Curse

azunder · Jul 27, 2006, 03:36 PM // 15:36

People will buy gold whether it's allowed or not. But, if buying gold was officially supported, more gold would be bought compared to if buying gold was unsupported. If gold was buyable in the official store, we'd see way more economic warping.

Ashleigh McMahon · Jul 27, 2006, 03:37 PM // 15:37

Why would Anet need gold?? Why would Anet give discounts when they could be making more $$? Anet wouldn't do that because they need all the cash they can get to keep up decent servers and server maintenance.

Ashleigh.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cassius The Bold

What is wrong with you people who hope gold is not sold on there?

Do you think keeping it on eBay with a bunch of bot farmers is going to help you any?

Seriously, people are going to buy gold whether you like it or not. What you really want is a way for GW to control the supply of gold in the economy. To control the gold supply in game, wouldn't it be nice if you could sell gold to Anet to earn $ usuable towards the game store. So instead of having to plunk down $10 for a character slot you could sell X amount of gold it GW. GW could in turn use this gold as the supply the sell gold from and have a substantial markup on it for those lazy people who won't work for it. In the end you get stuff for "free" because you choose to farm. People who want to buy gold will do so and pay a higher price for it than what the GW store exchange rate is and bot farmers have lost their customer base unless they can undersell ANet. So what is the result of this: ANet gets money, you get "free" upgrades by selling gold to ANet, people who want to buy gold pay a higher price than what GW economy says it worth, and ANet could put a dent in the bot farming in general.

There are some in game economic impacts that I need to think through but can't atm (I'm at work). But this rough idea gives you a way to have ANet earn money, solve the bot problem, and reward players who earn their gold the hard way.

Cassius The Bold · Jul 27, 2006, 04:00 PM // 16:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ashleigh McMahon

Why would Anet need gold?? Why would Anet give discounts when they could be making more $$? Anet wouldn't do that because they need all the cash they can get to keep up decent servers and server maintenance.

Ashleigh.

Well here is the thing... you all are worried about the in game economy going out of whack... so you need a huge gold sink somewhere because afterall, we don't want ANet to just keep "printing money." Thus if ANet "bought" back gold they could maintain reserves and better control the in game economy. Think of the U.S. Federal Reserve system, this is no different from that as it would control the in-game economy by not increasing the overall gold supply in GW. Where as if GW just "printed" 50 plat for you when you bought gold then prices would go out of whack... also check my edit of my post... it defines how to ideally deal with problems of rare mat price spikes.

Plus gold is being bought and sold everyday, while it may not be official, ANet is losing money because of it.

Example time:
If ANet buys 100 plat from you or me for $2.50 and resells it for a $5.00. They have 100% markup on that gold. In addition, they are taking gold out of the in game economy to use as the gold they are selling. Also, do remember that I stated this would be good for $ only at the GW store so they arent going to be mailing you a check anytime soon. They have an incremental cost involved with offering items in the game store, BUT they should make up for your getting a free character slot because they have a 100% markup on the gold you sold them. In the end the net effect of ANet giving you your "character slot" you paid for by selling them GW gold is ZERO. They sell the gold to people in game at 2x the price you paid and the result is that those people who are too lazy to farm are paying for you character slot and the gold you sold to ANet.

The result is that if you can't afford to purchase upgrades, but do play quite a bit, you can get things through the GW store.

I'll try to clarify more if you have further questions, but the details behind my idea are based on how various financial markets work and the GW online economy isn't exactly the most robust economy.

Finally, I do realize that at a 100% markup someone could buy gold from you for $3.00 per 100 plat and sell it for $4.00 per 100 plat. But remember, with ANet it would be and instantaneous transaction. Where as with the other guys... who knows. So you are back to a time vs. value trade off. Are you really willing to wait 30 minutes for some guy to show up to send him your gold, and confirm that he has paypal'd you $3.00? I gaurantee you this is more work for someone to go through than the current gold farming bots.

vinegrower · Jul 27, 2006, 04:03 PM // 16:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stockholm

Was it not stated by Jeff Strain in an interview that they could not make things apear on the game server? (correct me if i'm wrong)
So in order for A-net to sell in game items and gold they would have to remove that "safe guard", opening the game to manipulation. Unless they run Bot's to collect the gold and other Items thats for sale.
And plz don't say it can't be hacked, they hack anything they want, given time and it would make it profitable to do. It would make it impossible for a-net to counter this without having to do rollbacks every time they get hacked.

He said that the devs cannot spawn items/gold. However, they could create a key that when added to a player's account that item would appear in the players inventory.

For those of you saying that selling gold would stop ebay gold sellers, I highly doubt that. All that would happen is the ebayers would drop their prices to be lower than ArenaNet's. As for the impact on the economy, since there would be an official way to buy gold, more people would start doing it. With more gold flooding the market, prices will skyrocket. As prices go up and up, it will get to the point that people will have to buy gold in order to get items and upgrades.

Ashleigh McMahon · Jul 27, 2006, 04:05 PM // 16:05

Ah Cassius, I just noticed you saying they resell the gold. It sounds a good idea, but sorry i'm still against it. I've never been for the buy ingame stuff for real money-galore.

Ashleigh

noblepaladin · Jul 27, 2006, 04:16 PM // 16:16

If ANet resells gold, people will run bots to farm gold to sell to ANet who sells to other players? How is this different than buying gold from EBay? ANet is the middle man instead of EBay? I'd rather see ANet make the money than EBay so they can make the game better, but the concept of selling gold for money is just wrong in my opinion.

Cassius The Bold · Jul 27, 2006, 04:21 PM // 16:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by noblepaladin

If ANet resells gold, people will run bots to farm gold to sell to ANet who sells to other players? How is this different than buying gold from EBay? ANet is the middle man instead of EBay? I'd rather see ANet make the money than EBay so they can make the game better, but the concept of selling gold for money is just wrong in my opinion.

What use does a bot farmer have for GW Store $ that only buys GW Store items for his bot account? Most bot farmers use the money they earn on eBay to live off of or to supplement their income, not buy account/character upgrades. I don't think you will ever completely eliminate bot farmers but you can definitely make it so it isn't worth someone's time and money to bot farm for a living.

Jetdoc · Jul 27, 2006, 04:24 PM // 16:24

Here are my opinions on the most controversial issues...

Gold - Terrible idea.

*Yes, botters are out there selling gold on E-Bay.
*But most players know that purchasing that gold is in violation of the EULA, and is subject to a ton of risk. That is why you don't see the widespread prevelance of players coming in with 1 million gold and overbidding on every green weapon out there.
*Allowing a bonafide, SPONSORED way of purchasing gold in game will take away all of those deterrents.
*Using a basic economics argument, this will result in the price of most items skyrocketing for every player in game - not only in the WTS/WTB chat, but also from the material and rune traders as well.

Unique/Novelty Armor/Items - Terrible idea.

Most players want to know that they have the ability to "earn" every item available in the game, even novelty items, through playing the game or participating in events. Envy can be a terrible morale-buster, and I can see players actually purchasing such items being discriminated against/taunted/berated by those not willing to pay that money.

Collector's Editions from previous issues - Good idea.

Yes, this cheapens the "uniqueness" of the original collector editions' owners, but in the end if someone wants to pay the actual spread paid by the CE owners when it was issued (i.e. around $20), I don't see the problem in allowing them to have access to this feature.

Extra Storage - Terrible idea.

I'm actually surprised as to the amount of players that would be willing to pay for this.

*Many of us have multiple armor sets in order to gain the fullest utility out of our characters.
*That utility is somewhat restricted right now due to the limitations of our storage space. That is, I usually can only have 3 different armor sets for each of my characters without making them completely useless in PvE from picking up additional loot.
*Charging for additional storage space will give other players a distinct IN-GAME PLAYING ADVANTAGE over my current characters, as they will have the ability to purchase many other different armor sets that I will not be able to store.
*Many view this as a conveinence factor (like additional character slots) - I view it as an actual in-game advantage.

I'll edit my post with more comments when I have time.

Cassius The Bold · Jul 27, 2006, 04:36 PM // 16:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jetdoc

Here are my opinions on the most controversial issues...

Gold - Terrible idea.

*Yes, botters are out there selling gold on E-Bay.
*But most players know that purchasing that gold is in violation of the EULA, and is subject to a ton of risk. That is why you don't see the widespread prevelance of players coming in with 1 million gold and overbidding on every green weapon out there.
*Allowing a bonafide, SPONSORED way of purchasing gold in game will take away all of those deterrents.
*Using a basic economics argument, this will result in the price of most items skyrocketing for every player in game - not only in the WTS/WTB chat, but also from the material and rune traders as well.

You must have missed my first post... if GW programming notices that prices for certain items are going above the thresholds then the program could adjust the drop rates for those items accordingly until they come back down.

Is their code this robust?
I have no clue.

Does this solve the green and rare weapons issues?
No, because to monitor those they would need an auction house where they could gain such tracking capability. (It would also be a gold sink in itself since the auction house could charge x% of commision on items sold there.)

In the end it becomes a trade off between how much it would cost ANet to implement effective economic controls to deal with official gold buying, and the amount of money they would bring in by hosting the activity. If they find that the costs of properly safeguarding the environment are too great compared to what they'd make from selling gold and don't want to officially sell gold thats fine. However, if they have the opportunity to earn money without destroying the balance of the game and, in the process improve the game economy, then they should leave no stone unturned.

P.S. no matter what they should get an auction house... it would really make things easier on all players and would help establish the price trends for items throughout the GW world.

Jetdoc · Jul 27, 2006, 05:02 PM // 17:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cassius The Bold

You must have missed my first post... if GW programming notices that prices for certain items are going above the thresholds then the program could adjust the drop rates for those items accordingly until they come back down.

Unfortunately, this would likely only be a band-aid for the issue. Are you going to have fellblades, magmas shields and eternal shields drop right outside of Ascalon City? Unless there is a crazy increase in the drop rate for items, the impact (as compared to people purchasing gold) would likely not stem the overall inflation that would be created by purchased gold.

You also have to realize that dramatically increasing the amount of gold available in the economy has an exponential effect. For example, the person that purchases gold buys an item for much higher than the original worth. The person that sold that item now has that excess cash. So that person goes and buys an item from another player for much higher than the original worth. So on and so on...that results in multiple items going up in average price for one player simplying purchasing gold.

I have a degree in economics from the University of Texas (see my icon), and this is definitely a time-tested theory. Unless the supply (i.e. drop rate) dramatically increases (to the point where it's just plain silly), it cannot hope to compete with the increase in accessibility of gold.

felinette · Jul 27, 2006, 05:14 PM // 17:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jetdoc

Collector's Editions from previous issues - Good idea.

Yes, this cheapens the "uniqueness" of the original collector editions' owners, but in the end if someone wants to pay the actual spread paid by the CE owners when it was issued (i.e. around $20), I don't see the problem in
allowing them to have access to this feature.

There's a problem because those who first bought it thought they were getting a limited edition version of the game--so cheapening the uniqueness shouldn't happen. It's called a collector's edition for a reason. There's no time-limit on when it's okay to blow that away. If you didn't by the CE, you should be out of luck. Also, it would be a bad thing for Anet to do. Why? Because if they set this sort of precedent, nobody will bother buying the boxed CE when it first becomes available. They'll just buy a standard version and decide later if they want to convert to it to the CE for $20. Some never will, because why buy a CE that's not really a CE? So I'm against this unless they charge full price for the key, because that'll keep the numbers down and they won't be shooting future CE versions in the foot.

The same goes for preorder items. If they start selling those, then nobody will bother to preorder to get them. They'll just wait until a few months later when the items become available in the store.

SnipiousMax · Jul 27, 2006, 05:19 PM // 17:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jetdoc

<snip>

Agreed on all points. I especially like the point of exra storage giving people an in game advantage over others.

Cassius The Bold · Jul 27, 2006, 05:23 PM // 17:23

JetDoc,

Since you outed yourself as having an econ degree (mine is in accounting & finance), do you think that having a fixed amount of GW currency in the game world would help control overall inflation if gold buying were legitmized? This way ANet could establish a floating currency exchange rate that would make it more expensive to buy gold as the salable supply became scarce. I know that going to a fixed amount of currency has its own potential problems but your thoughts would be appreciated.

SnipiousMax · Jul 27, 2006, 06:08 PM // 18:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cassius The Bold

JetDoc,

Since you outed yourself as having an econ degree (mine is in accounting & finance), do you think that having a fixed amount of GW currency in the game world would help control overall inflation if gold buying were legitmized? This way ANet could establish a floating currency exchange rate that would make it more expensive to buy gold as the salable supply became scarce. I know that going to a fixed amount of currency has its own potential problems but your thoughts would be appreciated.

But then you'd have what happened when they reset the in game prices for materials and Dyes. Those that happened to be on when it was available would become in game millionaires, and those that were slower on the draw would be out of luck because the prices would Sky-rocket soon afterwards. Once the price became more and more expensive, fewer and fewer people would buy gold, and it would be the priviledged few that were ready that would reap the benefits.

KiyaKoreena · Jul 27, 2006, 06:23 PM // 18:23

People will still buy the future CE editions because they want the physical stuff that comes with it too. But if someone wants just the ingame part and doesnt want the rest then let them buy it. A CE is just an upgraded copy so I think its fair to get to buy the upgrade a bit later when you are sure you want to play the game still.

gamecube187 · Jul 27, 2006, 06:53 PM // 18:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by felinette

There's a problem because those who first bought it thought they were getting a limited edition version of the game--so cheapening the uniqueness shouldn't happen. It's called a collector's edition for a reason. There's no time-limit on when it's okay to blow that away. If you didn't by the CE, you should be out of luck. Also, it would be a bad thing for Anet to do. Why? Because if they set this sort of precedent, nobody will bother buying the boxed CE when it first becomes available. They'll just buy a standard version and decide later if they want to convert to it to the CE for $20. Some never will, because why buy a CE that's not really a CE? So I'm against this unless they charge full price for the key, because that'll keep the numbers down and they won't be shooting future CE versions in the foot.

The same goes for preorder items. If they start selling those, then nobody will bother to preorder to get them. They'll just wait until a few months later when the items become available in the store.

And what about the people that didn't even know GW existed when the collectors edition came out? Or the people that were in some place where collectors edition NEVER came out (I know there is someone from australia or something like that saying that collectors edtion never came out there, even though he would have bought it if it did)? Are you basically saying "Well, you started playing GW at the wrong time so you are screwed. HAHAHA! Oh and you, you live in the wrong place so you are also screwed. Sucks to be you doesn't it?" (maybe that is a little over-dramatic, but I think you get my point.

)

Also, there are STILL collectors editions being sold and "cheapening the uniqueness" of having collectors edition. Plus, since there are so many people that want it, why not have Arena Net make profit off it?

Oh, and it would be AT LEAST $5 to $10 more to upgrade your account to collectors edition than just buying it when it first came out, that way it would be better just to buy the collectors edition from the start.

As far as teh preorder weapons, those would mostly be ones from preorders we couldn't get, such as the ones in china and such. They DO have different weapons than the ones we got, which is why they were suggested in the first place, to have something that we couldn't have otherwise (unless we lived there or traveled there just for the preorder

) Also, there were (at least for the factions one. I don't even know if there was a preorder for prophecies) events that were only accesible if you if you bought the preorder, and they hopefully will continue making these. The event alone is enough to get me to get the preorder.

Also, NO TO BUYING GOLD. At first this seems like a good idea and a reasonable way for Arena Net to make money, but in the long run it WILL ruin the economy of the game,no matter what you do. Sure, they can keep lowering the prices of dyeand stuff, but players will just buy it in mass quantities untill it goes back to the "normal" price and then sell it slightly cheaper than the "normal" price and make a profit. As far as player trades, like greens, there is no way to moniter that unless they make a auction house and do what you said, which will just promote people to not use the auction house so that they get maximum profit for themselves. Eventually, items will be so expensive that the only way to get good items and greens is to

1. Get really lucky after doing a lot of farming and get what they want.

2. Farm for months and sell anything they get just to get enough money to buy the item they want.

3. Buy gold from the store.

The only option that wouldn't take way too long is the third one, which would bassically make a monthly fee, since you would have to buy it on a regular basis.

Furthermore, it wouldn't get rid of bots and e-bayers, OR discourage them. They would probably think "If it is fine for Arena Net to do it, then it is fine for me to do it!" If anything, it would encourage bots because they know that Arena Net is doing it, so people can no longer get their accounts banned for buying gold, and a lot more people would do it, and then the e-bayers would just keep selling gold while playing the "lets sell gold cheaper than Arena Net so people buy it from us" game.

IF Arena Net decides to sell something like gold or non-customised items, which would ruin the economy, then I, along with many other players, will quit GW forever, even though it is a great game.

I'm all for selling in-game items to keep profits up, but they WOULD HAVE TO BE customized so they won't be sold for in-game money. If it isn't customised, it would be just as bad as selling gold. In fact, if they uncutomised in-game items, they might as well sell in game gold too.

This is a big post...0_0....I think I need to make smaller posts from now on...:P

Jetdoc · Jul 27, 2006, 06:59 PM // 18:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cassius The Bold

JetDoc,
do you think that having a fixed amount of GW currency in the game world would help control overall inflation if gold buying were legitmized?

Honestly, I don't know how A-Net would accomplish this, unless:

(1) They eliminated PvE enemies from dropping gold when they die;
(2) They prevent players from selling items/materials/dyes to the merchants/traders; and
(3) Eliminate gold rewards from quests.

Unlike governments, who can stop printing money, A-Net cannot stop "issuing" new gold to players. They can prevent gold from being purchased, but that would (1) tend to simply put boundaries around the base problem with allowing the sale of gold and (2) may result in a "run on the bank" problem once it's announced that gold can be purchased again. As stated by Snipious above, that could be very similar to the "run on the bank" that occurred when material, dye and rune prices were reset.

By the way, I also have my Masters in Accounting and Finance as well - it's nice to talk to someone else in the financial field...

Ashleigh McMahon · Jul 27, 2006, 06:59 PM // 18:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamecube187

1. Get really lucky after doing a lot of farming and get what they want.

2. Farm for months and sell anything they get just to get enough money to buy the item they want.

3. Buy gold from the store.

The only option that wouldn't take way too long is the third one, which would bassically make a monthly fee, since you would have to buy it on a regular basis.

Good points, and to add to that- a good majority of players will not be able to purchase anything from the stores, either due to age restrictions(not having a cc) or lack of payment options( either no option for there debitcard/cc or no paypal) or simply don't trust putting billing info online.

Ashleigh

azuresun · Jul 27, 2006, 07:06 PM // 19:06

There seems to be much debate in the other thread if the ability to change your characters appearance should cost $$$ or be available at an NPC in game.

I feel that there needs to be a cost, wether a small amount of RL money, or a lot of in game currency, to change your characters appearance in PVE, otherwise people will be changing there characters appearance everday, sometimes multiple times a day, and then everyone looses their identity.

Trvth Jvstice · Jul 27, 2006, 07:15 PM // 19:15

Why do people keep saying it would be unfair to some players if people could buy special skins, or special (customized) weapons? If they had the $50 to buy the game in the first place, they should have the cash to buy something from the GW store. And, if the person is a kid, they'd just tell whoever bought the game for them to buy the item from GW. As long as the item isn't unbalancing to the game, there shouldn't be a problem.