Curse

heavy metal rules · Feb 17, 2006, 02:48 PM // 14:48

you know, this topice brings up a good point before i played this game i was play eq2 and having fun with it since it was my first mmo game. And i played it the right way, well about 6-8 months into playing it soe decided that they were going to create different servers (so to speak) where people who don't play as much or whatever can create a toon and pick his lvl and armor and whatever goodies he wanted including cash in bank for realworld money. And man the outrage that insued on eq 2.

Hence that is why I am here, I think if your going to play the game, play it right, sure people farm, but sometimes when you've gone through the game and not much to do and you still love the game why not farm i do it, i'm not rich, and the stuff i get i give very good prices, and i don't scam people for there is no need, but the people that need to resort to BUYING online money, they just cheat themselves, and some gaming magazines like pc gamer have pulled their ads for companies that sell online gold, which i commend them for doing but as we all know that surely doesn't stop everyone or anyone .

sorry for the rant.

apocalypse_xx · Feb 17, 2006, 03:00 PM // 15:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by AxeMe

When it comes to entertainment - playing a game - there is no particular virtue that I can see in postponing pleasure. While being a wise consumer is important in real life, I don't think there's the same need when playing a game. The idea with a game is to have fun, not become a role model.

But if another player enjoys playing the game another way - as long as they stay within the EULA - that's OK with me. Buying eBay gold seems to be outsidethe agreement - so I'm against it. But if there was an in-game merchant, that would be another story.

Exactly my point...I am not asking them to be role models and/or enjoy the game the way we do...just to PLAY within the rules set forth, buying gold is just as bad IMO as scamming or using exploits, and yes this is a game and my comparison to real life is somewhat harsh I admit, although it has been my experience, that often people behave in game much as they do in real life...which most of the time is a positive to any online game... after a trade do you always pm "Thank you", I know I do. The downside, rude/bad language, abusive, scamming and gold buying players will always exist, both online and in real life.

MSecorsky · Feb 17, 2006, 04:31 PM // 16:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Iowerth

I've taken Economics 101 and 102!

To AxeMe: good ideas, but one fatal flaw ... if the Merchants control the amount of gold going into the game, then older players who already have some $$ in the bank are at a significant advantage to the newer players ... and ANet would not want to alienate their future-fans! Plus you would get into what would be the equivalent of the money market in the real world: buying when low, selling high ... all that mess, and you'd have to either make it global across all regions, or segregate it into US/EU, Korea, JP, etc to prevent too much cross-continent abuse. Some very interesting ideas in your post though!

The idea isn't for the merchants to control the amount of gold in game... you still want gold to drop as it does. The idea is to simply provide a cheaper alternative and legal means for the lazy and foolish to buy gold with real money that benefits aNet and detracts from the eBayers. If you can, in game, buy 50Plat for $2.99 or go to eBay and pay those prices... what would you do (assuming you were one to be so dumb as to buy fake gold with real money)?

Mordakai · Feb 17, 2006, 04:48 PM // 16:48

It's all about what you personally think the "goal" of the game is.

Those advocating selling Gold for real money - this is a horrible idea.

Who wouldn't spend $3 for 50 plat if it was allowed by Anet? I'm going to spend $50 for Factions, $3 is not even the tax on that! And for $3 I can buy any armor I want!

Of course, that's ALL I'll be able to buy. Since everyone else is going to spend $3 to get 50k, gold prices for Weapons, Runes, etc, will go through the roof.

Then comes the vicous cycle - people buy more gold to get the items they want, driving up prices, so that people have to buy even more gold.

The chance of anyone actually "earning" enough money to buy player controlled items will eventually become nil.

The only way to really solve the e-bay problem is to get rid of Gold all together. Armor is bought through points earned by quests and leveling up (the points are not exchangeable).

All items are instantly customized when someone picks them up (or, are customized at drop?!?). No items to trade or sell on ebay. (or anywhere else).

Of course, this will probably not be a very fun game to play. Except for the fact when you see someone with an ultra-rare item, you know he found it "legit."

I don't know. Does anyone out there think this is a good idea?

AxeMe · Feb 17, 2006, 04:51 PM // 16:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mordakai

Of course, this will probably not be a very fun game to play. Does anyone out there think this is a good idea?

I think you answered your own question - it wouldn't be as much fun and, well, that's the point of playing a game ... having fun.

HDS · Feb 17, 2006, 04:51 PM // 16:51

Nope horrible idea, if that were to happen i would not have ANY of my current weps because all my drops are non max high req white crap.

+ CC in game idea is horrible, if you do that you may aswell rename guildwars to "Project Entropia".

Seriously.

Chase the Sky · Feb 17, 2006, 07:57 PM // 19:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by apocalypse_xx

if it is important to YOU to own these things then just simply PLAY the game! I usually play for a couple of hours each day (instead of TV) and most people would call the style I play farming...but to me I enjoy "farming" because to me it is fun, but let me clarify, my farming is I go into high level areas (yes solo) but I pretty much clear them, one run can take me my full 2 hours, I enjoy this very much (so no boring grind) and it actually yields tons of gold (bring at least 2 sup salvage kits)...so in keeping on topic, the real problem is simply lazy/immature players who cannot wait to buy their fissure armor, they are probably the same in real life as well, one day they want a vacation...next day go borrow for it...no need to save

You probably didn’t read my earlier post or maybe you didn’t understand it so I’ll say it again:

TIME = MONEY

Therefore:

WASTING TIME = WASTING MONEY

Some people don’t like farming. Some people play this game to run quests with their friends and hate farming. Some people concentrate completely on PvP and have only done the PvE content to get items and such unlocked or available for PvP. These people don’t want to waste their time farming. It is not competitive to spend time PvEing for gear when you should be practicing PvPing with your guild. Some people make a ton of money in their real world jobs and only have a few hours a week to play. These people buy gold to help “grease” their way though the game so they can continue to PvE or PvP with their friends who might have more time then them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSecorsky

If you can, in game, buy 50Plat for $2.99 or go to eBay and pay those prices... what would you do (assuming you were one to be so dumb as to buy fake gold with real money)?

The prices are way cheaper then that. 50Plat costs less then half a penny on ebay. Like I posted earlier: you could work at McDonalds for 30 minutes and buy more gold on-line then you could farming for 8 hours strait.

Those of you that think paying real life cash for Virtual products is dumb are out of your mind. As working people in the western world we have an unlimited earning potential- but our life spans are fixed and we have only so many hours of waking life to do the things we think are fun and important. Every hour you spend is way more important then you could put a dollar amount to. So if you think farming is totally fun then go for it. But for everyone else there are better alternatives to use your time and money on.

Being able to buy and sell gold on-line provides a huge benefit to the players of Guildwars:

1) Being able to buy gold lets players with limited time be able to competitive in the MMOLRPG setting. If it was impossible to buy gold people wouldn’t level as fast or even bother playing the game. This would lead to less population for doing quests or competing in the PvP content. I also would like to point out that these type of players that have limited time to play games but have high earnings are often times more intelligent and can offer more to the gaming community then the average player. This will raise some outrage but consider this example: A software developer might work 60+ hours a week and make about 130K a year. This person might have a limited time to play but would probably understand the game mechanics, class balance, class roles, and group dynamics much better then the 15 year old gamer who doesn’t have as much life experience and maturity.
2) The farmers bring down the cost of gold and the amount of time it takes to get gold and items. This is because they increase the amount of wanted items in the game. As the supply of these items increase the price of them drops- allowing the community to get items with less time investment. The only people who wouldn’t like this are the people that already have the items (and don’t want other people to get them) and/or the people that really like farming and like being the only shop in town selling items.
3) Unlike other games with a persistent world (like WoW or EQ) farmers don’t even compete with “normal” players in GW because all the farming spots are instanced. In WoW you’ll have to share your farming spots with other people and you can’t get the gear you want as quickly as possible. In GW every party has their own set instance to farm.

The only reason that buying gold On-line is against the EULA is because Anet doesn’t make any money off of it- not because it is bad for the community or because it lowers the gaming experience of anyone. They HATE that someone else makes money off of their product but Gaming companies haven’t quite figure out how to sell their own gold without pissing off the majority of their community (that don’t understand economics) and driving up inflation. Once they figure out how to do it then we’ll see these farming companies go away.

Lord Iowerth · Feb 17, 2006, 08:27 PM // 20:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by AxeMe

I'm just thinking outloud here and there may be a flaw in what I'm about to say (and I'm glad to hear about it if there is).

The gold merchants would not introduce new gold into the game - instead the merchants would be limited to the gold sold to them in game. So the system would simply recycle the gold that appears in the game naturally. I'm not sure how this recycling of gold changes the equation for new players vs. old players. Remember that the majority of players won't be either buying or selling gold (at least that's how I see it -- I doubt if the majority buy gold from eBay now and don't see why that would cahnge). But some of the people, maybe most, who would have purchased gold from eBay would now purchase from the in-game merchant.

Remember the purchase of gold is made with real money - so old and new players would be on the same footing there too. The imbalance would be between people who could afford to buy gold and those who either couldn't afford it or wouldn't want to. So that's basically the balance in the game now.

I'm puzzled around trying to see why new players would be at a disadvantage and I don't see it. (I have to admit - at home - my wife tells me that when I look for the mustard in the refrigerator I often don't see that either. So I'm famous for not seeing stuff and glad to try to understand what I'm missing here.

I don't think this system would create an equivalent to the money market either. The gold is purchased in-game with a credit card, with real money. The gold is sold for money off coupons for the game. So playing this market wouldn't be very smart. And yes, the pricing - like all material sellers in game now - would be universal across all servers.

You must have my mustard too

With me it's usually the salad dressing.

The bit I was talking about was this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by AxeMe

And add this twist -- the gold merchant, just as is true with material merchants, would only be able to sell gold that it had purchased from other players. That would mean that no new gold was injected into the game. Instead, the gold merchant would simply recycle the gold that is already there and - again like materials - the price of gold would float based on supply and demand.

And the reason I say older players (but I guess it could be any players with money) is that they already, theoreticaly, have more gold to sell to the merchant than your average new player. Perhaps I don't quite understand how the merchant buys player gold from existing players ... ? The assumption i'm making here would be that the merchants would give real-world money for players selling him gold, and sell for real-world money to the players that were buying gold. Thus the "money market" bit in my last post, and people with alot of gold-capital doing alot of selling at high and buying when low.

And also, if said merchant were only able to sell gold it had purchased from other players, I would be pretty sure that the supply/demand would be much the way Ecto has been ... low supply, high demand. Although that's just a guess

I think the only real flaw I can see is if the "real-world" currency fluctuates based on how much is sold to the merchant in-game, then you will have a whole other level of monetary abuse from folks that have lots of money to sell already: "Oh, i'll wait until alot of it gets bought up, sell this gold i've farmed when the price is higher, that will drive the price lower, wait, rinse, repeat"

Just my thoughts, wasn't trying to discredit your idea whatsoever. I think people selling gold to the merchant should have some other reimbursement besides actual money, and let the buyers pay with real cash. What that reimbursement would be, I have no idea.

Mordakai · Feb 17, 2006, 08:33 PM // 20:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chase the Sky

They HATE that someone else makes money off of their product but Gaming companies haven’t quite figure out how to sell their own gold without pissing off the majority of their community (that don’t understand economics) and driving up inflation. Once they figure out how to do it then we’ll see these farming companies go away.

I agree with most of what you say, but how could you "legalize" the selling of Gold, and NOT run into inflation?

After all, it's not like super-rare Gold weapons will drop any more frequently... there will just be more people willing to pay more money for them!

MSecorsky · Feb 17, 2006, 08:42 PM // 20:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chase the Sky

The prices are way cheaper then that. 50Plat costs less then half a penny on ebay. Like I posted earlier: you could work at McDonalds for 30 minutes and buy more gold on-line then you could farming for 8 hours strait.

Whatever the prices, the point is that eBayers can be severely undercut and effectively neutered.

Quote:

Those of you that think paying real life cash for Virtual products is dumb are out of your mind. As working people in the western world we have an unlimited earning potential- but our life spans are fixed and we have only so many hours of waking life to do the things we think are fun and important. Every hour you spend is way more important then you could put a dollar amount to. So if you think farming is totally fun then go for it. But for everyone else there are better alternatives to use your time and money on.

Paying real money for items that can disappear as soon as aNet hangs up it's servers is flat out stupid. You're buying NOTHING! They don't exist!

Quote:

Being able to buy and sell gold on-line provides a huge benefit to the players of Guildwars:

1) Being able to buy gold lets players with limited time be able to competitive in the MMOLRPG setting. If it was impossible to buy gold people wouldn’t level as fast or even bother playing the game. This would lead to less population for doing quests or competing in the PvP content. I also would like to point out that these type of players that have limited time to play games but have high earnings are often times more intelligent and can offer more to the gaming community then the average player. This will raise some outrage but consider this example: A software developer might work 60+ hours a week and make about 130K a year. This person might have a limited time to play but would probably understand the game mechanics, class balance, class roles, and group dynamics much better then the 15 year old gamer who doesn’t have as much life experience and maturity.

Horsecrap. I'm one of those programmer types. I can squeeze in an hour or two a night or so and am doing quite well, tyvm. There's no need whatsoever to buy gold to compete.

Quote:

2) The farmers bring down the cost of gold and the amount of time it takes to get gold and items. This is because they increase the amount of wanted items in the game. As the supply of these items increase the price of them drops- allowing the community to get items with less time investment. The only people who wouldn’t like this are the people that already have the items (and don’t want other people to get them) and/or the people that really like farming and like being the only shop in town selling items.

More herbivorous post-digestive deposits. Farmers increase the cost of the items solely due to greed and the rediculous prices they charge for items most collectors can better.

Quote:

The only reason that buying gold On-line is against the EULA is because Anet doesn’t make any money off of it- not because it is bad for the community or because it lowers the gaming experience of anyone. They HATE that someone else makes money off of their product but Gaming companies haven’t quite figure out how to sell their own gold without pissing off the majority of their community (that don’t understand economics) and driving up inflation. Once they figure out how to do it then we’ll see these farming companies go away.

It's against EULA because of the legal implications. If you just spent $50 for x Gold or whatever and aNet goes belly-up, closing down it's servers, you cannot go after aNet for a refund of your money.

Chase the Sky · Feb 17, 2006, 09:22 PM // 21:22

[QUOTE=Mordakai]I agree with most of what you say, but how could you "legalize" the selling of Gold, and NOT run into inflation?
[QUOTE]

The only way they could do it is if they kept the amount of gold relatively static depending on the amount of players. So that gold became a limited resource like real money does.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSecorsky

Whatever the prices, the point is that eBayers can be severely undercut and effectively neutered.

I don’t understand this- since we are really talking about outsourcing the labor market to a country who’s cost of living is much, much lower then in western countries. It only costs a couple of bucks a week to survive in China, Korea, or India- the labor market is cheap and if they can be hooked up to a computer to work 60 hours a week for $10 then they will be making good cash. Their time is worth less then ours- it can’t be undercut.

Quote:

Paying real money for items that can disappear as soon as aNet hangs up it's servers is flat out stupid. You're buying NOTHING! They don't exist!

You still don’t get it- spending hours farming for the gear that doesn’t exist is more wasteful then just buying it (which I’ve already proven). When Anet closes it’s servers people will cry because of all the time they have wasted.

Quote:

Horsecrap. I'm one of those programmer types. I can squeeze in an hour or two a night or so and am doing quite well, tyvm. There's no need whatsoever to buy gold to compete.

I doubt you are one of those types from your responses. And moving the bulk of your time from farming to PvPing will make you more competitive at PvP. Lets say for example that you work as a lawnmower (well you work as a programmer but lets say you work as a lawnmower) and you also want to be a professional basket ball player. Lets say that you have to work 40 hours a week to pay your bills and you get to spend the remainder of your time practicing your basket ball skills. If you could find a way to get the same amount of money by only spending 10 hours mowing lawns it would allow you 30 extra hours a week to practice your basketball skills. This would make you substantially better then the person who spends 40 hours a week working. In fact, at the end of the year you would have clocked an additional 1,560 hours of practice time more then someone who had a 40-hour a week job. It’s all in the math- which you know all about Mr. Programmer.

Quote:

More herbivorous post-digestive deposits. Farmers increase the cost of the items solely due to greed and the rediculous prices they charge for items most collectors can better.

Not true based on economic principles. If people charge too much for an item then they don’t sell it. Trade only happens if both parties see mutual benefit for the exchange. Just because an item seems overpriced to you doesn’t mean that it can’t be sold. Oh, and you spelt ridiculous wrong Mr. High Paid Programmer guy.

Quote:

It's against EULA because of the legal implications. If you just spent $50 for x Gold or whatever and aNet goes belly-up, closing down it's servers, you cannot go after aNet for a refund of your money.

Ummm no. Sorry.

lord_shar · Feb 17, 2006, 10:07 PM // 22:07

Believe it or not, if the MMORPG companies stepped in and sold in-game items for real $$$, they could effectively neutralize the both the e-bay farming and human trafficking/sweatshop issue in one fell stroke.

As far as I know, I was among the first who suggested this idea to SOE when I was still playing EQ1. Low and behold, SOE did exactly just that, offering real uber-weapons for real money in game. SOE lost an earlier pivotal court case where banned player-farmers sued for their accounts to be re-activated. As a result, SOE had to revise its EULA. However, they also realized that they had a large, mainly untapped virtual market, and they pretty much held all the cards since they owned EQ's production servers, characters, and item inventory databases.

It virtual goods for real money morally wrong? That's up to the individual to decide, but if ANET gets pushed into near-bankrupcy should their current business model fail, the virtual market can literally bring them back from the brink.

bad person · Feb 18, 2006, 06:21 AM // 06:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chase the Sky

The prices are way cheaper then that. 50Plat costs less then half a penny on ebay. Like I posted earlier: you could work at McDonalds for 30 minutes and buy more gold on-line then you could farming for 8 hours strait.

Actually, he was pretty close with his $2.99 guess for 50k. Currently, 1000k goes for about $70 or about $3.50 for 50k. The prices are actually way down from about a week ago - they had gotten to about $10 for 100k.

Still, I agree with your premise that time = money. For some people it's worth spending relatively little real money to get a significant amount of game gold.

I really don't see a way for Anet to win in this situation. If they sold gold for real money themselves, they would risk really inflating things. Just like the government would do if they just printed more money to pay off the deficit - adding more gold only lessens the value. I don't think there would be enough gold coming in to just sell what people use to buy things in game - that would just enable the Ebay sellers to continue because there wouldn't be enough to meet demand.

lord_shar · Feb 18, 2006, 06:58 AM // 06:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by bad person

...<SNIP>...

I really don't see a way for Anet to win in this situation. If they sold gold for real money themselves, they would risk really inflating things. Just like the government would do if they just printed more money to pay off the deficit - adding more gold only lessens the value. I don't think there would be enough gold coming in to just sell what people use to buy things in game - that would just enable the Ebay sellers to continue because there wouldn't be enough to meet demand.

Keep in mind that GW's in-game merchant prices dynamically rise with item demand. Therefore, if ecto purchases go up due to the abundance of gold/platinum, then so do merchant prices. GW economy is a self-correcting, self regulating system. It was pretty well designed.

bad person · Feb 18, 2006, 07:55 AM // 07:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

Keep in mind that GW's in-game merchant prices dynamically rise with item demand. Therefore, if ecto purchases go up due to the abundance of gold/platinum, then so do merchant prices. GW economy is a self-correcting, self regulating system. It was pretty well designed.

Prices may rise but that will only make it so people have to purchase more gold, which will cause further inflation. Introducing 'new' gold into the game will only hurt things in the long run. Those who can't purchase gold would eventually not even be able to afford things that are now relatively inexpensive.

generik · Feb 18, 2006, 08:41 AM // 08:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord_shar

It virtual goods for real money morally wrong? That's up to the individual to decide, but if ANET gets pushed into near-bankrupcy should their current business model fail, the virtual market can literally bring them back from the brink.

Sadly, it probably wouldn't. Unlike other games produced by SOE or WoW where there is a genuine "suckering in" effect, weapons in GW do basically nothing special at all. A g0d1y axe that I can find on eBay is no better than a el cheapo "poor man's" axe.

I'm pretty sure the new tombs area is part of a social experiment conducted by Anet, and the results of the experiment are clear, people generally don't give two hoots about looks without the stats to match.

Sorry, GW is a good game but its approach is a tad too idealistic, even communist even. However I still believe big money lies pretty much in the traditional MMO approach (not that I approve of it anyway, but I've seen enough people suckered in).

AxeMe · Feb 18, 2006, 02:11 PM // 14:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by bad person

Prices may rise but that will only make it so people have to purchase more gold, which will cause further inflation. Introducing 'new' gold into the game will only hurt things in the long run. Those who can't purchase gold would eventually not even be able to afford things that are now relatively inexpensive.

You're right, new gold would be a problem.

But this system would not inject new gold into the game.

Instead, the traders would be limited to the amount of gold sold to them by players. No new gold would be created. The merchants could only sell gold that had been sold to them by players. They would not be allowed to create gold.

Instead, think of this as gold recycling. Only the gold that falls naturally in the game and is collected by players would be available for sale to the merchants.

As a side benefit, this system would tend to reduce the amount of in-game riches held by the richest players. It would allow them to sell the gold to the merchant for coupons that could be used for ANet games. So - if anything - the recycling system would level out the economy.

Tortoise · Feb 18, 2006, 04:06 PM // 16:06

Main problem about buying gold online is not that it's wastefull. It is that it is not wastefull... Those buying gold have a significant advantage over the others, add to that buying gold will also cause significant inflation and you'll soon have two classes in the game: the buyers and the non-buyers. Because of the inflation it will become increasingly harder for the non-buyers to get the top gear and eventually you'll have a situation in which the quality of your gear is mostly a consequence of the amount of money you're willing to pump into a game. GW is supposed to be a game of skill, it was sold with the slogan: 'skill, not time spent playing will determine your succes.'
With organised buying of gold they would have to change that to: 'money, not time spent playing will determine your succes.'

There is a good reason why ANET decides against the buying of gold in their EULA, it is because it ruins the game for the non-buyers...

AxeMe · Feb 18, 2006, 04:28 PM // 16:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tortoise

Main problem about buying gold online is not that it's wastefull. It is that it is not wastefull... Those buying gold have a significant advantage over the others, add to that buying gold will also cause significant inflation and you'll soon have two classes in the game: the buyers and the non-buyers. Because of the inflation it will become increasingly harder for the non-buyers to get the top gear and eventually you'll have a situation in which the quality of your gear is mostly a consequence of the amount of money you're willing to pump into a game. GW is supposed to be a game of skill, it was sold with the slogan: 'skill, not time spent playing will determine your succes.'
With organised buying of gold they would have to change that to: 'money, not time spent playing will determine your succes.'

There is a good reason why ANET decides against the buying of gold in their EULA, it is because it ruins the game for the non-buyers...

This is the best argument I've seen against the notion of establishing an in-game merchant. The logic is correct -- if the merchant changed the balance of the game and let the amount of money spent determine who wins, who loses, it would be a terrible idea.

But here's why I think the merchant will not create imbalance in the game.

What does money buy in this game?

I think it buys vanity armor and weapons. You don't need much gold at all to have the best stats for armor, the best stats for weapons. I think anyone who has played at least one character through the entire game would agree. By then you're almost certaintly armed with max weapons, max armor.

You don't have to look at the auction site here long, or to sit in La1 long, to see that the high ticket items are rare skins for weapons. And for some people - me included - there is FOW armor. All is simply a gold sink and does not add to my damage or protection compared to the cheapest max armor and weapons.

So what the gold merchant would do is this:

1. It would let those who would ordinarily go to eBay for the gold to buy vanity weapons and armor buy the gold in game instead. Now the profits go to aNet, not the farmers.

2. It would avoid inflation in the game by simply recycling the gold that was sold to it.

3. It would serve as a gold sink (players with a lot of gold - some of them at least - would sell the gold to the merchant for discount coupons for another aNet game or the next chapter of this one. So it would reduce the gold held by the very richest in at least some cases.

4. I don't think I'm wrong when I say the gold would be spent on vanity items. But lets say I am and that buying gold for cash does create an imbalance. We still have the fact that buying gold for cash is a reality now - not a potential problem but something that is happening. Does anyone think that buying gold on eBay is going away? If it is not, then why not at least control it?

Chase the Sky · Feb 18, 2006, 10:23 PM // 22:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tortoise

Main problem about buying gold online is not that it's wastefull. It is that it is not wastefull... Those buying gold have a significant advantage over the others, add to that buying gold will also cause significant inflation and you'll soon have two classes in the game: the buyers and the non-buyers. Because of the inflation it will become increasingly harder for the non-buyers to get the top gear and eventually you'll have a situation in which the quality of your gear is mostly a consequence of the amount of money you're willing to pump into a game.

You are absolutely incorrect in this. Inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods. If people buy gold on-line it doesn’t just pop out of thin air into their hands- it was already farmed and sitting in a bank waiting for someone. The amount of work involved in farming the gold and the amount of demand for the gold affect its price. If everyone started buying gold on line the demand would increase and the price of the gold would go up- eventually the price would stabilize at a higher value and less people would buy it since buying it on-line would not save as much time as actually farming it in game. If ANET were to all of a sudden give every player 1,000 Plat THEN there would be huge inflation- like when the government prints more money and doesn’t take it out of circulation.

Quote:

GW is supposed to be a game of skill, it was sold with the slogan: 'skill, not time spent playing will determine your succes.'
With organised buying of gold they would have to change that to: 'money, not time spent playing will determine your succes.'

Again you are incorrect. These MMOLRPGS are all about Skill + Time invested in farming (gear) + Time practicing. You can be the most skilled player in the game but if you don’t spend time practicing or getting good gear then you won’t be successful in it. For example: iQ is composed of great players and they ALSO spend a ton of time playing the game and working on team work. If you cloned the same iQ players and put them on another team but only let them practice half as much as the original members then they would never be as successful… It is like sports. There is talent with all the great players but they invest TONS of time practicing it. Purchasing gold on-line allows you to eliminate all the time needed to farm the gear to be competitive- that time is now freed up to practice.

Quote:

There is a good reason why ANET decides against the buying of gold in their EULA, it is because it ruins the game for the non-buyers...

You haven’t read my above posts: Buying gold on-line does not negatively affect any other players. You either have the time to spend farming items to get the gear you need- or you don’t have the time to farm and you buy the gold to get the gear you need. For most employed people buying gold makes more sense. ANET doesn’t like people buying gold on-line simply because they hate that other parties are making money off of their creation and they can’t figure out how to successfully do it themselves. Plain and Simple. Go read my above post. Go read my above post. Go read my above post.