Guild Wars 2

@LordByron: argh I posted the wrong video. I wanted to post this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1svGcx4jjCg

And you can’t compare MtG cards to Luxury Items in GW2. Because Cards are crucial to your build, while luxury items, legendaries, skins are not needed at all.

I made a Video about it:

About the term inflation: I am not an economist :S I have studied computer science. So I am pretty sure I do stuff pretty wrong. As you guys have noted, apparently I have no idea what the word “inflation” means
I basically just try to be logical. But if you guys could correct me and tell me what exactly I have measured I would love to learn more.
Especially if this could maybe used as a reference for annoying economy discussions, so I would prefer if my source is as correct and as understandable as possible.

I would also have no problem to add another section or change my texts with credits if somebody else wants to describe it better.

Thank you all for the feedback.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781

I thought about adding some skins to the item list but the problem I had was that those were introduced later. And then it is very difficult to compare previous numbers. For example if I would include the Dreamhistle Weapons, I couldn’t include almost a year of gw2.

It is easy for me to generate those charts when I got a list of items. If somebody wants to write down a list with exactly the items and quantities, I would generate a chart and post it here:

item_id, item_name, quantity

That would be cool

This is how I kept track:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqjFp3hDPMLUdHp0SnllYmhid2J3ZDBtN0RUNU5paEE#gid=0

You could create a copy of it, clear it, and sent me the link when you filled it with data, then I can add it to my data that would be really cool

@Wolf Fivousix.4319 message sent

@SageGaspar.5012 wahaaaa so awesome \o/ that is what I really love to see
See kids, math is awesome. So go back to learning!

@Ensign.2189 sorry, I have not kept track on named exotics.

Ascended Armor Features

Instead of making ascended armor stats changeable, I would rather do it by “upgrading” an ascended armor to a legendary one. Seeing it more like the precursor for legendary armor. Stat’s wouldn’t increase. The only change would be aesthetics and stat change feature.

Ascended Armor RNG/Acquiring

I think it’s fine how they are acquired right now. Maybe increase a little bit the RNG for drops, but otherwise I think we are fine.

This is an excerpt from the fractals introduction letter:

Re-live the greatest and most exciting moments from Tyria’s past as you test your strength, speed, and skill against some of the most formidable opponents from the annals of history.

What if ANet would create Fractal instances (not included in the regular fractal cycle), where you can travel to from Dessa’s Lab, to relive the past living story?

That would solve the problem of people who didn’t experience it from the beginning and it actually makes totally sence with the story of the fractals.

Of course more data would be more accurate. But if it is 1%, 0.5% or my 0.8%, it shows, that the probability is not 0.0001% and not 10%. And that is worth something, I guess

I doubt that. It wouldn’t make sense to make certain precursor probabilities higher or lower than others from a game economic design point of view.

FIY: I’ve crafted 23 Precursors. Here is my data.

I am the guy from this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj1ew3Jv6dE). I saved up to 2000g and decided to make proper statistics and don’t care about loosing the money. During this test I already crafted 9 Precursors. But wait!

I have over 750 tries now. each try consist of 4 Exotics worth 1g-2.3g (depending on the weapon type). That’s around 4500g! (calculated with average of 1.5g per Exotic). I sold each Precursor after I got it – as I said, I do this in an attempt to make some statistics so wen can really discuss in the future if the % is too low or ok.
That said I feel like I was a bit lucky here too. So that’s not enough data yet. The % varied from 0.4% up to 1.5% – everybody who knows math knows that’s insane. So I will produce more data, sell precrusors on the TP (maybe prices drop) and I will keep doing this until I am broke.

And my suggestion is. Don’t gamble for a precursors if you want one. The prices have been very stable now for several months and for a dedicated player it is easy to farm this money in that time.

So I decided to use my gold to make statistics about the probability of precursors. I expect to loose my money – so don’t try this at home.

Well. After a while, this happens. You can imagine at first I was soooo happy which then was crushed by reality.

I am so dumb But I guess it would have been unfair to get two that fast anyway. This is how evil Zomorro is.

1: Ascended Items / Crafting – more awesome skins, new receipts, new legendaries, ARMOR,…
2: Living World – more subtle story updates like the cut forest in Kessex Hill. And more Story about the Elder Dragons
3: Dungeons – more difficult dungeons. UW maybe

I didn’t say that. It’s just the most obvious reason why they would want to implement a flooding protection.

I do this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcuQqclFzog

Just found a trick to circumvent the protection :P

If they wanted to stop TP analysis and automatic trading, they failed.

Can confirm this. When you look at the response you will actually see this:

 {"code":3005,"product":1014,"module":8000,"line":972,"text":"StsGate: request flooding {Game.gw2.Trade/GetListings}, ... 

It seems they implemented a DoS prevention feature and only allow a certain amount of request per timeframe.

juno.1840:

Buying pushing prices up… selling pushes them back down.

Where it breaks down is the complete purchase of the current supply with limited supply coming into the system. You can argue this is supply and demand, but the demand in this case is initially manipulated by a small set of players buying up all the stock then letting it back out slowly, at higher prices.

You don’t get it. If they slowly release them, there is still supply and when people buy it, then this is the value of the item. Nobody forces them to buy it. They buy it, because they think it’s worth it. When the prices were lower before only means, that they were undervalued. What’s so difficult to understand? They wouldn’t sell on higher prices, when this is not their value. Demand and supply curves will meet:

[img]http://blog.phonesandplans.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/demand-supply-curve.jpg[/img]

Yes there are people who buy the items on high prices. But they can’t sell everything. So they have to lower the price, until more buys them. If they can sell everything high, then this is the intersection.

The problem in the real world with diamond and oil market manipulation is, that there are other economies which need them. You can’t stop buying oil or diamonds. But in this MMO economy (in this example the stated halloween items) are soulbound after use. And only a skin. Nobody needs them. They are pure luxury. Therefore you can’t force people in paying higher prices. If they do, they do it because they undertsand the high value too.

juno.1840:

I would love to see some statistics from ANet on the economy. One insightful metric would be the distribution of wealth in the player base.

Which would say what? It would only say, that some people are beter at trading than you. Just because somebody has money doesn’t make him a manipulator.

Malediktus.9250 you should take an economy class.

Malediktus.9250:

I laugh at people who think buying low and selling high is a honest way to make money. You raise the price for people who want to buy items for personal use and add nothing to the economy, except maybe removing some money by paying the trade taxes.

Can you please explain, why buying low, selling high would push the prices up?

1. in GW1 people were “tricked” in low prices to buy them cheap. and others were “tricked” i paying much. This is definitely not a healthy economy
2. in GW2 every player sees the price of an item (same information base for everybody) and therefore traders can’t use the information only they knew (the real value of items) and turn it into profit.

You also underestimate the “remove some money by taxes”… One trader can remove hundreds of gold each day from the economy. I have probably payed several thousand golds in taxes. Tell me how this doesn’t help economy.

I don’t think halloween items will have a big value in 9 Months… It has somehow an elite factor during the event. “Look at me! I have one of these super rare event weapons”… in 9 months not many people will be interested in them (except some collectors)… But this is just my opinion on that.

Dromar.1027:

tl;dr: bots and gold sellers are the problem. May Anet strike them all down with lightning.

exactly. thanks.

Traders remove a lot of gold from the economy. Stocking up single items, like useless halloween skins doesn’t do any damage at all.

Having a market is essential for an MMO. Or have you seen one without? If anet would not provide something like the TP, people would trade with each other and create a market/economy this way. What do you think why anet chose something like a global TP. Because this provides every player with all the information needed. It stabilises the overall economy which helps regular players.

The purpose of the TP is to stabelise the economy and to remove gold.

This is wrong. Have you tried to obtain a precursor on your own? This is our google docs sheet where we keep track on our trys in the forge: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqjFp3hDPMLUdF9KdDNKR0dXSWxSRHotVGpUSVJpM2c#gid=0
Look on what we threw in. We haven’t got a precursor. It seems, that the prices of precursors found now their real value. And what happend was, the prices were too low in the beginning and some people recognised it and bought them, before everybody realizes that the prices has to be much higher.

Which usually will not happen. Because there is still supply on crafting them. And in order to push prices up, you also need to push the materials up. Not to mention, that these materials are also needed for other stuff. And then you get these huge net of connected materials which influence each other.

I have Sunrise (which costs 700-1000g) and still have more than 130g. And don’t forget the 2000 rare GS I threw into the forge and didn’t get a precursor. Just because you weren’t able to farm this money, doesn’t mean it can’t be done through trading without botting and so forth.

You can set the own price, but item’s wont sell when the people don’t see the same value in it. It’s still a luxury item. And if it sells with a higher price, that’s the price for it. gooosh. This is how economy works and is not manipulation.

The only possible market manipulation is releasing false information to increase/decrease demand or offer of items. But this doens’t affect you if you don’t fall for it. And economy recovers fast after such an incident.

And again. When the items sell with a higher price, the price was too low before.

I din’t compared the whole economy to the real world. I just compared to the difference between luxury items and consumable goods… Weapon Skins are not comparable to Ore. Ores are somehow a needed item. But weapon skins are inly luxury. If the price is too high, there is no demand. If prices for ore are too high, there is still demand, because people need it.
But when you come and tell me, that somebody with only 1000g can “manipulate” the ore market. I would argue, that the global market would regenaret really fast. Because the supply of ores is really high.
If you argue that somebody could control lodestones. Then I would tell you the same story of skins (because lodestones are only needed for luxury items like skins)…

I don’t complain about whiners in general, because I’m a whiner too. I just don’t like claims with no evidence…

I just ignore these stupid anet support rants. You argue like politicians. Without content and just empty phrases.

@Morrar.1764:
ok… let us assume, somebody bought 80% and relisted them higher to “manipulate” the market.
Two possible things can happen:

1. He can sell them. Which means the prices were too low in the first place and their value was in fact higher

2. He can’t sell them. Which means the prices he chose were too high and he has to lower them.

I don’t see a problem here. Nevertheless, my opinion is, that this was normal market behaviour because of the ending of halloween.

These items are “luxury” items. Compare it in the realworld to an Apple Laptop. You don’t need them.

We have a global market. With 2million(?) players. Maybe 100.000 really active. Maybe 1.000 of them have more than 100g. And maybe 100 of them really want to buy a halloween weapon. These are wild guesses, but just because there were like 50 weapons bought doesn’t mean anything. I also know people (and this includes my self) with “panic” buys. You see the price slowly increasing and you panic, because you wanted to buy it. So you buy it before it’s too high.

I always think about methods to manipulate the market but I can’t find really good examples. Could you please describe what you could do, to control the market AND make a profit out of it? So we can discuss what would or wouldn’t happen if somebody does it.

Playing the market != manipulating it

Could you please describe why the spread would happen, so we can discuss about that?

I don’t see any evidence in markt manipulation. I’m sick of all the comments about market manipulation. I’ve never seen any evidence for something like that. And I spent a lot of time only trading and made a lot of gold. So please. Provide evidence, that there is such a thing.

And then the next step is, tell us why is it bad. And why it is harmful.

I’ve put together a small video with my Guardian and Sunrise. I think it’s the Most Beautiful Legendary in the game. The Effects are just aweome.
Sunrise > Twilight!

I experienced the same thing. But some hours/days later, the money arrived with other sells I made. The BLTC was on maintenance yesterday, because of the huge server load, I think you should just wait a bit and sell other stuff.

(I have sold thousands of items. And never lost money, even when it didn’t arrive directly)

And we both got our legendary today on the same server

Let’s get sentimental <3

push thread with an offer of 1g

argh… I missed the previous uncontestd server…

a sad push :’(

Any new uncontested Servers?

Because I was so desperate yesterday, I changed to a random server. I have to wait for 6 hours now T_T

Congratulations to you all

My Sunrise will be a bit delayed…

A small group doesn’t mean you will fail. The event scales. And when there are only a few people, the additional champion will not spawn and Balthazar takes a lot more damage. We failed yesterday at 5% HP with ~10 people.

Also searching for one

you have not put enough items into the forge to actually say something about the rate.

I’ve never observed that. I threw in hundreds/thousands of rares. Probably you just missed the tooltip or something.

I could act as a middleman. I have proven my trustworthy with the Dusk vs. Dawn trade (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/crafting/Trading-Dawn-for-Dusk/first#post516918).

You know. Trading is profitable

I think one of the aspects why the other guy trusted me, was because of my fast screenshot in the forum, with a picture of my inventory+bank. It showed that I’ve played my character a lot. And It’s not a fake account for scamming.

And keep in mind, that you can always say no
good luck

We used ~3000 Rare GS. And sold the Exotics. This is our collected data so far:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqjFp3hDPMLUdF9KdDNKR0dXSWxSRHotVGpUSVJpM2c

We have traded our swords. everything was fine. He also sent it first.
Thanks again

<3 the Community

my proof Screenshot as requested.