Farming/ Gaile Gray

You just got tomahawked

You just got tomahawked

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Nov 2006

H-Town

The Battle Bakery [vPie]

N/

This is an honest non confrontational question intended for Gaile Gray. This is an honest question and not being facetious. This is also not a trick question. Does Anet want us to just play through the story and then drop the game or do they want us to just get what we need and then play it casually or do they want us to farm and get R14 hero and all that?
All I'm trying to get at is everyone is very confused in my guild if Anet like them to farm or not. I would love to see an updated answer from one of the mebers of the staff about this. I read threw all the posts and theirlike stuff about FoW and vabbian that i have an analogie for. When you first get out of college you might think Ohh...I want a Mercedes and a plasma tv and a buttler and all that. At the time thpugh you don't have the money for it. So...You work hardcore for many years to buy it. <<< that is real life farming.

shardfenix

shardfenix

Banned

Join Date: Dec 2005

Il Power Overwhelming Il [HaX]

Arenanet is a company. They want to make money. The best way for them to make money is by getting people to buy the game.

What Anet really wants is for you to choose one of the things you mentioned, then get bored and do a different one, then do a different one, etc. They don't care about farming gold or titles.

More Outrage

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jun 2006

Yorkshire

GOO

So I take it you have read all her previous post that have discussed the subject? I think not.
Do what you will as long as it`s within the EULA it`s OK.

King Kong

King Kong

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jan 2006

W/R

Quote:
Originally Posted by You just got tomahawked
This is an honest non confrontational question intended for Gaile Gray. This is an honest question and not being facetious. This is also not a trick question. Does Anet want us to just play through the story and then drop the game or do they want us to just get what we need and then play it casually or do they want us to farm and get R14 hero and all that?

If Gaile could answer this I'd be happy person.
They want you to do the game then leave till next time, so it saves them bandwidth cost

Loviatar

Underworld Spelunker

Join Date: Feb 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by You just got tomahawked
This is an honest non confrontational question intended for Gaile Gray. This is an honest question and not being facetious. This is also not a trick question. Does Anet want us to just play through the story and then drop the game or do they want us to just get what we need and then play it casually or do they want us to farm and get R14 hero and all that?

If Gaile could answer this I'd be happy person.
here is the official answer from the head honcho himself

this is the whole complete answer not a smigen to fit.
Quote:
The topic is farming. Players have frequently asked about ArenaNet's philosophy on item and gold farming, and they've also been curious about our stance on the sale of Guild Wars items for real-world cash. Mike O'Brien, head of the Design Team, has provided us with some answers to this timely question.


What is the Guild Wars team’s philosophy on in-game farming?

In Guild Wars as in any other online roleplaying game, we think that maintaining a robust player-driven economy is important and adds a lot of fun to the game.

It’s true that Guild Wars is a competitive game and therefore focuses much more on player skill than on item acquisition. But PvM-oriented players still look for rare items that they can use to distinguish their characters, as well as long term goals that they can work towards acquiring. In order to allow the game’s economy to be an important and fun factor in PvM-oriented play but not create unfair imbalances in PvP-oriented play, we often make rare items easier to acquire for PvP use than for PvM use, or make rare items differ from common items only by their appearance. In general we try to make it much easier in Guild Wars than in most games for average players to acquire almost-the-best of everything, and to compete on a level playing field, while still giving the more hard-core players ways to differentiate their characters.

It’s theoretically possible to create an online roleplaying game without a player-driven economy. For example, you could make every variant of every item in the game available for purchase from NPC vendors. But that would take away a lot of the feeling of accomplishment of finding a rare item. Even that might not be enough, because if certain vendors were difficult to find or travel to, then players would still trade amongst themselves at above-vendor prices. More broadly, you could simply disable the ability of players to trade items or to drop them on the ground. None of this sounds particularly fun, and given that Guild Wars uses randomly generated loot, placing every variant of every item in the game on an NPC vendor is certainly not an option for Guild Wars.

Players often wonder why we allow prices to float on the traders, and this is fundamentally the reason. Traders are not vendors; they don’t offer an unlimited supply of rare items. They’re just there to facilitate trade between buyers and sellers. If the traders quote buy and sell prices that are outside the range of what players think the true value of an item is, then players simply stop using the traders and switch back to using chat to find trading partners. Of course, for any given type of rare item, we could theoretically stop treating it as a rare item and instead put an unlimited quantity on NPC vendors for sale at a fixed price. But this tends not to be a good idea for two reasons. First, player perception of the value of items tends to change over time; if the vendor sale price can’t adapt, then there will be times when the item seems undervalued and times when it seems too expensive and no one will buy it. As specific character builds go in and out of favor, the items that support those builds can experience wide swings in their perceived value. Second, Guild Wars will always have a player-driven economy because the game uses randomly generated stats on weapons and equipment. Those items can't effectively be sold by vendors, and the more we pull other types of items out of the player-driven economy by placing them on vendors and giving them fixed prices, the more we focus all price swings and inflationary pressures on the few remaining items that players still bid for, potentially pushing their prices far out of the reach of normal players.

Because Guild Wars does make extensive use of a player-driven economy, we at ArenaNet have a responsibility to manage the economy, and we take that responsibility seriously. You might ask: what exactly is our responsibility? Is it to keep prices within a certain range? Is it to maintain price stability? We think that, expressed in its most general terms, our responsibility is to keep the distribution of wealth as fair as possible, so that normal players can afford to bid for items in a player-driven economy. We need to avoid situations where a small subset of players can earn orders of magnitude more gold than the average player, thus driving up prices of rare items to a level where normal players could never hope to afford them.

There are three ways that certain players earn more gold than the average. The first and most obvious way is that, because everyone plays the game differently, some players are able to find unusually profitable areas to hunt in, or tricky strategies for killing a lot of monsters quickly. The search for the most effective way to play can be a fun part of the game for everyone -- we all like to see how well our characters can do, and whether we can tweak our characters to be better than they were previously -- and so we at ArenaNet don’t consider this a problem unless it’s extreme. Although a very knowledgeable or tricky player may be able to earn gold twice as fast as the average, this tends not to create a significant problem, because prices for items in the player-driven economy will still stay at levels where normal players can afford them. But sometimes differences in the distribution of wealth can be extreme; a group of players can find ways to earn gold ten times as fast as the average player. In this case, prices can rise to a level where normal players can’t afford to trade for items anymore. Then we have a problem, and we need to adjust the game to bring wealth distribution back into normal ranges. We constantly monitor the game, so we know when a certain place or technique is being heavily exploited. When an issue like this becomes too severe, we make tweaks as necessary to bring things back in line.

The second way that wealth distribution becomes a problem is when players use bots to farm gold around the clock. This is obviously unfair to the vast majority of players who play the game normally. We have no tolerance for bots. We constantly monitor for bots; we have tools that help us to easily identify them; and when we find people using bots, we permanently ban their accounts. This whole process is largely invisible to the average player, but behind the scenes, we’re regularly banning accounts for using bots.

The third issue, which is quickly becoming the biggest threat to the game’s economy, is companies that farm gold and items professionally and sell them for real-life cash. These companies hire large teams of people, often working in sweatshop-like conditions for very little pay, to play Guild Wars for many hours a day in order to rake in gold and items. The workers aren’t bots but they farm gold in similar ways, using very specific character builds to kill very specific monsters, running the same path and killing the same monsters hundreds of times each day, doing whatever exact sequence of actions their employer has determined is currently the most effective way to earn a lot of gold per hour. They then turn over what they’ve farmed to their employer, who sells the gold and items to other players for cash.

It creates a vicious cycle. If a player buys 1000 platinum pieces for real-life cash, and then uses that in-game wealth to make high bids for items in order to acquire all the rare items he wants, then in doing so he drives up the price of items in the game, causing other players to feel that they too need to buy gold in order to keep up.

Selling in-game items for cash is clearly against the terms of service, and engaging in any farming or storage activity that assists other people in selling in-game items for cash is also against the terms of service. If you're farming gold or items for someone who sells them for cash, you need to stop now. We are currently gathering data, and when we take action it will be to close entire networks of accounts at once: those used for farming, those used for storage, and those used for distribution. Buying in-game items for cash is also against the terms of service, so for those of you engaging in this practice, please understand that you're not only hurting the game in a way that makes it less fun for you and everyone else, but also risking getting your account permanently banned.

Of course, the number of players who engage in any of these activities -- farming exploits, using bots, selling or buying in-game items for cash –- is very small relative to the total player base. At ArenaNet we play the game just like you do, so we know that for most of you, gold is a precious commodity that you work hard to attain. In fact, our statistics show that 50% of all active accounts have fewer than 10 platinum pieces, and 75% of all active accounts have fewer than 20 platinum pieces. So when we make small tweaks here and there to keep the economy under control, please understand that we’re not trying to make the game harder for the average player. We work hard to understand how normal players play and how extreme players play, and then find just the minimal changes necessary to keep the economy healthy and fair.

You just got tomahawked

You just got tomahawked

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Nov 2006

H-Town

The Battle Bakery [vPie]

N/

Quote:
Originally Posted by More Outrage
So I take it you have read all her previous post that have discussed the subject? I think not.
Do what you will as long as it`s within the EULA it`s OK.
well quite frankly I have and between her posts and the game updates I'm very confused. i need some clarificaition.

Vahn Roi

Vahn Roi

Forge Runner

Join Date: Apr 2006

[HiDE]

Farming hurts the economy when done on a large scale. Seeing as Anet has taken many measures to cripple said act makes me want to say "no" they don't want us farming.

More Outrage

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jun 2006

Yorkshire

GOO

Go farm. As long as you don`t use 3rd party programs and you are using skill and judgement then I suppose it`s OK but expect the skill to be `nerfed` by ANet, especially if anyone and everyone can do what you do.

You just got tomahawked

You just got tomahawked

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Nov 2006

H-Town

The Battle Bakery [vPie]

N/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Loviatar
here is the official answer from the head honcho himself

this is the whole complete answer not a smigen to fit.
well that wholesomely and completely answers my question. ty. TO THE 55!!!!!!! (BATMAN THEME SONG)

Malice Black

Site Legend

Join Date: Oct 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vahn Roi
Farming hurts the economy when done on a large scale. Seeing as Anet has taken many measures to cripple said act makes me want to say "no" they don't want us farming.
Gaile has already said Anet has no problems with people farming as this is part of any MMO type game. The Bot code was put in place to try and limit the dmg large scale farming does.

wetsparks

wetsparks

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2006

It says that 75% of players have less than 20k. That is kind of a suprise since people on this website say that they have several sets of 15k armor. Also, you can create a couple new characters in Nightfall and Factions, run around doing a couple quests and killing monsters and make 20k really fast. I found this out because I didnt know what character I wanted to make in Factions and so I made three different ones and played around with them and between the quest rewards of gold and commendations you can make a decent amount of money.

EternalTempest

EternalTempest

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jun 2005

United States

Dark Side Ofthe Moon [DSM]

E/

It's an older article but an accurate one. If anet allows it, you can farm that way. If it's a problem, they feel it's there responsibility to close it off.
If your against farming... anet disagree's with you. If your favorite way to farm is changed.. anet doesn't want you to do that anymore.
Anet is also altering the level / mob groups with farming in mind with future games now that they have to actively think about.
Remember the game started with random no-key chest free stuff that got exploited in all zones.

The big thing is no bots, or "human" bots that work for gold <-> $$$.

Enchanted Warrior

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jul 2006

W/Mo

I think if Anet really wants us to understand they can answer simply, and not as they did above. While complete in nature it's too complicated for some players to comprehend. To be honest it seems like it was written by their legal staff. Dumb it down and answer the questions as asked and they'll gain a lot of lost ground with players that have become very unhappy with how they perceive the game is being run.

Just sayin...

As I understand things.. If you over farm an area, your loot quality goes down the toilet. Move around, don't farm one area for hours. Don't exit and enter areas over and over to farm one mob, and for now accept that the quality of loot is mostly junk and will be that way until anet decides they have defeated the illegal farmers.

Matsumi

Matsumi

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Mar 2006

I used to have an interview article from Guild Wars Hungarian in one of the fan site friday things, where Gaile talks about how they see farming as just another option, but not the only option. The link I had for it though, no longer works.

Shinto Sharingan

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Apr 2006

Zealots of Shiverpeak

W/

Okay, here's my two cents...

Maybe instead of being a relentless, repetetive, monotonous farmer who helps to drain areas of their loot, you should try to be a more well-rounded player by:
-Playing the game and exploring.
-Playing elite missions and challenge missions.
-Working toward some prestigious title.
-Trying out PvP.
-Starting a new character of a new profession---try new things, you may find that you like it.
-Or, I dunno, making good friends and having fun with them!

Antheus

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jan 2006

So, it's wrong that I make 100k a day by selling DoA gems?

Am I hurting the economy? Am I an evil person? What is this farming nerf though speaketh of?

And how come Elona is a goldmine, that's making me more money in hours of gameplay that I made in weeks in Tyria?

Money is there. But if anyone chooses to farm trolls, why not. But do finally realize, that that's no way to make money. You earn a bit, but the "farming nerf" simply didn't happen.

Farming is about making money. Methods how it's done change. To make money, be on top of things. The trolls and the days of cyclone axe wammo are long gone. Adapt or perish. But the old ways are gone and aren't coming back.

You can farm your heart out. But the game on whole changes through time. Realize why you are farming. Working towards a goal? FoW armor? 15k armor? Simply money in bank? Once you sort that out this types of questions won't bother you anymore.

Anet wants you to have fun. So have fun. It's a game.

Senator Tom

Senator Tom

Banned

Join Date: Aug 2005

California

[Dark]

W/

I was farming for my FoW armor one time...like hardcore farming, like 20 hours of farming then a little sleep then more farming. I got banned cause anet thought i was using a third party program, but i wasnt.

lyra_song

lyra_song

Hell's Protector

Join Date: Oct 2005

R/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chop it Off
they did a good job on avoiding that one
And its why Anet introduced GREEN items.

Cheap, affordable, perfect items.

----------------

Some of the BEST farming i've done doesn't make much money (Less than 1 platinum per 12 minutes).

The best money making i ever had was Minotaurs at Elona (1 plantinum per 3-4 minutes).

------------------

Lets dumb down what Anet wrote paragraph by paragraph:

Player driven economy = Good

Guild Wars is PVP oriented, but we need to give PVE players something to do. Rare items are there for PVE players to hunt for, but rare items DONT IMBALANCE PVP.

We could remove the economy by using NPCs for everything, but thats not fun.

Stuff like ecto, shards and gems get expensive at the Trader because of players perceived values.


Anet doesn't want a small percent of players to be able to outbuy casual players and force prices up since they can afford it. They want prices to drop down so casual players can buy stuff too.

Anet discusses 3 methods of how players make money and how they adjust it:

1) Excessive Farming: They make tweaks to shutdown any extreme or excessive way of making money. ie: Skill changes and farming area changes, because it only benefits a small amount of players.

2) Botting: Kill and Ban the Botters

3) Buying Gold: Ban the gold buyers and shut down the companies that sell it.

Spending bought gold raises prices BADLY.

In conclusion, they aren't trying to ruin specifically YOUR fun, they are trying to even out the wealth in the game and keep prices within reason.
-----------------------------

Are they succeeding? well tahts debatable...

MerLock

Academy Page

Join Date: Jun 2005

What about items for Fow armor? Will the shards and ecto ever become affordable for the average player? I think most of the ecto/shards are in the hands of the wealthy who farmed and gained wealth well beyound what the average player could.

So is A.net doing anything about that? Seems to me that ecto prices are just going up because it's harder to farm them now. As if they weren't expensive enough before.

Dobermann

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jul 2006

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shinto Sharingan
Okay, here's my two cents...

Maybe instead of being a relentless, repetetive, monotonous farmer who helps to drain areas of their loot, you should try to be a more well-rounded player by:
-Working toward some prestigious title.
-Trying out PvP.
LMAO, i got r6 and im heading to a presitgeous title, my tiger <3 pitty bout HA Nerf (6man)

Kijik Oni Hanryuu

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Feb 2006

the 7th level of HELL! J/K Somewhere in GW assassinating things

[acid]members of the KAWS alliance

A/

meh I farm when I'm a few K short of what I want, otherwise I just play like a normal GW addict, and I love to PvP soo much fun hitting that guy with Reaper's Sweep for about a 100 damage then hitting him again with Chilling Victory then dancing on his body.. Enjoy Reaper's Sweep while it lasts guy, it's got a nerf laser on it >.<.. Anyway, I hope Anet gives us better quest rewards, like 1-2k for the harder quests.

MerLock

Academy Page

Join Date: Jun 2005

I'm not too sure about these stats either.

"In fact, our statistics show that 50% of all active accounts have fewer than 10 platinum pieces, and 75% of all active accounts have fewer than 20 platinum pieces. So when we make small tweaks here and there to keep the economy under control, please understand that we’re not trying to make the game harder for the average player. We work hard to understand how normal players play and how extreme players play, and then find just the minimal changes necessary to keep the economy healthy and fair."

Are they looking at the entire account as in storage as well? I'm sure a lot of the players have invested their wealth in 15k armor, ectos. , rubies, sapphire, etc.

It's like saying I only have 10 bucks by looking only at my wallet. Or that I only have 10 bucks even though I own a mansion and a nice car and most of my money are in stocks.

Verkinix

Verkinix

Academy Page

Join Date: Aug 2006

Order Of The Purple Phoenix

E/R

Quote:
Originally Posted by MerLock
What about items for Fow armor? Will the shards and ecto ever become affordable for the average player? I think most of the ecto/shards are in the hands of the wealthy who farmed and gained wealth well beyound what the average player could.

So is A.net doing anything about that? Seems to me that ecto prices are just going up because it's harder to farm them now. As if they weren't expensive enough before.
Quite frankly, FoW/Vabbian armor sets are prestigue armor. Most casual players wont ever get these. These are mostly for the extreme pve players who do make enough in a week to buy a few ectos/gems/shards or have them drop in places like FoW/UW. Casual players generally wont go to these places on a regular basis to get ectos, let alone the armor itself. I have Vabbian armor on my elem and it cost me nearly 200k when gems were 2-3k cheaper then they are now, but I'm also not a casual player. I dont farm exclusively and not to any magnitude, but I do alot of missions that give money, and that all adds up quickly. I spent a week and got 100% of elona mapped. All in all, I probably got 200k worth of drops, so it all balanced out. Anyway, to get my vabbian set, I had 125k saved up. The rest came from materials I had saved for other things and a few weapons I was saving for a rainy day. Alot of strategy goes into the processes you use to obtain higher prestigue items. Things like, save diamonds now to use them when the next expansion comes out, or buy keys to have chances at chests for really good items.

But in general response, FoW/Vabbian are prestigue armors for extreme players moreso then for casual players. If a casual player wants something more then basic armor sets, 15k armors are available across the map that dont require the expensive materials. They simply require the cash and a few inexpensive materials.

Makkert

Makkert

Black Beast of Aarrrrgghh

Join Date: May 2005

The Netherlands

The Biggyverse [PLEB] // Servants of Fortuna [SoF]

Play the game you want.

manitoba1073

manitoba1073

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jan 2006

ManitobaShipyards Refit and Repair Station

(SFC)Star Fleet Command,(TDE)The Daggerfall elite,(SOoM)Secret order of Magi

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shinto Sharingan
Okay, here's my two cents...

1-Maybe instead of being a relentless, repetetive, monotonous farmer who helps to drain areas of their loot, you should try to be a more well-rounded player by:
2-Playing the game and exploring.
3-Playing elite missions and challenge missions.
4-Working toward some prestigious title.
5-Trying out PvP.
6-Starting a new character of a new profession---try new things, you may find that you like it.
7-Or, I dunno, making good friends and having fun with them!

ok heres a few answers to you. i numbered them easily answer them for you.

1. No one else effects what drops you get. unless you are in a group of people who have farmed alot. each time you enter a zone YOU alone effect your drops. yes its been said by anet.

2. most people have been there done that. they get bored of doing that.

3 . see number 2

4. most titles cost lots of money, hmm where do you think people get that.

5. see number 2

6. see number 2

7. maybe they already have all the friends they wish to make.

now im not gonna tell you to do anything or how to play the game, im just gonna say enjoy the game the way you want to, and let people enjoy there game they want to. just beacuse you dont like farming, its quite obvious others do, and no it dont effect you except by making things more availiable and yes cheaper.

led-zep

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Nov 2005

you'd of thought reducing gold and killing farming would encourage casual players to ebay gold not the other way around.

another person on another thread said it perfectly when they said why should the guy who plays 5 hours a week have the same wealth and weapons as a player who plays 5 hours a day
if someone wants to grind to become rich then why not let them since the rich/poor devide is gettng bigger every day with the way the game is now

Coridan

Coridan

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jun 2006

US

Old Married Gamers {OMG}

W/

LOL my biggest problems with the so called rich....those with over 1 or 2 million is that most of them either got it by BUYING ebay gold or buying Ectos when the merchants were reset.. I have no problem with someone that has 1-2 million gold it can be gotten thru normal play....BUT anything much over that has been gotten either thru a glitch in the system or thru dishonest means. (dishonest = buying uberleet weapons from noob and selling for 100k +xxx ecto even if its not wrong its still "dishonest") I have been playing for almost a year and have 150-200k gold...I doubt that I have seen over 1 million gold coins drop from all of the mobs I have killed so even if I were to save every gold piece I would still have way less than 1 million gold and nothing but collectors armor and weapons..which i doubt if any does...maybe this is a rant and i deserve(sp) some flames but just felt like adding my 2 cents worth to the mix :P

Coridan A

Marvel M

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Nov 2005

N/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by You just got tomahawked
This is an honest non confrontational question intended for Gaile Gray. This is an honest question and not being facetious. This is also not a trick question. Does Anet want us to just play through the story and then drop the game or do they want us to just get what we need and then play it casually or do they want us to farm and get R14 hero and all that?

If Gaile could answer this I'd be happy person.
Ok this thread actually made me laugh for a few reasons. I'm looking at the DOA thread that is about 1500 responses from players and no real response from Anet/NcSoft maybe I missed it. However am I to believe that Gaile Gray is suppose to respond to you on a matter that has been brought up before and responded to before. I just don't see it happening - But hey you made me laugh this morning so I give you points for that. Also why not take the question directly to GG instead of putting it on the board. I'm sure in Guildwars support area there is a way to ask a question and one day get a response. Granted it may be a generic response but a response none the less.

Take Care..

CyberNigma

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jan 2006

San Antonio, TX

W/R

Quote:
Originally Posted by led-zep
you'd of thought reducing gold and killing farming would encourage casual players to ebay gold not the other way around.

another person on another thread said it perfectly when they said why should the guy who plays 5 hours a week have the same wealth and weapons as a player who plays 5 hours a day
if someone wants to grind to become rich then why not let them since the rich/poor devide is gettng bigger every day with the way the game is now
lol, sounds like someone that remembers the old days of taking your turns for the day on Trade Wars :-)

lyra_song

lyra_song

Hell's Protector

Join Date: Oct 2005

R/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by MerLock
What about items for Fow armor? Will the shards and ecto ever become affordable for the average player? I think most of the ecto/shards are in the hands of the wealthy who farmed and gained wealth well beyound what the average player could.

So is A.net doing anything about that? Seems to me that ecto prices are just going up because it's harder to farm them now. As if they weren't expensive enough before.
I think FoW is designed to be beyond the average player. Its designed to player with some dedication.

A non-average player will farm, trade, and find a way to get the materials. The more hardcore will get it faster.

Me, Im making a FoW set for my ranger, and i wont be done for months. Will I finish? Yes. Am I an average player? Hardly. I have a friend making a FoW set for his Dervish and he's about 75% done with materials already.

makosi

makosi

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Mar 2006

"Pre-nerf" is incorrect. It's pre-buff.

Requirement Begins With R [notQ]

Me/

Quote:
Originally Posted by lyra_song
I think FoW is designed to be beyond the average player. Its designed to player with some dedication.

A non-average player will farm, trade, and find a way to get the materials. The more hardcore will get it faster.

Me, Im making a FoW set for my ranger, and i wont be done for months. Will I finish? Yes. Am I an average player? Hardly. I have a friend making a FoW set for his Dervish and he's about 75% done with materials already.
Anet don't mind farming so long as your gold is sunk. FoW armour is the best available sink which removes over a million+ gold from the economy keeping prices stable and prevents inflation. However if you start a botting frenzy or a farming team in an Eastern Asian country with a dozen kids farming it to be sold on Ebay it only adds to the economic circular flow of income. Then prices rise and everything half-decent becomes 100k+ and casual players (the target market of Guild Wars) lose out.

If you enjoy farming and it makes you buy the upcoming chapters, more slots, UAX packs then so-be-it I guess. Just don't violate the EULA and give yourself an unfair advantage.

Pro-Monk

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Dec 2005

First, the quote from Mike O'Brien is quite old and actually pre-dates Factions or Nightfall. However. it does contain a great deal of insight into how Anet has "tweaked" gameplay. Of interest is the information relating to percentages of player having 10, 20, or more plat. To me, it reveals that a huge percentage of the player base is less interested in trophy hunting (titles, hard to get items, etc.) and a great deal more interested in having fun killing monsters as they progress through the story-line.

It is also insightful that Anet has based many gameplay changes on the "extreme player" vs. the "normal player". In fact, there is a good probability that the design of Factions, Nightfall, and future chapters, was and will be heavily influenced by these two groups of players. Given that the huge percentage of players (75% of active accounts) have only a minimum of gold, it is a safe bet that there is a similar ratio between normal and extreme players. However, Anet seems to continually be "tweaking" the game in favor of the extreme players which has not contributed to a "healthy and fair" economy.

The extreme player enters each Chapter with:

A) More gold
B) Better equipped characters (armor, skills, weapons, etc)
C) Much greater knowledge of the overall game

Such being the case, the extreme players will totally rape each Chapter unless Anet responds by making the game tougher and providing "elite" areas which are tailored for the extreme players. As a result, the overall gameplay (simply killing monsters to advance through the game) has become much more difficult for the normal player. The expression of normal players in these forums that the game has become more frustrating than fun supports the notion that the game has shifted more towards the extreme player.

How you choose to play the game is entirely up to you, as a normal player or an extreme player. If you choose be a normal player, it's likely you'll find the game frustrating and quit. If you choose to become an extreme player, be prepared to live and breath GW so that you can beat anything the game has to offer with ease and become part of the 25% that has the wealth. It's pretty obvious that Anet has supported the latter.

Loviatar

Underworld Spelunker

Join Date: Feb 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pro-Monk

It is also insightful that Anet has based many gameplay changes on the "extreme player" vs. the "normal player". In fact, there is a good probability that the design of Factions, Nightfall, and future chapters, was and will be heavily influenced by these two groups of players. Given that the huge percentage of players (75% of active accounts) have only a minimum of gold, it is a safe bet that there is a similar ratio between normal and extreme players. However, Anet seems to continually be "tweaking" the game in favor of the extreme players which has not contributed to a "healthy and fair" economy.

.
actually the game seems headed (in my opinion) in the opposite casual player direction which makes me happy even though my hours/items might put me into your extreme class.

Anet is finally starting the step by step process to make game changes stated in an interview as GW came out.

guild halls used to be priced out of most hands due to sigil prices

runes before the rune trader were costly to prohibitive 500 gold for minors of all types to 60-75k sup vigor and 100k sup absorb and 5k-15k were common on needed popular runes of all classes

greens for cheap

dye trader?.....remember the pre trader prices?

i hope for a mod trader one day

it costs less now than it did before and i expect the cost of living to keep going down.

Antheus

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jan 2006

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pro-Monk
Such being the case, the extreme players will totally rape each Chapter unless Anet responds by making the game tougher and providing "elite" areas which are tailored for the extreme players. As a result, the overall gameplay (simply killing monsters to advance through the game) has become much more difficult for the normal player. The expression of normal players in these forums that the game has become more frustrating than fun supports the notion that the game has shifted more towards the extreme player.

How you choose to play the game is entirely up to you, as a normal player or an extreme player. If you choose be a normal player, it's likely you'll find the game frustrating and quit. If you choose to become an extreme player, be prepared to live and breath GW so that you can beat anything the game has to offer with ease and become part of the 25% that has the wealth. It's pretty obvious that Anet has supported the latter.
This is simply not true. Nightfall is currently by far the easiest of all campaigns. Prophecies may come through as somewhat easier, but it was also designed with a different set of skills in mind and most of it isn't level 20 content.

This is just complete defeatist attitude. If anything, the general opinion was, that NF campaign should have been harder. Dividng between normal and extreme player is a cop-out. GW is casual game. You can play the game casually. In WoW, you cannot do molten core unless you invest 6 months into the game. You. Can. Not. In GW, you can enter DoA right after you finish the campaign. And based on the players I met there, they had quite some success.

Of course, "i'm not hardcore and never will complete anything" is wrong attitude. The worst players in GW are the grinders. They grind their LB rank. They grind their money. They grind their sunspear rank. They grind runes. They grind equipment. But once put up with even slight challenge, they fall apart. They are simply using the wrong aproach in the game. And that is why they fail. But unfortunately, mindsets don't change. So yes, some quit game in frustration. But it's not the casual players.

Gregslot

Gregslot

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Aug 2006

Me/

double post, delete this one
sry

Gregslot

Gregslot

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Aug 2006

Me/

Quote:
We think that, expressed in its most general terms, our responsibility is to keep the distribution of wealth as fair as possible, so that normal players can afford to bid for items in a player-driven economy.
Quote:
At ArenaNet we play the game just like you do, so we know that for most of you, gold is a precious commodity that you work hard to attain. In fact, our statistics show that 50% of all active accounts have fewer than 10 platinum pieces, and 75% of all active accounts have fewer than 20 platinum pieces.
Today, December 8th, 2006

Rare Material Prices:

Glob of Ecto.: 9,000 gold
Ruby: 9,000 gold
Saphire: 9,000 gold
Obsi Shard: 2,500 gold

How can ANY normal player afford this?

Loviatar

Underworld Spelunker

Join Date: Feb 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Antheus

Of course, "i'm not hardcore and never will complete anything" is wrong attitude. The worst players in GW are the grinders. They grind their LB rank. They grind their money. They grind their sunspear rank. They grind runes. They grind equipment. But once put up with even slight challenge, they fall apart. They are simply using the wrong aproach in the game. And that is why they fail. But unfortunately, mindsets don't change. So yes, some quit game in frustration. But it's not the casual players.
i am PVE to the core and hench now hero everything as i may want to do do something else or something comes up in the middle of a mission/quest/exploring.

if i am with real people i am obligated to finish instead of dropping out.

henchies live or die if my cat wants patting/the phone rings/i want to do something else.

there are some areas i will never see even in chapter 1 but i still have fun by playing if/when/where i am able/as i feel like it.

after 19 months played and just under 1300 hours i have bit by bit gotten everything i want including my very first set of Droks armor which i still like.

i play for fun not a fixed must have goal and am still having fun

it is a game to me not an alternate life and yes i will get the CE for both accounts when ch. 4 comes out

Stormcloud

Stormcloud

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jul 2006

Oregon, USA

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gregslot
Today, December 8th, 2006

Rare Material Prices:

Glob of Ecto.: 9,000 gold
Ruby: 9,000 gold
Saphire: 9,000 gold
Obsi Shard: 2,500 gold

How can ANY normal player afford this?

The point I think you are missing is that you can afford MAX armor/weapons at any level of play so to speak. This does not imply that they feel EVERYONE should walk around in FoW or Vabbian armors.

Without some of the measures they have taken the average player could not even afford to get max armor. I remember a time I think before Factions came out when common crafting materials were very high. At the time I couldnt even afford to buy materials for Droks armor. Now when Nightfall came out I didnt see much if any change in common material prices.

Sir Skullcrasher

Sir Skullcrasher

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jun 2005

California

15 over 50 [Rare]

W/Mo

Is it me, or i don't care about famring for gold or items anymore.

Stormcloud

Stormcloud

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jul 2006

Oregon, USA

I find that I no longer "farm" for money, but im stuck still with chests. The changes they have made to chests IE randomizing for all party members has only affected me in that I no longer seek chest groups.

With that said I still go chest hunting because of that addicting title

My only hope while popping chests is an occational Item that will net me another 30 keys or so.