Curse

gene terrodon · Apr 24, 2007, 12:25 PM // 12:25

The point everyone of you is missing is the fact that Anet wants to make the game more desirable to the casual gamer.
You are all arguing about in-game economics and fail to realize, Anet could care less. They are looking at real life economics.
There are far more...FAR MORE casual players than hard core players, as well as a large amount of them that have yet to purchase the game.
As a casual gamer, if you are forced to grind or put in a ton of time to get a nice looking weapon or neat armor, you simply put the game away and not play.
In sales, it is said, for every bad experience a person has, they tell 6 other people.
So if casual gamer A buys GW and has to grind to get a weapon, they will tell casual gamers b,c,d,e,f and g to not buy the game because you have to grind, which causes Anet to loose sales.
At the end of the day, it's about making the game more enjoyable for the community as a whole, casual gamers and hardcore gamers alike.

Evilsod · Apr 24, 2007, 12:53 PM // 12:53

Apologies Ensign... but i skipped your post, too much essay reading for 1 thread after the OP ^^

I really don't see there logic for the update, specially after reading what the OP quoted from Gaile.

Anet have created the economy themselves, and now seek to destroy for some ridiculous reason that completely defies reality. Did we ASK for Purple Crystallines to drop in FoW/UW and Sorrows Furnace only? Or for several items to be unique to the HoH chest like Runic Blades, Crystalline Swords and the Mini-pet Ghostly Hero?

Their is no way they can suddenly say that farmers are the only ones capable of gaining these high end items because they're disireable (perhaps everyone in the real world should have a Mansion, a swimming pool and a a garage of nice cars just because people want them). Very few of the high end items are desirable purely on looks. Most of them are desireable because you made them so by making them so rare, imo the Crystalline Sword skin is awful. The Collossol Scimitar however does look quite good.

And of course, the recent update to the loot scaling update... They removed 'Gold drops and Ectoplasm' from this scaling.
So all they've done is nerf botters and people who occasionally farm lesser areas of the game for a few drops to merch to get that last few plat they need to buy an item they desire.
The farmers who mass farm UW/FoW for Shards and Ectoplasm and those who farm certain areas for the chance of a very valuable gold drop (ie the Moddok Caverns Corsair groups), haven't been touched. They lose out on a bit of loot every run, but once in a while they strike gold (literally) with a very valuale gold item that hasn't been touched by the droprate. So the farmers are STILL the only ones capable of affording the high-end disireable items.

Sorry, but there is no arguement for saying that a casual GW player deserves the same items a hardcore GW player gets. If you play GW casually, you don't deserve to be wielding a Tormented "tuning* Sword and a Tormented Shield while clad in your FoW armour. People who dedicate time to GW, be it by farming, playing and getting lucky or whatever, they are the ones who should get good items with flashy tags if they so desire.

baz777 · Apr 24, 2007, 01:00 PM // 13:00

I’m still having problems with Anet on this one.

1. Those that have finished all campaigns and are just awaiting the release of the next one had time, and enjoyed, to farm, I’m in this group. And no, I don’t just farm all the time. I farm when no one in the alliance needs help or when I only have a limited amount of time.

2. Those new players to the game are at a distinct disadvantage to those of us pre-update with regards to accumulating enough gold just to buy the basics, (forget the elite items!). New player- grind, grind, grind, sod this, bye, (and understandably so in my opinion).

How can Anet alienate a section of the community and discourage new players from taking up the game and think it’s a good move beats me.

Draikin · Apr 24, 2007, 01:06 PM // 13:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The solo farming nerf doesn't change that paradigm at all. Except now, you don't have nearly as many rares entering the economy through brute force farming. But the sources of items of value are still chests, and through the moderating effects of statistics when you mass farm drops. So, solo farming has been nerfed. Do players doing missions suddenly start producing anything of value? No? So why do they suddenly matter? Answer: they don't. They're still economic deadweight.

Why don't you have as many rares entering the economy now? With the 20/04 update this should be the same as before, and when people manage to farm in Hard Mode I think there are going to be a lot more rares available than there used to be. While farmers will earn a lot less gold directly, the regular PvE player will get more gold and rare items playing Hard Mode than they did before. Just by playing the HM missions in Tyria with a full team I've been getting more rares in a few days than I've seen in months, and because of the merchant value of purples and better gold drop rate the amount of gold a regular PvE player earns has increased. In fact after seeing the gold drop rate in HM now I almost understand what they tried to achieve with the complete obliteration of solo farming in their first update. It remains to be seen if it's going to make any difference in the end but I wouldn't say the casual PvE player is still economic deadweight at this point.

lyra_song · Apr 24, 2007, 01:14 PM // 13:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackbird71

The "coolest" items. Coolest = most cool. The most, i.e, the top, the best. No, she does not specifically state FoW armor, but if this is not included in her categorization as "coolest," then what is?

Yes this is open to a certain amount of interpretation, but given the sum of her statements, I find it a reasonable conclusion that it is Anet's intention (or that she says it is Anet's intention) that all items available in the game should be within reach of the casual player. I'm not saying they should be easy to get, or not require a certain amount of dedication or effort, but it should be a requirement appropriate to the casual gamer. If that means that the "hardcore" gamer finds it too easy and no longer has incentive to continue playing, then that's fine by me. As far as I understand, this game was designed to appeal to the casual gamer, not the hardcore. At least that's why I bought it, I was tired of games that required countless hours of investment to obtain the game's richest rewards. I have a life and responsibilities in reality and can't make that type of commitment to entertainment. From everything that was pitched to me by Anet, this game was exactly that, one that did not require me to be a "hardcore" gamer to reap its benefits. Let the truly hardcore gamers go grind in a game designed for that, I thought GW was supposed to be something different.

I dont know about that.

FoW armor's price is 15k per piece + ectos and shards.

How does one propose that a casual player gain so many ectos and shards without going into UW and FoW repeatedly?

Thats no longer a casual player there.

Im making a FoW set for my ranger but i only play on the weekends, and i only really farm when my guildmates are on and when we have favor (i dont like solo farming...its lonely..even though i have a 55), since we usually trap UW. So its my ecto count is at 48. Thats about a year's worth of trapping once a weekend, thats if im lucky. I really dont recall how long ago i started anymore, i know i did some 55 IW and SS back in the beginning but i forgot now....its been so long since i began.

-=-=-===-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Heres how i interpret Anet's pitch.

Anet designed the game so that there is absolutely no need to grind for anything to beat the PvE storyline.

You reach lvl 20 easily. Thats capped.
Theres no need to constantly buy new armor since its capped at a certain defense.
Theres no need to constantly buy new weapons since its capped at a certain max damage.

Thats the content for the casual player. Thats the content to get the casual player HOOKED.

I see all content after that as content which turns the casual player into an addict. Stuff to achieve after a lot of time invested into the game.

Theres PvP, which requires MANY MANY hours of grinding either for gold to UAX, or Balth points to UAX to become fully competitive.

Theres vanity armors, armors that have no advantage, costs more, and merely look different (not neccesarily better).
Theres vanity weapons, no damage increase, costs more and merely look different.

Then they added titles.
Then they added hardmode.
Then they took maxed titles (skillcap) and cut it into 3.

I really dont see how Gaile, or anyone at Anet can honestly say that the "coolest" stuff is (or should be) within reach of the casual player. That seems really hypocritical when the coolest stuff seems made to reward the hardcore player in the first place.

"Its now what you said, its what you did" - Smokin Aces

Inari · Apr 24, 2007, 01:14 PM // 13:14

Imagine what wouldve happened if the only way we could get ectos and shards is through regular questing/farming. What wouldve happened if we couldnt buy them at the traders? Now that is what makes rare items rare.
I never understood why traders have a bunch of stuff with no use for them but a single thing? Or nothing at all.

Nomen Mendax · Apr 24, 2007, 03:14 PM // 15:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by gene terrodon

The point everyone of you is missing is the fact that Anet wants to make the game more desirable to the casual gamer.
You are all arguing about in-game economics and fail to realize, Anet could care less. They are looking at real life economics.
There are far more...FAR MORE casual players than hard core players, as well as a large amount of them that have yet to purchase the game.
As a casual gamer, if you are forced to grind or put in a ton of time to get a nice looking weapon or neat armor, you simply put the game away and not play.
In sales, it is said, for every bad experience a person has, they tell 6 other people.
So if casual gamer A buys GW and has to grind to get a weapon, they will tell casual gamers b,c,d,e,f and g to not buy the game because you have to grind, which causes Anet to loose sales.
At the end of the day, it's about making the game more enjoyable for the community as a whole, casual gamers and hardcore gamers alike.

But the point that many of us are making is that the update doesn't make the game more desirable to the casual player.

If ANet wanted to make it easier for the casual player to get gold (or purple) weapons the only reliable way to do that would be to increase the drop rate for those items. They haven't done that.

So what did they do? They made a change that primarily affected "casual farmers" and that may or may not have some economic effect that may or may not allow casual players to get "cool items" more easily.

Because ANet's only communications on this issue involved a number of contradictory statements (which have been discussed at length) I still don't know why they chose the second method.

Mordakai · Apr 24, 2007, 03:32 PM // 15:32

Here's my suggestion (I'm sure it's been suggested before, but needs to be again):

Increase the amount of Free chests. It's unfair that only Nightfall has free chests, and I personally found Nightfall the hardest campaign to make it through.

If the goal is to reward casual players, Free Chests are a great solution:

1) They only open a certain number of times, so they cannot be "farmed".

2) The items are generally Gold Max, which mean even if you don't want them, you'll probably find someone who will.

Is there any chance we'll see Free Chests in Prophecy and Factions? I certainly hope so...

lyra_song · Apr 24, 2007, 03:37 PM // 15:37

The freechests rock, gold max weapons with high req ^_^

Kaleban · Apr 24, 2007, 04:16 PM // 16:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by lyra_song

I dont know about that.

How does one propose that a casual player gain so many ectos and shards without going into UW and FoW repeatedly?

Heres how i interpret Anet's pitch.

I really dont see how Gaile, or anyone at Anet can honestly say that the "coolest" stuff is (or should be) within reach of the casual player. That seems really hypocritical when the coolest stuff seems made to reward the hardcore player in the first place.

"Its now what you said, its what you did" - Smokin Aces

There's no need to interpret Gaile's "pitch."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

People who play in normal size parties, including parties of heroes and henchman, will see no difference at all from loot scaling. At the same time, they will notice that normal mode is now much easier to farm, and that the introduction of Hard Mode provides a place they can play where the loot is better than ever before. Thus, people who play the game primarily in parties will simply make more money than they previously did.

So normal, casual non farming players see no difference, which means hard to get stuff is just as hard, if not more so once gold becomes more scarce and relative values increase. The only way to get good stuff, seemingly is now to play in Hard Mode, which means beating the campaign and having the drive to do it again. Grind. And what's the point of farming in Normal Mode if you don't get anything more or different than before? Making a grind easier but requiring 8 times as many runs is not skill dependent or more accessible, that's crazy grind.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

-It could be said that in the past, when certain players were receiving 800% the rewards of other players, there was an inequity.
-All players were seeing high prices for the most desirable items; they noted a push to unattainable of items they wanted to get.
-The only players able to attain the coolest items fell into a certain player type, the farmer.
-This reduced the fun factor of the game, in that the game seemed to require that players play in a certain way if they wanted to get those items.
-Farming is ok with us, no problem at all, but we did not intend that farming would be "required," or that only farmers would be able to obtain the coolest items.
-Loot scaling was implemented, in part, to adjust for the changes to the game that affected normal mode with the addition of Hard Mode. If you're able to enter a map more often without a reduction in loot, and if you can complete a map or kill X number of mobs faster, then loot scaling makes the rewards more fair and more appropriate. See the original post in this thread for more information.

Here's Gaile's response to one of my posts. First, as has been said, a person killing 8 times the monsters of another (solo vs 8 party) should get the rewards commensurate with that kill rate. That's the only way to fairly reward people in a game that is almost solely based on killing. The other part, mission and quests are rewarded based on completion, a solo farmer isn't going to get Masters reward for example.

Her 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th points all show that ANet DOES want the casual player to have access to the coolest items, and what's more cool than FoW armor and Crystalline swords? I bolded the one part for emphasis, so you can't miss it.

her last point doesn't even make sense. There's no point in farming if the reward is not commensurate with the effort of doing so. It IS more complicated to solo farm than it is to party play, at least in my experience, because you need to have exact timing and know what you're farming and how to do it. A mending sever/gash whammo cannot farm. But it keeps being said that there's no reduction in loot.

That's baloney. If your rewards as a player are the same no matter how many people are in your party, then you now have a "virtual" party size of 8 ALWAYS. So instead of other players or hero/hench "stealing" the drops when partied, now its digital ghosts!

One of the reasons for solo farming is because some were tired of partying, and seeing everyone else in the party get drops but them, or seeing 3 ectos drop for one guy while the rest of the party got skunked, GG randomness.

But if you can sit there and tell me that its easier to solo farm the Underworld, then it is to have one or two people tanking while the rest nuke, then there's no way I can possibly convince you of anything (you not lyra specifically, I mean the general public). Ease of farming does not only apply to the build itself but also to speed, efficiency and safety.

But as you said in one of your most recent posts lyra, ANet does seem to be very hypocritical, which we agree on. The update does nothing for the casual player, the supposed benefactor, except make gold more rare and thus driving up relative price and making acquisition a more lengthy prospect. If you're solo farming greens and golds in Hard Mode, the drop rates are ok, but how many casual players can or want to play that way? As I and others have said, in the long run, the update makes more of a grind for even basic items for casual gamers, meaning they'll have to spend more time not playing for fun, but playing to acquire the skills and gear they need to have fun at all.

Young Hero · Apr 24, 2007, 04:18 PM // 16:18

So normal mode can now be farmed with no Mob Scatter, ok sounds fun but wait wheres my loot?

Hard mode is where its at but wait, mobs are scattering, huh?

Nice try but not good enough to bring me back.My wow realm is back up, see ya

TabascoSauce · Apr 24, 2007, 04:40 PM // 16:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaleban

As I and others have said, in the long run, the update makes more of a grind for even basic items for casual gamers, meaning they'll have to spend more time not playing for fun, but playing to acquire the skills and gear they need to have fun at all.

Add me to that list. Heck, I am still occasionally farming for the Plat to buy skills, but for some reason I find farming to be tedious and boring...? Call me crazy.

Thanks!
TabascoSauce

rohlfinator · Apr 24, 2007, 04:47 PM // 16:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by blackbird71

And i would argue that I have seen the opposite, that a number of casual players come to the forums and similar pages so that they can quickly learn from others the better ways to play the game without spending too much time trying to figure out how to do things themselves.

I agree that this is often the case, but those people are more likely to ask a question and leave. The people who have time to stick around discussing things (like this update) are almost all serious players.

I think part of our disagreement here comes from our definition of "casual." To me, anyone who plays significantly more than an hour a day is not casual, and I think that if we polled everyone here, we'd find that the majority of us fit that category.

Quote:

Yes this is open to a certain amount of interpretation, but given the sum of her statements, I find it a reasonable conclusion that it is Anet's intention (or that she says it is Anet's intention) that all items available in the game should be within reach of the casual player.

I think you're still reading too much into her statement. I'd be glad to hear an official statement on this, but by very nature of the game's design, Obsidian armor has never been within reach of casual players. Period. And I don't think Gaile was implying that, or she would have mentioned FoW armor specifically.

Quote:

As far as I understand, this game was designed to appeal to the casual gamer, not the hardcore.

It was designed to appeal to both.

Quote:

From everything that was pitched to me by Anet, this game was exactly that, one that did not require me to be a "hardcore" gamer to reap its benefits.

If you read early interviews with Jeff Strain and other members of the design team, they are specifically referring to playable content, not weapon or armor skins. The low level cap, cheap max armor, and limited skill bar mean that anyone who plays through the game at a normal place will be able to access high-end areas like FoW and UW without being disadvantaged. I have never seen a single interview state that FoW armor should be obtainable by casual players.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lyra_song

Heres how i interpret Anet's pitch.

Anet designed the game so that there is absolutely no need to grind for anything to beat the PvE storyline.

You reach lvl 20 easily. Thats capped.
Theres no need to constantly buy new armor since its capped at a certain defense.
Theres no need to constantly buy new weapons since its capped at a certain max damage.

Thats the content for the casual player. Thats the content to get the casual player HOOKED.

Exactly right. That is basically what Jeff and the rest of the team has been saying in interviews since beta.

Sir Kilgore · Apr 24, 2007, 04:52 PM // 16:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by gene terrodon

The point everyone of you is missing is the fact that Anet wants to make the game more desirable to the casual gamer.
You are all arguing about in-game economics and fail to realize, Anet could care less. They are looking at real life economics.
There are far more...FAR MORE casual players than hard core players, as well as a large amount of them that have yet to purchase the game.
As a casual gamer, if you are forced to grind or put in a ton of time to get a nice looking weapon or neat armor, you simply put the game away and not play.
In sales, it is said, for every bad experience a person has, they tell 6 other people.
So if casual gamer A buys GW and has to grind to get a weapon, they will tell casual gamers b,c,d,e,f and g to not buy the game because you have to grind, which causes Anet to loose sales.
At the end of the day, it's about making the game more enjoyable for the community as a whole, casual gamers and hardcore gamers alike.

Ok I think we need to define something here.....

Exactly what is a "casual gamer"?

How many hours a day or week do they play? Can they play every day, but just certain ways?

My impression is that in general people tend to get hooked on the game and spend much of their free time on it or they only rarely play. Maybe there is a group of people who play something like 5 hours a week on a regular basis, but I haven't run into them.

In my guild if you look at the roster you notice something right away. There's a group of people who have logged in sometime within the last 24 hours and then there's the group who haven't logged in for several days, weeks, or months. I can't think of a single person who regularly signs in every 2 or 3 days.

If that second group is the "casual gamer" why is anyone trying to cater to them at all? They aren't likely to suddenly become fanatical about the game when they log on and find out that they get exactly the same loot drops as they did the last time they signed on. Or does anyone think that some of these people will think to themselves, "Cool, there's less money in the economy now overall, but no change for me. I'll now start spending all my free time here."? Maybe they'll be so happy that another group of people was negatively affected that they'll just hang around to watch.

Which group is more likely to purchase the next campaign, more character slots, or anything else related to the game which adds to profits?

lyra_song · Apr 24, 2007, 05:24 PM // 17:24

I have absolute faith in Anet's intentions and motivations.
I do have serious doubts about their methods and implementations.

The scaling update doesnt really benefit the casual player. My argument is that it doesnt affect them negatively or positively (at least we cannot tell yet).

The idea for the casual player, the non-farmer, to have access to the "coolest stuff" like rare weapons and expensive armor, without farming or intensive grinding is downright delusional.

These things were designed to be hard to get. Obsidian Armor requires 75000 gold + 120 ectos + 120 shards. Lets not factor in runes. How the hell is a casual player going to get that?

It's supposed to be the vanity armor, the prestige armor. Its optional. And because its optional, it falls outside the realm of "casual players".

If Anet really wants to help the casual players, they need to:

A) Make weapon and armor collectors easier to get with more desirable stats. They need to make the trophy drops they collect easier to get in a full 8 party situation, so it doesnt turn into a farming situation.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10147203

B) Make runes, weapon mods, insignias and inscriptions easier to get for collector equipment.

blackbird71 · Apr 24, 2007, 05:31 PM // 17:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burma_GW

I got kinda lost. Sorry. One minute I am reading that "These crops (gold drops, ectos, and the like) have been left the same, if not slightly increased." Then I am wondering about the Demand Side which isn't clearly defined as was the Supply Side.

My guess is the your Demand Side is the farmer who now has less money with which to inflate prices with but still more then the casual player, and the casual player which ANet, via Gaile Grey, claims will have more liquid funds. The buy/sell community could be included in the Demand Side, but, well, it really doesn't matter.

Then I read "The net result of this is that we're going to have increased supply of items that no one has the money to pay the prices they used to be going for."

So then I am wondering...why would no one have the money to pay current prices for an increased supply of items when the farmer still has more then Casual Joe and Casual Joe has more then he had before?

But, actually, I do not think that is relavent to your conclusion, which I believe has merit. Prices for given items were already decreasing and the basic driving forces for that trend haven't changed. By suggesting that the supply will increase, you have already implied that the prices will drop. That in itself is Supply Side Economic Theory.

Ecto deserves its own comments. The addition variables to consider are the flow of Ecto through the Forge Master and and Rare Material Traders, and, of course, the human psyche. To wit, the price of Ecto recently jumped by over 50% in less then 12 hours with hardly a ripple, if any, in the "Supply Side."

So, in the end, I believe that you are correct in that item prices will drop after the market worries sort themselves out. But that was already happening. Certain items will show nothing in the way of altered trends. What does the update have to do with Zodiac Weapons or mini-pets for example?

On the other hand, Hard Mode is likely to be the ringer clouding the Crystal Ball For Predicting Economic Change. Hard Mode might deserve the alternate title, Premier Farmland with More Bountiful Crops. In just a few hours of semi-serious searching, I found 3 areas to solo which included Bosses, and I am not a Pro Solo Uber Farming Wizard. The cash drops are predictably meager. However, the item drops have increased my cash-per-hour rate of income over pre-update farming by a factor of 3, and I haven't even dropped and Elite Tome yet.

And that experience has made me wonder about the idea that farmers are going to have less money. There is a possiblilty that the update will just stimulate more people to farm, whether it be solo or in teams. I strongly believe that Hard Mode will simply result in an increase in items and funds into the game without effecting one iota the distribution profile of the same. In other words, the quality of life for GW Players will remain the same. Income is worthless to evaluate without correlating expenses.

Of course...that is just my opinion. I could be wrong.

(boldface added for emphasis)

I'm glad to see more and more people giving a lot of thought to the true economic impact of the situation. I think that you're on the right track, but consider just a few more points. What happens when the total gold in circulation drops because of the new decreased drop rate (Anet has stated that they are trying to decrease the creation of "new gold" and thereby lower the amount of gold in circulation)? If the value of an individual gold piece then increases, what effect does this have on the dropped prices? Depending on the rate of increase in the value of gold and the rate of decrease in the cost of items, it is conceivable that true prices may actually remain the same or even increase. Also, if the value of gold increases, how does this affect the players who have little gold prior to the update versus those who have large quantities in storage? Lastly, if the relative value of gold increases, what does that do to the true cost of fixed-price items (armor, keys, kits, skills, etc.)? Just some food for thought, enjoy.

For anyone interested in more details of my economic analysis, please see posts here, here, and here. Sadly, the thread containing the complete analysis was removed and I haven't felt like retyping it, so these pieces and summaries will have to do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

...
Farmers and chest runners will redistribute themselves to find new activities that produce valuable items. They'll continue to exchange them amongst themselves for the valuable items they want. Players who don't farm or run chests will continue to look at the prices with disgust. If you still don't understand this and still think that this change helps the little guy trying to finish his quests, please go find a better economics teacher than I and come back when you achieve enlightenment. This isn't even a band-aid. Band-aids actually help, even if they are insufficient. The farming nerf is tossing deck chairs over the side when the ship is tipping over. Ultimately pointless, but you're tired when you're done.

Peace,
-CxE

You've made a lot of good points which many of us agree with, these changes are not good for the casual player, or "little guy" as you put it. The one thing that I would like to point out is that the quote you referenced from Burma_GW at the start of your post, while used in his post, are not his words. They came from Gaile Gray, on page 10 of this thread(see here), in response to questions about the reasons for the change. They are not, as one might think, the mistaken opinion of an individual player, but rather are the ideas of Anet, direct from the source. Anet is the one claiming that this update is supposed to be good for the casual player. It is obviously not. That's why we get upset over it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gene terrodon

The point everyone of you is missing is the fact that Anet wants to make the game more desirable to the casual gamer.
You are all arguing about in-game economics and fail to realize, Anet could care less. They are looking at real life economics.
There are far more...FAR MORE casual players than hard core players, as well as a large amount of them that have yet to purchase the game.
As a casual gamer, if you are forced to grind or put in a ton of time to get a nice looking weapon or neat armor, you simply put the game away and not play.
In sales, it is said, for every bad experience a person has, they tell 6 other people.
So if casual gamer A buys GW and has to grind to get a weapon, they will tell casual gamers b,c,d,e,f and g to not buy the game because you have to grind, which causes Anet to loose sales.
At the end of the day, it's about making the game more enjoyable for the community as a whole, casual gamers and hardcore gamers alike.

The reason why we are all looking at in-game economics is because an analysis of such can show that while Anet says this update is supposed to improve the game for the casual player, in reality it does the opposite. Anet should be concerned with the in-game economics because it does in fact affect what you point out as their true goal, real life economics, i.e., their profit margin.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lyra_song

...
I really dont see how Gaile, or anyone at Anet can honestly say that the "coolest" stuff is (or should be) within reach of the casual player. That seems really hypocritical when the coolest stuff seems made to reward the hardcore player in the first place.

"Its now what you said, its what you did" - Smokin Aces

And that my friends is the crux of the issue. I'm glad we finally agree. If they truly intend these things to be in reach of the casual gamer, they are going in the wrong direction. If that's not their real intent, they need to come out and say it, or we will continue to call them on it.

Mordakai · Apr 24, 2007, 05:48 PM // 17:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by lyra_song

If Anet really wants to help the casual players, they need to:

A) Make weapon and armor collectors easier to get with more desirable stats. They need to make the trophy drops they collect easier to get in a full 8 party situation, so it doesnt turn into a farming situation.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10147203

B) Make runes, weapon mods, insignias and inscriptions easier to get for collector equipment.

/signed

If Anet really wants to help the "casual" player, they need to do more than just nerf the "hardcore" farmer.

Kaleban · Apr 24, 2007, 05:54 PM // 17:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by rohlfinator

Exactly right. That is basically what Jeff and the rest of the team has been saying in interviews since beta.

So why is it now that Gaile Gray and Anet are saying the opposite, and has been quoted time and time again?

That its not fair that the coolest stuff is out of reach of the casual gamer?

I suppose if you want to use what has been said in the past, and the previous system as some sort of defense for what is being said now and the new system, even though one completely contradicts the other, I guess that's your right.

But it certainly looks silly, not ot mention misinformed, especially when you can read Gaile's specific posts in this very thread which contradict everything you argue for and agree with.

[edit] cce, free chests are only available in Nightfall, in a few areas that are documented by Guildwiki. You know, this brings up an interesting thought. When free chests were instituted, I argued that they should be made permanent, and that the infrequent useage of such (monthly resets I believe) would not affect the economy overmuch because they were limited in scope and had a hard cap. Others argued that this would destroy the economy, blah blah blah. And I was right. So if people decide they want to argue regarding the economy of a game world, its best to understand how economics work before posting random opinions.

cce · Apr 24, 2007, 06:05 PM // 18:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by lyra_song

The freechests rock, gold max weapons with high req ^_^

When/where do free chests happen? I play often, but I've never seen one.

Sol Deathgard · Apr 24, 2007, 06:22 PM // 18:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Psuedo Halgoen

Right so let me check if this is right gaile. You want us to sell the gold items to other players....BUT THERE IS NO TRADE SYSTEM.

gg

See the auction tab up top? That's what I use.