Curse

Anon-e-mouse · Mar 05, 2009, 04:20 PM // 16:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr.Jones

also you clearly have no idea what a gold sink is because this isnt one of them. all zkeys do is Transfer money around they dont make new money. (with the exception of what ever you can sell to a merchant from the zchest)

I NEVER said what I thought about z-keys being a gold sink or not, I merely reported what A-net said at the time about them being a gold sink. However I will do so now.. To all intents and purposes they are both a gold sink and not a gold sink at the same time.

They are because people are willing to purchase them, (and don't forget new keys appear every month, and to the person who gets those keys they are 'new money'), and then blow them on the Z-chest leaving only minor golds and firewater/Creme's. End result some players no longer have as much gold as they did before and don't have much to show for it, other than progress on a virtual title track. The gold they obtain by selling the keys is often used to purchase other items, like Ecto's

On the other hand the gold that is used to buy the keys mainly comes from playing the game / farming / "power" selling. With the only 'new' gold being the monthly influx of new keys. So there is a bit of truth to 'it only moves money around'

So it's more like 50% sink/50% move (or some other random combination of numbers that add up to 100)

[snipped rest as it's off-topic to this thread]

Madeentje · Mar 05, 2009, 04:29 PM // 16:29

They also are a gold sink....When you spend like 500K on ZKeys and then go open the chest, you get back crap for worth...50K max? Only when you're very lucky you sometimes get something that's worth tons, very rarely...So it is a big gold sink imo. And yes something should be changed with the XTH, nothing is wrong with it, but the only thing that's wrong with it is that alot of people buy several accounts (up to 50) just for the monthly ZKeys to sell them, and earn tons of money. But otherwise it's a very good system imo.

Lycan Nibbler · Mar 05, 2009, 04:41 PM // 16:41

Please get this right,, they are not and never will be a gold sink in the current form.

Gold Sinks take gold out of the game ( ie, down the sink drain).

Z Keys cannot be bought from merchants for gold, therefore NO money is taken out of the game.

all that happens is gold is transfered from one player to another, the gold is still in circulation and is not removed from the game.

In fact, because the Z Keys are produced by no gold cost (from preds and or balt), then they are actually introducing gold into the system (by golds weapons to be merchanted etc), so if anything, they act opposite to a gold sink.

Verene · Mar 05, 2009, 04:56 PM // 16:56

The amount of gold they introduce into the game is really minimal, though. Sure, the z-chest drops golds and stuff, but unless you get very lucky, you're not going to get much from selling/merching the drops from it. Last month the only reason I made any money from the z-chest was because it dropped me an elite Rit tome. The vast majority of what you're going to get from there is scrap.

Me, I'm using z-keys to fund buying new armor...

Yawgmoth · Mar 05, 2009, 04:59 PM // 16:59

They're not a gold sink, o.m.g., they would be if there was an NPC selling them for gold, not for faction or RPs.
Otherwise a player can spend 500k on ZKeys bought from another player, burn them getting maybe 10k back from merching crap, 40k more from players from selling other drops. But then the player who just sold the ZKeys to the first one and earned 500k can realize there's nothing worth spending money on in this game, so he decides to go for the Z-Chest himself. So he buys ZKeys for that same 500k and burns them to get crap drops and some title points.
The same 500k just got 'sinked' twice, right?
No, the money stays in circulation, not even 1 gold piece is lost in the process of hundreds of Z-Chest openings, it's rather opposite - Z-Chest produces some new gold as gold item drops or Lockpicks have inherent gold value and can be merched to generate new gold.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dami

Q.Q. I get my points each month and i get my keys. I have fun opening the chest sometimes and sometimes sell them. Yes you get junk out of them and yes they are going down in price but so what? I know what. I didn't goto a PvP match and earn them. is that the issue here?

Yes, this is exactly the issue - huge tons of RPs being given away for FREE to masses of players who never PvP greatly reduce the rewards originally meant for players who do PvP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eragon Zarroc

customize z-keys so that the person that earns them is the only person that can use them. stops trading and forces the titles to be representative of what a player has earned and not bought. also prevents people from predicting on 10 accounts and pooling all the keys onto their main.

Too late for that, the title is already broken, it's just a PvE buyable title and no nerf can save it.
Customizing Zkeys would suck alot for PvP players who want to sell them instead of opening themselves, Zkeys are a way for PvP players to earn pure gold not based on risk.

And I got a much better idea on the way the title should have originally worked:
Zaishen Title points should ONLY be earned when YOU SPEND your Faction or Reward Points on ZKeys and PvP Reward weapons/armors and even all the Priest of Balthazar unlocks.
And Xunlai House in it's current form shouldn't exist at all.

Anon-e-mouse · Mar 05, 2009, 06:18 PM // 18:18

Get over yourselves already, it was NEVER meant to be an exclusively PvP title in any way shape or form. A-net DELIBERATELY introduced it as a title that could be brought.

QQ some moar pls.

Eragon Zarroc · Mar 05, 2009, 06:18 PM // 18:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yawgmoth

Customizing Zkeys would suck alot for PvP players who want to sell them instead of opening themselves, Zkeys are a way for PvP players to earn pure gold not based on risk.

Meh, pvp players can farm like regular people. If you want easy money for pvp players, then don't complain about the entire system.

exploiter · Mar 05, 2009, 07:20 PM // 19:20

bah, predictions are my only supply of money and thats how it should stay - i dont have to farm which is most boring thing in GW, and i dont have to stay in Kamadan all day
so not signed...

JASON626 · Mar 05, 2009, 07:22 PM // 19:22

add a ziashen trader npc that buys/sells zkeys like ectos, that will also help determine value and make it more of a gold sink.

So whats the point of the thread? Make zkeys worth more gold stop deflation for easy money? Make zkeys customized to make it actually a title that is harder to earn. Stop the predictions to make it earned by only playing the game?

I had a thread awhile back, why buy gold from online sellers when you can buy multiple accounts and get more storage, more character slots, keep getting monthly amounts of zkeys without purchasing anything more. You can buy a brand new guild wars game for 9.99 as it is. Plus Anet making more money if people buy multiple accounts. Why would they want it to stop?

HawkofStorms · Mar 05, 2009, 09:50 PM // 21:50

As explained, z-keys are not gold sinks. Gold sinks are things that take stuff out of the economy, like purchasing armor, skills, or id/salvage kits. Your gold is "destroyed" and therefore causes a small amount of inflation by there being less gold in the system as a whole, to counter the amount of deflation caused by monster drops.

Anyway, I'd like for the guy claiming that "a.net said the z-chest was a gold sink" to point out WHERE they said that, because that a) isn't true b) I have never heard of any such statement.

Anyway, I do think it would be a good idea to remove the xunlai rewards. I mean, who are these people buying dozens of keys at 5k a pop? I fear that a large percentage of the actual gold being circulated in the great temple of bathazar is from gold sellers. It just encourages too many bad things. Heck, most of the people who make predictions still don't even understand WHAT they are predicting or how the tournament works or why they should care.

It has not caused any increased interest in PvP. If anything, its caused a decrease in activity by people running smurfs. No one cares about their ladder ranking anymore because the only thing that matters is doing well in the monthly AT.

Lourens · Mar 07, 2009, 04:45 PM // 16:45

ok when i spend 1500 euro get 100 accounts hmm i get everything right in XTH thats about 100x250/5zkeys=1000zkeys
1 zkey = 5k
1000 zkeys = 5 milion
5 milion = ~200 euro (For bad people who break the rules of conduct)
In 8 months you get your money back that you invested

I got this Idea : Combine the XTH to your IP Adress so you can have only 1 XTH account and still that many guildwars account

it solves all problems in my opinion