Curse

the_jos · Aug 10, 2007, 11:57 AM // 11:57

It all comes down to what you view as 'the economy'.

One can view that in the 'gold in -> gold out' perspective.
And that including gold (or items) on bots and excluding that gold.
The reason for this is that gold on bots is not in the economy as long as it's on the bot account. Only if it is sold to an other player it is in the economy.
I think there is still more gold moving in than out the economy, but this is inherent to people keeping gold and items in storage.
However, the amount of gold/player getting into the economy is probably less than before lootscaling.

This affects the second part of viewing, namely gold circulating in the economy.
This affects the player and trader market.
As The Herbalizer pointed out, there is massive inflation in certain items, specially rare minipets.
I don't know if The Herbalizer is right on botter gold, but he/she could be very right on that.

Then there is the weapons market. There has been a huge deflation of prices.
Certain items remain expensive, others are down the drain now.
I think this is the market that is hit most from loot scaling the most.
And not only because buying power decreased, but also uncertainty and the release of GWEN.
The low end of this market seems to have improved for the players. However, this is only for certain items, most on the traders.
The current trading system does not support trading of items below a certain value because of income/hour rating.

This brings us to my final look, on individual player level.
For the starting player, things got a little better, because runes dropped in price.
For the somewhat experienced player, things got better. Items on player market are cheaper and materials got somewhat cheaper.
However, they need to have some gold to invest, because the trading system does not support trading below a certain value (most non-perfect weapons and upgrades go to merch, while these kind of players might want to buy them).
For specialized people, things got better. I'm spending almost all my time in HM and income (in full groups) is somewhat better .

However, for a certain group of people things got worse.
Specially for those who used to solo-farm whites. People that want to fully equip all their characters and heroes with good weapons and runes.
People that want to unlock all skills on their characters (again, see loot scaling thread).

There is a gap between the somewhat experienced player and the people that have real whealth. It used to be possible to fill that gap relatively fast by solo-farming whites. Now the only way is to farm specific items and spend time selling them, get a lucky drop or just save up.

This gap is there and will stay.
This is not bad, it's always been like that. And the gap is about wants and not needs. When a certain item becomes 'need' and the general population cannot afford it, then there is a problem.

Envious · Aug 10, 2007, 04:51 PM // 16:51

The way I see it, the economy goes through some influx at times.

lacasner · Aug 10, 2007, 05:23 PM // 17:23

Yea..i just saw a few people advertising 20 tormented weapons or w/e for a certain mini-pet...

I can't believe Anet can't find these people and ban their ass.

Operative 14 · Aug 10, 2007, 06:29 PM // 18:29

Anyone else here notice that Ectos are worth 7k right now?

It looks to me that the ingame economy is going to get a big boost when GW:EN is released based off of new items and abilites. Then it will slowly start to falter again; The people who will want to buy expensive items will have bought them, so the sellers of said items willl have to lower their prices to appeal to a larger market. I think the problem right now is that it's been one year since the last game release and, with the exception of second year mini's, there hasn't been an influx of new and exciting items to drive the economy back up.

Having said that, I'm worried about the economy two years after GW:EN, before GW2 is released.

Komradkyle · Aug 10, 2007, 07:41 PM // 19:41

Well I think it sucks because there are so many bots every time I log in more than there ever was and not only at 3 am but all the time now. The should stop nerfing farm builds but work harder on catching bots, even though this might be very difficult for them to figure out.

Joseph Leito · Aug 10, 2007, 09:49 PM // 21:49

I'm minoring in Economy in college, and judging GW's economy, I can say that while prices seem EXTREMELY instable, it's fairly solid none the less. After all, a non-max damage weapon has never been worth much, and ectos always have and will be worth quite a bit. Thanks to NPC traders holding the price within a certain range, the economy is stable.

Enko · Aug 10, 2007, 10:16 PM // 22:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Operative 14

Anyone else here notice that Ectos are worth 7k right now?

It looks to me that the ingame economy is going to get a big boost when GW:EN is released based off of new items and abilites. Then it will slowly start to falter again; The people who will want to buy expensive items will have bought them, so the sellers of said items willl have to lower their prices to appeal to a larger market. I think the problem right now is that it's been one year since the last game release and, with the exception of second year mini's, there hasn't been an influx of new and exciting items to drive the economy back up.

Having said that, I'm worried about the economy two years after GW:EN, before GW2 is released.

ectos went up in price because of the change to the favor system and uncertainty about the availability of farming in UW and FoW from now on. Once it's certain how it will affect it, ectos will balance out again.

«Ripskin · Aug 10, 2007, 10:20 PM // 22:20

lol, I read the title of this and just started laughing.

It's a game. If the economy sucks it's not the end of the world.