive for people to farm hours on end for what amounts to dirt in profits. Also having the resources they don’t worry if they get an account or two banned if overall they make a profit using it for botting or hacking.
And, in the end like corporations against individuals, if there isn’t a larger power standing up for the individual, the individuals are going to lose, period.
They can sell for dirt but because they have a bunch of people, they will still profit and they will own the farming market. It will not be worthwhile to players except in a few obscure niche markets.
Arenanet can do two things, but they need to do it soon. They can let the gold farmers own their game’s economy. Players will have to pay gold farmers real money to buy gold to participate, and of course buying things off the economy will just end up with the gold going back to the gold farmers. However, it won’t just be gathering that individuals are pushed out of. With a throng of employees they will push players out of any profitable crafting market too, dumping the prices there too, and then they will move to farming real drops. As happened in countless MMOs that don’t have the resources to combat it.
Arenanet can combat it, but it’s often a game of wack-a mole unless they actually put in the resources and don’t halfkitten it, or ban entire IP clusters or sometimes countries. This might end up angering some players who get accidentally targeted, or the lazy players with daddy’s credit card, but at least they’ll have an actual market, not a limp towel of a market laying on the ground.