The basic idea is an in-game window you can pull up to see what the skin of any item will look like, so that you can easily browse through all the skins and decide which ones you want for your character.
The specifics
The preview window should have a few buttons added to it to make the preview character move so you can see things like a trail left behind your weapon swing.
In the preview center you first chose which type of item you want to preview (sword, light head armor, etc). Then it displays a list of all the sets* with that item in them, with the exception of things like cultural armor that your character can’t wear. Items that merely require a lot of work (Legendary weapons, HoM items, etc) will still be listed.
If an item isn’t in a set, then it should be treated as being in a set on its own.
When you select a set you get a list of all the items in that set. Alongside each item is three buttons:
– One to add the item to the preview window.
– One to open up the items wiki page.
– One to search for the item on the trading post, if the item can be traded. If not, this button will not be present.
Since this preview center is designed to help you decide on your characters appearance, item stats will not be listed. The stats will only show if the player opens up the trading post or someone lists them on the wiki page.
As new items are added to GW2, ANET has two options for when they go into the preview center:
– When a player first acquires the item.
– When the item is added.
Either way, the wiki page linked to won’t exist until players get to work on it.
*By set I mean things like Peacemaker’s weapons or Aristocrat armor. Sets of items with a common theme.
My understanding is that when you report someone, no action is taken until someone from ANET looks at the report and makes a decision. Anything else would be stupid.
If you make too many false reports, you get punished. I don’t know the exact punishments yet, probably a warning for the first time.
I Necros I was recently banned for “botting”, being reported in Cursed shore. Considering that I play with this guildie a lot, and I can definitely say he is NOT using a bot program of any sort,
Automatic bot detection does trigger false positives.
Another instance is a fellow commander in our guild. I can’t see how he was told to rename himself 2-3 times for a name that wasn’t, in my eyes, or most of our guilds, inappropriate. His name started with “soviet”. "Soviet” is derived from a Russian word signifying council, assembly, advice, harmony, concord. Yes, it was followed by a country name such as china or cuba, but I don’t see how this is offensive.
Soviet Russia was a horrible place. People don’t want to be reminded of it, nor to see suggestions that other countries copying it is a good idea.
As for the name reports, that needs to be brought to public attention, imo. I’ve seen people come back from renaming or bans, telling everyone what they’re original name was, and having an entire map wondering who would be so sensitive or troll enough to report them.
People lie about why they were banned. Just do a text search for ‘not ok’ and start laughing.
Why would any company host a poll that might result in bad changes and be forced to respond with, to use the OP’s words, “you asked for it”?
That won’t happen unless:
– ANET makes the polls binding on themselves.
– ANET makes a poll asking if something they don’t plan to add is a good idea.
I can’t see either of those conditions being true.
Even worse: The forum can’t handle long threads. Instead the page a post is on, and the page the forum thinks it’s on gets out of sync. Ever opened a thread to only see the page numbers ?
That’s because the bug has hit.
ANET, we are your customers. If we are upset, trying to sweep out messages away only makes us angry. Make us angry and we stop being customers.
Agreed. Look at all the rage around ascended gear. Look at all the rage around one time only events.
Had ANET tried to gather feedback first, they rage would have come early enough for ANET to back off. But, now that ANET has put development time into them, backing off means they have to push on or throw that investment away. So they push on and the rage gets stronger till it becomes a rage quit.
These quotes are the reason Ascended is a big deal:
“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
Fun impacts loot collection. The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.”
– Colin Johanson
Finally, since combat is such a core part of the gameplay of any MMO, we’ve put a lot of emphasis into rethinking combat. So much of traditional MMO combat is rote and repetitive. You execute the same strategy over and over again, just augmented over time with better and better gear. After a while it starts to feel like you’re playing a spreadsheet. Combat needs to be about making creative choices, and it needs to feel immediate, active, and visceral.
-Mike O’Brien
Ascended gear looks like ANET is breaking these promises. So we will complain because those promises were a major reason why we bought GW2.
This extremely dangerous condition ticks percentages of player health away and can’t be cleansed by normal means
Agony is sustained damage. So you need to outheal it. The more HP you have, the more damage it does to you, so the harder it is to outheal it.
If you want to spend trait points on healing power, you have to also spend them on vitality. And we start with a higher HP.
I really like the way Aion handled this. No authenticator is needed. You have 1 password to log in and a separate PIN for each char. The PIN is entered via an on-screen keypad which is arranged differently every time it appears. You can’t use the keyboard, so it can’t be captured via a keylogger.
This message was brought to you by a Kitten with a Keyboard
Not a simple keylogger. But it can be caught by a keylogger that has enough image recognition capability to tell the difference between the keys on the virtual keyboard.
I also don’t want another item race á la every other MMO just to be able to compete in WvW. I really hope the new tiers of gear are prevented from being worn in WvW!
Then there would be a lot more people complaining about lack of room in their inventory for multiple gear sets. Especially the people who have a legendary, since they have to chose between statting it for PvE, or statting it for WvW.
Some quotes from ANET about gear made before release:
“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”
-Mike Obrien, President of Arenanet
Fun impacts loot collection. The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.”
– Colin Johanson
Finally, since combat is such a core part of the gameplay of any MMO, we’ve put a lot of emphasis into rethinking combat. So much of traditional MMO combat is rote and repetitive. You execute the same strategy over and over again, just augmented over time with better and better gear. After a while it starts to feel like you’re playing a spreadsheet. Combat needs to be about making creative choices, and it needs to feel immediate, active, and visceral.
-Mike O’Brien
At what point can we complain about false advertising ?
If ANET adds a bank pin, the people hijacking accounts will just grab the pin when they keylog/phish you. So it won’t make anything more secure, but will make it more annoying for people trying to access their own stuff.
This kind of security theater is pointless. Unlike an authenticator, which does make things more secure.
They actually do this in Runescape and it works awesome. It’s an onscreen prompt where you click the numbers and the prompt randomly regenerates/swaps the numbers positions on each button press. You also only input it the first time you access the bank each time you log on. It’s really no more of an inconvenience than the mobile authenticator.
An onscreen prompt is far more annoying to use than typing on a keyboard. Especially when the layout keeps changing. But that’s not my problem with the pin. My problem is that a pin doesn’t make anything more secure because like the username and password, it is only another knowledge factor.
A keylogger can break it by screenshots as you select the numbers. Or throw in some very simple image recognition software to identify which of the keys you clicked on from the list of all the keys.
A phisher just needs to ask for the pin when they ask for the rest of your information.
In both cases, it’s only a minor change to how they grab the username and password.
An authenticator works because it isn’t a knowledge factor. It’s a possession factor. To break through an authenticators security the attacker needs to do one of the following:
– Steal your authenticator
– Predict the next code the authenticator spits out. Which means knowing the algorithm, and enough previous codes you have used to know the algorithms internal states.
This is on top of how they steal your username and password. So the authenticator adds security, because it adds another thing the attacker needs to do to break in.
Go read up on Two Factor authentication. That is what the authenticator offers.
Now read about Security theater. That is what the pin offers. The appearance of being more secure, without actually improving security.
If ANET adds a bank pin, the people hijacking accounts will just grab the pin when they keylog/phish you. So it won’t make anything more secure, but will make it more annoying for people trying to access their own stuff.
This kind of security theater is pointless. Unlike an authenticator, which does make things more secure.
One time events are cool. They should always have these like once per month. If people think other things are more important then fine, you miss it, but don’t mess up with the people who think this is more important and clear up their schedule for attending to it.
Thing is, Ameraicans have a much easier time clearing their schedule than Oceanic players do.
Now we run into another issue affecting Aus an NZ players: Regional price gouging. Meaning that, unless we bought through the official website, they paid more than Americans. This gouging isn’t ANET’s fault, but it’s still there.
Yet Americans get the better game, because they have a much easier time making the event.
You can take a few hours off from work,
The Mad King cutscene was not worth missing work, even if ANET had given enough notice so that we could apply for a day off.
How do we know how much time we need to take off work before the event ?
Why should some players, players who probably paid more for GW2, sacrifice even more of their income to ANET ?
Especially after ANET’s first one was described as something we shouldn’t miss by ANET staff, but failed to live up to that.
you cna spend one night without sleeping, etc.
Not if we have other obligations, like young children.
So don’t come up with stupid RL events excuses because unless they happen as an accident, they can all be rescheduled.
Not as easily as you think they can be.
“Where were you when Mad King Thorn blew out Lion’s Arch.”
Logged out or standing around the fountain in Lion’s Arch, because we all knew something would happen.
Please do not listen to the OP! One time events are what will set this game apart from the casual fest that it is now. People need incentive to log on.
The GW1 events, which were repeated every three hours, were an incentive to log in.
WoW’s phasing would allow this events to happen for everyone, even if reversing their effect doesn’t make sense.
Scheduling each event at a different time would be a comprise to show that they are trying to treat everyone equally.
The event the OP is talking about wasn’t even 1-time, it was just the cinematic for it, I saw the same event, without a cinematic, 4 times or so the day the Mad King dungeon was up…
Lucky you. You found a beneficial bug. Pity the Lost Shores one time event is a chain of events lasting several hours. So that bug is only going to make them worse.
How about A-Net puts these one time events in the game and never announce about it. That would feel much better isn’t it?
The problem with the one time events is that, no matter when ANET schedules it, there will always be a significant number of people who can’t make it. People who paid the same as the players who did make it, probably even more when you consider the price gouging video games get in Aus and NZ*.
So why do you suggest something that would have even more people miss out ?
*Buying GW2 directly from the official online store didn’t have any gouging. Buying GW2 from anywhere else, including physical retailers, did.
Now, when they give you time to reschedule other obligations if you want to make it to the game events, people only complain.
Because rescheduling isn’t an option for many of us. When talking about Oceanic countries, you are talking about countries where the event happens on a monday morning. So, to make the event, we will need to miss work and/or sleep.
The one time event for introducing new content to the game is the most innovative way of doing it then just adding a patch to the game client.
It might have been innovative the first time a game tried it. But once the problems because obvious, it becomes a bad idea.
Copying WoWs phasing would be a solution that lets ANET keep this events, while having them show for everybody. But, without that technology, one time events are just horrible because of the number of people who can’t take part.
Regarding the lost shores one time event:
The event will culminate in a big Finale on Sunday November 18, make sure you will not miss it. This will be a onetime only event chain that will run multiple hours, and it will kick off at noon PST (20:00 GMT).
It’s not going to be a simple cutscene next time. It’s going to be a long event chain.
Watching it later on youtube is not an option, unless you think watching someone else playing is the same as playing yourself.
I also want to say that don’t care how ANET repeats the event, only that they do for people who can’t make the single time. For example, if they copy WoW’s phasing to allow them to repeat events with major permanent consequences (if you don’t catch the event chain first time, you don’t see the changes till you catch it on repeat).
On the first issue: No argument there.
On the second, that would just make things even more confusing for new players by making listing for a lower price earn more money. Especially when filling a buy order means they get more coin than vendoring, but listing a sell order doesn’t. Sure, ANET could fix this with a good interface design, but we are talking about a company that thinks the listing fee isn’t part of the ‘profit’ from selling an item.
I disagree. Tyria is supposed to be ‘a living, breathing world’ and one-time events should be part of it. Besides, it’s not like the cinematic was actually that interesting.
No, it isn’t. If it was a ‘a living, breathing world’, then big events in our personal story should have an impact. Big events like the death of Zhaitan.
But that had no effect on the world. So if an event that big doesn’t have any effect, how does it make sense if any smaller events do ?
If you ignore that, you also have to consider the other issue: ANET has scheduled two one time events so far. Both at the same time of the week. Which means the people who missed out on the first one are very likely to miss out on the second. Probably all the others as well because the first two were timed to be shown to the widest possible audience.
So anyone from Oceanic countries is treated worse by ANET than everyone else, simply because of the country they live in. I can accept the first instance as a mistake. But not the second as ANET had plenty of time to see the complaints and reschedule it. But they decided not to, meaning this second class treatment of Oceanic countries is intentional.
Actually, the flying pathfinding should be much simpler than I said previously. ANET just needs to copy the underwater pathfinding code.
When i get a rare drop from a dungeon i do not want 15% of the profit from it sucked up, especially with all of the expensive gear running round, Cultural, Legendary, ect.
For the long term health of the GW2 economy, it is essential that the 15% tax is taken from everyone. Your greed is a very poor reason to harm the economy as a whole.
Okay that makes fair sense, but why not add trading to the game?
Because ANET decided that secure player to player trading is net detriment to GW2.
For example, have you ever seen an MMO with trade spam as infrequent as it is here ?
I haven’t. The reason for the lack of trade spam is that, with no way to safely trade, the payoff to the spammer is vastly reduced.
edit: and what items do people usually buy to play the ah
Something that hasn’t been publicly recommended as a good idem to manipulate. Because if it becomes a public recommendation, the flood of people trying to manipulate it makes it unprofitable to manipulate.
But flying pathfinding is much simpler:
– Plot a straight line along the ground to the target.
– If there is anything in the way, adjust the flightpath to go over it.
whats the point of doing so i mean why should i sell something in TP and get less
plus the wait till it is buyed when i can sell in vendor for better profit ?
If your bags are full, with nothing worth sticking on the TP, you have a choice between trashing the item for nothing, or sticking it on the TP and getting something back. If you are in that situation, TPing for less than vendor price is rational.
Though I haven’t been in that situation. I’ve only ever had a full inventory once, and I had plenty of things I could TP for well above vendor price at the time. And that full inventory was on a character with a full set of 10 slot bags, no extra slots. With 15 slot bags I’ve never even come close to a full inventory.
Orders for items must be higher than vendor value.
Read my OP again. The limit being merely greater than vendor value is a nonsensical position. Raising it so that all sales earn the seller more than vendor price makes sense. Removing the limit makes sense.
Having a minimum price limit that allows setting a price where you earn less than vendor price does not.
And you should stop using ‘carebear’ for systems that prevent unfair exploitation of others.
Carebear is a very subjective term. After playing lots of Eve Online, I’m used to having enough tool that when I get scammed, I know it’s because I trusted someone that I shouldn’t, or wasn’t paying attention to all the information available to me. I also know that the GMs will take no action against the scammer.
I also needed a name for each option. Carebear was the first to come to mind.
“Carebear” should be used for things that are overprotective, with no risk at all, corny, tacky and too colorful.
A minimum price limit is overprotective, as all the information is available to everyone. So if someone gets less than vendor price after fees, it’s their fault for not paying attention. A minimum price means they don’t have to pay attention. My proposed increase to the minimum price is even more carebear.
For risk, the increased minimum price will stop people risking an item sells when they can get more from vendoring.
When something is fair and logical, it’s not ‘carebear’ its proper.
So I take it you would prefer the increased minimum price to removal of the price limits ?
The other day I say some cliff bats above me at the top of a cliff. I started shooting at one. It approached the cliff edge, stopped, then went invulnerable because it couldn’t find a path to me.
Problem is, it’s a bat. It has wings. The only time it isn’t flying is when it’s dead or knocked down. It should have no trouble traveling up and down the cliff without injury.
The ‘events’ in question are pretty much just little video cut scenes that you can look up on Youtube if you missed it.
Halloween Act 3 was. As for Lost Shores:
The event will culminate in a big Finale on Sunday November 18, make sure you will not miss it. This will be a onetime only event chain that will run multiple hours, and it will kick off at noon PST (20:00 GMT)
That sounds a lot more involving that a cutscene.
If you knew you didn’t have the time for a video game, why did you buy one?
I mean it took me 5 minutes (15 minutes for second act) to get my Mad King Memoires.
He’s not talking about that. The book is fine.
He’s talking about the things that you can only experience if you show up at the exact time they are scheduled for. Which for me is 8am on a monday morning.
Worst case scenario, you wait next Halloween…
Why would it be scheduled at a better time next year ?
They said they picked the time of week with the most people online. That isn’t going to change.
So what, just patch the content in and be done? No offence, but you sound like a child complaining because someone can have something you can’t. This coming from someone who won’t be attending the event because l’m on 12 hour shifts Sat and Sun.
Because one time events divide the population into two groups:
– The people who can make it. They can probably make most of them.
– The people who, due to various reasons like living in the wrong country, can’t. So, because you live in the wrong country, you become a second class of customer in ANET’s eyes because, unless ANET schedules one at a different time, they can’t make any of them.
2) Rather than being spiteful, I’d congratulate ANet for putting effort into the content delivery rather than just patching it in and being done with it.
How about they take the money used to create the one time events and instead use it to produce better content for everyone.
Remember, ANet wanted to create a living, breathing world. And like any living world, you’ll have events you won’t be able to take part of, and that creates a sort of history that the players are a part of.
Tell me, what kind of event could create a bigger change on the world than the death of an Eldar dragon ?
Because that didn’t have any change on the world that we could see. So ANET isn’t even being consistent in which events change things, and which don’t.
Which is one of the problems writing for an MMO. A problem that anyone writing one time events doesn’t grasp, making their writing bad because they aren’t thinking about the limitations of the medium they are writing for.
Now take someone who can make the time ANET schedules these events to run. What events are they missing out on ?
Because ANET’s algorithm determines the prices. How does it do this ?
ANET won’t say.
The tax is there to keep prices stable by reducing inflation. Just like any other gold sink. However the tax has one very useful feature that other gold sinks lack: The higher prices get, the more effective the gold sink is. Meaning that when the developer doesn’t correctly balance the sinks against the gold creation methods, the tax will automatically adjust to compensate.
So the tax stays.
This is a growing problem, people want items for 1 Copper. When people can’t sell them since they can’t be sold under “Normal” value..
So that item is now stuck, and the Buyer have to remove it to fix it..
That’s a different issue. Last I checked you could no longer create those low buy orders. But you used to be able to, and ANET hasn’t found a way to purge them yet.
Chances are some of the people who placed those orders have stopped playing, so the orders will never be manually removed. Or they forgot that they have placed the order.
Giving orders a maximum duration, say 30 days, would fix that. But it would still cause problems if ANET raises the minimum price, as there would be sell orders below the new minimum that can’t be filled because buy orders that low are blocked. So I’d suggest that the new limit is first applied to sell orders only. Wait until enough time has passed for all sell orders made before the limit change to expire. Then limit buy orders.
Add some variance to the starting time of one-time events.
in Suggestions
Posted by: Snoring Sleepwalker.9073
i like the idea of one time events. it makes the world seem more real. i might not be in it but life goes on. so long as i can figure out what the hell happened i dont mind and preferr this. be there or miss out. but repetitive events are far less special, less enjoyable and er…. repetitive.
No they don’t. What makes the world seem more real are the small details that show the day to day life of NPCs.
World changing events don’t do that. Especially when some events that should be world changing aren’t. For example,
Zhaitan's death or when you help purge Orr of corruption
If those big events aren’t world changing, how can you justify smaller events leaving a permanent mark on the world ?
Wouldn’t be a one-time event then eh? It doesn’t make much sense to have an event that actually changes the world happen twice, although I see that’s a problem for a lot of people. ANet could shift the time the event happens per server. That would require a working guest function first though.
When the death of an eldar dragon isn’t a world changing event, I don’t see how any world changing event can’t make sense in comparison.
First of all, it is an American company. They are not purposely sitting around trying to come up with ways to hack off people in other countries.
As soon as it’s pointed out how one time events punish people living in the wrong countries they quickly fall into two groups:
– Those too far along in production to change.
– Those which can be changed. But ANET chooses not to change them, meaning ANET chooses to keep those countries out of them.
sylvari dont have real genders though so it’s not like it counts really.
Yes, they do. And I’d say it does “count,” for whatever it’s supposed to “count” for.
As I understand it, gender only counts for reproductive purposes. But the Sylvari don’t reproduce sexually. So gender doesn’t count for them.
How are homosexual relationships presented for the other races ?
Because I haven’t noticed any. Then again, I haven’t been looking, so I can easily miss them.
You guys realize that the only truly one time event is the one on the Sunday? And even that runs for multiple hours, so you have plenty of time to experience it.
Given that it kicks off around 3 am – 7am on a Monday for Oceanic Players, anyone who’s schooling or working would probably be able to log-in only roughly 12 hours or more after the one-time event chain begins in the U.S. . I sure hope they took that into consideration considering the amount of negative feedback they received during the Halloween Event (granted it was only a cutscene then, but who knows what this one may be?).
Something a writer thinks is ‘epic’. Something that this writer thinks is worth permanently changing the world, even when the death of an Eldar Dragon isn’t.
In other words, bad writing.
The value of an item is whatever the seller is willing to take in order to part with the item and whatever coin the buyer is willing to spend to acquire it. Both depend on the person involved in the transaction and should not be regulated by the government (or, in this case, ANet).
The vendor price is as close to an inherent worth as you can ever get: A seller who is guaranteed to buy unlimited amounts of that item for a fixed price.
What’s the difference between an inherent value and a minimum price backed up by an all-powerful god ?
I am not hurting myself when I list an item for vendor price +1c or for less than the cost of crafting an item:
- Vendor +1c: if there’s no nearby merchant, this is better than salvaging.
But it isn’t better than selling to the vendor. Unless your inventory is so full that you have to chose between trashing it or sticking it on the TP.
In which case you should try to empty your inventory more often so that stops happening.
- Crafting costs: I already received value for crafting an item: I got experience, learned a recipe, and increased my rank. Getting any money back is a bonus.
What does cost of acquisition have to do with it ?
That’s a sunk cost. Thus it no longer matters.
Requiring items to sell at a minimum of Vendor + 1c is a compromise between regulation and a perfectly free market. In my opinion, the only market protection that ANet should consider is preventing people from asking more than vendor price for items that are only available from merchants, notably the trait manuals and the various runes of holding.
By compromise, you mean a nonsensical decision that satisfies nobody ?
Because that’s what we have here. If the point of the price floor was to protect people who don’t understand the TP fees, then it should be at a level that guarantees they will get at least vendor price if the item sells.
No price floor makes sense. Free market and the full inventory tradeoff by people who don’t have the discipline to prevent it happening.
But vendor +1c doesn’t make any sense. It hinders the free market, while failing to protect anyone.
I don’t care which why ANET moves away from the vendor+1c limit, as both make sense. I just want them to move.
Add some variance to the starting time of one-time events.
in Suggestions
Posted by: Snoring Sleepwalker.9073
A simple solution would be the local time for each region to be the start time. For instance, if it is Noon, make it Noon local time for East Coast, Pacific, Asian, European, etc.
Makes more sense to use the local time than just one time zone.
Which of the US servers runs on which US timezone ?
Which servers run oceanic timezones ?
This solution doesn’t seem simple to me.
A better way will be to get rid of one time event or place it on Saturdays so that its unlikely for people to miss out due to time zone issue.
ANET says they picked the time for the opening of halloween act 3 because their login data showed it to be the most active time of the week. So a shift to saturday will exclude more people than their current selection.
Add some variance to the starting time of one-time events.
in Suggestions
Posted by: Snoring Sleepwalker.9073
The problem is not when they schedule the dynamic events. There will always be someone who misses out, and scheduled when they are they get the most people.
No, the problem is that ANET thinks one time only events are a good idea. Despite it being impossible to schedule them in a way that doesn’t force people to miss out, thus treating those players as second class citizens.
I say get rid of the one time only events entirely. If ANET can’t write an event so that repeating it makes sense, then they should throw that idea away for being badly written.
Currently the Trading Post has a minimum allowed price for listed items. Problem is the current location of the limit of 1c above vendor price makes no sense, something I’ve posted about before.
As I see it, there are three positions for the price floor that make sense. So I want ANET to move the trading post over to one of those positions.
Understand or suffer
This is the one with no minimum price restriction. Let people buy vendor trash for less than the vendor price and profit off vendoring them.
As for the people who don’t understand the market, this option will hurt them
Carebear price limit, with possible consideration for bulk sales.
Basically, everyone is forced to list items for a price that guarantees the seller will receive at least 1 copper more than vendor price after the listing fee, sales tax, and rounding.
For buy orders prices would have to be greater than (vendor price/0.85) AND greater than (vendor price + 2), since they have to assume the sellers will sell one item at a time. Note I used greater than, not greater than or equal to.
For sell orders, it’s a bit more complex when you think about rounding of bulk sell orders. Lets take an item with a vendor price of 5 copper as an example. The minimum price a seller could list a single unit is 8, since the listing fee and sales tax will both round up to a whole copper, leaving a net profit of 6 copper.
For bulk sales, rounding gives a discount. Lets say someone is listing 250 units at 7 copper each:
– If they vendor them, they would get 1,250 copper. So that is the final profit to beat.
– Listing them all at 7 copper would have a total revenue of 1,750
– The 5% listing fee is 87.5, which rounds to 88.
– 10% of the total price is 175. But that’s only if they all sell in one transaction. If they all sell individually, then each one has a sales tax of 7*0.1 = 0.7, which rounds to 1. So a total sales tax of 250 copper.
– revenue – listing fee – highest potential sales tax = profit.
– 1,750-88-250 = 1,412 copper. Which is higher than vendoring them, but only when sold in bulk.
I don’t care which way ANET goes, only that they pick one that makes sense. Which the current price limit doesn’t.
If they go with the carebear price floor, but don’t add code to deal with bulk transactions, that’s also fine as I can see the argument against bulk discounts.
Going the carebear price limit will require removing all orders below the new limit.
You should have all seen the crafting stations that exist outside the cities. How many of you have used them ?
I haven’t because, with no TP access nearby, they are useless to me.
Show some sense in which Orr karma vendor has which stats
in Suggestions
Posted by: Snoring Sleepwalker.9073
I just saw this image after it was posted on Reddit
Medium armor wearers can get a full set of rabid or magi armor. But not soldier, as none of the vendors have the leg armor. Light armor only comes in Magi, two sets are incomplete. As for heavy, no complete sets there. That’s pretty messed up.
I’d like to see the stats straightened out. Several options come to mind:
– Redistribute the stats so each piece is available from two of the vendors.
– Add three more stat options to the mix. Then have each karma vendor stock a different one (eg grenth has rabid, Blath has soldier), one that matches the rune.
– Add three more stat sets. Each piece is available in one temple, but to get a full set of one stat, you need to visit each of the vendors.
– Add all the stat combinations. Each karma vendor will stock all of them, but only in one armor piece.
At the very least, there should be some pattern to the arrangement and if one piece of a stat combination is available, then all pieces of that stat combination are available.
All the character creation options should be available later in the game.
Sure, you could keep your initial one. If you realize that you can’t get a second copy before you delete it. But that doesn’t help people who chose one on creation, get to level 80, then change their mind about which they prefer.
If you don’t want to buy them, get them with karma or from random drops (if you don’t get the weapons you want, you can always use the Mystic Forge roulette).
Spending the karma at low levels means I don’t have it saved for my exotics or the skins I’m applying to my exotics.
Using drops is an option, unless the drop is bind on equip. If it is, I can’t sell it later, so it still costs me to equip the weapon. Once I start sticking sigils on them, they all become soulbound.
As for the mystic forge, I don’t like gambling. I’ll just TP the stuff other people want to buy and gamble with.
At most I’ll change which weapons I’m using every 5 levels when I upgrade my gear. Currently on GS, will try hammer next.
WvW does require ranged weapons for things like removing siege from walls. So far I’ve been using staff for that since it comes with a high uptime swiftness, but would scepter work better ?
If so, which offhand ?
Of course, it’s not just the anonymity. Adding seller names to the TP wouldn’t do much at all. However, if you were not given a straight-up cheapest option, but you rather had to go look for it, such as in the case of player shops,
I’m going to stop reading your example right here, as player shops are the worst trading system I’ve seen:
– They give an advantage to whichever shops get the first spots.
– As the number of shops increases, the time it takes to find the shops selling what you’re after at any price goes up. Unless you add a search function, but that destroys the distinction between shops.
– The most accurate name for most stores is “my miscellaneous stuff”, because most people are just selling the random stuff they’ve picked up. Now, whichever game you player might give incentives to specialize your store, but GW2 doesn’t.
If you want to give an example, use a system that treats everyone fairly and scales well as the game population increases.
Now that I think about it, how many games have a trading system that comes close to the number of players that the trading post handles ?
WoW has more total players. But the auction house is server specific, meaning it handles a lot fewer players.
Eve Online has the largest number of people on a single server. But that is still way less players than GW2 has, the in-game location of each sale matters (reducing the number of players than any specific regions market handles) and the GW2 trading post is a pretty obvious copy of the Eve Online markets.
Whoever is in third place is going to have way less players on each server than Eve Online does.
And in a setting like that, undercutting is unnecessary effort that only makes you look bad, which in turn costs you customers.
How does offering a lower price make you look bad to your customers ?
Well let’s see. Firstly, you’re not actually giving more information. You’re just making it easier to access.
For most players, making it easier to access is the same as giving the same information, because they don’t want to spend the time necessary to find it.
You are however, taking away the information about the sellers.
I can only think of one reason why I ever would care about who is selling the information: When the game make it hard to find people supplying something I need regularly. Then I’ll make a note of who supplies it, just so I can get it quicker.
But that won’t happen with the trading post, as it only takes a few seconds to list the best prices. So there is no advantage to me of sticking with the same supplier. Since there is no advantage to sticking to a single supplier, why should I care about the sellers name ?
Secondly, you stated that you’re unlikely to trade with the same people again in a less anonymous system: I spent the past 2 years trading in a system like that and I experienced the opposite:
What barriers to entry did that game put in the way of your competitors ?
I am not saying that undercutting is a completely evil thing. In fact, undercutting promotes stability and often makes it impossible for a single person to take advantage of a market shortage. Both of these are good things.
Good.
However, undercutting in a system where the price is everything results in ridiculous competition for the lowest price. This is obvious when you look at how many items in the Trading Post are priced at 0-1 copper over the vendoring value.
I don’t see that as an obvious problem. What I see is you looking at the price of vendor trash, then trying to say that since it’s not worth selling, there is a problem with the entire economy.
If there are any problems there, it’s that the supply of vendor trash greatly exceeds the demand, some players are stupid, and ANET is hiding the TP fees.
The trading post makes it easy to list vendor trash, so it becomes worthwhile to list an item even if it will only get them a single copper above vendor price. Sure, it may take months to sell, but it only took a few seconds of their time.
Tell me, what happens to vendor trash in other games ?
It gets sold to NPCs for a fixed price because it isn’t worth selling. Why should I expect it to have a price at anything other than rock bottom ?
Now we get into the stupidity/hidden info, which makes people think that selling an item for 1c above vendor will give them more than vendoring because they don’t understand how the trading post fees work. Nothing can be done against the stupidity, but hiding the TP fees is something ANET needs to work on.
Basically, I’m after build suggestions to use while leveling that will teach me good habits, not bad ones (for example, I’m avoiding signets because they let me ignore utility slots). Preferably ones that are useful in WvW.
I’ll probably be going with an Altruistic Healing healing build at level 80, along with buying one of every weapon I can use. But until I hit 80, I’ll be saving coin by only buying weapons to fill each of the weapon sets. I’m just not sure which weapons would be a good choice.
Have you ever seen an MMO where the trade spam is as low as it is in GW 2 ?
I haven’t. The fact that you can’t safely trade directly with other players has a lot to do with that. Since you can’t trade safely, the spam doesn’t have as much of a payoff. A lower payoff means a lowered incentive to spam.
COD mail, or a secure trade window, both produce a reward for the trade spam. Meaning they will bring trade spam with them. Do you want the trade spam to return ?
If so, what advantage does COD mail offer that makes it worth everyone having to deal with trade spam ?
Trade spam drowns out other chat taking place. Which makes it a negitive externality in economic terms.
If you disagree with me saying that COD mail or a trade window will bring trade spam, I’d like to hear you explain why GW2 doesn’t have as much of it as other MMOs.
Well that’s really the advantage of any direct trading, isn’t it? That you’re able to dodge the listing fees? Since you have to advertise and arrange the trade yourself for direct trades, I don’t think a fee is necessary.
The listing fees aren’t there to punish you. They are there to reduce inflation. So allowing players to bypass them without risk is not going to be good for the long term health of the economy.
Have any of you ever seen another MMO with as little trade spam as GW2 has ?
I haven’t. The key difference is that the trading post forces anonymous trading, removing most of the incentive for trade spam. Any method that removes that anonymity is a method that brings incentives for trade spam to begin.
I don’t want trade spam to return.
That same anonymity is also why there’s vehement undercutting in the Trading Post: because it’s the only way to guarantee that your stuff sells.
So either you deal with wanting-to-sell or wanting-to-buy spam in a chat window, which can be filtered out, or you deal with undercutting in the Trading Post.
Both have their issues.
You know how I asked “What’s the problem with undercutting ?”. Hold off on answering that until you’ve answered the following: Why doesn’t undercutting happen in less anonymous systems ?
Chances are, the person you’re trading with in the less anonymous system is someone you’ll never run into again. So you’d still be buying from the guy with the better price. But only if you know about the better price.
Which gives me one answer: The less anonymous systems make it harder to find out about the lower price. Hiding the existence of better deals is a disadvantage of other systems, since it makes players more vulnerable to market manipulation, scams, etc.
This means that undercutting is not a disadvantage of the trading post. It’s a symptom of the trading post providing more information about the price everybody is asking for.
So if you want to convince me undercutting is bad, you’re going to need at least one of the following:
– An explanation why giving more information to everybody is a bad thing.
– A hole in my logic above.
– A different reason why undercutting isn’t as bad in less anonymous systems.
How much of the material supply came from bots ?
Because if bots supplied a significant amount, banning them or causing them to farm elsewhere will drive up prices.
Have any of you ever seen another MMO with as little trade spam as GW2 has ?
I haven’t. The key difference is that the trading post forces anonymous trading, removing most of the incentive for trade spam. Any method that removes that anonymity is a method that brings incentives for trade spam to begin.
I don’t want trade spam to return.
That same anonymity is also why there’s vehement undercutting in the Trading Post: because it’s the only way to guarantee that your stuff sells.
So either you deal with wanting-to-sell or wanting-to-buy spam in a chat window, which can be filtered out, or you deal with undercutting in the Trading Post.
Both have their issues.
What’s the problem with undercutting ?
All it does is bring the buy and sell prices together. Once they are only 1 copper apart, then undercutting becomes impossible.
Have any of you ever seen another MMO with as little trade spam as GW2 has ?
I haven’t. The key difference is that the trading post forces anonymous trading, removing most of the incentive for trade spam. Any method that removes that anonymity is a method that brings incentives for trade spam to begin.
I don’t want trade spam to return.
A trade window would be a simpler solution with the same end result. An end result that ANET doesn’t like, which is why we don’t have a trade window.
Sounds like price manipulation.
Not really. Now that the ingredients have stopped being produced, the price of those ingredients will go up. Meaning the price of the end result will also rise. That’s just market forces at work.
I’m just surprised it’s happening so quickly.
(edited by Snoring Sleepwalker.9073)