Curse

Yawgmoth · Jul 14, 2009, 02:32 PM // 14:32

This is a serious problem and a major failure of the game economy.

Originally, for the first couple years it was FAIR for everyone, the economy was free of nonsense like this. There were practically NO financial benefits to owning multiple accounts, other than a lot of storage space. But making money REQUIRED real effort -playing the game or at least powertrading.

But since then ANet added NUMEROUS updates which provided significant "free" wealth to owners of multiple accounts. (free because effort required is none or far smaller than it would normally take to acquire the equivalent by someone with just 1 account)

Some of them:

-it started with Birthday Minipets! They were always worth real significant amounts of plat. But I haven't considered them a problem because they seemed ~fair - they weren't a RMT in disguise - totally not an incentive to buy new accounts, although getting a bunch of accounts created in 2005 earns some solid hundreds of plat for doing nothing.

-Free Chests in Nightfall - Originally they were 30-50k per full run per character, profit generally exceeded effort, so having multiple characters or accounts runned through NF provided nice profits for the masses then, but for now they can be completely ignored (diminishing returns and HM overfarm completely ruining value of their drops (and of almost everything) makes them not worth visiting at all)

-Xunlai Tournament House - the GREATEST EVIL here - it's STRAIGHT BLATANT RMT, differing from selling currency right away for $$ in only that it's selling *ingame currency making machines* for real $$.

-And the 2nd Greatest Evil, the greatly underestimated NICHOLAS the Traveler and even the Pre-Searing Huntsman! If you don't see yet how EVIL he is just compare the costs of his ingredients if bought after people find out most efficient farming to the market value of his Gifts.
Got just 1 account? How sad, you get only 5 gifts. Got 15 accounts? HAHAHA 75 gifts for almost freeee (this week) and it repeats every week!
If you have appropriate campagins, simple buying and exchanging Nicholas ingredients every week allows to basically DOUBLE the FREE gains from XTH PER ACCOUNT!

I have only 4 accounts now (had only 1 for the first 4 years), I play very little these days and those 3 - bday minis from old accounts I got from friends who quit, XTH and pre/post Nicholas Gifts are actually a major source of my income... but I think it's TOTALLY WRONG and it would be much better for the game if this wasn't possible at all!

Yes, I get FREE and I complain - that's because FREE is often BAD for the game. I'd much much rather play a Fair game with a good economy and NOT get anything for free at all, than get freebies but have to play in a terribad economy.

SOLUTIONS aren't hard to come by:

The FREEBIES which people generally like to get should neverbe trade'able!

*A Birthday Present should be something unique to showoff on your character or account but never something to sell for profit.
*Xunlai House should reward some points that directly benefit the account that earned them - so your main account gets ZERO benefits from you having 20 other accounts.
The XTH reward points could be used for some free Balthazar Unlocks (more accessibility to PvP) or PvP reward item skins (may exclude exotic) and spending them could (or even should) even increase the account's Zaishen Title!
*It's much worse with Nicholas, I can't think of a reasonable way to make him fair for players with just 1 account... nontradable gifts or items from gifts would suck and removing the limit of 5 per week/day would lead to degenerate overfarm with no other means to stop them.

EDIT: small fix

jray14 · Jul 14, 2009, 02:49 PM // 14:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arduinna

More accounts = More XTH = More in-game wealth without playing = More time for real life

This. Some of us don't enjoy farming or trading.

Also, it's not just about playing Barbie with that money. You can buy consumables, lockpicks, weapons for heroes, etc.

Oh, and you all seem to be talking about XTH as if it exists... we've gone 2 months now, closing in on a 3rd, with it out of commission ya know.

AngeliqueSynner · Jul 14, 2009, 02:53 PM // 14:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by jray14

Oh, and you all seem to be talking about XTH as if it exists... we've gone 2 months now, closing in on a 3rd, with it out of commission ya know.

Actually, it hasn't even been a full month since the official shutdown.
>__o¿

Inde · Jul 14, 2009, 02:55 PM // 14:55

Answer please: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10387843

Thank you!

Ebony Shadowheart · Jul 14, 2009, 03:06 PM // 15:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yawgmoth

This is a serious problem and a major failure of the game economy.

Originally, for the first couple years it was FAIR for everyone, the economy was free of nonsense like this. There were practically NO financial benefits to owning multiple accounts, other than a lot of storage space. But making money REQUIRED real effort -playing the game or at least powertrading.

But since then ANet added NUMEROUS updates which provided significant "free" wealth to owners of multiple accounts. (free because effort required is none or far smaller than it would normally take to acquire the equivalent by someone with just 1 account)

Some of them:

-it started with Birthday Minipets! They were always worth real significant amounts of plat. But I haven't considered them a problem because they seemed ~fair - they weren't a RMT in disguise - totally not an incentive to buy new accounts, although getting a bunch of accounts created in 2005 earns some solid hundreds of plat for doing nothing.

-Free Chests in Nightfall - Originally they were 30-50k per full run per character, profit generally exceeded effort, so having multiple characters or accounts runned through NF provided nice profits for the masses then, but for now they can be completely ignored (diminishing returns and HM overfarm completely ruining value of their drops (and of almost everything) makes them not worth visiting at all)

-Xunlai Tournament House - the GREATEST EVIL here - it's STRAIGHT BLATANT RMT, differing from selling

-And the 2nd Greatest Evil, the greatly underestimated NICHOLAS the Traveler and even the Pre-Searing Huntsman! If you don't see yet how EVIL he is just compare the costs of his ingredients if bought after people find out most efficient farming to the market value of his Gifts.
Got just 1 account? How sad, you get only 5 gifts. Got 15 accounts? HAHAHA 75 gifts for almost freeee (this week) and it repeats every week!
If you have appropriate campagins, simple buying and exchanging Nicholas ingredients every week allows to basically DOUBLE the FREE gains from XTH PER ACCOUNT!

I have only 4 accounts now (had only 1 for the first 4 years), I play very little these days and those 3 - bday minis from old accounts I got from friends who quit, XTH and pre/post Nicholas Gifts are actually a major source of my income... but I think it's TOTALLY WRONG and it would be much better for the game if this wasn't possible at all!

Yes, I get FREE and I complain - that's because FREE is often BAD for the game. I'd much much rather play a Fair game with a good economy and NOT get anything for free at all, than get freebies but have to play in a terribad economy.

SOLUTIONS aren't hard to come by:

The FREEBIES which people generally like to get should neverbe trade'able!

*A Birthday Present should be something unique to showoff on your character or account but never something to sell for profit.
*Xunlai House should reward some points that directly benefit the account that earned them - so your main account gets ZERO benefits from you having 20 other accounts.
The XTH reward points could be used for some free Balthazar Unlocks (more accessibility to PvP) or PvP reward item skins (may exclude exotic) and spending them could (or even should) even increase the account's Zaishen Title!
*It's much worse with Nicholas, I can't think of a reasonable way to make him fair for players with just 1 account... nontradable gifts or items from gifts would suck and removing the limit of 5 per week/day would lead to degenerate overfarm with no other means to stop them.

Ok I can sort of understand some of your points.

- Minis: some are worth money, some aren't. They are a nice tradable commodity that mainly collectors want and everyone has availability to them because they automatically pop onto the character when they age. I don't see how these are an issue honestly.

- zkeys: These are more of an issue because you don't really do anything to earn them. You make predictions and then you sell however many you get. You get rewarded for having more accounts. Honestly, these should be tradable, but the masses need to drive the price down. There is plenty of supply to meet the demand, so they shouldn't cost as much as they do, which would help discourage some of the trading of keys. They wouldn't make people as much money. However, making them account specific isn't really fair to those that use them to build their title by trading to a main account. It's rare that the people that use them get anything worth a lot of money out of the zchest.

- Gifts: I feel the presents are fine as they are. It is personal preference to get them, and if you don't have multiple accounts, its still your option to buy them if you want more. They are only really useful for building sweet tooth, party animal, and drunkard titles. Its not like you get gold or great items out of them. Yes, the minis are rare, but that's about it.

If they were to make Nicholas gifts and zkeys untradable, they would have to do the same with gifts from holidays, lunar tokens, etc etc to try and make it fair. Some people rely on farming these things to be their main income source (in game). I see them as a means of moving gold around in the game, which is not detrimental.

As for real life trading for money, people caught buying or selling them for RL $$ should be banned. End of story. No matter what you do, someone will always come up with something to sell IRL from a game to try and make some cash. It just needs to be more harshly punished is all.

Daesu · Jul 14, 2009, 03:41 PM // 15:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yawgmoth

-Xunlai Tournament House - the GREATEST EVIL here - it's STRAIGHT BLATANT RMT, differing from selling

-And the 2nd Greatest Evil, the greatly underestimated NICHOLAS the Traveler and even the Pre-Searing Huntsman! If you don't see yet how EVIL he is just compare the costs of his ingredients if bought after people find out most efficient farming to the market value of his Gifts.
Got just 1 account? How sad, you get only 5 gifts. Got 15 accounts? HAHAHA 75 gifts for almost freeee (this week) and it repeats every week!
If you have appropriate campagins, simple buying and exchanging Nicholas ingredients every week allows to basically DOUBLE the FREE gains from XTH PER ACCOUNT!

To be honest, I really hate rant like that. This is the type of jealousy rant I come across often in this forum. I dont even play XTH regularly and I also missed the time when ANet gave extra zkeys because of a bug. Did you see me post a thread to complain about it? I bet many of you made alot more zkeys than I did, because of that incident. Why didn't you all complain about that incident then?

It is only gold and gold in GW doesn't mean much, I have not been trading for the past year. Why? Because I hate trading, I rather just play the game. XTH and title was a means to get people more interested in pvp events. Without XTH I wont be bothered about who the famous teams are in pvp or even watch their fights. Otherwise there is nothing worth doing in this game anymore, since I already got my rainbow phoenixes. Title chasing all the way to GWAMM would be pointless and boring.

Go ahead and QQ about the gifts, the birthday presents, the XTH, etc. Yeah remove everything for all I care because of a few gold to buy same stats weapons anyway. And I really dont care about BDS or IDS or some ugly looking FoW armor that all don't even give you the slightest advantage over collector's items, in this game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ebony Shadowheart

As for real life trading for money, people caught buying or selling them for RL $$ should be banned. End of story.

If I really want to find things to QQ about this game, like some of you, I can find lots of things to QQ about. Since I have to work for a living, I can say it is not fair that people play this game and farm during my working hours. This makes people who have absolutely no real life responsibilities richer in the game than I ever can be, because they have more time to farm and play. The game is lifestyle biased. Wealth should be based on skills, not how much time you have to grind. To balance this out, it is only right that they provide some advantage through real money.

Racthoh · Jul 14, 2009, 04:04 PM // 16:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yawgmoth

*A Birthday Present should be something unique to showoff on your character or account but never something to sell for profit.
*It's much worse with Nicholas, I can't think of a reasonable way to make him fair for players with just 1 account... nontradable gifts or items from gifts would suck and removing the limit of 5 per week/day would lead to degenerate overfarm with no other means to stop them.

With these two it isn't so much that they can be traded it's more because there are a handful of rarer items to be acquired with a limited number of opportunities.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jray14

Also, it's not just about playing Barbie with that money. You can buy consumables, lockpicks, weapons for heroes, etc.

Lockpicks do nothing but play Barbie as well, and the title acquired from lockpicks is like unlocking the hot tub for Barbie's play mansion (hall of monuments). Outfitting heroes becomes slightly expensive if you insist on decking them all out with Superior Vigor runes and perfectly modded weapons/armor, but even then if you stick with the same hero trio you're looking at well under 100k gold. That's assuming you never have any green/suitable runes/weapon/off-hand drops. Con sets are either used for speed running where you'll make that amount back easily or helping you out in a pinch. If a player is relying on consumables frequently to get them out of jams and is willing to pay the price as opposed to getting better than so be it.

Basically you don't need some kind of master plan to acquire the basic wealth necessary to play on a level playing field as others.

Daesu · Jul 14, 2009, 04:10 PM // 16:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Racthoh

there are a handful of rarer items to be acquired with a limited number of opportunities.

Which have the same boring stats as my collector's items, big deal. XTH was just an attempt from ANet to generate more interest in pvp events. Without it, many pvers like myself wont be interested in pvp at all.

Mordakai · Jul 14, 2009, 04:15 PM // 16:15

I'm really not sure I see a problem with this...

if so many people are using multiple accounts to get "free" zkeys, won't the price fall?

Minipets have ALWAYS been a way to buy gold: Buy this issue of PCGamer, get 100k+ from this mini-Destroyer. (Or Buy Factions CE for mini-Kuunivang... even though Kuunivang was added after the fact!)

I can see the argument to make minipets not tradeable, but it's as Racthoh implies, the real problem is not with Birthday gifts, but the collectable minipets.

EDIT:

Also it's important to realize unless you bought all your accounts (and made characters) in 2005, you are not going to get a lot of money from those minipets.... ie, buying multiple accounts now is only useful for zkeys and Traveler gifts....

and frankly, if someone wants to buy an extra account for those features, that's fine by me. I can barely be bothered to do Traveler gifts on ONE account, I can't imagine doing it for 5 or more!

Shadowspawn X · Jul 14, 2009, 04:30 PM // 16:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

The game is lifestyle biased.

Not sure about this statement. Some people just can pour more time into one sitting than others. You figure it takes 150 hours to complete a campaign with every quest included, 1500 hours for a GWAMM and 800 hours for a tiger so if you do a /age many casual players have more than enough time in this game to easily achieve these milestones.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

Wealth should be based on skills, not how much time you have to grind.

Wealth is not an objective of this game. Its kind of a side bar issue.

Ebony Shadowheart · Jul 14, 2009, 04:37 PM // 16:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

If I really want to find things to QQ about this game, like some of you, I can find lots of things to QQ about. Since I have to work for a living, I can say it is not fair that people play this game and farm during my working hours. This makes people who have absolutely no real life responsibilities richer in the game than I ever can be, because they have more time to farm and play. The game is lifestyle biased. Wealth should be based on skills, not how much time you have to grind. To balance this out, it is only right that they provide some advantage through real money.

I wasn't QQing, simply stating my opinion in regards to the previous person's rant about selling virtual items for RL cash. Apparently you have an issue with this though.

My opinion is that virtual items (like gold, prezzies, zkeys) shouldn't be able to be sold for RL monies, people caught doing so should be banned. Of course, why you would waste your hard earned cash on a virtual prizes (that do absolutely nothing for you in RL) is sort of beyond me.

Mordakai · Jul 14, 2009, 04:38 PM // 16:38

I will say this:

By making Titles a BIG part of GW carrying over to GW2, money became more important.

Yes, you can still play this game with little or no gold. But if you want 5 sets of prestige armor or some of the buyable titles, it's going to cost a lot of gold.

Not sure what Anet was thinking here, did they WANT people to buy gold?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ebony Shadowheart

I wasn't QQing, simply stating my opinion in regards to the previous person's rant about selling virtual items for RL cash. Apparently you have an issue with this though.

My opinion is that virtual items (like gold, prezzies, zkeys) shouldn't be able to be sold for RL monies, people caught doing so should be banned. Of course, why you would waste your hard earned cash on a virtual prizes (that do absolutely nothing for you in RL) is sort of beyond me.

Why do people buy Collector's Editions? Or video games at all?

A video game is virtual, not "real." You are paying for the experience, just like you pay to sit down in a movie theater.

Once the 3 hour movie is up, that $10 or so is gone with nothing to show for it.

At least by buying a virtual item, you can see it again and again.

Test Me · Jul 14, 2009, 05:04 PM // 17:04

I'm not sure there is an issue with this but following are true:

** I did feel pressure to buy a second account to achieve in game goals easier than normal play (like the points titles)

It's not fun to be the last in your class when everybody else around (in your guild) progresses faster than you in the same goal just because they have more accounts (bought or from friends).

However I didn't because in the end it felt ridiculous to buy a second copy of the same game knowing that I would probably not have the time or willingness to play it all from the start on the second account. Didn't make sense for me at all.

Nevertheless this is encouraged by the current state of the game/free rewards.

** It does take some fun out of the game if all you do to achieve goals you want to achieve is farm zkeys or other free benefits.

That was not the original intention and it was not how goals were to be achieved. The satisfaction after getting, say "life of a party" is somewhat diminished if it is due mostly or partially to trading free zkeys from multiple accounts.

Displaying the title would be a bit like saying out loud: "I've bought 10 accounts, went to the XTH site 10 times each month, came back in game and traded my zkeys for party items until I've gotten 10k of them and that is all I did for it. And then I did it all the same for sugary items."

That doesn't translate in (at least for me) "playing a game".

** There is nothing really left to do and farming is not really "playing a game" either.

So in the end all this doesn't really matter. There isn't anything interesting for us to do in-game to complete titles. The options are: mindless farming or mindless betting and receiving free XTH rewards.

At this stage of the game I actually think multiple accounts zkey farming is preferable to in-game farming. Imagine having to complete the snowmen dungeon 5k times instead. That would not qualify for "playing a game" either.

The issue is moot since there is nothing left to be played in GW 1. We've all played it inside out in all possible ways and we're passed any point of acceptable boredom, hope of GW2 being the only thing keeping us around.

Ebony Shadowheart · Jul 14, 2009, 05:16 PM // 17:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mordakai

Why do people buy Collector's Editions? Or video games at all?

A video game is virtual, not "real." You are paying for the experience, just like you pay to sit down in a movie theater.

Once the 3 hour movie is up, that $10 or so is gone with nothing to show for it.

At least by buying a virtual item, you can see it again and again.

I was referring to people buying gold online. Or buying huntsman presents or even zkeys for real life money. Things that you can set yourself a goal and work towards rather than waste hard earned real life cash that you need to pay bills and buy food with.

Buying a collector's edition, spending the extra for a couple bonus items to enrich your experience usually isn't worth the money, however some people like to have all the little extras that you can get with the game purchase.

The other things in the game are intended to be gotten through play, not RL purchase.

Hope that clarifies a little better what my point was.

JASON626 · Jul 14, 2009, 05:16 PM // 17:16

I only have one account thats mine but friends that left the game have let me use accounts. There is so many benefits to having multiple account unfortunately;

-More xth predictions. (if it comes back)
- run duo 600/smite keep all the drops for myself.
- run dungeons and get more opportunity for rare item from end chests by having those accounts leech.
-travelers gifts.
- Events like winterday etc, presents drop you just pic them up.
- run yourself quicker and easier through some z quest bounties/missions more z cions to trade for stuff and sell.
- more mini pets

Those come to mind atm.

Mordakai · Jul 14, 2009, 05:42 PM // 17:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ebony Shadowheart

I was referring to people buying gold online. Or buying huntsman presents or even zkeys for real life money. Things that you can set yourself a goal and work towards rather than waste hard earned real life cash that you need to pay bills and buy food with.

Buying a collector's edition, spending the extra for a couple bonus items to enrich your experience usually isn't worth the money, however some people like to have all the little extras that you can get with the game purchase.

The other things in the game are intended to be gotten through play, not RL purchase.

Hope that clarifies a little better what my point was.

So, do you agree that buying multiple accounts is the same as buying zkeys for real cash?

Or not?

Daesu · Jul 14, 2009, 05:46 PM // 17:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadowspawn X

Not sure about this statement. Some people just can pour more time into one sitting than others. You figure it takes 150 hours to complete a campaign with every quest included, 1500 hours for a GWAMM and 800 hours for a tiger so if you do a /age many casual players have more than enough time in this game to easily achieve these milestones.

The game is lifestyle biased because it favors those who do not have a job, and is supported by someone else. Since I have a full time job to support myself and my family, I cant play this game the whole day, so of course those farmers without real life responsibilities would be able to have an advantage over me in terms of in-game wealth.

So I dont see why balancing that out with paying for extra accounts is such a bad idea. In fact, that small amount of advantage with the extra account is much less than the number of hours those of us with full time jobs lose out in terms of farming opportunities.

Quote:

Wealth is not an objective of this game. Its kind of a side bar issue.

Wealth is precisely what people are QQing about on this thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ebony Shadowheart

Buying a collector's edition, spending the extra for a couple bonus items to enrich your experience usually isn't worth the money, however some people like to have all the little extras that you can get with the game purchase.

Don't you know all these stuff started way back in Factions? Those who bought the collector's edition has Kuunavang as a green mini pet for free. Can you calculate how much gold those people earned by selling it because they use extra RL money to pay for the Collector's edition?

Why doesnt anyone QQ about that?

Painbringer · Jul 14, 2009, 05:52 PM // 17:52

And if anet comes back and make z-keys non trade item what are all the multiple account foturne makers too do?

esthetic · Jul 14, 2009, 05:59 PM // 17:59

Considering the business structure of Guild Wars of no monthly fees..They need a source of income to keep the game going.

Offer incentive to buy additional accounts = People buy additional accounts = ANet gets additional revenue = ANet rent gets paid and ANet employees get paid = Keeps Guild Wars going for all of us.

There is something called a "free rider" effect. Those that benefit indirectly from others efforts or payment. In this case, different people have paid different amounts of money to ANet depending on the expansions, upgrades and addtional accounts. Those that have spent the minimum amount are realizing a "free ride" of sorts from purchases made by those that gave more money to ANet. And they are the same people that complain about benefits that people who paid additional money to ANet are getting. I really do not understand this at all, you should be thanking the people that pay the additional money (to get more shiney pixels)to keep the game going for you. Or would you rather be forced to just pay ANet $9.99 every month to play? If all your interested in is getting the Shiney Pixels faster then go out buy an additional account, sorry if you don't like it but thats how it is. Stop QQing about people who spend their money in the game that keeps the game going for you. So what if they have more shiney stuff, you get to play the game for less REAL money.

Ebony Shadowheart · Jul 14, 2009, 06:02 PM // 18:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mordakai

So, do you agree that buying multiple accounts is the same as buying zkeys for real cash?

Or not?

I sort of have mixed feelings on that one honestly.

If you are buying the account only to farm zkeys on it, then yes you're essentially just paying cash for the keys, at least the first several batches of them. Honestly I don't agree with this, and have mixed feelings on whether it should be allowed or not, but I'm not the one to make that judgment call.

If you purchase the account with the legitimate intent to use it as intended (ei create and play characters on it) then fine.

After all the point of purchasing an account is not supposed to be for farming an item. It's to play the game (in an ideal world).

Considering I'd never waste my money on something like that, to go out and specifically get an account just to farm 1 or 2 items like presents and zkeys, it's hard to understand people that would.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daesu

Don't you know all these stuff started way back in Factions? Those who bought the collector's edition has Kuunavang as a green mini pet for free. Can you calculate how much gold those people earned by selling it because they use extra RL money to pay for the Collector's edition?

Why doesnt anyone QQ about that?

Collector's editions are sort of intended to give players something limited and slightly more advantageous because they spent the extra cash. It's a marketing tactic that basically every company has used at some point, that's why no one QQs about it. People that wanted a Kunni either bought the CE or saved up gold and bought it in game.

The topic of the thread is whether or not having more than one account makes you more wealthy in game. Honestly, for some people yes, for other people no. It depends on how you play and what you care about. If you only care about accumulating in game wealth because you have nothing better to do with your life, hooray for you. Honestly not everyone 'abuses' the system through the use of multiple accounts and I use the term loosely because I honestly don't care if someone has 10 accounts to farm zkeys or just 1.

Do I think its stupid to continuously buy accounts just to get virtual money that does nothing for you? Yeah, but hey, to each their own.