Inflation or Greedy Merchants?

While the people in Lion's Arch may be charging ridiculous prices for everything and anything, it doesn't mean they are actually *selling* anything. Most people won't pay the high prices, but we still have the impression that buying anything costs a lot. The reason for this is that for those people to sell items at ridiculous prices they have to continually spam until they find someone foolish enough to pay such a price. And so all most people see are items being sold for stupid amounts. To prove my point, that most people can't sell items for the ridiculous prices I was in Lion's Arch the other day trying to sell a Superior Rune and I was asking for 5,000 gold, and I get a whisper from someone else selling runes saying "Superiors sell for 20k+ now, newb" and so I replied "So you buy it and resell for 20k." and strangely enough he didn't reply back, because he knew prices that high are stupid.

Yeah, the price's for runes is quite strange..Low prices for Minors and Majors,the incredibly high prices for superiors. Inflation is in almost every MMORPG that you play..one of the worst i've ever seen was for FFXI, the whole economy is based on inflation.

All the people buying and selling items are going to be gone from the game in less than 4 months. This game is not about buying and selling items. No loot is worth wasting my time looking for a seller. Nothing that can be traded to me is worth wasting my time looking for a buyer. What is driving you people to think that anything in this game is "worth" something? I've yet to see an item that I would buy or sell.

I've played many games as a merchant... this game is very ill suited for it.

Superior runes of vigor and adsorbtion are worth something.

Most of the other stuff are either easy to get, ust for show, or for losers who think lack of items is the reason they suck.

Inflation isn't at work; idiocy is. ;]

While farming produces tons of gold, it also produces tons of salable commodities and weapons. I met a guy running around with ten dragon swords and five fellblades, asking for 6k and 10k each, respectively. He'd farmed them and felt his ubiquitous crap should sell for an absurd profit at the market. I snubbed him and found a reasonable player who sold me a max-damage fellblade for 2k and a max-damage dragon sword for 1.2k, and considering the ever increasing supply of both, I still probably paid too much.

I'm sorry traders, but your weapons really aren't worth anything unless they are gold, aesthetically pleasing, and basically perfect.

Here's the answer:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=18747

I sighned off on it. Great ideas are usually simple ones.

Isn't the golden rule of farming gold 20k per hour? If so, why the heck would anyone need gold?

Guild Wars economy is different from the real world, infact all mmorpg economy are strange. In real world if I buy something like a computer for example, the in the cost of the computer includes the rant of the shop, the price of materials, the price of equipment used to build the computer and maybe the price needed to pay a worker. But in mmorpg, there is not much thing as price of material. How can one decide the price of an item? We 'worked' in the game to get the item, but who is to tell the price of time?

PS. inflation is cased by greedy merchants and eager consumers, so the title 'Inflation or Greedy Merchents' is incorrect.

It inflates because materials and items only go into the economy, not out. In science, energy cannot be destroyed or created, and that is how real life economy works usually. Money circulates throughout the system, no insertion, no ejection. Yet in games, there is only insertion half the time, since no one really likes sinkholes that cause a significant upkeep.

Hes the one who got it. If you make 20k per hour (lets say 10k if your slow), then you need to sell a weapon for 1k every 3 mins you spend selling it to break even. That means that if it takes you more then 6 mins to move something for less then 1k, your making a huge loss if you even bother to sell to a player. Selling something to shop + farming for 29mins >>> trying to sell item to a player for 30mins, unless you could get 5-10plat from the player (depends on farming speed).

So all those scammers who sell plain max dmg weapons for 2k are actually making a loss and doing you a favour by wasting precious time to deal with the player market so that YOU can get the weapon / stuff

Since you dont have enough space to store things you actually need, noone will bother to hoard items they dont need and sell to them on request. Since its very unlikely that you can sell something within 3mins, selling things below 5k is pointless. Actually trading for gold is pointless unless we talk about "teh phatz". (Selling a sword worth 250k to a shop may not be the way to go )

This is only based on profit/h. If you want to barter and have fun doing that, the above does not apply to you.

we had someone in the guild successfully sell some Godly Sword thingy for 136k...

So what would be a fair price for a sigil?

Actually this is not true. In modern Keynesian economy where money is created out of thin air by issuing loans money can and will appear from nowhere and inflate. Look at current US house market bubble, that's where the action is at the moment... When it pops the fallout will be quite terrible for many people, even outside US. In effect, current inflation is hidden in rising cost of housing.

You are right about energy though, it can only be transformed in other forms and be diluted during the process (transformation to heat).

I don't see gold as having any real value in this game, well not once you get past Lions Arch. I created a guild for my friend and I, so we could have a flashy cape to roll around in. I also farmed some gold so we could have a guild hall, just to see what that was all about. And aside from the uber armor there really isn't anything else in this game to spend all that gold you gain on. It would be nice if the merchants offered more wares. Maybe offered some upgrade components for your weapons. Heck I think they should sell unidentified armor and weapons.
Anyway to get more on the subject, I personally do not sell good weapons and runes to people. I just go into a town and state that I'm giving such and such weapon away for free. And if I have runes to give away I just find someone of that runes particular class and tell them they can have it for free. I never have any trouble getting rid of the items. And you can bet that they will be put to better use than whatever amount of gold the trader was going to give me for them.

I just thought of something else that might make gold worth something. They should allow you to bathe in all your riches when you are in town.

gold has real value in that you can buy un'ided armor and weapons with it :|

besides a one-time sigil purchase that's all you really need it for.

were trying too get a few new things for our guild hall in the next chapter, and that should make gold something of worth again... so you can upgrade your hall...

Requested Chapter Two Guild Upgrades.

The market is bipolar. Max damage gold items are selling for 15k+ and with non-max damage items, you get more from the outfitter than the 0 that people are willing to offer. Superior runes go upwards of 25k, and you're lucky if you can get 100g for minors (except vigor & absorption). Mesmer Major and Minor runes I can't give away (want any?).

There's a serious flaw with the GW economy. As drops continue to happen, goods of every type proliferate like stink. We're seeing it with the non-max items first: the volume of items out there, the currently disorganized state of auction-house options and the fickle nature of buyers is driving demand down the toilet. Max-damage and optimum items have been spared this somewhat by the influx of new players (as have dyes). So basically, you can spend days trying to sell your wares in the hectic megascroll of Ascalon or Lion's Arch District 1s, or hold on to the items in hopes that you'll someday get the 200g or 500g that the item should be worth, or you can sell them to the outfitter for 20g. Bodrus gets nearly all my golds and purples now, unless I have a direct use for them.

Sure, the average player knows that they can get a decent non-max item for really cheap. But they don't WANT a decent non-max item for really cheap: they want that shiny gold max item they can show and brag about. Likewise, I also personally find Superior runes problematic (the Health drop), but everyone wants to be able to brag about max attributes. It's a factor of the marketplace.

What needs to happen is that there needs to be more sinks for these items. If the merchants bought them for larger values and offered amounts for max-damage or high attribute items to make that a viable outlet for sale, the propagation of these items would drop dramatically.

I have to agree that the prices of some items are insane. I have been seeing alot of minor vigor runes going for around 11k and major vigor going for 20k or more!!! I don't get it, I got about 7 - 8 of them in one days farming. I was giving them out to my guild and friends and I still have 3 left

I do my share in hunting and all runes go for low prices.

minors - 100g
majors - 700g - 1k
superiors - 5 - 10k

I did sell a superior Air rune for 25k though. I feel that it's just going to be exploited in HoH anyway so I knew someone would pay that stupid price. Sadly enough it did only take 3 mins to sell it

Thats the point. either you give worthless things away for free, or you sell them for something close to the amount you could make while farming the time it takes to sell it. (1k+) Its not the item that is worth the price people ask. Its the sellers time to bother to actually NOT sell it to shop.

People think that if they sold something for 500G, which they bought for 200g, they made 300g profit. Actually, they lost ~1g, because it took them 10mins to sell it