Curse

Mohnzh · Aug 21, 2007, 09:46 PM // 21:46

Wasn't there a rollback when that happened?

kilkelo · Aug 21, 2007, 10:22 PM // 22:22

I agree with bilateralrope

Might as well add a new currency since the current standard one, ectos, fluctuates too much and is already being used as one anyways.

Besides, other than the current high rollers, who's going to hoard more than 1000k? The people wil be the same, the prices the same, but the high rollers will be happy since they have a stable reliable currency.

Furthermore, the rich won't need to buy ectos and diamonds, so the prices will drop, and your average joe will be one step closer of being able to afford them. Everyone wins!

evilkingsky · Aug 21, 2007, 10:49 PM // 22:49

Just add more goldsinks in the game, the armors in gw:en should help. I think right now prices are so high because so many people have alot of gold and don't know what to spend it on. With more gold sinks, people will have less money, and prices will drop.

savage vapor 33 · Aug 22, 2007, 01:39 AM // 01:39

How bout we buy stock? *sarcasm*

Doesnt ectos kind of solve the crisis? This thread going no where?

bilateralrope · Aug 22, 2007, 09:34 AM // 09:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mohnzh

To me it seems obvious how the 100k keeps the economy in check. I have never heard of anybody selling things for more than 100k and 7 stacks of ecto. Check out games that have no cap in trade or possession like Maple Story. People set up there vending stands and sell for as many 9's as the programming will allow. Sometime's it's an item you can by for a couple thousand from an NPC. Doesn't make sense, and it takes forever to find something you want at a price that makes any sense whatsoever.

The question is not if someone is trying to sell an item for a stupidly high price as we also get these people in guild wars because they either don't know the market, or they are selling high in the hopes to catch a buyer who isn't aware of the actual value or doesn't care. Like me in maple story where I often took 15 minutes to find the first guy selling what I wanted because I didn't want to pay to use the market search, so I couldn't be bothered trying to find a cheaper price.

So the real question is how often do these high prices get a buyer ?
If the seller entered the maximum possible price then I doubt they would find a buyer simply because that max price should be well above what anyone will ever manage to acquire.

Quote:

Personally, I think the economy is in pretty good shape. Just like any economy, it has to do a tightrope walk but it also seems self-correcting. Mainly because economies do that naturally due to the laws of supply and demand.

Yes I agree that the GW market is in decent shape. However this is despite the gold cap, not because of it. For instance take typical supply/demand curves (for GW we can have the supply curve as a vertical line for some items). If the market is operating well then the price and quantity should be near where the curves intersect, with errors due to market shifts and imperfect information.

Now lets throw a maximum price on it. If this maximum price is above the equilibrium price then it will do nothing. If its below the equilibrium price then we have a higher quantity demanded but quantity supplied has gone down (or remains unchanged if its an item with a vertical supply curve). And now the quantity demanded is greater than the quantity supplied, which in a working market would force the price up. But the price isn't allowed to go up. So either we experience shortages (meaning market failure) or people will find a way around the maximum price.

And if we look here we see that people are trading some items at above the price cap. Therefore it isn't working at restricting prices. Normally I'd consider this harmless except that it adds this following:

For bids at over 100k on guru and http://guildwars.incgamers.com/ auction sites, the prices are still placed as gold amounts then the buyer usually sets an exchange rate between gold and the supplementary currency thats linked to the trader price. Now lets take a buyer who currently has 100k and some ectos but no other assets he is willing to sell. He places a bid on an item using the current exchange rate and wins the auction. However between his bid and him meeting the seller for the trade, the price of ecto plummets so he now has to pay more ecto. So the buyers options are now:

Renege on the auction, breaking the sites rules in the process, sell one of his other assets (if he has any) in order to pay up or hope the seller will accept him paying less than what he bid (maybe having to sell other assets to reach a compromised price). So even though its not the fault of either party the choices are the seller losing out, the buyer losing out or both losing out.

So how can this problem be prevented ?

1 - ANET removes the gold cap. This is probably a very simple change to make.
2 - The auction sites change their bidding system to support the supplementary currency alongside gold so when someone bids they know exactly what they will be paying.
3 - Kill the auction sites. This won't go down well with the people that use them because GW doesn't have any decent in-game trading system.

Though option 1 will cause that problem to occur unless the auction sites take some steps to prevent it. But this won't be as much work for them as option 2 is.

So people are bypassing the price cap, thus preventing it having any real effect. But because of people using supplementary currency to bypass the gold cap and the auction sites to avoid having to deal with the trade spam a problem shows up.

And here are two problems caused by the gold cap. Lets take any trading system that doesn't require input from the seller once the buyer shows up.
How will this system handle items worth over 100k ?
What happens when the gold from the sale would put the seller over the gold caps in his storage and across all his characters ?

So what is so good about the gold cap when it does nothing to prevent prices above it, while causing other problems ?

Entreri · Aug 22, 2007, 06:19 PM // 18:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by bilateralrope

So what is so good about the gold cap when it does nothing to prevent prices above it, while causing other problems ?

I don't think Anet cares about trades being over 100k. The main benefit is that a player is limited to carry 1 million gold + 100k per character. GW isn't a closed economy, it's designed faucet-sink style where gold is created every time you kill a monster and flows out through gold sinks. With this analogy, the gold cap is setup to keep the tub from overflowing. You have a limit on the maximum amount of gold that can exist in the system.

Putting this limit at the account level is good because the maximum gold in the economy goes up when new players enter the game. New players aren't inhibited and can build up cash. Players with lots of gold are encouraged to spend what gold they have and it either goes to the sink or to other players. This keeps people from hoarding gold and causing hyper inflation in the game economy. If they want to hoard things as wealth then they are encouraged to hoard rare items instead which isn't harmful to a new player. Inventory space is the corresponding cap on hoarding items.

That being said, I'd be OK with there just being one number for gold per account. For example, if you have 6 chars then you can hold a max of 1.6 mil gold and it's accessible from any of your characters (and you can trade up to this max amount). It would take slightly less space for Anet and people would have more room before they have to use items as an alternate currency. However, I wouldn't be OK with removing the gold cap entirely.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bilateralrope

Though option 1 will cause that problem to occur unless the auction sites take some steps to prevent it. But this won't be as much work for them as option 2 is.

Option 2 is no work for Anet because they don't have anything to do with third party auction websites. It makes sense for a third party website to conform to the rules of the game. It doesn't make sense to change the game to convenience a third party auction website.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bilateralrope

And here are two problems caused by the gold cap. Lets take any trading system that doesn't require input from the seller once the buyer shows up.

None exist currently in game and Anet hasn't talked about any plans to make a change like this so it's a non issue as the game currently stands. This is more of a suggestion better suited to the Sardelaac forum.

Mohnzh · Aug 22, 2007, 09:10 PM // 21:10

Bilaterlrope.

Great response. I see your points in many respects. Allow me to explore this further. You use an example of a single item with a vertical supply curve. Simple enough. The maximum price, including supplemental currency, would be 100k plus 7stacks ecto. Also simple. Equilibiurm would be the price at which the supply and demand curves intersect. In a standard economy, maximum below equilibrium may cause market failure, but only if this good was a necesity and not a commodity. If, for example, this happened with bolts of cloth or iron ingots. That would be catastrophic. As it is, nothing comes anywhere close to that except luxury goods. the gold cap helps moderate the trading of luxury goods. As Entreri said, it keeps "the tub from overflowing". So although I understand what you are saying, I do not think there would be any catastrophic failure of the economy if that assumption (maximum price < equilibrium price) was realized.

While reading through your comments on prices of supplemental income changing AFTER the close of an auction and its adverse affects on the buyer, before even reading your suggestions I pictured option 2 as the most viable outlet. The use of supplemental income in the game is very similar to the stock market (AAUGH! IRL COMPARISON! NONO!). There is certain risks, but fansites that provide auction houses should acknoowledge it. It would be foolish to claim that a person's net worth is only based on how much is in the bank and wallet. Someone's net worth is also tied up in real estate, stocks, bonds, precious metals, etc. In the game, my net worth is usually tied up in mats or keys. Recently I liquidated all my mats to switch to lockpicks. Theoretically, I also have worth in gold items in storage, but it would be hard to give them a cost.

ALL THIS TO SAY, I still think that the way the economy is working now is great the way it is. Yes, ecto fluctuates in price, but any wealthy person will tell you that their assets are always at risk. Websites accomodating to the supplemental income is the most appropriate way to handle short-term fluctuation, with the stipulation that the transaction must take place within a certain time frame of the close of the auction. If it does not, the seller/buyer would be entitled to renegotiation.

As to automated transactions, yes, there would be issues with that. However, I still contend that the gold cap does limit costs. Maybe not to 100k, but it does limit it to 100k + 7stacks ecto. I have yet to see something sell for that much.

Alias_X · Aug 22, 2007, 09:23 PM // 21:23

Some items are worth more than 100k. Only 100k can be put in trade at a time. Some people do not trust getting the payment in parts. Certainly, the use of ecto is necessary.

Age · Aug 22, 2007, 09:55 PM // 21:55

If it was probable to introduce other forms of currency like silver and bronze then that would be a wise choice but I highly doubt this would happen.I don't think if was ever intended to have items listed fro 100K+ ectos to be more reasonable priced.I can't believe why ppl think thing cost this much and why do they need that much for after all it is only a game.

There is that other game won't say name but for all the rich in it I wonder how much they get ganked be thankfull for your instanced world.