GW's Rich And Famous - Page 7 - Guild Wars Forums

Martin Alvito · Jun 07, 2011, 01:03 PM // 13:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Urcscumug

How about discussing moderate, healthy living for a change.

* Making gold out of thin air...
* Living off the land...
* Saving gold...

None of this will enable you to truly build wealth. You're correct that you have to control the expenses side of the ledger, but your advice is penny wise and pound foolish. To get rich, you simply must have a solid income, and that requires maximizing the amount of in-game cash you make per unit of time invested.

You're better off doing another DoA run than spending the time to sell unid'd golds for cash. If you can effectively multitask the items you suggested (during play or via multiple accounts), that will bolster your income a little bit, but that's still no substitute for producing a large income.

It works the same way IRL; expense control is even more vital due to the tax situation, but you just can't get rich on $30,000 a year. You don't need half a million a year to get rich (again due to the tax situation), but you need a solid household income.

VikingHaag · Jun 07, 2011, 01:03 PM // 13:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by cataphract

IMHO, there's no way that a "casual player" will have 1k ecto. Unless he's lucky to the point of hax0ring.

Tell it to the casual player who doesn't spend on anything. I bet there are a lot of ppl who play casually that sit on that much ectos.

VikingHaag · Jun 07, 2011, 01:07 PM // 13:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

It works the same way IRL; expense control is even more vital due to the tax situation, but you just can't get rich on $30,000 a year. You don't need half a million a year to get rich (again due to the tax situation), but you need a solid household income.

Nope, if u save enough u can get rich with that income, save 500$ a month (possible, put in a bank account,watch it grow 0,4-0,7% depending on where, a month) do it 20 years and you're sitting on a crapload of money, A million maybe.

aspi · Jun 07, 2011, 01:17 PM // 13:17

There is nothing interesting to buy in GW at this point, why would anyone even want stacks of ectos sitting in their chest doing nothing. :/

Martin Alvito · Jun 07, 2011, 01:37 PM // 13:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by VikingHaag

Nope, if u save enough u can get rich with that income, save 500$ a month (possible, put in a bank account,watch it grow 0,4-0,7% depending on where, a month) do it 20 years and you're sitting on a crapload of money, A million maybe.

$500 X 12 X 20 = $120,000

Barring lottery-level extreme good fortune and high risk tolerance, investment returns will not get you anywhere near a million from there, even over 40 years, given that level of savings.

You're also assuming that you can live on $2000 a month with zero tax liability, which isn't possible in most localities for a family.

Finally, you forgot about the large chunk education expenses will eat into your savings (unless you intend to send your kids to Big State U on scholarship and are fortunate enough to have them earn it, which just isn't possible for at least 90% of the population).

The analogy still stands: you need a strong income both IRL and in-game if you want to accumulate wealth. It's easier in-game for a variety of reasons, but the same basic principles apply.

VikingHaag · Jun 07, 2011, 02:01 PM // 14:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

$500 X 12 X 20 = $120,000

Barring lottery-level extreme good fortune and high risk tolerance, investment returns will not get you anywhere near a million from there, even over 40 years, given that level of savings.

You're also assuming that you can live on $2000 a month with zero tax liability, which isn't possible in most localities for a family.

Finally, you forgot about the large chunk education expenses will eat into your savings (unless you intend to send your kids to Big State U on scholarship and are fortunate enough to have them earn it, which just isn't possible for at least 90% of the population).

The analogy still stands: you need a strong income both IRL and in-game if you want to accumulate wealth. It's easier in-game for a variety of reasons, but the same basic principles apply.

500$ + 0,65& + 500 + 0,65% and some goes on.

After 10 years this measly 0,7% , at 60000 + interests you'll already have 500$ montly interests thus effectively doubling your monthly saving. Not counting the fact that with a stable job u may possibly start earning more with successive promotions, thus saving more if u want. School expenses, just don't fu**ing grow some dumb morons and they may well gain a "bolsa de estudo" (don't know translation), and if u still don't have kids, u may still save 20 years before starting to worry. Key is, you missed the interestets that the bank pays you. After some time they start making a huge difference.

Martin Alvito · Jun 07, 2011, 02:11 PM // 14:11

The magic of compound interest isn't as magical as you're making it out to be, given the limited time horizon. You're objectively wrong and the math necessary to demonstrate this is trivial, so I can't be bothered to spell it out. Any number of calculators that can be found on the Internet will prove the point.

VikingHaag · Jun 07, 2011, 02:14 PM // 14:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

The magic of compound interest isn't as magical as you're making it out to be, given the limited time horizon. You're objectively wrong and the math necessary to demonstrate this is trivial.

Prove me wrong that i can't get milionaire by saving, i earn 4000R$ a month, and save 1000. Prove i won't be milionare (or standing at least on half milion )in 20 years.

PS: Sorry for thread jacking.

Martin Alvito · Jun 07, 2011, 02:18 PM // 14:18

Work the math. After twenty years you have $158,045.84 in whatever currency that is, given a 0.7% rate of return with annually compounded interest (assuming that this is after inflation). That's not a millionaire.

Assuming no inflation or tax, 10% returns compounded annually and an investment of $500 per month, you can be a millionaire after 30 years. (Good luck living in a tax-free world, although this can be possible for small investments in a lot of countries including the US. Ditto inflation-free.)

Urcscumug · Jun 07, 2011, 02:30 PM // 14:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by cataphract

IMHO, there's no way that a "casual player" will have 1k ecto. Unless he's lucky to the point of hax0ring.

It's extremely easy to make 50k a week. I mean while neither trying nor caring. If you actually put the slightest effort into it, or dabble into trading, it can easily double. 15e a week is doable without breaking a sweat. That's ~750e in a year. And that, I repeat, is without going out of your way, not getting any outstanding drop or merching it, not spotting any good deal in the trade channel or ignoring it etc.

If there was a /money command I think many people would be amazed by what they managed over the time they played. But most of us also spend it as fast as we get it, and not on stuff with good resale value. Because we don't care.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

None of this will enable you to truly build wealth.

Did you miss the "moderate, healthy living" part?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

If you can effectively multitask the items you suggested (during play or via multiple accounts), that will bolster your income a little bit, but that's still no substitute for producing a large income.

Do you seriously don't get it?

Are you so far removed from casual play that you don't even comprehend casual players anymore? I'm talking about doing simple stuff that will cover one's needs, and you keep talking about making it big.

There's no multitasking, no multiple accounts. You just play the game, and when you get back to town you unload your backpack. If you don't want to spend any time trading stuff, id and merch it. It's all it takes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

It works the same way IRL[...]

No, it doesn't. There's absolutely no required expense in GW. You don't need food, housing, healthcare, transport, education etc. You get max armor and a good weapon thrown at you just by playing normally. The rest is literally time = money. You don't get that kind of ecuation in RL.

Enko · Jun 07, 2011, 02:35 PM // 14:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by cataphract

IMHO, there's no way that a "casual player" will have 1k ecto. Unless he's lucky to the point of hax0ring.

Why not? As long as they don't blow their money on the first shiny thing they see, it builds up over time. Also depends on what you consider "casual". 2-4 hours a day? Depending on how long they've been playing, 1k ecto is not that hard to attain.

Martin Alvito · Jun 07, 2011, 02:37 PM // 14:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Urcscumug

Did you miss the "moderate, healthy living" part?

No. You missed the point of the thread, which is debating the possibility and means of acquiring the wealth that some players in the game possess.

My point was simple, straightforward, and apparently too complicated for you: your advice is terrible wealth-building advice. You're suggesting that players shouldn't care about amassing that kind of wealth, which is strictly your preference and utterly immaterial to the thread. You're also suggesting some means for amassing small quantities of wealth, which happens to be bad advice for anyone interested in accumulating larger quantities of wealth.

If you accept the presumption that time spent amassing wealth is best spent efficiently, then your advice is objectively bad. Casual play or not, it's bad advice. You can play for an hour a day and amass wealth much faster spending your time efficiently by doing things other than what you suggest. That's what makes your advice bad given the objective specified by the OP, except in the context of multi-accounting (which is undoubtedly a hardcore approach).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Urcscumug

No, it doesn't. There's absolutely no required expense in GW.

Did you miss the "It's easier in-game for a variety of reasons" part in the following sentence?

Urcscumug · Jun 07, 2011, 03:07 PM // 15:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

No. You missed the point of the thread, which is debating the possibility and means of acquiring the wealth that some players in the game possess.

Oh. My bad. If that was the only point than we've pretty much covered all the angles. We can explore related topics, or we can close the thread. It's been rehashing ideas for the last few pages anyway.

PS: Wow, you sure like using the word "wealth" a lot.

cataphract · Jun 07, 2011, 03:14 PM // 15:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enko

Why not? As long as they don't blow their money on the first shiny thing they see, it builds up over time. Also depends on what you consider "casual". 2-4 hours a day? Depending on how long they've been playing, 1k ecto is not that hard to attain.

And in all that time, as the "Team Casual Ecto" argues, that player did not spend no gold whatsoever.

Are you guys hearing yourselves?

A casual player is not someone who plays 2-4 hours a day. It's someone who plays 2 hours tops and not even daily. Of those two hours he's online he certainly is not playing full 120 minutes. That same casual player takes breaks from GW every several weeks to play other games, chase skirts, invade countries or whatever.

When I was sitting on 1000+ ecto there was nothing casual about my play. It was several HM DoA runs a day. Every day. Can't really call that casual, can we?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Urcscumug

It's extremely easy to make 50k a week. I mean while neither trying nor caring. If you actually put the slightest effort into it, or dabble into trading, it can easily double. 15e a week is doable without breaking a sweat. That's ~750e in a year. And that, I repeat, is without going out of your way, not getting any outstanding drop or merching it, not spotting any good deal in the trade channel or ignoring it etc.

If there was a /money command I think many people would be amazed by what they managed over the time they played. But most of us also spend it as fast as we get it, and not on stuff with good resale value. Because we don't care.

You missed the broad side of the barn there. RESTECP.

The argument was that no casual player will be sitting on 1000e not "he won't ever make 1000 ecto by playing".

Underlined and bolded for ease of reading by all the ADHD sufferers Guru seems to be swarming with.

Martin Alvito · Jun 07, 2011, 03:37 PM // 15:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Urcscumug

Oh. My bad. If that was the only point than we've pretty much covered all the angles. We can explore related topics, or we can close the thread. It's been rehashing ideas for the last few pages anyway.

Seemed to me that your argument was novel enough to deserve a refutation. It also seems that it isn't worthy of its own thread, although you could certainly start it and prove me wrong.

Dismissive responses aren't as good as approbation, but there's a ton of highly influential scholarship that ended up roundly castigated.

The debate is hardly rehash. We have a bunch of competing claims on the table:

- Large income is necessary to wealth-building
- Income is not necessary to wealth-building; only expenditure control is needed
- Theft/morally dubious behavior is necessary to wealth-building
- Luck is necessary to wealth-building
- Time is the sole necessary component to wealth-building

All of this tends to reflect broader societal claims about where wealth comes from. We won't resolve the philosophical questions here, but it's healthy to get them out on the table.

If I like to use the word "wealth", it probably is because that's the topic of the thread and it lacks appropriate synonyms...

Quote:

Originally Posted by cataphract

The argument was that no casual player will be sitting on 1000e not "he won't ever make 1000 ecto by playing".

Your argument depends critically upon the definition of casual player. I would argue that it's quite possible to compose a definition of "casual player" that encompasses at least some players with more than 1000 ecto. My suspicion is that your definition differs sufficiently to exclude those players.

cataphract · Jun 07, 2011, 04:01 PM // 16:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Your argument depends critically upon the definition of casual player. I would argue that it's quite possible to compose a definition of "casual player" that encompasses at least some players with more than 1000 ecto. My suspicion is that your definition differs sufficiently to exclude those players.

As does theirs, Captain.

Martin Alvito · Jun 07, 2011, 04:05 PM // 16:05

So let's hear it. Define "casual player" in a manner which captures the concept but simultaneously excludes the possibility of a "casual player" possessing 1000 ectos, and do so in a manner that requires rejecting competing definitions of "casual player" that would include the possibility of possessing 1000 ectos.

In fairness, my definition will hinge on time investment, and I guarantee you that I can find at least a few such players.

yitjuan · Jun 07, 2011, 04:19 PM // 16:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by VikingHaag

Nope, if u save enough u can get rich with that income, save 500$ a month (possible, put in a bank account,watch it grow 0,4-0,7% depending on where, a month) do it 20 years and you're sitting on a crapload of money, A million maybe.

you're joking. you'd need around 18% interest per annum to get to a million bucks.

Iuris · Jun 07, 2011, 04:21 PM // 16:21

I manage 2-4 hours a day, and I'm a bloody ADDICT to this game. Casuals play maybe that much in a week...

I've played GW1 to an unhealthy level, IE all my free time. I haven't dedicated myself to farming, especially not ectos, and the items I posess might be worth about 1000 Ectos, but that's for a hardcore insane player who only doesn't focus on the most gainful activities. And I certainly don't have as many ectos sitting in my storage.

Axeman002 · Jun 07, 2011, 04:36 PM // 16:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mcsnake85

True,but :
UWsc : 1 Mini Dhumm = 200e+ in 1hour
SoOsc : 1 Bds = 50e+ in 20 min

if you got one of these every hour...i can assure you they wouldnt be that value anymore lol

so how many uwsc and SoOSC's you done and how many BDS and Mini Dhumms you had?... then include the cash taken out for essences and personal cons for every run..DoA is still a reliable income as your are SURE to get Gems..UW/dungeons are a lottery.

Jun 07, 2011, 02:11 PM // 14:11	#127
Martin Alvito Older Than God (1) Join Date: Aug 2006 Guild: Clan Dethryche [dth]	The magic of compound interest isn't as magical as you're making it out to be, given the limited time horizon. You're objectively wrong and the math necessary to demonstrate this is trivial, so I can't be bothered to spell it out. Any number of calculators that can be found on the Internet will prove the point. Last edited by Martin Alvito; Jun 07, 2011 at 02:15 PM // 14:15..

Jun 07, 2011, 02:18 PM // 14:18	#129
Martin Alvito Older Than God (1) Join Date: Aug 2006 Guild: Clan Dethryche [dth]	Work the math. After twenty years you have $158,045.84 in whatever currency that is, given a 0.7% rate of return with annually compounded interest (assuming that this is after inflation). That's not a millionaire. Assuming no inflation or tax, 10% returns compounded annually and an investment of $500 per month, you can be a millionaire after 30 years. (Good luck living in a tax-free world, although this can be possible for small investments in a lot of countries including the US. Ditto inflation-free.) Last edited by Martin Alvito; Jun 07, 2011 at 02:22 PM // 14:22..

Jun 07, 2011, 04:05 PM // 16:05	#137
Martin Alvito Older Than God (1) Join Date: Aug 2006 Guild: Clan Dethryche [dth]	So let's hear it. Define "casual player" in a manner which captures the concept but simultaneously excludes the possibility of a "casual player" possessing 1000 ectos, and do so in a manner that requires rejecting competing definitions of "casual player" that would include the possibility of possessing 1000 ectos. In fairness, my definition will hinge on time investment, and I guarantee you that I can find at least a few such players. Last edited by Martin Alvito; Jun 07, 2011 at 04:20 PM // 16:20..

Jun 07, 2011, 01:17 PM // 13:17	#124
aspi Desert Nomad Join Date: Jan 2010 Guild: eeew Profession: N/Rt	There is nothing interesting to buy in GW at this point, why would anyone even want stacks of ectos sitting in their chest doing nothing. :/

Jun 07, 2011, 04:21 PM // 16:21	#139
Iuris Forge Runner Join Date: Nov 2006 Guild: Crazy ducks from the Forest Profession: W/	I manage 2-4 hours a day, and I'm a bloody ADDICT to this game. Casuals play maybe that much in a week... I've played GW1 to an unhealthy level, IE all my free time. I haven't dedicated myself to farming, especially not ectos, and the items I posess might be worth about 1000 Ectos, but that's for a hardcore insane player who only doesn't focus on the most gainful activities. And I certainly don't have as many ectos sitting in my storage.