Curse

Greatatlantic · Nov 12, 2005, 04:34 AM // 04:34

There is a joke about economists who think the real world is an approximation for their models. My analogy about the federal reserve was not to dismiss the theoretical possibility of using Guild Wars or other MMOs for economic puzzle solving. It was to point out the error of thinking A-Net can create a perfect gold standard for Tyria. Any attempt to do so would just be a guess.

Perhaps the best thing that could happen to Guild Wars is another chapter be released. That would attract some new players and bring back old players. And if there are more players the influence of the deep pocket long timers diminishes. That and the implementation of an auction house. It is so annoying to have a perfect mesmer weapon and not have a sigle mesmer to sell it to. Or knowing someone out there has the perfect weapon for me, and I'll never find it.

Nocens Imperceptus · Nov 13, 2005, 05:28 AM // 05:28

I didn't have time to read over anything other then the original post, so sorry if somebody pointed this out before...

The thing in GW that keeps there from being an exponential increase of gold in the economy are the gold sinks. The gold you never get back. These are:

Armour (15k is a big one)
Item customazation: Sure its only 10g but that 20k item isn't going to be sold for 20k any more, when it is done its going to a merchant.
Merchants: You buy that superior salvage kit for 2k. Nobody is going to see that money again.
Traders: Sure they are based on supply and demand but the 25k for the superior smiting rune doesn't get back into the game.
Skill points: Buy a skill, game loses 1k.

And just as a request. Do you think you could write a guide on how farming effects the economy, and how the economy is going to be effected after the 11/10/05 nerf.. err.. patch... saying that only the devoted are going to continue to farm, because it is just frusturating now.

Shadowdaemon · Nov 13, 2005, 07:59 AM // 07:59

i have a couple things to say on here

1. the amount of gold someone has hoarded makes a gap between them and new people: no, the amount of time it takes them to learn to farm well is what makes the gap, i bought fissure armor(all the mats too)and 2 15k armors and i almost have a million saved again, i have never ebayed, only farmed

2. farming really hasnt changed much, maybe takes a little bit longer, but only slightly

3. they can always make more gold sinks, especially the ones for characters looks, alot of people will spend money on that, and the gold sinks surely work somewhat, i never bought a single ale, but i have spent hundreds of thousands on keys, i feel a crazy urge to open every chest

4. also i dont really think i am driving up the price of anything by hoarding gold, because of the simple fact that if i actually paid 100k for a weapon, i most certainly never would have got a million gold or my fissure armor, i would probably be broke all the time, the most i have paid for anything was 20k for one of the green items, because i just HAD to have it the second day of the patch

5. another great gold sink, FISSURE WEAPONS, make hard to find weapon crafters, with insanely expensive weapons(looks only, no better than other collector items) i saw the beta picture of the shadowblade, and i would easily pay 100k and 50 shards for it, and i am sure many others would as well

Sluggs · Nov 15, 2005, 04:37 AM // 04:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Accurax Article

Nothing is sold by merchants apart from that which has been sold to them. In this way item inflation is controlled

You still don't understand the current workings of GW. Currently the only things merchants sell are

Dye Remover
Slavage Kits
ID Kits
Bags
Runes of Holding
Keys

All these are consumables (except bags for which demand is strictly limited). Their selling does nothing but take gold out of the economy.

Merchants buy at very low prices taking items out of the economy putting in a little gold.

Crafters sell their skills turning crafting materials into items, most of which are customized and so effectively consumable. Some of them charge substantial sums of gold for their services and they take a substantial amount of gold out of the economy.

The other NPCs are Traders which already do what you suggest Merchants should do and they take over 20% of their gold turnover out of the economy.

Gold comes into the economy only from monster gold drops and what players sell to the merchants (thats Merchants not Traders). Gold leaves the economy as players buy from merchants, buy from crafters and trade through the traders (oh and guild and cape creation and invites and skill purchase).

As far as the amount of gold in the economy is concerned they are the only factors in the equation. And the equation isn't far out of balance at the moment. Anet may introduce more gold sinks (becuase they are fun), they could tweak monster drops if needed.

As for items, runes and weapons which get customized are somewhat consumable. Otherwise storage space is strictly limited (it is ridculous to claim it isn't because the number of accounts is not limited, a game with an infinite number items and gold would still only give an infinite number of players one item and one gold each).

So with continual item drops and limited storage items get sold to the merchant (or salvaged and the materials sold, or increasingly just left on the ground to rot).

What happens is the average quality of items in the economy rises and continues to rise. There isn't extra gold to buy these items so the quality of items you can buy for the same price continues to rise. That is why we have seen a fall in the price of good upgrades and items (that and I believe the introduction of chests increased the supply of high quality items).

The increasing quality of items in the economy may be a problem but it isn't a problem for newbs to the game, they can get better items for their gold now than ever before. I have personally cleared out inventory space and sold to the merchant for a few hundred gold items which I could have sold to players for a several plat a few months ago.

The only solution to the ever increasing item quality problem (if it really is a problem) is to make all items consumable, make them wear out or break or have monsters steal or loot them back - lol.

An auction house would substantially decrease the price of items just as the introduction of the Rune Trader caused what some called an economy ruining price crash. The rune trader made rune trading vastly easier allowing the true value of runes to be discovered. Given the trouble ANet had getting the NPC traders to work properly I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for an auction house.

Dax · Nov 15, 2005, 04:59 AM // 04:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sluggs

You still don't understand the current workings of GW. Currently the only things merchants sell are

Dye Remover
Slavage Kits
ID Kits
Bags
Runes of Holding
Keys

All these are consumables (except bags for which demand is strictly limited). Their selling does nothing but take gold out of the economy.

Merchants buy at very low prices taking items out of the economy putting in a little gold.

Crafters sell their skills turning crafting materials into items, most of which are customized and so effectively consumable. Some of them charge substantial sums of gold for their services and they take a substantial amount of gold out of the economy.

The other NPCs are Traders which already do what you suggest Merchants should do and they take over 20% of their gold turnover out of the economy.

Gold comes into the economy only from monster gold drops and what players sell to the merchants (thats Merchants not Traders). Gold leaves the economy as players buy from merchants, buy from crafters and trade through the traders (oh and guild and cape creation and invites too).

As far as the amount of gold in the economy is concerned they are the only factors in the equation. And the equation isn't far out of balance at the moment. Anet may introduce more gold sinks (becuase they are fun), they could tweak monster drops if needed.

As for items, runes and weapons which get customized are somewhat consumable. Otherwise storage space is strictly limited (it is ridculous to claim it isn't because the number of accounts is not limited, a game with an infinite number items and gold would still only give an infinite number of players one item and one gold each).

So with continual item drops and limited storage items get sold to the merchant (or salvaged and the materials sold, or increasingly just left on the ground to rot).

What happens is the average quality of items in the economy rises and continues to rise. There isn't extra gold to buy these items so the quality of items you can buy for the same price continues to rise. That is why we have seen a fall in the price of good upgrades and items (that and I believe the introduction of chests increased the supply of high quality items).

The increasing quality of items in the economy may be a problem but it isn't a problem for newbs to the game, they can get better items for their gold now than ever before. I have personally cleared out inventory space and sold to the merchant for a few hundred gold items which I could have sold to players for a several plat a few months ago.

The only solution to the ever increasing item quality problem (if it really is a problem) is to make all items consumable, make them wear out or break or have monsters steal or loot them back - lol.

An auction house would substantially decrease the price of items just as the introduction of the Rune Trader caused what some called an economy ruining price crash. The rune trader made rune trading vastly easier allowing the true value of runes to be discovered. Given the trouble ANet had getting the NPC traders to work properly I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for an auction house.

Well put. Until players are allowed to create and put something into the economy (that is unique), it really doesn't matter one way or another what they do to improve it.

Seriously I know people (including myself) have tried to figure out a way to have fun playing the economy, but it really not that kind of game. Since I've given up worring about farming and making money, it's a fun game. I like farming, and crafting but there are plenty of other games that fill the void.

Ristaron · Nov 15, 2005, 05:27 AM // 05:27

The whole problem with the Guild Wars economy is that we have selfish, arrogant 13 year olds and bot-users who make their daily goal earning countless platinums.
In the real world, they can't go out and kill monsters and make money and sell things for a sum that weighs a thousand times more than they do, so they do it in the game.
With this wealth, they can afford whatever they want.
This encourages others to follow suit, and then others to be able to keep up with the rising prices.

My solution: delete any account with more than 100 platinums.
(Take it easy, children, I'm joking.)

This is why I'm mainly a PvP player now. To hell with the rookie 13 year olds who are obsessed with their gold pieces, all I need is faction. That can be earned by kicking their skill-less asses in PvP when they dare challenge me with their uberl33t sword they paid 100 grand for ... you know, the same one I can create custom with if I go and unlock a few upgrades.
In the long run, my fame/rank/faction means infinitely more to me than gold, as I won it, aside from farming it.

Dax · Nov 15, 2005, 03:40 PM // 15:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ristaron

The whole problem with the Guild Wars economy is that we have selfish, arrogant 13 year olds and bot-users who make their daily goal earning countless platinums.
In the real world, they can't go out and kill monsters and make money and sell things for a sum that weighs a thousand times more than they do, so they do it in the game.
With this wealth, they can afford whatever they want.
This encourages others to follow suit, and then others to be able to keep up with the rising prices.

My solution: delete any account with more than 100 platinums.
(Take it easy, children, I'm joking.)

This is why I'm mainly a PvP player now. To hell with the rookie 13 year olds who are obsessed with their gold pieces, all I need is faction. That can be earned by kicking their skill-less asses in PvP when they dare challenge me with their uberl33t sword they paid 100 grand for ... you know, the same one I can create custom with if I go and unlock a few upgrades.
In the long run, my fame/rank/faction means infinitely more to me than gold, as I won it, aside from farming it.

While I agree with most that you said, what do you need that you can't get yourself? I could understand if the priced skyrocketed in salvage kits or something, but it's all things anyone can get if they are willing to take the time, no?

So anotherwords what does it matter if these kids want to play to aquire the most wealth? I totally object to lots of things in the game- Running lowbies for armor, Bots, Ebaying ect, because they affect others gameplay but if these guys wanna be gazillionaires in the game and it makes them happy ...let them. I figure if people want to take the time, fine we all can. If we don't the game is still fun.

foszor · Nov 19, 2005, 09:10 AM // 09:10

I like the idea behind the article, but the proposed solution is seriously flawed. Let me explain:

If ANet acts as the bank, circulating a fixed amount of gold into the economy based on the number of active accounts (while reinserting any "lost" capital), what will inevitably happen is a series of Trumps will become overly present in Guild Wars. No, not a bunch of squinty eyed, comb-over characters… but players who retain large sums of money. They will in turn raise havoc on the economic balance, creating a massive shortage of gold in the market.

The problem at hand is whatever you make the least available, will immediately become the most valued (Like extremely hot porn stars). Economic inflation is a natural and acceptable side effect of a flourishing market; there is no reason to "nerf" it. Alike any other real life economy, the only way to deal with inflation is to accept and adapt.

The amount of gold in the economy is already relative to the amount of active players in the community. The more players hunting or farming for gold and drops (to sell) not only bring more money into the balance, but also spend it. Purchasing armor and items from merchants, these players sink their money right back to where it came. No, not a gargoyles ass cheeks, the economy- stupid. Yes, some people would assume farmers are nearly exempt from this point, but farmers spend money too, especially on farming related products (ident kits, salvage kits, keys, rakes, hoes, pigs, fertilizers ---umm. You get the point). Jokes aside, if you've ever farmed excessively, you’ll notice that quite often the quality drops seem fairly sparse and often don’t match the money spent on the aforementioned items. Yay! Another purple drop that is… uh, minor smiting? Sweet beans!

The so-called "inflation" that everyone is so concerned about is as much perpetual as it is misunderstood. The over all economy will undoubtedly be engorged with more gold, but the cost of ALL items is solely based on the demand. Ecto's are highly demanded items due to their usage. The drop rate and difficulty to obtain is not nearly as important to their cost. If everyone suddenly DEMANDED half-eaten masses as much as they did ecto's, the prices of those would sky rocket too. A perfect example was during the Halloween Events. The cost of Charr Carvings and any other related Halloween Collector tradable items was far above normal price. Players demand ecto’s - farmers get ecto’s and raise cost – players scream about prices of ecto’s – ecto’s are more desired, so then… you guessed it! Players demand ecto’s… rinse and repeat. See the perpetual cycle?

I strongly believe a possible solution to the problem is creating a more versatile market. Allow the already present items and materials to become more useful and thus in higher demand. I mean come on; I have like three stacks of feathers, anyone making any down pillows or comforters? Didn’t think so. In a market place, if only two items are useful and demanded, only the relative prices will rise. If many are demanded, the prices will naturally even out. Increasing the necessity for currently lower valued items and materials can be repaired with a lot less complications and/or confusions, than completely restructuring the economy.

(Just a side note: someone mentioned in the article that freshly seared newbie characters aren’t able to obtain "godly" items. So what? Work for it. I'm glad they cant. If a level 4 Warrior was walking around with a newly bought max damage gold fellblade that gave him plus eleventy to his health, it would piss me off! That isn’t right at all. Should a new lawyer who just passed the bar own a ten-story building for his new firm? No. You have to work for what you want. Some things are only obtained with hard work and dedication.)

And back to the topic…

Women with small breasts are people too and should be treated with respe--- umm. I mean… There will ALWAYS be higher cost items, but the price difference wouldn’t be nearly as dramatic under an adaptive environment. There is neither a problem nor a fix to this fact, it is just that... a fact. Specific things will always be valued more than others, for both logical and illogical reasons. Why black dye is valued higher than other dyes has no rational reasoning other than personal preference. Yet the cost remains nearly ten times the amount of the nearest runner up. This is an irregularity that cannot be projected in any calculations or charts, but can easily be remedied. Simply allow for more black dye to be present in the game and its desirability will decrease. But then what fun is it?

In closing I’d like to add that I wrote this reply in a complete spontaneous act and under the influence of painkillers. Meaning, This is just my raw opinion into this community discussion and nothing more than that. Pass the booze.

prencher · Nov 19, 2005, 10:08 AM // 10:08

What's with this "new players dont have a chance" bullshit?

1 - Collector items.
2 - Prices are decreasing. Items are flooding the market just as the gold is. More similar items = lower prices, no matter how much gold everyone's got.
3 - Hey, this is a max dmg weapon that goes for 10k.. guess what, you don't need a weapon of that kind at level 8, imagine that. I play casually and I earned well over 12k by level 14. I never had a problem getting the armour of my level during leveling, nor getting decent weapons (collector, trading in cities)
4 - Theres plenty of money sinks. Usable items like keys, salvage kits, id kits, dyes, crafting materials. All money that goes away when used. There's also the runes and weapon upgrades. Poof, gone once applied (well ok you can get lucky and salvage some back at times).

Stop making problems out of something thats not a problem.
You want inflation? go play everquest, camelot or world of warcraft, then you'll see inflation.

The Acolyte · Nov 19, 2005, 12:04 PM // 12:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by prencher

What's with this "new players dont have a chance" bullshit?

/Agree

Why do people feel like they should be entitled to the same amount of wealth someone else who has (sarcastically...i think

already dedicated mass amounts of time to collecting. It's idiotic, ignorant, greedy, and selfish to think that new players SHOULD be able to catch up with ease. Of course there will be those that are new yet will be better at marketing and business, and will do really well, but for the most part someone who has been playing gw for a while now SHOULD have collected more "things", including wealth.

WTF people...it's really scary that these people are floating out in society with these similar ideals (another thread). STOP thinking you're entitled to stuff and start figuring out ways how to earn wealth. There is a ton of info on the net about how to make money in game...its not that frggin difficult...

PS-I agree with the original poster on his premises though...the economy DOES need to be tweaked quite a bit, but only to help spur a more diverse and healthy economic system that (in my opinion) would be more fun to enjoy.

Acolyte Devathi

BigRedsFro · Nov 24, 2005, 05:59 AM // 05:59

Well I dont know if anyone brought this up, but the guildwars economy could recieve a boost from taxes, such as a monthly "income" tax. Now it may not be a popular choice but I do believe it would help. They could take out a small percentage of peoples gold storage, and of course, have it be a graduated tax, making the rich pay a higher percentage than the poor. This could help out but it might not. As long as the tax rates stayed constant, it would work out.

Although it would be painful to see your gold slowly deplete, other things could be put into the game too, such as "bank" where you can store an unlimited amount of gold and perhaps gain interest on it. However, this would lead to several problems. If players were allowed to take "loans" there would be no enforcement to make them pay back the loans. Unless of course they had something as collateral. For instance, deposit a sword that is worth 356 gold, or a rune of superior absorption worth 100k. After depositing the item, recieve gold for whatever you need it for. The only way to get the item back is pay for it what you borrowed + a small tax rate. Now, im getting off on a tangent, but i think this would be a neat way for a player to turn items into gold but be able to get them back later, of course at an interest rate, forcing more gold back into the system.

Well, ponder this for a while, and give me some feedback.

Kai Nui · Nov 24, 2005, 06:57 AM // 06:57

Well it's not a problem really because green items aren't too expensive, you can create PVP chars and unlock good upgrades. Ectos and godly upgrades aren't needed because you can get near perfect items for a lot cheaper, just go to ascalon, and droknor's armour is the best in the game. If you want to be fancy and show that you're a dedicated and whatnot player, then fine get the 15k armours and show off. If you can't, well droknors armour is still cheap enough to get easily.

actionjack · Nov 24, 2005, 07:48 AM // 07:48

Too bad didn't read this sooner. Lots very nice points there. As a econ graduate my self (though I am not really proud of it

), I whole heartly agree with your observation. This problem first strike me, after few month of inactive playing, that as I got back to the game, see people selling green items for 100k+ (at time, I only had about 10k in pocket, which was not bad few month ago). As said, this inflation is a problem.

But how, how to fix it is a bigger problem. There are just no good duriable goods or money sink in game, and adding things like death penality and reduce farming will surely anger many players. I cann't think of any good solution, but I would suggest adding more zero value collectibles (like titles) to side track player from farming too much. Place a Upkeep fee for guild hall improvements for the high level Guilds. (want a training hall?.. pay for it) Reduce the Gold Cap that one character can hold. And maybe include an invisible taxe (the more gold you hold, the less gold per drop you will find)

But I would really want to hear what would be a better solution to this problem...

Promethean Lex · Dec 22, 2005, 03:04 PM // 15:04

As stated from numerous articles of Doom Daemon economy of Guild Wars consists of three factors: gold, goods, players. Players want goods and need gold to get them. Gold serves as the way of transferring wealth from unneeded commodity to desired one. Currently gold is manufactured every time monster has a drop (items are also included, but this is different argument). Fully agreeing with Doom Daemon, the game system accumulates gold and goods even if the number of players is set. People go farming and there is no guilt in doing so.
Now we need to identify the problem we’d like to repair. It seems that overtime prices on high-level items increases, since number of gold coins increases unproportionaly faster then number of high-level items. Now is it a problem? The player, that invests more time, gets more gold and better items. He is able to afford the armor that shows his dedication. Well, it will take some time to get to the top. But if it is difficult it doesn’t mean it is unfair. The point is the player has always a higher goal to set, a better armor, a better bow… This is what makes game interesting to play, setting and getting to your goals and having satisfaction of the achievement at the end.
On the other hand, is it more difficult (thus unfair) for the players that started later to reach the same prosperity (item wise) as the players started a year ago? The answer is “Yes”, prices are getting steeper every day, while investment of time pays the same. So a player that started a year ago needed less time to get Super Bow, than the one starting now. Not fair? Let us say it is not?
So technically what should we do? We want to be able to control the prices charged by players, so that the players on their way to the “top” would spend the same amount of time as their predecessors.
How can we make this happen? I saw many proposals and many of them had faults, I will criticize the most common ones and offer my solution.
1. We can balance the item drop rate and gold drop rate, considering the numbers of players in the system. Very tedious and hard to implement task.
2. We can get reed of gold as we know it but most probably players will find some other medium of transaction.
3. We could enclose the system making gold limited, but then we will observe the opposite of what is happening now. Goods will accumulate, producing surplus, and money will be harder to get. Eventually u will be able to buy a gold item for 1 gold. Probably players will abandon such system fairly quickly, since gold will be hard to get. Consider you having 100g spending it for a sword, now you have 0g and want a rune. You go for a farm run but no gold is dropping since the limit is reached instead you get wood. A probable outcome: you will trade the rune for wood. If we are also ought to control the items then a person having all the gold items has a monopoly and gold item costs as much as ha/she says it does. Adding money to the system won’t help since a clique will always have abnormal share. ( 400g is the limit of the system, 4 players. Add 1 player and 100g to the limit. What holds 1 players of having 500g alone?)
4. I’m not very informed in gold caps, but what holds players from storing wealth in other items like die?
Now here is my solution. Why does black die cost 8,5K? Not 85K? Not 3g? Because NPC sells them at 8,5k per unit. So why don’t we allow blacksmith to sell weapon upgrades? Kind of weapon upgrade constructor. You choose property and modify the strength, price is modified accordingly. Now gold sword today costing 60K will cost 60K in million years, all because players can make the sword by themselves if the price charged by other players is too high. You still will need to farm for unlimited supply of money, you still will have the goals to set, but it simply wouldn’t matter when you started. My mistake it would matter only visually, since crystal swords will not be tamed by this method. But who cares if you have a crystal sword, if it deals same damage as one anyone can manufacture by paying some gold (40-50K) to the blacksmith.
Send comments!!! Promethean Lex

OneTimePoster · Jan 20, 2006, 02:25 AM // 02:25

couldnt you just have every item available to a player through a vendor at a fixed price this way it would force other ppl to match prices with the vendors effectively controlling the economy. Im sorry if somebody has already asked this i didnt take the time to check

.killjoy · Jan 20, 2006, 02:32 AM // 02:32

you are trying to turn into george bush man... this is anarchy .. go for the better of yourself..

Valientishimo · Feb 04, 2006, 04:06 AM // 04:06

Alright so say the economy gets controlled and theres a set amount of money, and merchants only sell what they are sold to, and everything else regarding merchants like that.

I have 3 things I simply don't understand how will work.

1.) Won't all the merchants be flooded with junk in a matter of a couple weeks? You would have to sort through thousands upon thousands of items just to find something remotely useful.

2.) If merchants buy whatever is sold to them, then won't they run out of money? I mean, if all the money is being filtered back in by drops, and merchants keep buying stuff from people, how is there a limit to money that way? Where are the merchants getting the money? Do merchants just spawn all the money?

3.) Even if merchants are giving their money to buy your junk, and the money that is getting filtered in through the merchants only. There WILL be points where there is no money to be filtered back in! What are the merchants supposed to do? Deny all the players until a few pieces of loose change are available?

My point here is: If you are going to control the gold amount, then you NEED to controll the item amount. Otherwise there's a heavy stress level on the controllers of the money to constantly add more to cover the selling of the junk!

At that point, you might as well not control the money, because you are back to square one.

I'de really like to see a way around this, hopefully short of dictatorship over every detail of the game.

Coolone6992 · Mar 13, 2006, 05:20 AM // 05:20

Oh...
I think I actually understood that.
And enjoyed that...

Just like I'm sure many people have said.
The newer players have to catch up gold wise and item wise...
For some reason, I enjoy that in a game...
Having to catch up to get gold...
Gives me a set goal to work for.
=D

Lord of the Nazgul · Mar 13, 2006, 05:50 AM // 05:50

Sorry if i missed some info, but I only read the first few posts...

I'm actually all for the barter idea, get rid of the gold. It's more realistic...since when would u get 10 gold for a axe 3-5 dmg req 3 axe? and if u save up enough of this gold gotten from noob weapons, u can buy a "perfect sword", lv 10, in the center of ascalon city?

anyways, good thinking whoevers idea that was

dreamhunk · Mar 13, 2006, 06:20 AM // 06:20

Ok I read the above thread I would agree the price has went up. I am also sure that people know that the new anet game is coming there for people are holding on to their gold.They are just waiting to flood the market with high prices. One way for anet.

I think what anet should do is add more content in the game.

like for exmple armor for pets, maybe add mounts to the game as a money sink. When you add more content people will want more storage. I also think food can be added to the game as means of a money sink.

Maybe add things like ships in the game that you need to up keep. I also think adding things you need to buy to upkeep your weapons.