Guild Wars Economy: Who's to Blame?

I have been hearing lots of complaints about the Guild Wars economy and how many rare items (crystalline swords, Green Items, etc) items have been devalued as the game has progressed. Many people, most of which have been playing the game since the beginning, claim that many rare items sold for upwards of 2 million G when the game first came out are now only selling for 10-15K. I, myself, have only been playing for half a year, so I have no recollection of such sellings.

One particular individual, who had countless maxed characters and farmed for ectos in his sleep, basically blamed it on newbs, saying that the introduction of green items caused many items to become readily accessable to those who shouldnt have been able to earn the items that quickly, which caused an influx of the items and inflation in the overall economy.

Another player basically blamed those who HAVE the maxed characters, saying that those who have nothing left to do but farm greens are to blame by putting a massive amount of items into circulation for people to buy instead of actually earn them in the environment.

What are your thoughts on the issue, and do you think that the economy is experiencing inflation and if that inflation will ever be detrimental to the economy of the game?

Both of those players are idiots.

Inflation is when prices go up, not down.

I mean, this is all economy 101. Supply and demand. When first of a kind object is found, it has insanely high prices.

There is some blame to be put on some people, but not for ruining the economy, just for affecting the perception.

As certain builds apeared (here's a reference to ecto farming, riverside runs, and similar), a select handful of individuals amassed absurd ammounts of money in short time. They were the rare few who could afford to pay any price for items they wanted.

In times, when players had trouble buying basic armor, they were holding on to full inventories of sup runes worth 100k each. So they set their ratios. Millions upon millions, to the extent where cap was put on money in inventory.

But as this money was diluted, the overall wealth of population increased. Along with that, the total number of available items steadily increased, driving prices down.

Now, to the point of calling those two idiots. They complain about the economy, because they can no longer simply farm ectos or their favorite green, and make a killing out of a very simple routine.

But what is wrong with economy? The fact that you can no longer afk farm UW? Or that people realized it's not worth paying 100k+xx ectos for some skin?

Supply and demand.

For the record, crystaline and elemental swords still sell for absurd ammounts of money, as well as some other artefacts. The supply of those is so small, and they are extremly desirable.

The rest, is mostly balanced.

All prices are going to go down because there is no cost to find them and more supplies are coming into the game.

This isn't like real life where the cost of creating the item and man hours is taken from your profits forcing the price to rise when either of those factors go up.

All prices will go down as the game progresses. Weapon prices are always going to go down. Very few people have the gold to actually buy them. If you can't sell an item for what you are asking for you will lower the prices. You're not making anything by the item sitting in your inventory. The longer it sits in your inventory the more the value goes down.

This is true, but i think the fact that items are so easy to attain may cause problems in the future. If items are worth less, then that means you can't sell them for much. This means making money becomes harder and harder, especially since to new AoE updates have made farming much more arduous, meaning it takes many painstakingly boring hours to attain, a set of FoW armor for instance.

The longer an item has been in the market/game, the more there will be, aka, the less they will sell for.

-Merry Christmas [Eve]-

Ding. Give this guy a cookie.

People payed insane amounts for those items because they either had the money from massive powerfarming or good trading and had nothing else to spend it on and had to have the item right now for whatever reason OR they e-bayed the gold and didn't care about value. I think 90% of the initial severe overpricing was from the first group, tbh. Not that that's a bad thing, that just made more people get out there to farm a specific item in the hopes of getting rich quick which in turn flooded the market, devaluing the items. Now there's a good supply for the not-so-rich in game and there's a lot more happy players that don't have the time to farm the item, are extremely unlucky drop wise, or just want it now.

They shouldn't get mad at noobs, it is all Anet fault. They do the double drop weekends and other events that change the prices

if you have been playing for a few months you should have seen examples of this yourself. white dyes were >60k when they first entered the game(not just from the trader, players to) and nightfall greens are quickly dropping in price as more people get the game. like someone said its econ 101(although i haven't taken econ yet) when new things enter the market they start out very expensive but steadily decline in price.

Which would explain the introduction of Green Items, A-net came up with new items that were worth insane amounts of money as those first rare drops.

So it seems that the answer is for A-net to constantly come out with new items to satisfy the old players and thir explorations, while the older items will provide reachable goals for the new player to "catch-up" with.

EVERYTHING is worthless has been since day 1. Its a perceived make believe value that is on these skins for want of a better word. I don't want to flame this but hearing this crap always pisses me off.
Look at it this way OK

day one 0 of item x in the game.
someone finds one in a drop or chest or boss drops.
Then there is 1 of item x in game. Max price for item achieved.
days go on more people find it.
then there is 50 of item x in the game. Max price prob at least 1/2 what it was the first day.
months go by and there is 100s of item x in the game.
Price is now prob 1/4 what it was on day 1.
Months more go by and there will be 1000s of the item in the game.
Then millions and so on. they are not destroyed you see. they can only go up in supply, not down unless someone sells to the merchant. Which is unlikely. But even still unless its done in HUGE amounts as it is with ecto and gems for large amounts of Gold. then the supply remains growing forever.

Now this is Econ 101 again... as supply goes up, price falls, and demand decreases. that's just the way it is for EVERY item in the game no matter how cool you THINK it is.

By game design NOTHING in the game was ever to be traded for amounts over 100K, this is FACT. But the greedy idiots in the game that play this MARKET game instead of Guild Wars believe otherwise. Fact, if there is something going for 2million gold, wait 3 months it will be far far under that if not under 100k itself. that's for EVERY item in the game. and every new item in the game. So never purchase something for ungodly amounts thinking you will be able to flip your investment in 6 months time. It just does not happen. In fact its impossible to happen unless the supply of the item is cut off completely. Never to return. I'm thinking of things like Peppermint candy canes here... In 3 or 4 years time if those kind of CC never return they will be astronomical. Or something like the -50 and -20 health item if it is ever taken out of the game those items will sky rocket. if they are allowed to continue to exist. Many rumors in fact had started to circulate ages ago trying to convince people that the items were removed in an effort to get them to jump in price, and it was 100% bogus. so that's something to be aware of too.

Lets put it this way... if you have 2 million gold in hand ready to waste on anything in this game, well you deserve to loose your shirt for doing it. cause you are either a bot, a bot wannabe, or a gold buyer. there is no reason at all in this game to ever purchase anything for much over 100k even for the vainest of Vain. and those that DO are insane and supporting a gold reseller market I can 100% guarantee.

Hmm...i kinda have to disagree, because other than pvp making money is the only thing to do in this game after you beat the story.

@ ingram: just because someone has more gold than you (i.e. millions+) does not mean they are a gold buyer. I have never touched ebay and my account easily exceeds three or four million gold. As for prices decreasing and items devaluing, cry about it. If you feel like buying the item the day it comes out, expect it to to devalue, and expect to take losses on your (lack) of an investment, it's just how the economy goes.

Anyone who takes fake internet money too seriously is to blame.

No ones to blame, theres nothing wrong with the economy.

This has nothing to with the post really, but it was quite ironic that your name is "Gimme Money" lol....nice

Then there's also those who take the "I am casual and its unfair for me! Anet says its no grind, make everything cheap now!" who take the notion of no grinding for competition to the wrong direction...

My conclusion is...BOTH. There should be an balanced number of items for each type of people. Everything too expensive = bad. Everything too cheap = boring/nothing to look forward to.

It is quite balanced, as you can buy rare skins/fissure armor if you're uber rich or you can buy 15^50 collectors items for 5k, maybe mod them for a bit more. Or you could play the drops if you're really poor. Just because you don't have a lot of money, rare skins, and fissure armor does not mean the game is unfair.

Inflation is good.

Not true, think of my stash of Yuletide tonics iv got rdy to sell in march? rite now ppl hav gone crazy an started sellin em 400g each an drinkin them..ill keep about 10-20 an sell them all before the next holiday event 4 somthin like 5k each - i think in economics it would be referred to as a collection or antique..their price always goes up

inflating my storage balance is even better.

The problem is sellers and buyers, it will never change as long as someone is willing to buy someone elses over priced item. As far as I am concerned, Anet has made great effert to drive prices on everything lower to a point, buy implimententing all the changes they have, inscriptions and such. Still not all items fall into the new changes, but making money whether you buy it off game or make it yourself is quite easy, and money is worthless if their is nothing to spend it on. That probably explains why chest give more grapes then ever before and golds are becoming rare. I say just let it take it's course, the economy.

It's sellers. Not all, but most.
When someone asks you to make an offer on something they have, first rule is to cancel the window and say 'it's probably too expensive'...you play that stupid game for as long as you can and you'll eventually get a price that is decent.
I rarely ever got a decent price from anyone except saints in this game.
Prices are still out of whack for many items, but some are getting better.

If you think a 20% upgrade is worth 10k more than a 19% upgrade you are part of why the market is so bad. You are gouging others because you think you can get away with it, even though the upgrade offers no tangible benefit.

I got 2 people ragging on me for what I sold an item for to another person today. Said I sold it for way to little and that I was an idiot. The greed in this game makes me sick sometimes. Not just in the economy, in the wintersday games, any arena....ect.

I agree on how some items go up in price, but I think there is a psychological block that will prevent most people from paying 5k to turn into an elf. Take a look at the original Candy Canes. I had farmed 1000 of them and held on to them for months. It's true that I saw them go up in price, and made some easy money, but you could only really sell them at the right time. When new "elite" areas came out, and everyone had to get to the end for the rewards, that's when the cc were golden. But even then, I wouldn't even try to sell at 5k, and that's for an item with a genuine use.

My point being that most people will step back for a second and say, is this really worth it? Do I want the possible reward enough to lose out on my gold? For most of us on these forums, 1k, even 5k is change, but I would never buy a cc for 5k, right? So an even smaller gain imo, the change into an elf, will never be worth that much.

I'm not trying to flame you personally, so please take no offense. I just want to point out that any item in the game has a psychological limit to it's "worth."

The OP started this thread asking "Who's to Blame?" While not everyone might think that "blame" needs to be assigned, the simple fact is that we are ALL "to blame" in that the entire GW community is responsible for the prices on the various Greens, ecto's, etc. The poster who said it's all Economics 101 was dead on.

Property (whether real, tangible, or electronic) has only the value that the parties to a transaction involving said property believe it to have. If I am willing to sell my end-game "perfect" Green to you for 5 bolts of cloth and a Yuletide Tonic, then that Green is worth exactly 5 bolts of cloth and a Yuletide Tonic. Later it might go up in value (it likely won't go down), but the only time we can measure value is when value is exchanged. In fact, nothing in anyone's account is actually worth anything until you seek a valuation.

The value, of course, comes from the utility of various items (crafting armor, etc.), the aesthetics (rare skins), or general enjoyment ("Yay! Finally found a cool spear!"). There could be other reasons, too. The fact of the matter is, most players, whether "noobs" or not, tend to value things similarly. We all want effective weapons, cool skins, etc. So, those things tend to be pricier. Just as if tomorrow we all wanted nothing but piles of glittering dust (some sort of holiday bash?) and all decided to buy as much of it as possible, the price would skyrocket.

So, if you want a short answer (and if you read this far, you obviously don't), to assign responsibility (or blame), just look at your screen. Your characters, and everybody else's all contribute. Econ 101

Personally, i may complain about all the people who have loads of money and wish that i had millions too, but you know what thats the same in real life.

And to say that weapons are devalued, yea maybe compared to original prophecies. But the weapon system change is for the better IMO. Before Factions and NF, i had maybe 10k max over my characters, because the costs for the items needed to make characters weapons were ungodly. Ranger mods for example. Ranger +30 and 20/20 mods used to go for above 50k easy. now +30 grips are barely worth 10k and 20/20 mods are worth roughly 20kish last i checked. But you know what i like this change. It doesnt mean i have to make myself broke just to fit my characters with the weapons they need.

And the whole idea about weapons being sold for 2million now selling for 10-15k. Its just like people have already said. Its just simple Economics. But just because those rares sell for low prices doesn't mean there arent rare skins still. Dead Swords and Elemetal Sword for instance are both rare skins that easily fetch 100k. IMO they are worth 100k too because of the rarity of the skin. Look at Collosal Scimitars too. A req 10 was sold for like what 1.6 million or something outrageous?

The ONLY downside to inscriptions is the fact that there are less rare skins overall, but thats only in NF. If you go back to prophecies, those gold maxed rare drops will still fetch good money, just because too old players those weapons and skins have meaning to them.

I will say this however. The only thing i do not like about the economy and weapon skins is the fact that warriors get all the damn rare skins. Seriously, what the hell. Even if its just like one rare skin per profession i wouldn't mind. But come on, just look at the prices on the rare skins in some of the topics in the sell forum. ALL the highest expensive skins are for Warriors. Thats my only complaint.

So leave the economy the way it is. It works fine.

you have a good economy if the currency has a strong purchasing power. (e.g. buying crystalline swords for 10k instead of 2 million, buying black dyes for 10g instead of 9k is definitely a sign of a great economy). you should be glad that you can buy good things with less amount of gold.

at least you're playing in a game with a good economy. all other mmorpgs have crap economy. crap economy promotes grind and an evidence of crap economy is high inflation.

Ok ive seen alot of people complain and alot of people who could carless and some who made valid points etc..

think of it like this ok .. right now the xbox and ps3 just hit give it a year or two price will drop and supply and demand works it self into the world...

or better yet think of gw economy like the stock market .. always fluaxuating and never staying the same .. hey look the elemental sword is up to 700k.. ill save my money for 2 months putting back 2k aday .. 2 months pass elemental sword is now 200k.. the ammount of the item is now more abundant yay .. i am now able to buy ioit .. ....... ok was just an example .. that things and items in gw will never stay the same always changing along with prices and the ammount of it .. the longer it is out and the more abundant it becomes .. "THE MORE ABSOLUTE" it becomes .. just as things in the real world .. so instead of complaining and whining etc.. make a game plan on how to make money or to save it rather then complaning about somthign you can fix your self ^_^

at least gold still has a value in GW. Even though ectos are used, they still are only worth a variable amount of gold.

gold that is easily acquirable > soj's (diablo 2) for example.

the GW economy could never withstand the 'boom' that occurred in the first summer. There is no way in my mind that I can see it.

Kids the above post is why we need you to just say NO to drugs.

Perfect Crystallines and Dwarvens will ALWAYS be WAY ABOVE 100k and worth every plat. Yes Virgina some items are just that rare.

Guarantee we are bots or ebayers eh? I bought my first set of FoW the week they fixed the quest so you could actually craft it. There weren't ANY gold sellers THEN. I don't bot nor am I a wanna be bot. Some of us like in the real world know how to make money. One thing you will find in both wealthy gamers and wealthy people is ... we don't sit around crying about the other guys money we find a way to make it for ourselves. First few mill was runes and sigils then came the pbond 55monk with a dash of highend selling ... I know where my money came from. The number of ebayers in this game is so small it is a joke. If there was a glut of them we wouldn't have to spam for hours or days on end to sell a high end item. Jealous clueless self proclaimed know it alls ftl.

That is not a good economy, that means money has stopped dropping. Deflation that bad will never happen and I hope to God and Country that it doesn't.

Inflation will continue as long as money keeps getting pumped into circulation faster than it leaves it. This happens in almost every MMORPG, things like armor crafting fees, trader overhead, and salvage kits can't offset the neverending tide of coin drops and merchant sales.

The only real effect of this is that farming coin drops and vendor junk becomes less lucrative. If everyone has twice as much money, the price of everything will double, you'll be able to sell anything you find for twice as much, but a 98-gold coin drop will not get you as much.

This is for the most part fine. As with any other MMORPG, all this really does is gravitate things more and more towards finding items that other players want instead of directly farming money. It's already much more lucrative to farm golds, greens, and crafting mats than it is to farm money.

Prices drop on things because ANYTHING is expensive when it's NEW. People who have money to burn will be the first to buy things for bragging rights. Once tons of people have something, the market gets oversaturated and people start dropping prices so they can continue to move product. This happens with anything, no matter how rare it is.

In the end though: You can still go from zero to nearly maxed-out (stat-wise) in a matter of weeks, provided you start with nothing. Everything beyond that is doing stuff like paying 20k for an extra +1HP on your sword, or looking prettier. The economy is FINE.

Who says the economy is broken? Material prices are as stable as they've ever been. Other than the inevitable spike to rubies and sapphires, most other materials haven't changed much at all. Weapon mod pricing has come down to a fairly reasonable level. Most runes are very affordable.

Does no one remember when ecto was 15K or higher? Black dye at 20K. Superior Vigor and Absorption runes at 70K and 100K respectively? Or 100K for a +30 sword pommel, 50K for 20% enchant pommels?

blame who for what? i think the value on greens and most gold items is great concidering people that dont want to spend their lives getting a neat item. and i also think that green double drop rate should stay in effect instead of being a special event so people dont have to kill the same boss over and over like a mindless drone.
i also think the items value decrease has given botters and online gold sellers a swift kick in the nads...totally speculation but in my mind thats what i think and if so, lol yay

Players jack up prices. It is a supply and demand system.

Hmm...although I too as a rather rich player do get irritated by assholes claiming I accumulated my wealth in an unfair way some things you said here are different than how I see them. See, there are a few differences with how I made money and how you made money. The amount of money I made farming is a joke. I don't even think 50k, and I farmed for a while as well. I never made my money though exploiting things in the game before I came (such as thk chest and trader recent, plus unconditional weps to name a few things). I came to this game roughly june 2006. And I recently took like a 2 month break too because I got bored a lot.

I would say I merchanted a month or so, and made enough money to buy FoW. I will tell you the secret though, how to do this. Because there is a secret. It is buyer and seller manipulation, and waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. I started small, with green weapons. Then, I went up to rare golds, and I happened to get LUCKY. For those people saying merchanting is skill and learning the market, yes this is true but it is luck. You get lucky that the idiot seller is selling you a crystalline for 30e less than its worth. You get lucky that the idiot buyer is buying it for 30e more than its worth. Really, thats the only way I can explain it, item merchants are fortunate to encounter these idiots and manipulate them.

Deflation is good for this game though, as sadly as I want to admit it. It gives hope for the new players to get elite items. But still, come on Anet. At least give older players SOMETHING left, don't make absolutly everything so noob friendly. Jeez, it does irritate me when the newb (new player) gets everything the older and richer player has (stat wise) and still complains. Or...so I thought. But, I would be irritated too, because if I wasn't lucky enough to merchant my way up, I would be pissed the older player has more money just because he started earlier, and took advantage of exploits before they were fixed. Does this make sense?

Difference is I have been playing since day one. Trust me I know how to buy and sell.

I don't doubt that, but the start-up is the hardest part of merchanting, as we can both agree correct? Think about it now, for a new player, how much harder this start up is, compared to someone playing from day 1.

The only thing wrong with the economy is that Anet keeps adding easier ways to make gold, but removes the gold sinks.

So you end up with more gold and less ways to spend it.

But with more gold, people buy more items and prices inflate. So its a never ending circle and it will always get worse.

An example is more quests giving gold, but then they give away things like salvage and indentification kits for free using commendations.

Items which would have cost up to 1 or 2k at one time.

We need more gold inks to remove gold from the economy. It has nothing to do with the availablity of greens and rare items and skins and dyes.

Who's to blame you ask? There's a good place to start right there. Of course he's going to blame the newbs, he doesn't want to blame himself and fellow farmers.

Someone doesn't understand that supply and demand are relative things. What happens when someone finds a crystalline sword in one of the new Elona chests? Saying "Always" about things that are beyond your control makes you look pompous at best, sadly misinformed t worst. If ANET decided tomorrow to add a collector that gave out Crystalline skin swords, would they still be worth 100k + xx ectos? What makes you think that they're worth that NOW? Just becuse you can sometimes sell something for that much, is that the only indicator of worth?

It's really sad that people see someone with FoW armor and immediately assume "bot," or "ebay buyer." On the other hand, though, it shows how thoroughly items, even "prestige" items can be devalued. Whatever FoW armor is worth, the popular opinion anymore is to bash the person wearing it as someone who bought gold. Perception CREATES reality in economics.

If ANET screwed up, and introduced a way to get crystalline swords from a specific mob, and people farmed say 5000 of them in a few minutes before it was caught, how long would it take for Crystalline skins to become less valuable? how long before People started being called "bot farmer" or "exploiter" for using a crystalline sword, regardless of where it came from? And, if that DID happen, who would pay more than maybe 10k for one?

Claiming that certain things have an inherent value, when dealing with hundreds or thousands of other people buying and selling the same item, is absurd. Value is what you can get someone ELSE to pay for it, nothing more.