Curse

N8mare · Apr 05, 2008, 08:57 AM // 08:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

Halted online distribution of demo accounts to combat spamming
Noted a significant reduction in RMT spamming
Blocked 391 abused IP addresses
Terminated 4,876 accounts associated with RMT networks
Removed 190,200,000 purchased gold from 771 players
Witnessed a substantial reduction in botting activity in the game
Witnessed a substantial drop in RMT account creation and RMT transactions

Cool - but... What are the effects of those actions? I mean the effects on game's economy?

You've stopped most of the farming bots. People no longer buy golds for real money. You've removed a huge amount of golds that were bought from RMT companies.

Players buy golds usually to spend them, not to keep them forever in their storage because they love to see "1.000k" in it. So - we should be able to see some effects of all these actions.

As you said: "RMT destroyes the game's economy". RMT effects are (in your opinion) clearly visible - so what are the effects in game's economy of eradicated RMT ?

Zahr Dalsk · Apr 05, 2008, 08:58 AM // 08:58

Maybe now we can take off loot scaling

MeatBag · Apr 05, 2008, 09:12 AM // 09:12

loot scaling ftl, it should be quite interesting what happens to the economy now.

Numa Pompilius · Apr 05, 2008, 10:06 AM // 10:06

The bots both increase the money supply and the item supply of the game, it is hard to say which effect is greater.

However, should it turn out that the lowered inflow of new money to the game causes items to rise in price, ANet can very easily fix it by raising drop rate a notch.

In other words, this is win-win for human gamers.

Taurus · Apr 05, 2008, 10:10 AM // 10:10

too latahzors.

Witchblade · Apr 05, 2008, 10:33 AM // 10:33

another "beg for LS removal" thread ?

Medic · Apr 05, 2008, 10:41 AM // 10:41

If there is less gold in the economy then each piece of gold will have a greater relative value, and prices will fall. However I personally expect this change to have no noticable effect on anything.

Arduin · Apr 05, 2008, 11:48 AM // 11:48

I couldn't care less about the economical aspect of this game. There's nothing expensive I need or want.

And it's true that a lot of RMT-accounts are blocked, but who knows how many are still active?

Fay Vert · Apr 05, 2008, 12:23 PM // 12:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arduinna

I couldn't care less about the economical aspect of this game.

I think this is the real opinion that ANet should consider when they initiate some game change. Players should not have to care about the economy, its a game, not a stocks and shares business.

Anything ANet do should not affect gameplay, and this is why the loot nerf was such a dreadful idea, it radically affected gameplay.

The removal of RMT by recent actions is a far better way of doing it as it was totally invisible to all the normal players (well, except for all the normal players that got banned by mistake).

MagmaRed · Apr 05, 2008, 01:00 PM // 13:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fay Vert

I think this is the real opinion that ANet should consider when they initiate some game change. Players should not have to care about the economy, its a game, not a stocks and shares business.

Anything ANet do should not affect gameplay, and this is why the loot nerf was such a dreadful idea, it radically affected gameplay.

The removal of RMT by recent actions is a far better way of doing it as it was totally invisible to all the normal players (well, except for all the normal players that got banned by mistake).

I'm confused by this. You say that Anet should not make changes based on the economy, only based on gameplay. Players should not care about the economy, only playing the game. However, you state that loot scaling changed the way the game plays. I don't see how. The only thing it changed was the way people farmed, which is only done by the people who care about the economy in some way. Since the people who were joining full teams, instead of going solo saw an no change in gold coming in, how was this changing gameplay?

N8mare · Apr 05, 2008, 01:11 PM // 13:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numa Pompilius

The bots both increase the money supply and the item supply of the game, it is hard to say which effect is greater.

However, should it turn out that the lowered inflow of new money to the game causes items to rise in price, ANet can very easily fix it by raising drop rate a notch.

In other words, this is win-win for human gamers.

I don't agree with you. Lowered inflow of money = prices drop (lowered demand due to the sudden lack of funds). I guess if RMT has ANY effect on game's economy (in my opinion it does not) - we will observe further drop of prices. Do we want ectos for 2k and sup vig runes for 3k ?

GW's economy is dead with or without RMT and the only reason for AN fighting with RMT is that AN does not have ANY profit from this activity. Other arguments are just lies.

But I'm still waiting to read official An statement on the effects of killing RMT traders in Guild Wars.

aapo · Apr 05, 2008, 01:29 PM // 13:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by N8mare

I don't agree with you. Lowered inflow of money = prices drop (lowered demand due to the sudden lack of funds). I guess if RMT has ANY effect on game's economy (in my opinion it does not) - we will observe further drop of prices. Do we want ectos for 2k and sup vig runes for 3k ?

- You don't even know how economy works. Shut up.

Vesio · Apr 05, 2008, 02:38 PM // 14:38

the GW economy runs on a very basic supply and demand system, with players willing to pay a premium for vanity. Here's some examples in very general terms:

Say Item A costs B amount of money. When you decrease the overall supply of item A (i.e. removing farming bots) its relative cost due to its relative rarity in the economy increases. This deals with the supply of Item A.

Look at it a different way: People come to really like the look of said Item A and start buying them up. This also causes an increase in the price because of an increased consumer demand. The aforementioned vanity allows the seller to demand a premium price for their goods.

so then you look at the things that decrease the value:

Item A costs B amount of money. If you now increase the number of item A (i.e. allowing bots to continue operating) in the economy, therefore reducing it's rarity, you reduce the price.

Furthermore, as players now have less money (removing gold from RMT companies) the demand for those vanity items goes down forcing sellers to reduce their prices to move their product.

in summary: supply goes up prices go down. Supply goes down prices go up. Demand goes up prices go up. Demand goes down prices go down.

Which force is greater in the GW economy? I'd say supply. There will always be people looking for "rare" items, but the overall supply in the game will go down a lot faster than the overall amount of money in the game will go down. This will cause a relative increase in prices as the demand outpaces the supply.

N8mare · Apr 05, 2008, 02:47 PM // 14:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vesio

the GW economy runs on a very basic supply and demand system, with players willing to pay a premium for vanity. Here's some examples in very general terms:

Say Item A costs B amount of money. When you decrease the overall supply of item A (i.e. removing farming bots) its relative cost due to its relative rarity in the economy increases. This deals with the supply of Item A.

Look at it a different way: People come to really like the look of said Item A and start buying them up. This also causes an increase in the price because of an increased consumer demand. The aforementioned vanity allows the seller to demand a premium price for their goods.

so then you look at the things that decrease the value:

Item A costs B amount of money. If you now increase the number of item A (i.e. allowing bots to continue operating) in the economy, therefore reducing it's rarity, you reduce the price.

Furthermore, as players now have less money (removing gold from RMT companies) the demand for those vanity items goes down forcing sellers to reduce their prices to move their product.

in summary: supply goes up prices go down. Supply goes down prices go up. Demand goes up prices go up. Demand goes down prices go down.

Which force is greater in the GW economy? I'd say supply. There will always be people looking for "rare" items, but the overall supply in the game will go down a lot faster than the overall amount of money in the game will go down. This will cause a relative increase in prices as the demand outpaces the supply.

and what are those ultra rare vanity items that everyone wants to have, which are farmed by bots?

Esan · Apr 05, 2008, 03:04 PM // 15:04

What about the bots that are not run by RMT companies? Why are they completely being ignored?

Malice Black · Apr 05, 2008, 03:08 PM // 15:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by N8mare

and what are those ultra rare vanity items that everyone wants to have, which are farmed by bots?

What items would these be?

There are few ultra rare items in GW, and this is down to the fact they CAN'T be farmed.

creelie · Apr 05, 2008, 03:12 PM // 15:12

RMT is not exactly eradicated. It's just taken some severe blows recently. We can call it eradicated if the gold-farming companies decide that GW is simply not worth the effort and devote their resources to different games.

Vesio · Apr 05, 2008, 03:12 PM // 15:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by N8mare

and what are those ultra rare vanity items that everyone wants to have, which are farmed by bots?

couldn't tell you as I do not farm and play very little role if any in the market. If it can't go to guildies it goes to the merch. all i'm saying is that in the sort of supply and demand economy that GW runs on the supply of items will lag the demand for those items causing a relative increase in prices. and for the record I wasn't talking about "ultra rare" vanity items. It is any item in the game whose supply is decreased because of the lessening of farming bots.

Sujoy · Apr 05, 2008, 03:12 PM // 15:12

personally higher priced items cannot hurt if the drop rates are highered proportionately...

IMO I'd restart playing GW (2 months break and going) if lootscaling was removed.

MithranArkanere · Apr 05, 2008, 03:26 PM // 15:26

I seriously doubt bots being able to farm ultra rare vanity items.

Most GW bots work by making inputs into the game: Click, click, 1,2,3,1,2, etc...
How can a bot know which item is which by repeating a sequence?

A bot may identify items by repeating a sequence, but won't know if an item is a gold or a white?
Maybe there are some bots that reads game memory, but we already know that most of them just repeat keyboard and mouse inputs.

Most of them just kill, pick, zone, sell, rezone and repeat.

So most bots just inject gather gold into the economy, reducing the overall value of gold, and of course, without saving rare items other than the ones that can't be sold, like Tomes.

Remove the bots, and the gold recovers it's original value.

Allow players to act as bots, gathering items and selling them massively, and it would be the same as being bots.

The point is that, regardless of how big are their parties, two players should get similar amounts of gold playing in the same areas during the same time, and any extra gold should come from trading with other characters.
Traders help a bit in that.

Nevertheless, it's too soon to see the results. For now, we should be seen a slight decrease in some prices in Traders, probably mostly in runes.