The end to the Guild Wars economy, and the beginning to the end of Guild Wars

First, I'd like to say that Nightfall looks incredible, and has me the most excited since the Sorrows Furnace patch (outside of when the game was finally released). It will easily make up for what lacked in Factions.

Ok, I've read some of the posts on this and other forums, and the economy of GuildWars is now done. Over. Finished. Fine. Completado. I will explain the 2 problems, the 4 results (might be able to be compressed into 3), and 1 conclusion. ***Please keep in mind, I am not defending or criticizing farmers/casual players or rich/poor players. Please do not respond with your arguments about the ethics of the metagame. All I am doing is outlining what will become of Guild Wars. Also, please don't post noob resonses like "You don't understand the Guild Wars economy" or stuff like that. I have afforded obsidian armor and enjoyed collecting many elite items legitimately through gameplay and trading. If you think I am wrong, that's fine, but please explain your point and where I have gone wrong in my thinking***

Problem #1 - Inherent mods being able to be salvaged. This is horrible, absolutely horrible. Every sword, axe, bow, hammer, etc. (including serpent axes and crystalline swords) , regardless of color will be able to be made into 15>50 or +5 energy. That's horrible. One of the rewards of playing an area more than once, or playing the harder, elite areas is to get an elite item. If I want to get a 15>50 Fiery Dragon Sword, I can either play certain areas over and over and then have the joy of getting the 15>50 one that I want. Or I can get something of similar value and trade it for the item I want.

Problem #2 - Being able to pick which mod you want when you salvage it. Again, horrible. +30 heath mods and 20/20 will be 4 times as common. You will no longer get wood planks, iron ingots, +6 armor vs elemental, or other pesky little used mods. While this may seem good, it will drop the value of the useful upgrades to less than 50% of their current value, and may be closer to 25%.


Now, what will happen.

Result #1- Anything that does not have 100% completely perfect inherent mod with be utterly worthless. Even 14>50s, +14% w/enchanted, etc., will be absolutely worthless unless they have a good mod. In addition, every rare weapon will be made 15>50. Yes, people will ask 100K+ at first for 15>50 mods because people with Crystalline swords, etc. will pay gladly. However, as with anything else, someone wanting to score a quick 80K will dump it, driving prices down. Rinse and repeat until they cost 10K. (also, keep in mind that you can get perfect inherent mods off very low level items, I.E. getting a sword with 5-12 damage, but with a 15>50 mod, which will just be removed and placed on a max damage one).

Result #2 - All other mods will be insanely cheap. No longer will you get a crappy sword with a +30 health mod and get excited about getting the possibily of a 30K+ salvage. In addition, everyone will be able to get perfect mods insanely cheap.

Result #3 - There will be less of a reason to play Guild Wars. Yes, you can still PvP, and yes, you can stilll enjoy the grind of beating PvE for 6 characters, but there is no reason to go back and attempt an area for a good drop. With 20/20 sundering axe mods worth 5k, and +30 health bow upgrades worth 3k, everyone will have perfect versions of every weapon they want. While this is good for the masses and casual player, it completely removes the excitement of having a cool or rare weapon that has good mods. As a result, hardcore players will quickly move onto other games.

Result #4 - Highly valued items not associated with weapons will skyrocket, and become completely unattainable to newer players. Ecto, shards, black dye, perfect shields, and rare crafting materials will be all there will be to spend money on. Consequently, people will be much more willing to buy these items at whatever price, because...well, what else are you going to spend money on? Newer players will not be able to do anything to afford rare materials, and will be forced to farm them or give up completely. Think about it; currently they could get a rare skin drop with a good inherent mod, or salvage mods to save up money for expensive non-weapon items. Now, that option is completely off the table.


Conclusion - First, this sounds like they are catering to communist China (which, ironically they are trying to introduce the game into as its own area). Everything for the masses, equal for everyone, regardless of effort. Think of this as the ultimate god-mode, which will destroy the game for people that like to invest more than average time and effort. Can you contemplate anyone ever playing Diablo 2, WoW, or any other game of that type if you could spend a few hours and have all the godly items you'd ever want? What they have is the ability to level up over long periods of time and introduce even more rare items as you progress. With Guild Wars capping leveling at 20, this element doesn't exist (I am not complaining or criticizing about this, just pointing out a difference).

Second, people are going to get bored of the game very quickly (see above explanations). The only reason to go over areas mulitple times will be for the pleasure of the grind. Arenanet is trying to eliminate farmers and the grind, but by doing this, they eliminate some of the reasons to play the game.

Third, I wouldn't be surpried to see Arenanet selling 100K gold in their online store. I mean, they completely removed the goal of trying to unlock all the skills for a class. Instead of playing the game, simply plop down $40 and have it all done for you. Following that path, why wouldn't they just add 100k for $10? That way new players could pay out an additional $10 or $20 and instantly have every weapon they could ever want (again, this is after req 9 15>50, 20/20, +30 Chaos axes drop to like 10K).

Finally, I think the Nightfall article in PCGamer was correct when they called Nightfall an "Endpoint". Arenanet is going to completely lose active players, and will see people leaving GuildWars for other games that don't eliminate 75% of the reason to play a game. They may sell a few more character slots, unlock packs, and even gold (when they introduce it to their online store), but I believe that fewer and fewer people will buy the expansions as interest dies out.

Very well stated, but I think it is possible you might be jumping the gun. ANet hasn't even said exactly HOW the mod removal process will work yet.

Let's see it in action before we go all gloom and doom...

I dont like to farm and I dont farm
-- I will still be buying mods from other people, including +29 health


Heros need gear

my 10 characters will have access to 3+ hero *each*
(30+ Heroes to get gear for)

Heroes will create a bigger demand for gear

Wow, I feel like either hugging you for speaking the truth, or punching you for making me feel bad when im gonna go play. T_T and with the err7 going on like crazy, it feels as if guild wars is going down the drain!!!

T_T why A-Net

I believe there is more to gw than just farming for items. But I do agree if they let you remove 15^50 mod is kind of dumb, I don't mind having the option to pick what mod when salvage, just not the 15/20/+5e/-10ar, those i dont consider mods.

Can I offer you a little cheese with that whine? Guild Wars ISN'T about being able to have better eq (skin or no skin) than player X. Skins will still have varying degrees of rarity, you just won't have to worry about that sword you found having a useless inherent mod on it since you can now exchange it with that other one.

well i think there will be an upside we just havent seen it or hear dof it yet, people always insist about focusing on the bad never the good.

I like some of your arguments, but I think that there are also a lot of plusses for people to be able to customize weapons without throwing endless hours into the process. With the introduction of heros I think we see the game moving more and more towards casual gamers and less towards hardcore players. The items I see going up in value are going to be rare skins etc. But yes, a lot less grind to get them. I think different people play the game for different reasons, and personally I'm fine and happy with the changes.

One thing I do know for sure, this will be a big blow to farming bots and the companies behind those bots. They surely will lose profit and stay clear of GW for good. It will make hardly a dent on people who enjoy healthy side of GW, like pvp or coop-playing with friends.

Wild Speculations about things that haven't happened yet. "Inscriptions that allow you to salvage inherent mods from weapons" is all we know about that feature. You are ASSUMING you'll be able to take a 15^50 mod off a trash req13 longsword and put it on a white req7 Cyst. Sword. Nothing in that quoted statement implies that. You just have to wait and see how it works.

Picking what mod you salvage isn't that big of a deal. So what if Sundering mods get even cheaper? They are already falling... Fort mods are at an all time low in price since I started the game.

All other mods are ALREADY "insanely cheap". 14^50 anything is ALREADY impossible to sell, and any mod but Zealous, Fort, and Sundering is ALREADY practicelly free.

Next paragraph is just Wild Speculation about non-weapon things. I can see no reason why getting +30 HP mods off a sword instead of another mod on it will make Black Dyes cost 100k. 1) The rarity of said mods hasn't increased except for a small percentage more hitting the market out of its skin. It isn't like newbies in ascalon can rake in 50 +30 hp mods by the time they are at Yak's Bend.. 2) The rarity (or common'ness rather) of the materials you are talking about is still there. It isn't like someone will out of the blue start paying 50k for Steel Ingots just because he can get a sword 20k cheaper than before.

Threads have been closed for less than you said about catering to China lol.

Anet doesn't offer gold in their online store, so the next paragraph is a mute point... Anyway, If someone wants real-world bought gold, its there for them already... You fail to see the HUGE industry gold farming for selling is in games and how easy it is to get undetected - For every 4000 accounts Anet bans for selling, 10000 are just starting up to farm. It goes far beyond some stupid Ebay auctions. So any difference it makes in the economy is already present.



Basically...You can't talk about something so wildly until its out and you know how it works.

Interesting..

1. Most people are already trashing 14^50's. The new system seems to me a natural progression.

2. This assumes that the drop rates will be the same as they currently are.

3. Sadly true - high end loot is a huge part of pve, compare the current GW high end ownership to that of Eve (Titan springs to mind), huge difference in terms of attainability and in turn longeveity.

4.Possible, again, depends on the new drop rates in Nitefall.



On your conclusion - using China as your analogy wasn't very big or clever, you could easily have said 'socialism'. Chinese economy happens to be booming and is set to dictate world markets in the coming years, fact, not fiction - in some way precludes your original remarks on Guild Wars dying off from making any sense. In any case, we see your point about equal access yada yada and its valid.


Lets cut the schoolboy BS. Lots of different types of players in GW - rich, poor, the oblivious etc. Poor players, the majority, will love this. Rich players, dudes that get a kick out of high end gear and endless farming of elite areas will move on to something a bit more serious.

Factions introduced easy access through alliance battles - guys could stroll into abs with some half-assed builds, or even leech, and still come out with faction, in turn, amber or jade.


If you had to make a conclusion, maybe it could be something like, the game has, and looks set to become more and more marketed for the casual player, perhaps even a younger market.


Nightfall looked superb, but most of us will have it nailed in week, some in a few days, Reiben creamed the 5000 points title in just 2 days. Give it a few weeks after that and the game has been gutted, wiki'd and guru'd, guides, new builds the whole schebang. Then what - Eve, WoW, NwNs, PS3?

Maybe its not looking too good afterall.. many people I know have already got their materials rdy for dervish or paragon fissure armor...

Come on Anet, give us something to work for,
Liv.

Oh, in all my time of playing, I never realized that the player-created "economy" was essential to the actual game.

You have plenty to work for ... like FOW armor for all of your characters.

There's already this thread. Closed.