Curse

Jiao Yang · Feb 11, 2009, 09:02 PM // 21:02

You can't just take a big word from the news and apply it to Guild Wars.. its different.

Stockholm · Feb 11, 2009, 09:35 PM // 21:35

If people start playing GW as a game and stop trying to live the game, the economy will right it self.

The Red Messenger · Feb 11, 2009, 09:52 PM // 21:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stockholm

If people start playing GW as a game and stop trying to live the game, the economy will right it self.

and people will leave greed and pride behind them and live in [peace and harmony] forever.

bad person · Feb 12, 2009, 02:16 PM // 14:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magikarp

snow bunny said something that made me laugh in this thread. "We're all walking around in FoW armor with chaos gloves.

OBVIOUSLY WE'RE ALL POOR RIGHT???????", and tbh, the funny thing about this is yes, you are poor. compare my 5 stacks of ecto, and 15+ tormented weapons to the panda and kanaxai traders, and im so poor, i could barely express a tenth of what they own. is that balance? is that fair? because im sure a lot of others would say no.

ps, im all for pvp, and moreso pvp as the main form of endgame, im simply expressing views in the form of a general pve only player, seeing as it seems very few understand the place at which they stand in these matters.

Would fair be splitting up everything everyone has and dividing it equally amongst all players? I'm sure you'd appreciate that, right? Now that would really be fair - everyone would have the same amount of wealth, no poor no super rich (or just rich, for that matter). While we're at it, lets make it so every rare item drops from any mob at any level - wouldn't want the lower level players feeling left out, would we? Pretty soon there will be so many of whatever it is you don't have it won't have any value at all. Perfect!

In every economy you will have it all - poor, middle class, rich and then the 1% or so that is amazingly rich. You're just rich, so what? I say quit the whining and be happy with what you have.

Shasgaliel · Feb 12, 2009, 02:30 PM // 14:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stockholm

If people start playing GW as a game and stop trying to live the game, the economy will right it self.

Agreed. But actually that is the best post here:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numa Pompilius

I would play the game as if it was an RPG, not a trade simulator.

Yeah, weird I know.

To the economist guys. Wanna have a "healthy economy"? Make supply of money limited as is in rl. Farming produces items only. They will be worth something only if your will be able to sell them. Merchants have starting amount of money. When they sell stuff they get money when they buy they lose.... This will make as in rl rich even more rich and poor even more poor. Why spoil such a nice game to cater the needs of farmers and such huh? It is really good as it is and there is no need to "fix" it.

If you do not know what you can do with all your money buy sup vigor for all heroes on an all your characters on all your accounts. It is not a good way to show off but at least effectiveness of your H/H gameplay will improve.... It is sad to be in a group with black fow armor/chaos gloves and 7 sets of uber weapons people who do not have even a basic runes on their heroes....

DreamWind · Feb 12, 2009, 09:28 PM // 21:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by bad person

Would fair be splitting up everything everyone has and dividing it equally amongst all players? I'm sure you'd appreciate that, right? Now that would really be fair - everyone would have the same amount of wealth, no poor no super rich (or just rich, for that matter). While we're at it, lets make it so every rare item drops from any mob at any level - wouldn't want the lower level players feeling left out, would we? Pretty soon there will be so many of whatever it is you don't have it won't have any value at all. Perfect!

In every economy you will have it all - poor, middle class, rich and then the 1% or so that is amazingly rich. You're just rich, so what? I say quit the whining and be happy with what you have.

That is not neccessarily true about rich and poor. The scenario you suggested would be perfectly fair. Ever read the book Utopia? Maybe I'm stirring the pot here, but we are "living" in a game where private property wasn't supposed to mean anything, the game was never supposed to be item based outside of a competitive level. Who thinks I'm wrong?

DragonRogue · Feb 12, 2009, 10:48 PM // 22:48

In a game where there is no new content, and masses continually farming, even playing an area, over and over again... there will be a decline in economy. Period. As more stuff is gained thru even normal means let alone farming it floods the market.

Adding new items, skins, masks, or whatever will not help. There is really a simple solution that it seems many have over-looked. Its time to take these items out of the game. And in so doing will help prices climb back up. So the best solution is to make weapons and armour need repairing. And not just repairing as in costing gold. Repairing with added materials as well. The stupid weaponsmiths sell nothing of interest to anyone but the just starting out. Turn them into weapons repairers as well. My eternal blade has 10/100 uses left so it will cost 100k gold and 10 ectos to repair. The weapon mods are gone permanently and need to be replaced. My Kurzick Elite armour is dented and now gives only 50 Armour rating instead of 80 and will cost 25k and 40 amber chunks to fix. And the Rune of Superior Vigor is gone Permanently. If items not repaired reach 0 then item is permanently destroyed and must be bought again.

This is how you can stop an economy from dying. Doubt it can be done now in GW1 but maybe in GW2 the greedy QQers will stop.

maraxusofk · Feb 13, 2009, 01:51 AM // 01:51

Lol people care about the gw economy? wut is the point. everything is so incredibly cheap does it even matter?

crazybanshee · Feb 13, 2009, 04:11 AM // 04:11

I believe the whole point of gw was not that the richest players get the best crap and therefore have a huge advantage over other players. I believe it was something along the lines of everyone gets the same weapons, but the rich players get to show off how rich they are by having the rarer weapons, but no other advantage. So you can open the box and jump into pvp, instead of buying gold on ebay to the the rare sword you need to finish that quest for the armor that'll let you kill the dragon and get the best sword in game, unless the guy next to you steals it.

AKB48 · Feb 13, 2009, 04:40 AM // 04:40

If Anet adds more NPC like one that will un-customize items for a fee(not a small one either, 10k+) or let you change from a male or a female and vise versa, or anything that will become an incentive for people to spend money should help the gw economy. Since alot of people simply have their golds sitting in their banks, and alot of people get tired of farming because they run out of things to spend money on[so the time spend farming isn't worth the fun that can be "purchased" with the gold].

Dunno, just my thoughts.

Triaz · Feb 13, 2009, 05:06 AM // 05:06

I have just returned from a break from GW and was quite suprised to find the prices where they are. It didn't bother me. My ectos that are still sitting in the bank are there incase I ever decide to get FoW armor on any of my characters, so I really don't care what they are worth. I farmed 'em back when proph was the only game just to have incase i ever decided to get FoW.And that's where they will stay unless I decide to start decking my toons out with FoW.

People want different things out of thier game experience.Take my GF for example. I played WoW for a bit with some RL friends, so she decided to try out WoW and GW, and she loved WoW for 1 reason she liked gathering materials and playing the auction house. Buying, selling, trading, hording money(she is an accounting major). Me on the other hand, i couldn't care less as long as I have the cash to have the gear to be competitive in pvp or pve. She never got above 30 in that game and had 10 times the cash I woulda had if I sold everything my 2 70s had together much less what cash they were carrying.

Me, I like GW better because I don't have to try to make money to get things to stay competitive. I just log on and hop into pvp if I want or go back with my ranger and play some HM missions or go back and get NM mision bonuses I missed, maybe play one of my alt characters and get them a little further in one of the campaigns. I always seem to have plenty of cash in the bank when I want to go buy skills or grab some new armor to change things up a bit or whatever. And that's enough for me. So I am glad there is a game like GW where the economy doesn't punish people that don't want to raid and farm ect. to earn enough money to stay competitive.

Aeon221 · Feb 15, 2009, 08:46 PM // 20:46

Well, I'm really effing bored, so I'm going to put my degree in Economics to use!

First off, an explanation of how ecto function as money, why it matters, and how it relates to the real world.

Back in the '30s and prior, gold was used to back the value of currency. Those old fogeys were essentially trading with fractional amounts of an ounce of gold every time they used a unit of currency.

In Guild Wars, ecto are valuable for the high value exchanges (which, if the real world is any guide, account for a surprisingly large amount of the total value exchanged in a given time period, even if they're relatively infrequent when compared to low value exchanges). They're also valued for their use in the creation of various armor sets -- but let's be honest, most folks use them as a unit of exchange and a store of value. Note the similarity with the real world? That gives us access to a few more items of interest from the toolkit of economics.

So why does this matter to the large number of poorer players that do not have daily contact with ecto? Well, for one thing they have a wealth effect (a change in the price of ecto should affect how wealthy a given ecto holding player is, and therefore change their willingness to spend non-ecto currency), and therefore alter even low level spending -- which results in poorer players being rewarded less frequently and with smaller amounts than they would be were ectos more highly valued. Prove it, you say?

Using the relatively simple equation of exchange, we know that a decline in the money supply (resulting from a decline in the price of ecto) should result in the following:

Equation of Exchange: Money Supply * Velocity = Price Level * Expenditures

M = (P*Q)/V

If M declines and V remains constant (which is pretty standard), (P*Q) would have to decrease. So, either the price level or the number of items traded or both would have to decrease if the value of ecto declines.

Let's translate that into Guild Wars terms. As the price of ecto declines, we should see the following effects:

1) Trading should become less frequent, even for commonly used items
2) Prices should decline across the board

Well that sounds nice if you save your money, right? You'll get a better deal in the future, right? Wrong, because of that old standby of economics that everyone and their brother has heard of, supply and demand! (by preference I'd pull out the IS/LM model, but, uh, let's keep this shiz simple, m'kay?)

In the aggregate, everybody knows that as prices decline, the demand should increase and the supply should decrease. So, if everyone is saving more and more of their money, the money supply is declining, exchanges are becoming rarer (eoe, see above), and the prices offered are lower, what do you think should happen to the supply?

Well, obviously the supply of pretty much everything should drop slowly over time. So if you're saving your money in the hopes of getting good deals in the future, know that you might not be able to find what you want nearly so easily as maybe you could a couple months ago. And the more niche an item is (like, say, vampiric hammer mods) the less likely it is that you'll find it. And even worse, it's far likelier than it would have been in a previous time period that someone else will snap it up before you do -- after all, demand is higher!

So that pretty much sucks for everyone, especially new players who won't be able to easily get mods for their weapons or farm for the kewlest, leetest, rarest shiz due to their newness. Fortunately, an elegant solution is at hand.

Increase the price of ecto! Now, here's where the real world comes into play. Back in the 30s, when the world was in the grip of one of the most terrible depressions ever as a result of the return to the gold standard, one bad dude -- known as the POTUS -- took action by unilaterally raising the price of gold every couple of days. He was, in effect, creating inflation and expanding the monetary supply by fiat. Today, most economists consider that raising of the price of gold one of the most significant tools Mr. The POTUS used to fight the Great Depression -- so significant, in fact, that, in the form of open market operations (after the removal of the stupid terrible dunderheaded poopfest known as the gold standard, source of my comment about crucifixion on a cross of ecto upthread), it became our primary method of dealing with recessions.

Anet can fairly easily increase the price of ecto at the traders. Anet can also add some new uses for ecto so as to remove more of them from the game, again increasing their value and hence the money supply. If they implement both, inflation should pick up again and people will start trading again. Huzzah!

Hope that shed some light on things.

Definitions:

Money Supply: In this example, cash and items that can be easily converted to cash (in the real world, M0, M1, M2)

Velocity: The average number of times a unit of currency changes hand over the course of a given time period

Price Level: Basically, a measure of inflation. If inflation is positive, price level increases, and if inflation is negative, P declines

Expenditures: Essentially the real value of the items exchanged over a given time period.

SmartBomb · Feb 15, 2009, 09:38 PM // 21:38

I for one don't like it when people hoard dozens of stacks of ectos even though they barely play the game anymore. Certainly doesn't make the economy better...

AKB48 · Feb 16, 2009, 02:53 AM // 02:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by SmartBomb

I for one don't like it when people hoard dozens of stacks of ectos even though they barely play the game anymore. Certainly doesn't make the economy better...

Well, you gotta give them credit for not having a life, this is one of their few achievements in life. Everyone has a part in which they shine, and ecto hoarding is what these people are most proud of.

cataphract · Feb 16, 2009, 08:40 AM // 08:40

I have no problems with GW economy as long as I can keep selling ugly items to wealthy people.

Coney · Feb 16, 2009, 09:48 AM // 09:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aeon221

... First off, an explanation of how ecto function as money, why it matters, and how it relates to the real world. ...

Hmm, this analysis looks flawed to me (It also ignores the free 10-30 zkeys/month/account profit generated from nil). Remember, money in our real world is really a contractual obligation, or indentured servitude, of 1 servant to another master - thus requiring a 2-way exchange (barter system taken to the next promissory note step).

The money supply in GW is infinitely unbounded and quadratically growing, and requires no debtor - just farm 1 hour and profit 15k. There is no "ecto standard" prerequisite that limits the money supply - as plat can be produced regardless of whether ecto even exist (read: printing press). Nor, is there any plat required to provide/generate revenue (cogs), thus producing eventual profit (a requirement in real-world economic systems - read: GDP/multiplier)... Finally, real-world gold is a limited natural resource; however, ecto can continue to be purchased (or farmed) as long as 5.5k exists to do so. Sure, there are some money sinks, but they are few and far between in use. And, as an economist, you should be well aware of the hyperinflation seen in Germany during the depression, where wheelbarrows full of cash were more valuable as kindling (the situation that should exist in GW, if goods and services were *REQUIRED*)...

FWIW, poor players aren't rewarded by the rich in GW - they're rewarded by farming (15k/hour or 10-30 zkeys/account/month). No exchange WHATSOEVER is required between the rich and poor in this game (or between anyone for that matter).

If you ask me, the low prices are simply a product of a total lack of demand... Really, most don't play this game to buy junk in Spamadin - they play to accomplish some quest or task, and find stuff on their own. Those that do are mostly collectors of the fringes... A lot do save junk, believing it's worthwhile, hoping to sell it to someone, eventually becoming ever more desperate to sell it at any price (never fully realizing that THEY don't even want the crap)... This desperation is fueled as well by the limit on inventory space...

Joanie Loves Chachi · Feb 16, 2009, 03:55 PM // 15:55

I suggest a 700 billion gold bailout to me in which I will never send back into the market but instead use it to decorate my Guild Hall.

Triaz · Feb 16, 2009, 04:51 PM // 16:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joanie Loves Chachi

I suggest a 700 billion gold bailout to me in which I will never send back into the market but instead use it to decorate my Guild Hall.

hehe I support this. This should also give you enough cash to take your gw family on 90,000 gold vacations to LA for some sun n fun and maybe a ski trip to the Shiverpeaks.

Sir Skullcrasher · Feb 16, 2009, 05:58 PM // 17:58

I think the economy is fine, as long as peoples are buying and selling things. Also peoples have to play the game like it's just a game. Don't go on GW thinking it's the stock market and that you have to trade/sell things to make higher profits.

Akaraxle · Feb 17, 2009, 07:21 AM // 07:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lady Raenef

Your thoughts?

No one gives a damn because economy was never supposed to be the point of Guild Wars.