Curse

Bryant Again · Mar 31, 2008, 07:25 PM // 19:25

I too remembered when I couldn't afford anything. But I specifically remember finally having enough k to buy a Sup. Absorption rune, only to see them drop down by about 99k over the next month or so.

Medic · Mar 31, 2008, 07:30 PM // 19:30

I remember when sup vig and absorbtion were both 100k from the rune trader.

I Is Special · Mar 31, 2008, 07:48 PM // 19:48

I remember when grinding the Treasure hunter title could actually net you a profit.

Numa Pompilius · Mar 31, 2008, 07:48 PM // 19:48

[quote=Dylananimus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loviatar

Hmmm, and here I was thinking LS made us all poor *shrugs*

Runes and most high-end gear dropped in price long before LS was introduced, but no, LS didn't make anyone poor. It just made farmers gain wealth at a very slightly slower pace than previously. All in all the LS had much smaller effect on the bigtime farmers than the constant drop in price of items. Doesn't stop the farmers from complaining about LS, of course, complaining is what farmers do. They just added complaining about LS to the long list of things they were already complaining about, notably that farming is too easy, causing lower prices of the expensive items they farm, and that they get too little drops.
(Yes, those complaints are mutually contradictory.)

Hardly anyone is poor; even the average 2006 player with just 20K on the account can afford everything they need and then some. The only expensive items in the game are a few vanity items - which means we're all rich.

Gwmaster · Mar 31, 2008, 08:33 PM // 20:33

but if everyone is rich..then no one is..zomg paradox *head implodes*

quickmonty · Mar 31, 2008, 08:40 PM // 20:40

I remember farming ettins in NKP till my eyes bled, and getting richer every run. Sup vigors and leet armor for all my character.

Maverick2201 · Mar 31, 2008, 09:03 PM // 21:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loviatar

i will explain as i have been here since early beta.

THE AVERAGE PERSON COULD NOT EVEN AFFORD A MAJOR VIGOR AT 35K LET ALONE A SUPERIOR AT 75K.

100K FOR SUPERIOR ABSORB?FORGET IT.

ANET PUT OUT AN INTERESTING PLAYER PROFILE FROM THEIR LOGS SHOWING THE AVERAGE PLAYER AT THAT TIME HAD 20K OR LESS.

DO THE MATH CLOWN MOST COULD NOT AFFORD THEM BACK IN THOSE STINKING GOOD OLD DAYS AND WE CAN NOW.

ECON 101 FAIL FOR YOU

I don't think it takes a genius to deduce what you've posted. I get all that. I guess the only concept I'm missing is that a "good" economy in GW, in your mind, is one where the overwhelming minority of people hold the overwhelming majority of wealth in the game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turbobusa

We cannot compare money inflation to IRL inflation, because the ratio earning/items cost variation is huge compared to real life's.

Ho and back then you had way less people farming and less ways of farming. Obviously more money created generates lower prices. It's not just loot scaling causing that.

I agree with you that you cannot compare much of GW economy with IRL economy, but what you've said is completely wrong. More generated money makes the value of the money go down and therefore prices to rise. This is truly simple economics. Do you think if the feds started just printing more money that prices would be unaffected or... go DOWN?

If the feds just started printing money left and right, prices for everything would skyrocket. This is the same as when farmers were able to farm w/out lootscaling, etc. and were making massive amounts of money and introducing massive amounts into the economy. Since Merchants have bottomless pockets, farming and merching is essentially the same as printing money. The more effective farming is, the less gold is worth. If you make farming less effective (LS), with the gold sinks in the game, the overall amount of gold in circulation falls and the value of a gold piece rises.

What people are saying is that the best economy is one where people rarely (or never) move between classes. The poor stay poor, the rich stay rich. If people have a means to work their way from poor to rich and the percentage of rich people in the GW world rises, the rich start whining because they can no longer show off their richness. While I understand this concept, it is somewhat funny watching the elite, richest-of-the-rich in this game QQing about it...

Konig Des Todes · Mar 31, 2008, 09:26 PM // 21:26

I remember when Vigor was in 30ks, all monk sup runes were over 10k each, and the few days white dye was 40k, that was a short time*sucks for those "leetists" who rushed to buy them, and I even farmed one in pre during the preview event for NF

*.

{IceFire} · Mar 31, 2008, 09:32 PM // 21:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kay84

Yeah, I remember when Superior vigor and abs were 100k each.

x2 12 characters

Loviatar · Mar 31, 2008, 09:47 PM // 21:47

[QUOTE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maverick2201

I don't think it takes a genius to deduce what you've posted. I get all that. I guess the only concept I'm missing is that a "good" economy in GW, in your mind, is one where the overwhelming minority of people hold the overwhelming majority of wealth in the game.

no....where the underwhelming super rich minority are not able to hog the *SHINEYS*

since this is not GW:TYCOON where the winning goal is to out epeen everybody with your wealth thereby making you the winner ANET has from the start taken steps to knock down hardcore farmer prices.

most players are playing the actual game and dont even notice the so called economy.

so yes if prices on all the elite im super rich special admire me go down the tube making the nice shineys available to the main casual playerbase its fine with me.

and no i am not poor as i can get almost anything i want except super rares.

IT IS A FUN GAME NOT AN ECONOMIC SIM

Sergeant of Marines · Mar 31, 2008, 10:50 PM // 22:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maverick2201

I don't understand... if everything cost so damn much back then, how was 100k gold of a higher value at the time? If 100k bought you 2 vigor runes then and buys you 5 now, how was 100k worth more then? If anything, 100k is worth more now since it translates into more stuff... Do you guys have any concept of economics?

If the gross monetary cost of an item is very high, that means the value of a single unit of money is very low. Look at the Yen. In Japan, a typical car costs hundreds of thousands of Yen because the VALUE of a single Yen is very low. If all of the sudden prices, in Yen, started dropping for autos in Japan, that would be a sign that the VALUE of the Yen was rising and people would be happy.

The REAL question is, would you rather have hundreds of thousands or even millions of gold pieces and have items that are worth hundreds of thousands of gold... OR... would you rather have items worth tens of thousands of gold and have many people with far less money?

The problem people have is that people who had a shit-ton of gold back in the day, when gold was very low value (before lootscaling and before many nerfs to farming), didn't spend it and now have a shit-ton of gold that is worth a lot more and can buy anything they want. There has been MASSIVE deflation in GW and its causing people to become alarmed because in the real world, people are only used to inflation, where prices for items only go up and people get poorer unless money becomes easier to come by. In the GW world, money was VERY easy to come by and then became even more valueable than it already was causing everyone to become rich.

What you people are actually clamoring for is INFLATION which is the opposite of what any economist wants. Deflation is nearly always a good thing because it means a single unit of money can buy more stuff. Now that everyone can buy more stuff, its making the super-rich feel less uber because many people can buy their uber stuff.

In the end, the only people who are really suffering are the super rich, and they're only suffering because there are very few items in the game that are unobtainable. They have no way to show off their massive money.

On the other hand, the normal gamers with normal amounts of money are now able to afford some cool stuff and love the current economy.

What it boils down to is that the uber-rich are pissed that their e-peen shrunk.

If RMT'ers or Ursan or any other bane of the uber-rich was really affecting the economy, prices for items would skyrocket because there would be so much more gold introduced into the market that the value of the gold would fall.

Someone pointed out in another thread that a great way to see what the true value of GW gold is doing is to keep track of how much US $$ the RMT's are selling gold for. If you've kept track, you'd see that 100k GW gold that was only $12 a month ago is now approximately $20. This CLEARLY shows that the value of a single gold is rising and everyone with GOLD is getting richer. The only people who are getting poorer are people who invested a ton of their gold in ITEMS like ectos or armbraces or whatever. Since those items' prices fell, if you paid 100k for 10 ectos back then, didn't sell them, you now have 10 ectos worth only ~47k. That is what deflation does... it makes the worth of a unit of money go up and the worth of an item go down.

Basically, people just made poor investments and are crying about it.

Actually the Yen rate is higher than the American dollar currently.

1 Yen generally is about a penny (same thing as a penny)

trade value currently= 97 Yen to $1.00

DarkFlame · Mar 31, 2008, 10:57 PM // 22:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lilith St Cyr

I miss when I sold Kanaxai's Edge for 100K after just typing it once into Trade Chat... And Kanaxai's Axe around the same time for 85K *sigh*

And Mallets were in the 25k range. Now not even the sword goes for that much even though there are no longer many people farming there. And the Ghail's Staffs that went for 60k before everyone figured out it only took 5 minutes to whack the staff outta Ghail. Oh what fortunes could be made just a little over a year ago.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maverick2201

The value of the item has not dropped... the value of a gold piece has risen substantially.

Wrong. Look at sup vigors/abs. In the first year(or so) of play, they simply did not drop. Didn't matter how much gold you had, you simply couldn't get your hands on one, except through the trader. And it was only at 100k because that is the max amount of gold they could sell anything for. Those runes only dropped in price after Anet fixed the bug that kept them from dropping. Look at any of the rare materials, ele/dead swords, crystallines, etc... for other examples of items themselves being devalued as more and more of them became available in-game.

The point of this is that you can't use rare items as a basis for determining the value of raw gold. Well, not the common rares that still have a source in-game, you would have to branch into the ultra uber rares, like the Polar Bear and the the few unconditionals out there. The price you would pay now for them was unheard of back then. Trading for stacks of ectos(let alone stacks of ambraces) was not done, no one had that kind of gold(well, maybe only one or two). People can do that now precisely because the value of gold has gone down. And no, people did not have a "shit-ton of gold back in the day." Anet put the numbers as the majority of players having only 20k, max. Middle class was around 100k, not the million mark it is today. The value of gold has not gone up, at all.

And using gold seller prices is also a poor indicator. Loot scaling makes it harder for everyone to gain gold. Less supply and greater demand(from more players who turn to RMTs to offset their lowered cash flows), means prices rise, regardless of the value of gold in-game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maverick2201

What people are saying is that the best economy is one where people rarely (or never) move between classes. The poor stay poor, the rich stay rich. If people have a means to work their way from poor to rich and the percentage of rich people in the GW world rises, the rich start whining because they can no longer show off their richness. While I understand this concept, it is somewhat funny watching the elite, richest-of-the-rich in this game QQing about it...

Btw, I don't see anyone saying this, just you putting words into the mouths of others. This thread is for old players reminiscing about the old state of the game, lets keep it at that, make your own thread if you wanna talk about something else. And blah, you just made me commit a wall of text in response.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gwmaster

but if everyone is rich..then no one is..zomg paradox *head implodes*

Nope, just the ones on guru.

Malice Black · Mar 31, 2008, 10:58 PM // 22:58

I remember when people played to have fun.

*good days*

Neo Nugget · Mar 31, 2008, 11:03 PM // 23:03

Ah yeah good times gooooood times.

*tear*:P

CyberMesh0 · Mar 31, 2008, 11:14 PM // 23:14

I remember the day after sup absorbs dropped to 100g was the day I got my first sup absorb. I have never gotten a sup vigor in almost three years of playing.

Also I remember the market spike that drove black dye up to 48k.

Jake_Steel · Mar 31, 2008, 11:16 PM // 23:16

I still have fun! I also come here to point and laugh between dungeons!

Malice Black · Mar 31, 2008, 11:18 PM // 23:18

I got a sup asorb last night while doing a desert mission, I LOL'd

then said to my guildie this was worth 100k 3 years ago, now the merch laughs at them.

jimmyboveto · Mar 31, 2008, 11:22 PM // 23:22

[QUOTE=Loviatar]

Quote:

i will explain as i have been here since early beta.

THE AVERAGE PERSON COULD NOT EVEN AFFORD A MAJOR VIGOR AT 35K LET ALONE A SUPERIOR AT 75K.

100K FOR SUPERIOR ABSORB?FORGET IT.

ANET PUT OUT AN INTERESTING PLAYER PROFILE FROM THEIR LOGS SHOWING THE AVERAGE PLAYER AT THAT TIME HAD 20K OR LESS.

DO THE MATH CLOWN MOST COULD NOT AFFORD THEM BACK IN THOSE STINKING GOOD OLD DAYS AND WE CAN NOW.

ECON 101 FAIL FOR YOU

Urm... no that's not the point i think he was trying to make. Basically, 100k back then could buy a lot less then it can now, which is totally true. Thus, 100k has more value today.

chowmein69 · Mar 31, 2008, 11:53 PM // 23:53

I remember when white dyes were 70k when it first came out
now their 3k -_-

Malice Black · Apr 01, 2008, 12:05 AM // 00:05

Heh yeah.

sCRUB: OMG white dye!!!
Guru: Pic or GTFO