Curse

=HT=Ingram · Jul 15, 2005, 04:43 AM // 04:43

you people are just weird. Everything in the game from NPCs Are fair or under valued FINALLY... 30k to 50k it reasonable for rare runes. and Nothing weapon wise even gold items is really worth more then about 15k. Can you say that as of 5 weeks ago? No way. people were actually pushing over 100k items (the max anyone can carry at one time). That was so much bull it should have been in Pamplona. So Arenanet made the traders to stabilize the economy, and in the process, pulled gold out of the economy making gold more valuable, and not the equivalent of toilet paper like Afghan currency.

That little trade button for people to use player to player is the most disgusting thing in the game. PERIOD. It allows for Hoarding and greed the likes of Bernie Ebbers. And he got 25 yrs for that... the numbers of fair exchanges are Far far too low, and should be considered a blatant failure in the game... Maybe the last uncontrolled market (weapon upgrades) will be corrected soon with the weapon crafter upgrade. As long as the upgrades go onto customized weapons only, at least people will not be able to manufacture a bunch of crap, and resell it...

on and if the price is so cheap at the NPC, destroy it. once less people resell it the price will go up. the reason it is so low is cause, people are selling them to him. So stop selling them and just trash it or use it.

I personally would like the trader to say. "No I got enough of those"... and turn people away...

Avantos · Jul 15, 2005, 04:45 AM // 04:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alderman Sweet

I don't understand why devs and publishers create these problems for themselves. When you let players influence a living, mutable economy, prices will go nuts. When you introduce more mutability with traders and the like, prices will do what they're doing now. All fluid and chaotic elements should be stripped out of the game. A central trading "house" should be introduced, where all prices are fixed for items, materials, and services. Players' personal trade windows should be taken out. All trading should go through the house. This wouldn't be as exciting as the present looney situation, but it would stabilize the economy. "Stablize" is too gentle a word. It would kill the economy. But sometimes that's what you have to do with mad dogs.

Maybe. Though that could possibly kill the fun factor for some people. In fact, that'll kill a lot of the fun factor as no in-between player trading is a giant leap back in RPG development.

The problem now is not enough mutability. Or rather a flawed hybrid of mutability and crystalization.

Sell prices(this is in reference of player -> merchants) will basically never shift (they do, but the percent it is based on off of the buy price, which is tiny, which makes change negligible) and buy prices DO change... and because fewer people sell to NPCs, the prices will rise from lower supply (because that's how GW calculates its prices).

Until it unhitches COMPLETELY from the NPCs, prices will continually rise. And when it does, you'll have your mutable hell you were talking about.

The only way the developers can really control prices is through the NPCs. If the economy spirals and detaches itself completely... they no longer have a way of influencing it without destroying the entire economy throroughly by destroying game price balance (possibly permanently, as people will start saying screw it and leaving, making a small group of people playing and more crazy mutability).

Personally, I'm waiting. I think someone messed up the trader interface they were implementing and nuked the prices. If there was a new interface, there would have to be new programming to deal with buy/sell. If it was changed, there is the possibility of a bug.

"Added new trader interface." does not equal a total price shift.

The economy, however much whining people did, would never have crashed here as Diablo 2. Why? Because there is a standard measurement. Diablo 2 was supposed to have a standard--also in gold as here. But Diablo 2's gold didn't buy... anything. Gold dropped a lot more than Guild Wars, which made the situation bad, but the fact that there were no sinks worthwhile killed it.

Here, you can buy a lot of things from vendors. In fact, the rune vendor thing is excellent to prevent this from becoming a game of "uber rares".

Diablo 2 SOJs didn't cut it because it was based on a duped currency.

Guild Wars as it is will eventually crash, possibly permanently, in the PvE realm. I am personally starting off not that far in, and I notice that suddenly things are a lot harder to get. It isn't helping the "little guy" with this situation, I can tell you.

I'll still have PvP (think Counterstrike with Swords and Spells!), but I'm looking at the possibility that PvE will be dead.

Bug or apocolypse? We'll see. But if I was a betting man, I'd say there isn't a choice three.

jelly samwich · Jul 15, 2005, 05:12 AM // 05:12

ugh i dont like this new update at all.. market better stabalize soon

enzymepopper · Jul 15, 2005, 05:37 AM // 05:37

Dude! PvE Can't die! And the market won't permanently destroy PvE! All the Devs has to do is reset the market back to the previous amount and everything's back to normal again! Remember, the Devs could change anything they want! They could force you to pay 100K for 1 plank of wood and then buy it back at 10g. Or they could make Superior rune of Absorbtion fixed price at 5g each. They has all the power to manipulate it anyway they want and if something's wrong, they'll just patch it up or reset the entire stock.

hydrak · Jul 15, 2005, 05:44 AM // 05:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by enzymepopper

Dude! PvE Can't die! And the market won't permanently destroy PvE! All the Devs has to do is reset the market back to the previous amount and everything's back to normal again! Remember, the Devs could change anything they want! They could force you to pay 100K for 1 plank of wood and then buy it back at 10g. Or they could make Superior rune of Absorbtion fixed price at 5g each. They has all the power to manipulate it anyway they want and if something's wrong, they'll just patch it up or reset the entire stock.

In other words, the devs are the economic power in guild wars?

Avantos · Jul 15, 2005, 05:59 AM // 05:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by enzymepopper

Dude! PvE Can't die! And the market won't permanently destroy PvE! All the Devs has to do is reset the market back to the previous amount and everything's back to normal again! Remember, the Devs could change anything they want! They could force you to pay 100K for 1 plank of wood and then buy it back at 10g. Or they could make Superior rune of Absorbtion fixed price at 5g each. They has all the power to manipulate it anyway they want and if something's wrong, they'll just patch it up or reset the entire stock.

Of course that is the case. If you control the code, you can undo any mess, however colossal... at least in the code.

There is, however, a point of no return. If this stretches out long enough and that detachment occurs then the only logical solution would be something like resetting all gold. And that is far more disruptive than is optimal or preferred, or heck, reasonable.

The point of no return I'm looking at is when people decide it's not worth the effort and move on (when I do that, I'll personally just slide over to pure PvP, but for some, that's hardly fun).

Economies have worked with the merchants buying things at 50%. In fact, most game economies work that way--albeit jerkily and not well, they do. I've yet to, however, see one that works at 1-5%. Eh, maybe Guild Wars will surprise me. Though more likely, players will detach from merchants.

Edit: As for PvP dying... I know a lot of why Guild Wars expanded so fast is because it is a team game. Because people want to pull their friends to play. However, it's also because there's practically been no negative feedback as WoW fans have had their points squelched by the features in Guild Wars.

If there are a lot of dissatisfied players in the PvE sector, then they will stop inviting their friends, who will likely have similar interests.

Then there remains pure PvP, because PvE/PvP combine isn't worth it without an active and alive system. Eventually, they may reset things, but when the damage is done, it is done.

Mere speculation, of course--but logically derived.

Edit 2: However... I apologize. I'm being alarmist. Mostly, though my posts haven't truly reflected it, my attitude, as should that of many, is to wait and see what happens. There has been no official statement and there is still the chance that this was a bug introduced with the trade interface, as nothing was said about it in the offical patch list.

Before deciding what will happen to your virtual livelihood in the future, let us wait at least another day or two.

Galatea · Jul 15, 2005, 06:14 AM // 06:14

Yeah, I don't know what's gone wrong with the economy now.

I don't need fur squares, but if I happen to salvage them, I normally sold them to a trader for roughly 200-300 gold. That's about the norm for buying too.

Just now, I had one salvaged, so I went to sell it to the trader -- buying prices are now at 714 gold, and buying price is... 10 gold. If the prices are high, that should mean that demand is high and supply is low.. so why is it that the trader refuses to buy them to restock at a decent price?

Oni No Arashi · Jul 15, 2005, 09:20 AM // 09:20

The traders aren't worth it anymore.

To get a good sell... you need a human player, which makes the traders they put in to fix the issues... worthless.

100 gold for a obsidian shard, but htey're selling for 3-4 k from him. That's a 400% markup and is highway robbery to the seller to the trader.

And ecto is even worse.

I thought the traders where there to help stimulate the economy and to help players sell that which won't buy, and to buy that which they may need in larger quantities.

As of recently, they're worthless and its' back to people controling things.

"WTS: One glob of ectoplasm. Trader wants 12k, I want only 10k!"

There you go.

=HT=Ingram · Jul 15, 2005, 10:29 AM // 10:29

again I wish the trader would say... "I got too many of those right now" thus keeping the price stable. They should only buy if they have under 60% capacity of seller to replenish stock of the Material, Rune, or Dye back to 100%.

Also Often people forget you can ID the item and sell it to the merchant for a better price then no iding it... Even when all the stats are known... If it shows a base Value at least you will get that for it from the merchant.

I went to sell a few minor runes today and was only offered 10 gold from the rune trader, but I they were all worth around 100 gold each at the merchant.

tanwarv · Jul 15, 2005, 11:52 AM // 11:52

Let's see here are the shifts since the patch that I noticed:
DYES:
Silver dye, now 1.3k to sell (450 to buy)

RARE MATERIALS:
Fur (450 to sell, 170 to buy)
Steel (385 to sell, 87 to buy)
Leather (400 to sell, 82 to buy)
Vellum (305 to sell, 30 to buy)

If they intended for all these things to get inflated in price while decreasing the buyback, they've succeeded. I still contend that this is a bug.

drizzt134 · Jul 15, 2005, 01:02 PM // 13:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by =HT=Ingram

you people are just weird. Everything in the game from NPCs Are fair or under valued FINALLY... 30k to 50k it reasonable for rare runes. and Nothing weapon wise even gold items is really worth more then about 15k. Can you say that as of 5 weeks ago? No way. people were actually pushing over 100k items (the max anyone can carry at one time). That was so much bull it should have been in Pamplona. So Arenanet made the traders to stabilize the economy, and in the process, pulled gold out of the economy making gold more valuable, and not the equivalent of toilet paper like Afghan currency.

yes, finally... ppl will udnerstand that even perfect weapons are not worth more than 15k 20 k and will stop this insanity one day... maybe soon... 100k for a gold item... lol... 100k my a**...

drizzt134 · Jul 15, 2005, 01:08 PM // 13:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by tanwarv

Let's see here are the shifts since the patch that I noticed:
DYES:
Silver dye, now 1.3k to sell (450 to buy)

RARE MATERIALS:
Fur (450 to sell, 170 to buy)
Steel (385 to sell, 87 to buy)
Leather (400 to sell, 82 to buy)
Vellum (305 to sell, 30 to buy)

If they intended for all these things to get inflated in price while decreasing the buyback, they've succeeded. I still contend that this is a bug.

I still think it was intended because prices in 'black market' was getting so high so they had to match those prices (or pull them down) to stabilize the economy so as they couldn't decrease the prices in the black market they increased the prices in merchant shops. Well, maybe 1 day ppl will realize it and stop selling stuff at 100k and THEN maybe we will be able to play GW as it is... But, still playin' and enjoyin' it a lot. So no prob for now...

Dazzler · Jul 15, 2005, 01:20 PM // 13:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by hydrak

Traders are being reset after updates. Is the rare material trader still offering 100gp for an obsidian shard? I don't think so.

You may not think so, but then you would be wrong. Oh wait. He isn't offering 100 anymore. Now he is offering 142.

hobbitshd · Jul 15, 2005, 01:21 PM // 13:21

it seems to me that they made the price range SO vast using an NPC(ex sell black dye for 1k and have too buy for 6k) was to encourage trading between players. that leaves plenty of room for negotiating between players. maybe that is what the dev's wanted.

PieXags · Jul 15, 2005, 01:23 PM // 13:23

Right, but also plenty of room for inflation, because people not USING the traders inflates the PRICES of the traders and the traders' prices are what the PLAYERS base their prices on. To make it so that they don't use the traders and only use player/player trading is to inflate prices an insane amount, not help the economy in any way.

EmperorTippy · Jul 15, 2005, 01:23 PM // 13:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by hobbitshd

it seems to me that they made the price range SO vast using an NPC(ex sell black dye for 1k and have too buy for 6k) was to encourage trading between players. that leaves plenty of room for negotiating between players. maybe that is what the dev's wanted.

The problem is that the price of items will just keep rising for the reasons that I and a few others have explained repeadedly and extensivily in previous posts in this thread.

cookiehoarder · Jul 15, 2005, 01:26 PM // 13:26

Now I finally read through this entire post, I have to say. Wow.

Back before the patch I was a pretty heavy farmer, and made anywhere between 0-50k a day. Now you may say, well we have heard that a lot. Anyway, after the patch I stopped farming...Slowly lost my money (I was fairly rich...Not 500k rich.) Now recently I continue the farm and CAN still make anywhere from 0-50k a day. Depending on my luck. Just recently I purchased a full set of 15k Druid's armor, I got a nice 50 over 15 short bow. Everything I need. Now the farming I do isn't for runes and such, but for items. I usually nab 1-2 Gold items a run and either it's very crappy or very good. I also go to areas (UW, FoW) that the drops, when they do drop, have a good selling price. It's EASY to just make money playing the game. Sure the economy was fun...But, all good things must come to an end. (This was all probably off topic, but it's my view on the "Crash")

EmperorTippy · Jul 15, 2005, 01:29 PM // 13:29

Correction it WAS easy to just make money playing the game. Wensdays update made it a LOT harder and the buying power of that gold was decreased by about 60%.

cookiehoarder · Jul 15, 2005, 01:30 PM // 13:30

<- Should go read the update

drizzt134 · Jul 15, 2005, 01:32 PM // 13:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by EmperorTippy

The problem is that the price of items will just keep rising for the reasons that I and a few others have explained repeadedly and extensivily in previous posts in this thread.

it will not rise above the 'black market' price never ever... so it will come to a balance at some point. just ppl need to realize it and give fair prices in the black market so the # of ppl buying from mrechs will be close to merch.