Curse

Ellestar · Jun 20, 2005, 05:33 AM // 05:33

They just should get rid of skill points to make a very good money sink. If i remember correctly, 1st skill brought - 10gp, next skill 20 gp etc. So, if you buy 400 skills then it costs 10*(401*400/2) = 802 platinum

Perth68 · Jun 20, 2005, 06:09 AM // 06:09

I really don't like shops idea. Playered owned shops I think are terrible Idea because it uses up space, everyone will want them. It isnt a gold sink, better locations get better sales. IMO it dosent solve anything whatsoever.

I really like the idea of pointless vanity items however.. I want a scarf!

Wa$d · Jun 20, 2005, 06:15 AM // 06:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarus

I just skimmed through and didn't see it mentioned but I could have missed it so I apologize if this was already brought up.

A possible issue I see with having "afk shops" is that people will never actually log off the servers even when they aren't really playing. I doubt anet would appreciate having 75% of the total possible player base logged in at all times because 60% of them are afk in their shops trying to sell things. In other games there is a monthly fee to take care of bandwidth costs. Since GW has no monthly fee this could be a problem. Of course i have no idea what Anet's bandwidth costs are like so it might not even be an issue but it seems like it coul d be a problem.

My Idea For Selling Stuff

Marc Grahamsworth · Jun 20, 2005, 06:17 AM // 06:17

Why not get rid of player trading altogether?

That would solve the problem with people charging ridiculous prices

....

Seriously though, this inflation is a tough nut to crack. It's good to see people providing solutions although as with any, there are pros and cons. We probably need some actual economists to take a look at the state of the virtual economy in Guild Wars and suggest recommendations on what to do about it (I'm sure some of you here *are* probably economists in the offline world).

theclam · Jun 20, 2005, 06:23 AM // 06:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Odd Sock

Is inflation really that bad ? Once you buy that +15% while hp above 50% health you dont need any other swords. So say you spend 150k on your sword and another 150 on the shield, then to look pretty buy 60k armor and spend another 100k on runes with 40k on dyes (you buy every vial and mix them all together). You've totalled 500k and never even have to buy gear again. That's also considering you havent already found the items you need to be maxed. It's really not that bad especially that when one character is pimped to the max it gets so much easier to equip your two others (that's assuming you have 2 characters). I just don't understand where the problem is, once you got your gear you're set and as for Sigils, well if you need one you should be able to win one so technically you don't even have to buy them(topics to be discussed in another post)

Inflation is bad. What if someone buys the game a year or two after release? If inflation is high, then they wouldn't be able to participate in the economy at all. If you want to see how inflation ruins game economies, look at Diablo II. Unless you have several SoJs, you're completely broke.

Shadowdaemon · Jun 20, 2005, 06:42 AM // 06:42

oh inflation is just so horrible! the prices are so high i cant afford...

#1 a celestial sigil(maybe you should MAKE a guild first so they can help you)

#2 a superior vigor rune(a whole 10 more hp than a major, WOW!)

#3 a weapon with the perfect mods on it(practically no difference than one with lower %'s on it)

did i miss anything????? cause the 15k armors are for looks only so you people are whining because there are 3 items you cant afford

Jwh6913 · Jun 20, 2005, 06:50 AM // 06:50

I gave up on the 15k armors. I recreate characters a tad too often to discover new combos that i might like better. I enjoy mes/r better than r/mes for some reason

Once my chars stabilizes. I'll get the 15k armors when I have the gold :P probably when anet makes gold drops a lil more often and in a fair amount instead of 120 divvied up with 8
I'd rather have 1200 gold drops in the desert with 8
maybe they should make gold drops scaleble with the amount of members in the group as to keep it balanced.

Algren Cole · Jun 20, 2005, 06:53 AM // 06:53

since this game was geared towards PvPers and marketed to PvE(ers) nobody will agree with me....and ArenaNet won't do anything to address my suggestion. But the majority of the wealth is controlled by the PvPers that got into the game early and have ammassed a fortune before the 'fixes'....you want a money sink? start charging PvPers to fight in PvP.....

Jwh6913 · Jun 20, 2005, 06:59 AM // 06:59

hmm what about the pvers who dabble in pvp?

- make an 'elite' wealthy pvpers arena where it costs 5k-20k(How crazzzy am I?

) to get in, but 1 round for a ' unsellable' and undroppable rare item for unlocking random stuff or something?

The Pope · Jun 20, 2005, 07:10 AM // 07:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Algren Cole

since this game was geared towards PvPers and marketed to PvE(ers) nobody will agree with me....and ArenaNet won't do anything to address my suggestion. But the majority of the wealth is controlled by the PvPers that got into the game early and have ammassed a fortune before the 'fixes'....you want a money sink? start charging PvPers to fight in PvP.....

That can be paragraph one for your new book: how to kill Guild Wars in one easy step.

Jwh6913 · Jun 20, 2005, 07:14 AM // 07:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Pope

That can be paragraph one for your new book: how to kill Guild Wars in one easy step.

ROTFL!

just make 1 arena where you can't get in without paying hefty sums for the whole team and have the reward equals what you pay into. there's always the catch of only getting the reward if you win. make it similar to the underworld or fissure, but pvp style!

leave tombs and Team arenas and GVG alone.

Odd Sock · Jun 20, 2005, 09:31 AM // 09:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by theclam

Inflation is bad. What if someone buys the game a year or two after release? If inflation is high, then they wouldn't be able to participate in the economy at all. If you want to see how inflation ruins game economies, look at Diablo II. Unless you have several SoJs, you're completely broke.

I doubt that in one year you'll start seeing items go for over 100k. The more items are created the less the demand will be. Look at what happened with Sigils, they went from 100k+all your gear to 60k in under 3 days. When more and more ''godly'' (I don't know why people refer to yellows as ''godly'') weapons will be inserted the demand will decrease and so will prices. Right now gold for me is to buy unidentified superior runes and that's basically it. What you need to do is look at the economy not in terms of inflation but in terms of money sinks. What are they ? And to what extent are they working ?

FrogDevourer · Jun 20, 2005, 10:05 AM // 10:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by TopGun

How the economy has reached such a mark is debatable, but it is widely accepted that the inflation is in fact created by players, both buying and selling items, who have no idea the worth of items they are selling.

No offense but this is wrong. Simply put, inflation is created by the lack of money sink. Gold and items are created much much faster than they can be spent/spent/burnt.

Farmers and people who have high level characters are amassing fortunes and they have nothing to spend gold on. As soon as an item is decent/good/ubber or simply valuable like good runes or sigils, rich players can afford to spend dozens of platinum to acquire it. They do know this item shouldn't be worth that much gold, but they don't care.

Lots of gold in your pocket & few good items/runes/sigils.
Demand >> offer.
Prices skyrocket.

Auction house & player-controlled shops won't solve this problem. For the records, I'd like to have an AH in GW, but only AFTER the economy has been fixed.

Nomad · Jun 20, 2005, 10:13 AM // 10:13

simply put frog is right.

Players exchanging money has nothing to do with the amount of gold created. The reason 1p isnt worth what it once was is because more gold has been created than destroyed. The only real money sink now is the 15k armor, which simply isnt worth it for any of my characters. I wont spend game money just to "look cool". Most of the 15k armors look cheesy aswell (but thats just my opinion).

Adraeus · Jun 20, 2005, 10:43 AM // 10:43

The best player-run shop systems I've seen in MMOGs are Ultima Online's and Knight Online's. Try Knight Online, a completely free MMORPG; although, I tested the beta when the rules weren't the strange rules they have now due to the Premium Service option...

Algren Cole · Jun 20, 2005, 12:54 PM // 12:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Pope

That can be paragraph one for your new book: how to kill Guild Wars in one easy step.

maybe so...but fact is "point" "Click" "wait for them to die" isn't PvP......

TopGun · Jun 20, 2005, 01:18 PM // 13:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Perth68

I really don't like shops idea. Playered owned shops I think are terrible Idea because it uses up space, everyone will want them.

Please read the entire thread; these issues have been brought up and solutions have been obtained.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarus

A possible issue I see with having "afk shops" is that people will never actually log off the servers even when they aren't really playing. I doubt anet would appreciate having 75% of the total possible player base logged in at all times because 60% of them are afk in their shops trying to sell things. In other games there is a monthly fee to take care of bandwidth costs. Since GW has no monthly fee this could be a problem.

This is a serious problem. With the amount of players they have attracted, ANet could still be charging a monthly fee and making a much higher profit than they currently are, though doing this would cause them to loose a large portion of the casual playerbase, which makes up a very large percentage of Guild Wars; thus ANet may in fact suffer lower profits as the result of monthly fees.

Regardless, I have to compliment ANet on their ability to maintain completely stable servers without ever charging us a penny. I've never seen a crashed server in Guild Wars, wheras in WoW server crashes were regular things, and WoW servers suffered incredibly long maintenance periods.

Thus, I feel like it would be highly unethical to set up a shop and then go AFK, because we'd basically be screwing over a company who has given us a massive amount of MMO-style service without an MMO-style fee. It would simply be disrespectful for people to hog up such massive amounts of server space.

There are two ways to stop this:

1) ANet implements an idle disconnect feature, which disconnects you after a certain amount of idle time; unfortunately it would have to be fairly high in order to stop people who go AFK for realistic reasons from being punished. One or two hours is a possible time limit. Chatting will need to reset the timer, because a player won't be able to move while in his/her shop, and thus the only way to prove he isn't idle is to chat.

2) Force all shops to be set up for a maximum of half an hour, at which point the owner must set his/her shop back up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ellestar

They just should get rid of skill points to make a very good money sink. If i remember correctly, 1st skill brought - 10gp, next skill 20 gp etc. So, if you buy 400 skills then it costs 10*(401*400/2) = 802 platinum

This would undermine one of the core principles of the game: That you don't need to grind for cash and waste time in order to compete. Inflation causes this core mechanic to be undermined because it forces players to work up to a set amount of gold in order to aquire the equippment required to play at a certain skill level. If your armor and weaponry is of lower quality than your opponent's, you start off at a disadvantage. Forcing people to buy skill points and buy skills themselves will cause a large percentage of a playerbase to need to grind for cash and spend it on something required for making progress within the game. Therefore, if we create a gold sink, it should be an optional sink which players do not HAVE to participate in. WoW created this with mounts- they were extremely high priced, and provided only a convenience: faster movement speed. A money sink must be something which will be a convenience to the player, not something he is forced to participate in so he can compete.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wa$d

Well i think that there should be the shopping districts with traders all ready in them. you go and find a merchent that isnt being used, rent him out for a set amount of time, adn pay him for that amount upfront, then you go on your mary way killing things.

Renting out a merchant is an interesting idea. Unfortunately there are only so many merchants and there are far more players- in order to implement this idea, we would need just as many merchants as players. This simply creates the same problems we've encountered with player shops, including overcrowding, wares needing to be advertised, etc. Though it does solve the disconnect problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadowdaemon

oh inflation is just so horrible! the prices are so high i cant afford...

#1 a celestial sigil(maybe you should MAKE a guild first so they can help you)

#2 a superior vigor rune(a whole 10 more hp than a major, WOW!)

#3 a weapon with the perfect mods on it(practically no difference than one with lower %'s on it)

did i miss anything????? cause the 15k armors are for looks only so you people are whining because there are 3 items you cant afford

You've missed the point. The prices are SO ABSURD that participating in the economy is become something only for the rich. The rich are the only ones getting richer from the economy. Its creating massive income disparity, and thus prevents players who do not invest as much time into the game from competing in the game. Its forcing people to grind in order to afford the weaponry the would like to buy. While I believe a certain amount of effort needs to be put in to buy your most desired weapon, I also believe that needs to be balanced with prices so ridiculous that only ultra-rich farmers can afford. Thus, inflation makes it so only ultra-rich farmers can participate in the economy. This is one reason why farmers are so hated.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Algren Cole

since this game was geared towards PvPers and marketed to PvE(ers) nobody will agree with me....and ArenaNet won't do anything to address my suggestion. But the majority of the wealth is controlled by the PvPers that got into the game early and have ammassed a fortune before the 'fixes'....you want a money sink? start charging PvPers to fight in PvP.....

No one will agree with you because you haven't thought your suggestion through. See my response to Ellestar, which states that money sinks need to be set up which do not FORCE players to participate in them, but purely provide a convenience.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogDevourer

No offense but this is wrong. Simply put, inflation is created by the lack of money sink. Gold and items are created much much faster than they can be spent/spent/burnt.

(In response to inflation being caused by players.)

While you state true fact, even if a money sink is implemented, you will still have people selling items at skyrocketed prices. This causes inflation. Implementing a money sink will help the situation, but will not cure it. People will just find a way to cover their losses by selling their items at outrageous prices.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nomad

Players exchanging money has nothing to do with the amount of gold created. The reason 1p isnt worth what it once was is because more gold has been created than destroyed.

This is also true, but because farmers are the ones selling some of these great items, and because prices have risen, the farmers are the people who are buying the items; thus the casual playerbase is beginning to become excluded from the economy. The players exchanging money are now dealing in very high cost terms, and a lot of players can't keep up with it anymore because they don't want to grind. This is an issue.

As proof of my claims, go back to pre-searing Ascalon and study the economy there. Its a LOT more stable, because no one has really been grinding that long and thus has not accumulated massive amounts of items and money.

Algren Cole · Jun 20, 2005, 02:36 PM // 14:36

Quote:

No one will agree with you because you haven't thought your suggestion through. See my response to Ellestar, which states that money sinks need to be set up which do not FORCE players to participate in them, but purely provide a convenience.

my suggetion is the only one that will work effectively as a money sink....the PvPers that have been playing the game since beta are the players that control the majority of the gold....nobody else has a chance to get gold because the PvP players don't need to spend theirs...they buy from eachother, they sell to eachother....still at ridiculously high prices...if the poor can't get rich and the rich can't get poor.....you have a screwed up economic system. But arguing this point is like trying to argue why taxes are good to a republican....so I'll leave it at that.

TopGun · Jun 20, 2005, 02:41 PM // 14:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Algren Cole

my suggetion is the only one that will work effectively as a money sink....the PvPers that have been playing the game since beta are the players that control the majority of the gold....nobody else has a chance to get gold because the PvP players don't need to spend theirs...they buy from eachother, they sell to eachother....still at ridiculously high prices...if the poor can't get rich and the rich can't get poor.....you have a screwed up economic system. But arguing this point is like trying to argue why taxes are good to a republican....so I'll leave it at that.

While a large percentage of gold may in fact be possessed by the beta players, farmers also have a large portion of it, there's no denying that. And you are incorrect about your suggestion being the only one to work correctly-that's a very close-minded view. WoW's money sink didn't REQUIRE you to invest in it, but most people did, because they wanted the conveinience. And WoW's money sink works great, so apparently your suggestion is NOT the only solution.

If you think we have a screwed up economic system, I'm inclined to agree.

As far as republicans and taxes goes, that wasn't really a necessary, nor appropriate, comment. Especially because taxes are needed to keep this country going and have always been needed among nations in the past. Regardless, I argued your point regarding money sinks- feel free to write a rebuttal.

Algren Cole · Jun 20, 2005, 02:45 PM // 14:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by TopGun

While a large percentage of gold may in fact be possessed by the beta players, farmers also have a large portion of it, there's no denying that. And you are incorrect about your suggestion being the only one to work correctly-that's a very close-minded view. WoW's money sink didn't REQUIRE you to invest in it, but most people did, because they wanted the conveinience. And WoW's money sink works great, so apparently your suggestion is NOT the only solution.

If you think we have a screwed up economic system, I'm inclined to agree.

I'm not even going to comment on republicans and taxes, that wasn't really a necessary, nor appropriate, statement, especially because taxes are needed to keep this country going. And I argued your point regarding money sinks. Feel free to write a rebuttal.

but....charging PvPers to play in the arena's isn't REQUIRED...it's only required if you want to play PvP....just like it's only REQUIRED to buy Ale if you want to get e-drunk....Charging a player 200 or 300g to play in the arena is NOTHING...nobody would have any problem with it. They might bitch and moan for 23 seconds before they realized that they have 200plat and it doesn't really matter...but over time it would be an incredibly effective money sink...and from what I've heard WoW's attempt at fixing their economy has failed notoriously.