Curse

Granamyr · Oct 03, 2010, 04:25 AM // 04:25

In Guild Wars, the threshold for gold's functional use is very low and yet it is the main reward throughout much of the game. This is a mainstay of many MMO's however GW has routinely stated how they like to challenge MMO norms that just don't work.

In GW, gold's functional use is limited to very few things and all of these are rather inexpensive....armor runes, weapon mods, consumables, UW/FoW fees, etc. Then there's the next tier of functionality -- convenience. This costs a little bit more but is still relatively inexpensive....buying skills, guild hall improvements, etc. What really costs money in GW is vanity -- wanting to look good to either show off or because you just like it. Although that may encapsulate a large part of the GW audience, I like to think people also value substance over style and the simple fact is, if you have over 20-30k, there isn't a functional use for gold.

Gold becomes an inferior reward and yet we just seem to get more of it, decreasing its value all the more. If you were paid in food at your job instead of money, you begin to see the problem here. Sure, food is valuable but only to a certain point and that point comes pretty fast in real life....any more is just a practical waste.

Here are functional ways to make gold relevant:
-allow PvE types access to the PvP weapon creation system for 10k a pop
-create elite hunting grounds requiring a substantial entrance fee with functional/convenient rewards instead of shinier pixels (reputation points, everlasting scrolls, etc)
-fees that allow heroes to take PvE skills (make it per skill and limited time)

Maybe GW1 isn't worth making gold relevant in but I really hope they consider this problem for GW2 outside of just gold-sinks when rezzing. That's really only a small part of the equation. I'm sitting on about 1.9 million in cash in GW1 with nothing functional to spend it on. I don't say that to brag (as I'm probably on the low end when talking about the rich) but rather to prove a point. If you don't care about vanity in an MMO, there is little use to gold.

Horace Slughorn · Oct 03, 2010, 04:30 AM // 04:30

ill take it if you cant spend it

Shadow Sin · Oct 03, 2010, 04:40 AM // 04:40

If you have 1.9million in Platinum alone, go buy ectos.

Lanier · Oct 03, 2010, 04:41 AM // 04:41

uh, i dont understand what the problem here is. So what if large amounts of gold only lead to vanity-related stuff. That is better in my opinion b/c it means farmers are on the same level as average players in terms of equipment. Gold doesn't need to be any more valueable than it already is.

Thrilla Killa · Oct 03, 2010, 04:50 AM // 04:50

There's plenty of things to spend money on, i don't see the point by saying its losing its value. The only reason gold isn't the "main" currency is because you can't do trades with more than 100k. You need ectos/ambraces/zkeys to buy/sell high end items. If there was no limit on gold trading, then ectos/ambraces/zkeys would be the form of currency that has less value.

Horus Moonlight · Oct 03, 2010, 05:03 AM // 05:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Granamyr

-allow PvE types access to the PvP weapon creation system for 10k a pop

I'd like to see PvE and PvP kept as separate as possible. Though a weaponsmith with standard skins, inscriptions, and upgrades you've unlocked would be nice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Granamyr

-create elite hunting grounds requiring a substantial entrance fee with functional/convenient rewards instead of shinier pixels (reputation points, everlasting scrolls, etc)

Absolutely not. This just promotes the grind > skill mentality that has been creeping into GW. PvE skills were bad enough.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Granamyr

-fees that allow heroes to take PvE skills (make it per skill and limited time)

See above.

Honestly, money can't ever have any functional use in GW without going against their age old saying that Skill > Time. I understand that there have been things implemented that violated this idea but I'd rather like to see this kept to a minimum. That idea was one of the main selling points for GW and made it attractive to so many gamers. Going against it makes GW just another WoW clone.

Zodiac Meteor · Oct 03, 2010, 05:44 AM // 05:44

Here is how I spent my 1000k plat.
Consets.

They're the best part of GW in my opinion. They boost your team drastically and you get a feeling of playing Guild Wars on steroids. PuG's, SC, phyway, tank-n-spank, NM, HM, dungeon, VQ, you name it I use consets on it. I'm struggling to keep above 100k, all my cash goes to sweet, sweet consets.

Granamyr · Oct 03, 2010, 05:50 AM // 05:50

Quote:

If you have 1.9million in Platinum alone, go buy ectos.

Why, so I could lose money in the exchange rate and make my funds less liquid? Besides, what would be the purpose of having a lot of ecto? Neither are functional.

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uh, i dont understand what the problem here is.

There is a disconnect between what we are being rewarded with. I'll go again to my getting paid in food analogy. Getting paid in hamburgers to do your job becomes rather meaningless when you're not hungry. You certainly wouldn't accept that in real life so why do we accept this flawed concept as ok because every other MMO does it. If gold is relegated to only serving vanity, it loses its functional value and becomes a meaningless reward. I'd like to think ANet doesn't promote meaningless systems.

Quote:

There's plenty of things to spend money on, i don't see the point by saying its losing its value.

Functional value....there's a difference. There is nothing you can spend money on to improve gameplay (or even convenience) past a certain point. That point/threshold is very low in GW making much of the gold the game gives you functionally useless.

Quote:

I'd like to see PvE and PvP kept as separate as possible.

My weaponsmith is exactly what you stated....it really has nothing to do with PvP except that they've already done it there and could easily port it over to the PvE side.

Quote:

Absolutely not. This just promotes the grind > skill mentality that has been creeping into GW. PvE skills were bad enough.

If anything, it reduces the grind. People could pay to increase their titles faster creating both a gold sink AND reducing rep title grinds. Permanent entrance scrolls (and even xp scrolls) are just convenience items....has nothing to do with skill. Neither do rep points. I'm not following you on why you dislike this.

Look, I don't want gold to necessarily influence core mechanics or give a competitive edge....it wouldn't have an impact on PvP anyway. Competitive edge in PvE is hard to identify unless you're talking the pursuit of having shinier gear than the next guy and gold already does that so I wouldn't be adding anything worse to the system. Gold should act as money does in real life....provide vanity for some and convenience and an easier go of things for others. Why shouldn't a skilled farmer be able to enjoy less of a grind in other areas?

I think we can agree that gold becomes functionally useless. You're saying that the problem can't be fixed without breaking other parts of the game. That's a defeatist attitude and it's only because it hasn't been tried. I'm by no means married to the ideas I tossed out as to how it can become relevant again....I'm sure there are better ones out there. Frankly, this is the concept I think ANet is dedicated to in GW2 -- taking formerly tolerated problems and trying some radical solutions. I think they have done a bit of this by rewarding GW2 gamers with more than just gold (karma points I think or some other intangible currency) but they need to go further and get to the root.

Skye Marin · Oct 03, 2010, 06:45 AM // 06:45

The game is what you make of it. If you need to set yourself some goals, buy consets and vanq until you're done. Do the consumables titles while you're at it, and then keep on going until you're GWAMM. Once there, you can choose to not play the game, or do it all over again.

Compared to other games like Diablo and Borderlands where cash is really not worth anything, Guild Wars gold is definitely worth something even at the way way end game. Anyone would gladly take it off your hands, or even better, trade you goods and rare items for it.

Consets are a good investment for a lot of people, because it makes the previously impossible, possible. The issue with being able to constantly invest in powering yourself up beyond that is that, at some point, you'll earn even more money at a faster rate and it will eventually escalate out of hand. Again, in Diablo, in the late game single monsters can drop thousands of gold. In the same way, blazing through an area in Guild Wars in a fifth of the time would ultimately give you a faster return on your time investment. The rich would get richer, and you'd be stuck with the same problem. This means that at some point, converting cash to a power increase has to stop, and owning shiny things be the only real goldsink begins.

If what you're craving is more, better stuff to sink gold into, that's fine too. I wouldn't mind throwing down a chunk of change for an Everlasting Summoning Stone that consumes Skill Points on use and nothing else. I would like to spend cash on Jadeite and Amber that I could trade in directly for title points so I don't have to grind quite so much. It's all about how you define your goals.

What are you looking forward too? Most players are trying to pad out their Hall of Monuments for GW2.

snowman relic · Oct 03, 2010, 11:28 AM // 11:28

What i think he is trying to make is a new gold sink the current ones kind of end once you get your max armor weapons and build. unless you buy more armor your gold just builds up at that point especially because more people then back say in 2007 do not like minipets which im guessing is anets idea of a gold sink you could never havr enough to own them all

Sirius Bsns · Oct 03, 2010, 11:33 AM // 11:33

There're soooo many gold sinks in the game, dude. I don't know how you can possibly reach a point where you cannot spend all of your gold. From equipping your heroes to filling up all your materials to 250, to even collecting multiple sets of high-end gear, items, miniatures, etc. as well as consets. There's literally so many ways for you to spend spend spend! So, I'm going to have to disagree with the OP on this one.

Lord Dagon · Oct 03, 2010, 02:34 PM // 14:34

i suggest you start looking for some vanity. Or give to the poor people(aka im one of them)
also id take a look at this http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...30&prefixid=HE i know your not looking for vanity... but eh its a gold sink and you can find some valuable but functional stuff(r7/16 shields, etc)

Swahnee · Oct 03, 2010, 02:39 PM // 14:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Granamyr

There is a disconnect between what we are being rewarded with. I'll go again to my getting paid in food analogy. Getting paid in hamburgers to do your job becomes rather meaningless when you're not hungry. You certainly wouldn't accept that in real life so why do we accept this flawed concept as ok because every other MMO does it. If gold is relegated to only serving vanity, it loses its functional value and becomes a meaningless reward. I'd like to think ANet doesn't promote meaningless systems.

Why has gold to have functional value? This is a game not real life, you can go on playing and having a lot of fun (which is the only real goal of a game) even without a single piece of gold (weapons from quest rewards, armors from collectors, you name it), which, in turn, isn't possible in real life, because everyone has a lot of basic needs other than food, that can be obtained almost only through money (since noone is able to build his own house, make his own dresses, etc.) hence there's the need of being payed in money, not in food. But this game != real life, here you have no need at all, so nothing has to be needed nor functional.

Money in this game (well, in every mmo i think) is always a meaningless reward, unless you decide that spending gold inside a game is meaningful for you.

Quote:

Functional value....there's a difference. There is nothing you can spend money on to improve gameplay (or even convenience) past a certain point. That point/threshold is very low in GW making much of the gold the game gives you functionally useless.

And this is actually a very good thing, money (and everything else which isn't player's skill) has to be meaningless after a very early point, because instead hardcore farmers would gain more benefits from the game than casual players (even if skilled).

Quote:

If anything, it reduces the grind. People could pay to increase their titles faster creating both a gold sink AND reducing rep title grinds.

ANet would never do this because titles and rare items have been brought into the game for this precise reason: keeping players busy until GW2 is out. So there's no point in letting players achieving them faster.

Mintha Syl · Oct 03, 2010, 02:54 PM // 14:54

Duh. A very good aspect of this game is you don't need to be rich to be efficent. Changing it would make it a stupid game like there's a ton out there, where farmers etc. can fight easily while casual players and whatnot have to go around begging if they want to play serously. There's already cons that have a helping value, and certain titles that you can buy with money, and that's even too much.

Money has a lot of value already. Apart from the fact that I don't think you can dress and equip yourself and your heroes and buy skill and tomes with only 20-30k, if you don't like to spend money on visually nice things it doesn't mean others don't. There's a lot of money sinks for many of us, hell, I would get a lot of armours, weapons and art commissions but I always see money go away very quickly, and I never bought cons (I only use the ones I get myself).

If you don't like to use money for any of the existing functions, just give it away, if you have no use for it you just don't need it but someone else might, maybe do a contest or something else that could be funny even for you.

Lanier · Oct 03, 2010, 03:22 PM // 15:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Granamyr

There is a disconnect between what we are being rewarded with. I'll go again to my getting paid in food analogy. Getting paid in hamburgers to do your job becomes rather meaningless when you're not hungry. You certainly wouldn't accept that in real life so why do we accept this flawed concept as ok because every other MMO does it. If gold is relegated to only serving vanity, it loses its functional value and becomes a meaningless reward. I'd like to think ANet doesn't promote meaningless systems.

Honestly, using RL analogies to describe an in-game phenomenon isn't accurate since there are so many other factors that influence the differences between these environments. for example, in game, my sole objective is to have fun. In real life, this is not the case.

Anyway, I don't really see this as a problem.

Quote:

Duh. A very good aspect of this game is you don't need to be rich to be efficent. Changing it would make it a stupid game like there's a ton out there, where farmers etc. can fight easily while casual players and whatnot have to go around begging if they want to play serously.

This right here is completely truth. Farmers who grind should not have a functional advantage over normal players.

Chthon · Oct 03, 2010, 03:55 PM // 15:55

Guess you never played D2... D2 had an economy based entirely around one particular rare ring as the unit of currency. No amount of gold was sufficient to purchase even one such ring, so it was truly, utterly worthless. By contrast, gold in GW can always be traded up for whatever currency people are using. Gold can buy ectos. Ectos, in turn, can buy armbraces. Gold can buy lockpicks too, although almost no one uses that as a currency. Gold has perfectly fine use as currency in GW; what you're really complaining about is the high cost of the things you want.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Granamyr

Here are functional ways to make gold relevant:
-allow PvE types access to the PvP weapon creation system for 10k a pop
-create elite hunting grounds requiring a substantial entrance fee with functional/convenient rewards instead of shinier pixels (reputation points, everlasting scrolls, etc)
-fees that allow heroes to take PvE skills (make it per skill and limited time)

#1 is about the cost of the weapons you happen to want, not gold's ability to buy them. PvP-only skins aside, you can already buy any item you want for enough gold. You just may have to convert that gold to ectos or armbraces to fit it in the trade window.

#2 and #3 are terrible ideas because they directly violate the principles of a level playing field and "skill > time" by giving in-game advantages in exchange for "substantial" gold. Cons are already bad enough, and their damage to fairness is limited because the cost is nominal enough most people can afford them. For that matter, do we really need another no-thought-required cons-like boost to make the game even easier?

Skyy High · Oct 03, 2010, 04:50 PM // 16:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Granamyr

I'm sitting on about 1.9 million in cash in GW1 with nothing functional to spend it on.

Your problem is that you think this is a problem. It's by design.

jazilla · Oct 03, 2010, 05:00 PM // 17:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Your problem is that you think this is a problem. It's by design.

^precisely. it's why i love GW. Level playing field and the only thing to grind for is if you are into things for aesthetic reasons. no uber stat weapons or armors.

cellardweller · Oct 04, 2010, 01:37 AM // 01:37

It takes over 1m gold to buy skills alone, and substantially more if you have the same skill on multiple characters as you're likely to. This is more gold than most players will ever see.

chris12xu · Oct 04, 2010, 07:34 PM // 19:34

use zkeys.....if you have to much money thats the perfect way to use it all in an extremely short amount of time. I dont want to see people with 1000k be able to buy advantages such as pve skills for their heros just becuase you have more money shouldnt make you a better player.