A Barter System?

I was talking to a guy down the hall in my dorm who also plays GW (a small revelation for me) and we were talking about how we hardly ever have money on GW, even when it seems like we're raking it in on the quests, etc.

The suggestion came up: What if GW was set up so that players could not buy things from each other, but only trade.
Ie, what if the only way to get money for your stuff was to merch it?

I thought it was kind of a cool idea, especially with people selling ectos, etc. all over the place and raking in the major $$.

Any thoughts?

There's a maximum traders will pay for certain golds.. If you could only merch, golds that would be worth 100k+ would sell for 300-400 at the merchant making earning money near impossible...

Er, no - that's the point of the barter system. Trade for other items that add up to the same net worth.


...It's not a feasible restriction, you know. We already use ectos - and to a lesser extent black dyes - as a currency of sorts. Eliminate gold trades and all that happens is that all your trades have to occur in multiples of 6K... Although we'd probably adopt something else as the official "coin" for smaller transactions - silver dyes or Monstrous Fangs or something.

RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO no.

You want to see how successful that system is?Go play Diablo 2.

That system [email protected] sucks.

the problem with a barter system is this:

say you have a gold sword and want to trade for a gold necro staff.
If someone has a gold necro staff but does not want to trade it for a sword you must
either have what the person with the staff wants so you get the staff while still keeping the sword

or

You musy try to find what the person with the necro staff wants and trade your sword for that and then go try to find the
first person with the necro staff and IF he still has it trade for the staff.

This is a basic example of economics and why we (Real World) moved into currency and away from the barter system 2,000+ years ago.

If you can sell your sword for gold THEN buy a staff with the gold you have not wasted all that time trying to complete barter trades.

I beleive people do barter for other items - Ive seen it in towns frequently - currency just makes it all run smoother.

yea, it won't change a thing. People will use a subsittute... like Ectoes, Rubbies, Saphires...

People are selling high end weapons for only Ectoplasms now-a-days. This system wouldn't really change anything.

Surely this would make a lot of people quit, or complain enough to run this system out if it was implemented. Trading gold is the main reason for mass farming anything. I farm Ectos with my SS/SV Necro to make gold, not to stash them away.

Plus, you have no money you said. With Ectos being the sole economy item in Guildwars in your system, you would need Ectos to buy things. If you can farm Ectos with your system in place you must be able to farm them now, so either way it would be the same.

Its fine the way it is.You really wanna make some money on this game,make a 55 monk,ss or a B/P ranger and u can make some good money.I have 1 of each and every time we get favior(america)I do UW(under world) and solo R/Me fow.Even if we don't have favior,I can go to tombs,War camp to green farm.It took me about 2-3weeks to finsh my ranger for war camp and tombs.The 55 monk wasent so hard,Mo/W.Don't worry so much man,its a game,HAVE FUN!!

Just to specify, I never said that ectos would be the sole economy item in Guild Wars under a barter system.

No thanks

I don't see why somebody who plays GW regularly wouldn't have a fair amount of cash, unless he spends a lot at shrines when we have favour, which really isn't necessary, or buys a lot of keys and doesn't hit the jackpot.

Ordinary merchants don't pay a lot for rare scrolls, or for runes - so we have rare scroll traders, and rune traders. For those of us who don't like to spend too much time standing around trying to sell items, how about a rare weapon trader, paying and charging what the market dictates, like the rare scroll trader, rare material trader, etc...?