Curse

Lothlorian Sassun · Jul 21, 2008, 12:28 AM // 00:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarlinBackna

You can't seriously say that when there exists a super economy in which limited items are passed around and making people several hundred ecto on each trade. And most of the people you describe are probably the people that participate in this uber economy. I have no sympathy for them. And stop plugging for LS. I (and countless others) will be damned if bots return in full swing again.

I described people and super economys? If you mean solo farmers are people then I guess I did. Come to think of it I solo farm quite a bit so i guess I am a person too

I think the OP's main point was he wants items to go up in value. An end to loot scaling would make things cost more wouldn't it? In an open discussion like Riverside people state their opinions and telling them to "STOP plugging" is a waste of keystrokes.

Oh and bots will always be with us... I don't think "LS" did anything but increase their numbers. The thing that I noticed hit the Bots hard was ANET banning accounts with Large transfers of gold and blocking IP address's from known Botting sources.

This thread is getting quite hostile!

hehe

Carry on... Carry on... nothing to see here... Move along.

Sha Noran · Jul 21, 2008, 12:37 AM // 00:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magikarp

@ Sha, you're right, and i totally agree, but at the same time, the "give it up, wait for gws2" mentality isn't what someone who bought the game yesterday is going to want to hear. it may be ok for us vets, but you have to think of others sometimes too.

I certainly do not partake in such a mentality, as evidenced by my continued participation in Guild Wars discussion here on Guru. I simply meant to show that the ruined economy is an effect and not a cause; if you would like to fix the economy, the best way is to start somewhere else besides the actual value of things in your economic environment. For example, solving unemployment (patching the game to allow PUGing for all classes with greater ease) would be a greater boon than releasing new models of the same cars every year (new weapon skins).

Magikarp · Jul 21, 2008, 12:40 AM // 00:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sha Noran

I certainly do not partake in such a mentality, as evidenced by my continued participation in Guild Wars discussion here on Guru. I simply meant to show that the ruined economy is an effect and not a cause; if you would like to fix the economy, the best way is to start somewhere else besides the actual value of things in your economic environment. For example, solving unemployment (patching the game to allow PUGing for all classes with greater ease) would be a greater boon than releasing new models of the same cars every year (new weapon skins).

never once did i say that the views i expressed here are my entire views on how to fix the economy, but simply my takes on the value of gold atm. honestly, if you read my other post that i make in tons of other threads, im all about skill balance and the opening of new playstyles thanks to a large skill pool.

you're talking to a guy who plays mostly mesmer in pve, so trust me, this is just the tip of the ice berg as far as im concerned about balancing the game :P

Thizzle · Jul 21, 2008, 12:52 AM // 00:52

Why are you concerned to begin with? You have Obsidian armor on your avatar which I'm guessing is your warrior. I'm confused why you're even bothered about how much a green is worth. Anyway, almost every problem with the economy was because of the ability to solo farm so much.

bam23 · Jul 21, 2008, 01:17 AM // 01:17

it amazes me that people actually complain about this.

draxynnic · Jul 21, 2008, 03:15 AM // 03:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sha Noran

Honestly this thread has no where to go.

It has already been announced that GW2 is the next step; a lack of new things to achieve in the GW1 economy, while coupled with the effect of time's continual passage simply means that things will continue to devalue until worthlessness. I project all GW1 items will reach this level of value approximately one year before GW2 release, assuming the current decay only remains constant or gets worse.

If you are so stuck in your Guild Wars dream world that you cannot grasp the concept of a game dying, then consider for a moment the following real-world example:

It is announced that all production on vehicles that run on tires will be halted by 2010 due to the invention of the flying car. Not only that, but this flying car runs on banana peels instead of gasoline. It is only logical and natural that all tire-using vehicles, tires, and gasoline will imediately lose some of their value, and that they will continue to lose this value at a constant rate until they are all replaced by the newer, better product; by the time of replacement (but usually some time before this, though this is dependant on advertising and hype), the product being replaced has reached a value of 0.

Your character is the car.
Your armor, titles, weapons, or any other in-game achievements are the tires on your car.
Your wealth, whether it be ectos or gold, is the gasoline that runs your car.

When Guild Wars 2 is released (that is to say, when they release the flying cars), it is expected that Guild Wars 1 (that is, your car, it's tires, and all the gas you have stocked up) will have little value other than the sentimental kind...

ANet have done more to preserve this sentimental value than Ford or Chevy would I'd say; you can complain that the Hall of Monuments isn't perfect yet, but before they can promise you what will show up in GW2 they have to make GW2.

Suddenly I'm imagining a world where all those banana republics people laugh at today have formed the new OPEC...

Moral55 · Jul 21, 2008, 03:50 AM // 03:50

There is alway a limited small number of items worth loads, and tons of items worth nothing. Nothing has changed at all.

Kanyatta · Jul 21, 2008, 05:04 AM // 05:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lady Raenef

Guild Wars Depression - Solutions?

Either Zoloft or an hero.

Pick one and your depression problems are solved.

pumpkin pie · Jul 21, 2008, 05:43 AM // 05:43

move the monsters around :P~

SirSausage · Jul 21, 2008, 08:31 AM // 08:31

I have no problem with gold deflation. But it's a normal thing that there are less and more expensive things. Some people have less money and some people have a crapload. All thanks to capitalism.

upier · Jul 21, 2008, 09:38 AM // 09:38

I guess my Prozac is working - since everything that the current depression is giving me is a smile on my face.

Fril Estelin · Jul 21, 2008, 09:54 AM // 09:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by upier

I guess my Prozac is working - since everything that the current depression is giving me is a smile on my face.

You suddenly understand the thread differently when you correct the thread title:

Guild Wars PLAYERS' Depression - Solutions?

Shyft the Pyro · Jul 21, 2008, 10:18 AM // 10:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rahja the Thief

Oh no, it does. See that big concrete barrier? This thread is driving directly into said barrier at about 90 MPH, and the airbags are broken.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing - assuming you're driving a DeLorean...

The Guild Wars "economy" (using the term loosely, all things considered) suffers from several things at once:

1. The MMO Syndrome. No matter how rare, new, or powerful, any item that is obtainable as a result of gameplay will eventually lose value. This is a result of a simple process: game age = more item drops = more items obtained = more people choosing not to keep the items for themselves = more items for sale = price drop to ensure the items are sold. Farming accelerates this process, random drops slow it down, but nothing can stop it simply because MMOs and MMO-like random-drop games are designed this way.

2. The Balance Syndrome. In gear-based games, items often scale with the characters, sometimes even requiring characters to be of a certain level to function. An item that a character has "grown out of" can still hold some value to lower-level characters, and the fact that players keep advancing characters and searching for more powerful gear ensures that there is always a "secondary market" for "used" items - assuming, of course, a steady stream of new characters that will purchase the "low-level" gear.

Guild Wars does not have this mechanism in place (by design!) due to the need for PvP balance. On one hand, this is great for the game: everyone is on an equal footing. On another, this is bad for item value: all ("maxed") items have the same functionality, which essentially means a character can be outfitted with end-game gear right out of the gate. This removes the "need" for improving character gear, which in turn reduces the incentives for in-game transactions.

3. The Unstable Equilibrium. The way Guild Wars attempts to solve market saturation - the flood of "useless" maxed items (see Balance) which reach the market with ever-increasing frequency (see MMO) - is with item destruction, specifically customization. A customized item cannot lose this status, and while such an item does confer a bonus on the character (as an incentive to have the player remove it from the market), it cannot be used by any other character (which destroys its trade value, effectively taking it off the market).

The idea is sound, but the problem creeps up due to drop rates, farming, and population size - all of which contribute to the MMO syndrome. If the rate at which the items reach the market (due to specifically farming, but also the other factors) is greater than the rate at which items are destroyed, item prices will drop at a rate directly proportional to how easy the item is to obtain. If, on the other hand, the items are being removed from the game at a faster rate than they are introduced into the game economy, item prices will remain high. This is basic supply-and-demand economics, but the mechanisms of item creation and destruction is the reason the economic theory applies.

Within these constraints, there is very little that can be done to "fix the economy:"

1. Decelerate item creation. If an item drops less frequently, the rate at which it reaches the market will decrease - both due to lower drop rate and due to players "giving up" on activities that no longer result in "easy money." If the rate of item creation dips below that of item destruction, prices will rise. (Simple supply and demand, nothing more.)

The obvious problem is the "player giving up" part. People quit all the time, but a sudden drop in player activity (say, a greatly reduced amount of loads of a specific zone or uses of a specific skill) coupled with negative feedback (even if it takes the form of "forum QQs") may not be perceived by the game's designers as a good thing. (See: ANet's reasoning on not nerfing Ursan Blessing.)

2. Accelerate item destruction. "Item sinks" that take an item "out of circulation" in addition to customization could increase the price of the item. Less items on the market = people willing to pay more just to get the item. (Again, simple supply and demand.)

The problem here is that "item sinks" in Guild Wars are based on incentives. Customization provides a tangible damage boost, something that matters greatly for PvP and which makes the item more valuable in specific situations. Items entered into the Hall of Monuments are supposed to provide benefits in Guild Wars 2, but this alone may not be a tangible enough incentive for most Guild Wars players to fill up their Halls and drive up prices for these specific items - at least not until the actual benefits are announced. Chaos gloves may be desirable due to being a relatively new "item sink" for Globs of Ectoplasm, but they require the player both to own GWEN and actually like the purely cosmetic armor, neither of which is as certain as the 20% damage bonus for customization.

Since #1 is largely not an option, #2 is pretty much the only thing ANet can do. Of course, there are many ways to go about implementing "item sinks," which include but are not limited to...

...making a specific slot for every green item in the Hall of Monuments, which would revitalize green item farming, increase the value of endgame rewards, and give insane completionists one more thing to obsess about;

...stealing a page from their old employer's playbook and implementing an "Asuran Forge," where X random rare items can be turned into 1 random rare item a-la Horadric Cube from Diablo 2, which would increase the value of rare items and give farmers and gamblers more incentive to play the game;

...introducing the "faction decay" mechanic into the Material Traders' algorithms and making a certain percentage of their stock "vanish" daily, based on how much of each specific crafting material is currently available for purchase, which would drive up the cost of crafting materials across the board - depending, of course, on what is set as the "0% decay" max price;

...turning the Hall of Monuments into an actual storage for items, thereby increasing the value of all items that can be stored in the Hall for the storage-hungry gamers.

There, that would do it. Now shoo, clueless economic QQers

cataphract · Jul 21, 2008, 11:56 AM // 11:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lady Raenef

Imagine if there were no more item drops for two weeks. .. Your thoughts?

As far as I'm concerned - you can make that two months. Since yesterday, when a chest finally decided to drop me req 9 canthan Sickle, there's no item in this game I "have to" or "need to" have.

truemyths · Jul 21, 2008, 06:32 PM // 18:32

I like the idea of something to do with the greens, so we can get rid of them for some profit.

Other than that... how to fix the guild wars economy.. hmmm... Elect Obama to GW universal president! He'll fix anything, He's Obama!

MMSDome · Jul 21, 2008, 07:03 PM // 19:03

It was all going to happen eventually. Greens dont get removed from gw unless someone just destroys it or sells it to a merchant which will not happen that often. You cant complain about greens being a low price as when they were released you could have figured that they will always drop and their amount would never drop therefor their price will decrease.

Same goes with ecto, it keeps dropping and people only want so many fow sets so they hold on to their ecto and it just gets sold around. The amount of ecto only increases between the people and never goes back to the NPC's so its price will go down.

MithranArkanere · Jul 21, 2008, 07:12 PM // 19:12

Solutions...?

Hm...

Linsey Murdock?

All I want is simple:
- No grind.
- No regrets.
- No pushing.
- Equitable and square content in all campaigns, adding radioactivity to the content of older campaigns.
- New stuff once in a while.

And all done.

zamial · Jul 21, 2008, 07:59 PM // 19:59

There is a problem with the economy? I sell everthing to the merchant or give it away, as is. I lead a very closed-off life in GW just my guildies and me. It works out rather well, they give me/help me out with things I am doing and in return I help them out/give things to them. I just sold a bunch of greens to the merch as well, after asking if anyone in guild could use them. I could care less if ecto, shards, rubies, ect. were at 10 gold at the trader. It makes no difference to me or my guildies. lol You say you have an item worth xxxx ectos? I say you have an item worth what the merch will pay or the next fool with large quanities of gold, fortunatly for you the later is growing. Which is not a depression by anymeans......

Shadowspawn X · Jul 21, 2008, 08:03 PM // 20:03

There is no GW Depression. Sure ectos are down, but they are not the standard game currency. The buying power of the real currency (gold ) is greater than ever before. There is some deflation in low tier items, but they were always low teir because they have an unlimited supply and can be readily farmed by any Tom , Dick or Harry. That is just supply out pacing demand, nothing broken there. Now these days rare items are doing just fine. These truly rare things are more achievement + luck based and can't be farmed as easily. I'd have to say overall the economy is healthy and working as intended.

Sleeper Service · Jul 21, 2008, 08:06 PM // 20:06

i havent participated in this farce since 06, the last time i traded with a human player i exchanged the minipet extras i had for same year equivalents.

gold is for merchants, barter for humans and lol at you "economists".

yeah, what Frill said.