A Pro-Inscription and Anti-Auction House Argument

It seems to me that ArenaNet wants to make a wider range of items affordable to the average player who, according to a past remark from ArenaNet, only has around 10k or at most 20k to his name at any point in time. It started with collector items, then uniques/greens were introduced, then the quality of gold drops was "significantly improved" when Factions was released, and finally with Nightfall will come inscriptions.

I view these changes, specifically insriptions, as a reaction to the exclusive 100k+ecto high-end player economy that has persisted through ANet's other changes/additions to the weapon market. The majority of Guild Wars players have no hope of ever breaking into this part of the player economy without spending hours and hours farming for that one "lucky drop" that sends their in-game wealth skyhigh.

Inscriptions will make the economy easier to enter by dropping the prices of many high-end weapons (but not the highest-end items like crystallines and similar,) creating new high-end weapons that could become perhaps the most wanted in the game (max 15>50 tribal axe?,) and of course being able to sell an inscription on its own. Also, max-damage unmodded or poorly-modded weapons (regardless of color) will now gain some value, depending on the popularity or rarity of the skin at max damage.

This game isn't supposed to be about grinding or powertrading, and it would seem that ArenaNet is striving to cut down on these aspects of the game. An auction house would really just amount to powertrading on a time-delay.

Yes. In the same way that many players buy 1.5k armor instead of going for cheap collector armor or splurging on 15k armor, players who are not satisfied with cheaper collector/weaponsmith/green weapons will be willing to spend a little extra to build their own weapons from scratch. They might not be able to afford the most expensive pieces, but a plethora of skins, inscriptions, and mods will become available to choose from. Everybody will have a favorite skin. Now that max unmodded weapons can be inscribed, they have a useful purpose, and people will want to buy them.

A valid concern, but one must consider that the people who have these items and the people who can afford to buy these items are a very small subset of the Guild Wars playerbase. Should ArenaNet take the time to add-in a feature that only the richest players in the game can use to the fullest?

But yes, I concede auctioning to the highest bidder is the best way to sell an item of that value. But do you really need an auction house to do it? Personally, my approach to selling such an item would be to get to know all of the individual bidders a little bit and find out how much each of them is willing to pay me. When selling an item that's worth millions, I want to be 100% sure that the person I finally sell to isn't even going to think about pulling any funny stuff whatsoever. An auction house would just let people post a bid and then automate the transaction between the winner and the seller--there wouldn't be any human interaction required. Shouldn't such a large transaction be a bit more special than that?

True, but again, I stress the importance of human interaction. Guild Wars ultimately fails as an MMORPG/CCORPG if most of its players play through all of the missions with henchmen, buy all of their weapons from the weaponsmith and collectors, and never explore things like the Elite Missions, god realms, or PvP.

Basically, I like the direction ArenaNet is taking Guild Wars and I think it will work. Just like Heroes will be able to fill in those unfilled spots in a guild group or a pug to get things moving, inscriptions will allow more players to break into the player-economy and get more than 20k to their name and be able to afford a wide range of weapon types and skins to distinguish their characters from everybody else.

I disliked anet's idea of bringing everything to its lowest common denominator since the beginning, actually. The "average" players with 20k had their collector's items.

Introducing greens destroyed the market for weapon mods (Ha, you think 30k for +30HP sword pommel is expensive? I remember before first greens, 30HP staff wrappings were worth 50k and heads 60.) This also dropped the prices for some of the semi-rare skins, such as fellblade, that were now available in green flavour. So the "looks" factor was gone, only "vanity" or "prestige" remained. So, the "average" players got greens and collector's items are now a lot cheaper to mod. Honestly, I think that's plenty in terms of balancing the game. You have identical stats on your equipment. If you want to stand out from the crowd with a unique skin, please stop being average and get some gold.

Then increasing quality and quantity of gold drops further hurt the semi high-end items. A lot more perfect storm bows, shadow bows, blades, shields, staffs, whatever started popping up. Over time, less and less skins remained truly valuable. Yay, average wammo can run around with a fellblade and a shadow shield he bought for 20k. Oh wait, couldn't you do that with a victo's blade and bulwark?

I guess now anet is aiming at the really high-end market. If you're able to inscribe a crystalline sword with 15^50 mod, those few 15^50 crystallines that currently exist would lose their value. The skin itself is not prohibitively rare... I expect you'd be able to buy a max crystalline for ~100k and then mod it with whatever. And 100k is pocket change compared to the past, and even current prices. Crystalline swords for average people! Down with economy!

Personally, I'm the type of player that pays for looks, not for vanity. If there was a collector's +5 energy recurve bow with eternal skin, I'd use that. If eternal bows actually dropped with +5 energy mod, I'd shell out 100k+ecto for one. But since there isn't, I'll mod a req8 eternal bow with +5 energy inscription and crippling bowstring and be happy.

But what of those people whose crystallines and dwarven axes will suddenly be worth 100k apiece?

I dont think Crystalline Swords will drop in value by all that much- if at all... if they made a collector version than yes- but they arent doing that, are they... Dwarven Axes... cant comment.. I dont see why they are so coveted (rare? yes. Look nice? no imo.)

I think all of this is good for the economy. Some items (especially Prophecies' Skins) will increase in value since they will be farmed less. Totem Axe might be cheap, but I bet you a +5 energy axe script will be more expensive than people realize. My mesmer wants a +5 Chaos Axe for his IW, and I realize quite well that it will not ever be cheap to do that.

An auction house Stinks of WoW... And would cause more 'economy trouble' than the (equally dreaded and anticipated) inscriptions.


Thats my two cents. Dont quote me or even read my posts if you disagree. Kthxbyegg.

Agree about Inscriptions, I think it's a great addition.

However I think you're giving trading a little too much credit by calling it "human interaction". Telling someone "I'll buy it", opening trade, offering, accepting, and then saying "thx" to someone you'll never see again doesn't deserve to be rated that high. Your reasoning behind nixing an auction house, probably the most-requested addition to the game, is flawed. In actuality, an auction house would open the market up to more people who don't want to waste the time standing around hawking items, and would lower prices across the board.

victos blade is not a felblade.

Lowest common denominator?? You make it sound like grinding and/or a lucky drop is some kind of skill or intellectual achievement.

What is the 'highest common denominator"

Exactly. Although inscriptions may make my life easier, the average player will be able to access the small amount of extremely rare vanity skins with little difficulty. This doesn't bother me in any sence, however, values for every weapon will suffer. Maybe the extreme rares that drop once a millenium with a damage inherent will rise in value.

In my opinion the policy of "everyone should be equal" that A-Net is trying to force upon us should not be happenning. People thrive in this game to stand out. Titles don't compare to having that maximum damage Crystalline Sword with a perfect mod that you can work towards with farming/services off your own back. People will try to show wealth in one way or another. If worst comes to worst we will be seeing people drop 250 candy canes and then instantly pick them up when a map loads, just to show they can own such items.

I agree with collector items because everyone needs access to high end weapons. However - vanity skins should be accessed by wealthy people only, no matter what A-Net thinks.

Nobody can say exactly how inscriptions will change the value of weapons. Nobody can say how they will work, not even if they will actually be here.

One auction house + many perfect weapons = Low costs

Wow, flames already.

As Savio has stated, we don't want any threads about this since there are two key factors at work:
1) SPECULATION
2) Flaming ensues EVERY TIME SOMEONE SAYS INSCRIPTIONS, which is kind of sad.

Closed.