Guild Wars Economy: Who's to Blame?

Nothing wrong with the economy? It seems to me like you need to go pve and find out whats wrong with it. If you had been playing for more than 2 months, you'd know that every trader item was worth at least double its cost back in the day, and items like celestial sigils, sup vigor, and sup absorption rank up to 70k-100k a piece. Sigils are now 6k a piece, and sup absorb is worth 100g. A degrade of 99.9% on a single item means something is very broken about the economy.

I don't pvp much anymore, kthx. Balance in PvP is sucking up to its knees right now.

Sigils is broken, I'll admit that. Superior absorption prices were ridiculous. Superior vigor is a little less than half what it was. That is three items. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/macroeconomics

Those that have played since start know that all three of those items used to sell for OVER 100k. Anet has done a damn fine job of killing the middle class of guild wars. Not sour grapes here .. I made my money long ago.

No offense but MANY of us paid those "ridiculous" prices for those items and lived to tell. Funny thing is that both my sets of war armor have runes from the 100k days guess I should demand a refund. People had to work for armor then now it is considered a right. Problem with gw is everyone wants it all now and easy .. but like in the real world when it happens things lose value fast.

The days when sup asorb were 100k were good days for the rich. GW is now better for the average gamer...and to be fair this game was aimed at the casual gamer market to begin with.

Don't like he way the game is going?? do what I'm doing and get another game.

I'm amazed by all these threads about "broken" economy.
What do you really expect?
Even the World economy is very far from being a balanced working system.

GW is a game with a very simplified economical concept, where we also have 1000's of creative people trying to abuse the system from inside and outside (via ebay) for maximum personal benefit. You can of course argue that that makes it very much like a real economy .

To make an economy system for a game, that nicely balance supply and demand and that also is resistant to any form for abuse is probably impossible. There are also many different player interests to take into account.

(list just put together for fun...):
* Power farmers, who want very high and stable prices on rare farmable items.
* Power traders, who want high, but also fluctuating, prices to get maximum profit.
* Low end traders, who want fluctuating prices on cheap items like common materials.
* Old rich player, who wishes to stay as an "aristocratic" class unreachable for new players.
* New players, who want everything cheap, at least things that matter gamewise.
* Regular players, who want a few shiny (but obtainable) items that are worth working for.
* Normal farmers, who want high stable prices on not-so-rare items.
* Equalists, who want everyone to have access to everything (independent of time spent in game).
* Gold sellers, who want gold to "be worth something" to get enough buyers.
* Power Posers, that want the most expensive stuff, no matter what.
* Nostalgics, who want anything to be as it was when they started to play.
* Anet, who of course want as many as possible to like the game.

I bet you can't make a system where not several of these groups will complain...

Regards,
Cloudbunny

Am I the only one that considers an economy where every item is available to everyone subject to a day or two of work at gaining money a good economy?

After all, are not the above mentioned tulips or the Tokio real estates of a few years back a sign of problems with the economy?

I liked it better back then. when superior runes actually were superior and not everyone could get them. back then playing and farming was actually rewarding. and now, 18 months and 3 campaigns later I have everything I ever wanted in GW. good items, a lot of gold, titles, etc, etc. it's no longer fun to play

Trading is one important dimension of a good roleplaying game and should be as important aspect in GW as for example questing or pvp'ing.

GW will soon have one dimension less if this kind of ''make everything available right now and for free'' mentality continues.

No, I believe that would be called a bad economy. The USSR tried something along those lines and look where it got them. Capitalistic societies (which is most definitely GW) have the best economy.

Actually you are wrong. Those days were good for people wanting to make money not just those that had it. If you have millions you would rather spend 200 gold for a sup absorb not 100k plus. Sure the rich will get richer in that system BUT the average Joe had a chance to apply themselves and join their ranks.Now you have people able to get almost anything for next to nothing. Which is great right? Till they need to buy armor and cap sigs/skills or dare I say a title like treasure hunter. Where does that money come from now? Unless a stock holder in Anet .. please don't spew their doctrine on how they want to make money. It is laughable to say that an adventure game is aimed at a casual gamer ... the game isn't but they sure as hell are happy when people pay for it and don't use their bandwidth.

Guru favorite or not you shouldn't have thrown in that go play wow line.

Look at these people who think that their self worth comes from being able to afford ridiculous prices on such items such as sigils, superior vigor and absorption runes. And look at them getting angry that the average person can afford them now. It's both laughable and maddening to see that attitude.

And for crying out loud, things arent "free" Stop using ridiculous exaggerations to try to make a point. Things are cheaper, not free. You still have to work to get them. But now, people don't have to spend idiotic amounts of time just to afford a rune.

Discussions on economics will always run into the same problem: most people don't have a clue when it comes to basic economic theory and principles.

In my opinion, one of the best things about GW is that a *very* casual gamer can play through it without being put at a severe functional disadvantage in PvE. Collector weapons and armor and dropped items can carry you through the game, even with the rampant inflation we have now.

However, if you want a specific weapon skin or mod or armor, you're going to have to work for it. You don't really "need" those things, but they need to give more rabid gamers something to work towards. This is the point of 15k armor and FoW armor - to suck up money from people who don't seem to have anything better to do than play GW. Otherwise, even more of that money would be spent on weapons and mods, driving up inflation and driving away new gamers.

Which brings us to what I see as the biggest problem for the GW economy - ebay gold, etc. It, too, drives up prices, and much faster than legitimately wealthy high level players ever could.

I recall my shock, as a noob, upon coming through from pre-searing and finding people advertising weapons for 50K. I had never had so much as 25g in my little noob hands.

I don't see this as a fatal flaw , but plenty of people certainly find it to be annoying. GW is experiencing the sort of problems you'd have if anyone could just start printing their own money in the real world; gold farmers go out and kill things and essentially "make" new gold, and introduce it into the GW economy through ebay and such. This is what makes gold farming possible and prevents any decent amount of control over the GW economy.

Perhaps the threshold at which an account can be suspected of botting can be lowered, and a window can pop up with the sort of composite image they use to screen registrations for forums (including this one), and the player has a certain time limit to type the text and numbers into a field and click a button. Bots will not be able to handle this, and then the account can be suspended for a time. Repeat incidents could earn a permanent ban. This might be able to take a large bite out of the gold farming market.

Anyone posting about Ebay gold killing the economy should be made to spend a few months in lions arch. Those "gold farmers" are not making the bulk of that gold from coin drops. They are selling items to the gw public for gw gold. This drives prices DOWN because they flood the market with items to meet quotas. Those "bots" are sweatshop workers in developing countries. Want to get rid of them? Then solve world hunger and poverty ... or they are not going anywhere. I am not trying to sound like I want the "Chinese farmers" but I am bright enough to see they are not leaving (they are in every game like this) and only drive prices down for that "casual gamer". The gamer that buys the Ebay gold is almost always a self correcting problem ... they get all they want too fast and grow bored and move on. Many of the nerfs from Anet have been courtesy of their Jihad against the "Chinese farmer" all suffer because a company is miffed someone is making money off their product.

Personally i think the introduction of Green Items was both a good and a bad thing. It caused demand for the expensive hard to find items to go down but also created an opening for less experianced players to obtain the stats they desire without farming for 2 months for it. No one is to blame i ts simple economics. Now if Guildwars decides to STOP offering skin X or green X those people wont be complaining. But aslong as there is a stedy suply of an item prices will go down.

All I can I say, people crying about not able to sell some trivial rune (Absor) for 100K got what they deserved and should have seen it coming.

The economy is fine and trying to justify it as being broken for the 'middle class' (whatever that means in a MMO) is delussional, disengenious and motivated by greed.

Heroes, in my opinion, are a huge gold sink. I agree with your logic, but I think there are gold sinks in place already.

What exactly are they flooding the market with? Runes and other trader items, yes, can lower prices by providing a larger supply. However, the quotas they are meeting, they're in gold, right? And this gold goes to...?

I agree that players who buy 2 sets of black FoW armor on daddy's credit card tend to lose interest and leave. However, there will be a certain number of them in the game at any given point, and it only takes a very small number of them, as a percentage of the overall GW population, to drive up prices on some items. Most of those items we don't "need", but it's still annoying.

The problem with bots, or with "Chinese farmers" (I personally don't have a problem with the notion of gold farming, just with some of its unfortunate effects in-game), is again that without any sort of decent control of the money supply, you're going to get rampant inflation on items that people want and whose price is fluid.

In other words, they exacerbate a problem inherent in the game. We'd have inflation anyways even without ebay gold, just from regular players who farm or even just play relentlessly. Think what would happen to the real world economy if you could just walk outside, beat your neighbor's dog over the head with a shovel, and have a $100 bill appear.

(1) You'd go shovel more dogs (and other people would probably do so, too)

(2) You'd get inflation as the "new" money went into the economy

This whole issue is further clouded (just like real economics) by people who keep interjecting about "fairness". Economics isn't about what's fair, its about what works; you have to shoehorn "fairness" in where you can. While that task might be easier in a game world, at the same time it's harder, too, because in the game world people can do what they can't (easily) in real life: leave.

leprekan I don't give a FLYING FIG. I don't need gold in this game to enjoy it. I have had a max of 600K in my character playing legitimately. And I spent it on guild services... Big deal... When I play I average 15K a day just from general adventuring, and I turn around and spend that at NPCs for 5k inscription weapons, or gaining collector Items. Those are ALL that is required in this game. Your imaginary crystalline crap can eat itself for all I care. I have given away 3 of them in the past from wins in HoH to guildies that were begging me for them (I'm sure they just turned around and resold them but who cares). They are not that big a deal at all to someone that knows how to play GUILD WARS. You seem to know how to play INFLATION MARKET! If I resorted to that crap for entertainment I would blow my head off.

And to clarify for those that think I am ignoring the OP, The point is it doesn't matter the market crashed. it was never a big deal to begin with, no one needed anything that those kinds of players had high prices on to begin with. And even more so it was pathetic cause anyone can get one with a little time and effort and a end game or PvP character. So the fact that these "people", for want of a better word, do this for enjoyment is sickening.

Its not that its even that bad a thing really, if they would stick to the areas of the game designated for them, IE Trade channels and Trade party searches. But NOO, they not only have to make use of exploits and Bots to farm items, Or worse resell gold to gaming indexes, but they have to stick their big fat heads in every channel making normal interactions for PUGs impossible. Thats why the people that actually PLAY this great game are overjoyed that they are now upset they have no good things to exploit anymore. Its never been about getting stuff cheap we could always do that with collectors and Weaponsmith NPCs. ALWAYS from day one. Its just now these "PEOPLE" can't peddle their wares for high prices anymore to further their Gold reselling empires. and that my friends is worth it.

That is exactly one of the main reasons why I bought GW!!
I tried play Diablo for a while once, but got put down by the insane difference between super-farmers with uberweapons and myself carrying only what I picked up along the road. I certainly do not want to play that kind of game again.

Can't say I care much about the economy. Some things go up some things go down. For me it not a big difference if I spend my few gold coins on runes, skills, gold weapons or give it to friends (well, in fact the latter is much more rewarding in my opinion :-) ). It's gold and it does no good in the storage!

Regards,
Cloudbunny

Only thing worse than a wannabe Ethug is one that is in his 30s. Judging by your tantrum my post was dead on.

Ansgar,
I planned a longer response but my neighbor has a dog. BBL

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/inflation Seems to me that all but a select few items are all going down in prices. This is not inflation. With the exception of nightfall skins and ecto, almost everything is going down.

@HT ingram: congrats on missing the entire point of the thread.

It was a general comment of the past days not just the 100k+ for sup asorbs..everyone knows sup asorb sucks and only idiots paid 100k for it.

This game was designed as a casual game..play it for a few months then put it on the shelf with the other games then go back to it when you feel like it..that is a casual game it does not matter if it is an online game or not.

Where did I mention WoW? I just said if you don't like the direction the game is going go buy another.

Guru favorite? lol hardly...most of the "top brass" would boot me out given the chance.

Sup absorbs suck? Something tells me you never have and never will go very far in this game if you understand mechanics that little (now, maybe they weren't worth 100k compared to major, but they definitely didn't suck...).

Why do people still talk about the economy? Everything in this thread... that's right, all written before. Search? Not needed, just click to page two if this subforum, I am sure there is a thread with a title like:

"Rich People Suck"
"Why does the GW Economy Suck?"
"GW, not really for the casual player"



7resign

Because it's still broken.

And will it ever be fixed?

No, of course not.
Why?
1) Too hard for ANet.
2) We whine and whine whine and whine whine and whine whine and whine whine and whine whine and whine whine and whine, and you get my point.
3) If something changes for the better of the rich, what do the casual players do? Whine.
4) If something changes for the better of the casual players, what do the rich do? Whine.
5) Were human, being human all of us (with possible little expections) are greedy.

So there you have it folks.
This problem will never get fixed.
And so you know what, lets keep pointing fingers, we can do it until the game dies and- hey, guess what.
The Problem will still be there.

So please people, put your fingers down, and stop saying Economics 101, and stop Tutoring each other, and for god's almighty sake...
Stop Whining!!!!!!

I get by perfectly fine enjoying the game as it comes of 500g Armor and a Green weapon. And im only human.

--Edit--

Sorry that post may have been a bit heavy, but the moment i read the first page just got sick of more Economy in Guild Wars topics, my apologies for any form of whatever taken as offense.

I agree with your sentiment, but still contend that the economy isn't broken. Maybe that's because I used to be a commodities trader in real life (that place in Chicago called the Board of Trade).

The economy experiences both inflation and deflation at various times. Rago's flame staff is a good example of this. It went way up, then way down, and now back up to about 80k.

All you have to do is to trade the trends; it just doesn't matter what the trend happens to be. When I was a pit trader I couldn't care less which way the market was moving. I bought it on the way up, and sold it on the way down.

Guild wars isn't perfect, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Of course, and auction house would be nice, but gwguru auctions fills in that gap rather well.

I have no complaints. I've made my fair share just playing the game and barely farming at all. Though, I did get caught up in the Tombs B/P frenzy for a little while. Anyway, I've got all I want or need for all my chars at the moment. All I want is a better way to trade. But hey, it's a game. I'm not losing any sleep over it.

The economy is what A-net wants it to be. They can increase/decrease drops, put more gold sinks into the game, and (if they really want to) adjust prices at traders and merchants. If you don't like it, that doesn't mean that it is broken or needs to be fixed.

It is much easier to sail with the wind then against it.

LOLOLOLOLOL @ people saying the economy is broken. The Guild Wars economy sucks to be "1337" in now. You just gotta look at how many of the super rich actually play it now to realise it is at its best for the casual gamer: -

Nefastaru = Gone
Coolyguy = Gone
Lady Guns = Gone
Akhelius = Said he was guna quit
Road Runa = Gone
Bootytang = Gone
Baruzar = Gone
Chaos Theory P V P = Told by a friend he quit
Fondie = Gone
Der Linke Magier = Havnt seen online in a while
Love Guild Wars = Gone

The list goes on.

The Guild Wars economy is like the best economy for a casual gamer. The only items which are difficult to obtain are low req perfect Crystalline swords and nerfed items i.e. unconditional weapons. Any good warrior uses high swordsmanship attribute points so a req 11-13 15>50 Crystalline sword is easily obtained and usuable. If people want to use a low req one for flexibity then a 14>50 purple or gold one would suffice as the difference between 14>50 and 15>50 is almost non-existant.

People whine and whine about how they can only play an hour a day and they have real life commitments so high prices are unfair. Well you must really suck at computer games to be unable to make gold in a game where it is so easy to do. It is rediculous to say that making a million gold is hard to do. I would be embarassed to say I was unable to do it. If you dont have the intelligence or an entrepreneurial mind then you really cannot winge about not being able to make gold as that is your fault. You dont see people who are not intelligent demanding top grades to allow them into top universities/colleges. You just got to accept your place in life and realise that if you are unable to work out how to make gold then you really dont deserve the luxurious items in Guild Wars. You dont need desirable skins and you certainly dont need perfect, low req desirable skins. With the exception of perhaps req 8 15>50 / 15% -5 / 15% -10al Crystalline Swords and the tiny number of unconditional weapons on active accounts there is nothing difficult to obtain in Guild Wars now.

O yeah, once you become so rediculously rich that you own virtually everything you could possibly want and have done everything else you want to do Guild Wars becomes boring very quickly. There is very little excitement in knowing that nothing is unobtainable to you. For me I had pvped enough and had experienced Heroes Ascent, Random Arena and GvG sufficiently enough. I had quested in Guild Wars to death and my last real enjoyment was collecting items. However, once I had obtained everything I wanted and knew that the items in Nightfall and Factions were not particularly rare I got bored. Hence why I play WoW now. Even in WoW which is meant to be a lose your life to get nice stuff type of game I find it easy to make gold very casually. Epic items are meant to be the rarest and "1337est" weapons yet at level 14 out of a total of 60 levels I can afford to buy several :S

This thread should not be entitled "Guild Wars Economy: Who's to Blame?" but "Guild Wars Economy: Who's to Congratulate?"

I bet most of the people whining and crying about grind and it being unfair that there are expensive items wernt around when things were rediculously expensive. Try 17k ish Ectos, 100k +30Hp Sword Mod, 10/10 non-max pvp skin staffs for 150k, +44 Hp Enchant -2 Dmg Enchant Req 8 Tall Shield for 600k, +30Hp-2Dmg Stance Req 10 (I think) Eternal Shield for 5 million gold, any perfect weapon being rediculously expensive.

You think now is bad try the Summer/Autumn of Guild Wars first year. Virtually anything gold was worth something. You are soooo rediculously lucky to be able to buy virtually every skinned weapon with perfect stats for such little sums of gold. I remember selling a 17<50 non-max Sephis Axe for 30k now you would have to merch it as it would never sell. The least desirable bow skins such as Shot Bow with perfect stats would sell for several hundred thousand gold now they sell for like 5k ish. To say the economy is broken is perpostrous. The economy is at its best for a casual gamer. For someone like me who loves rare and expensive items it is awful but there are other games which suit me better even though I prefer the items in Guild Wars to those in other games.

Making gold however is harder due to the fact that virtually every inperfect item is worthless now. Take a +32 Hp Enchant -2 Dmg Enchant Req 10 Tall Shield I once sold for 40k now it would be merchant food. In the past any gold item would sell. I remember selling 'while hexed' inperfect hammers for like 10k. Now virtually no hammers sell and those which do dont fetch large amounts of gold.

The Guild Wars economy is at its best for casual gamers and there are only a handful of items which I consider difficult to obtain. However, with the increased ease at obtaining what you want it also takes away an area which many people once enjoyed. For example, I used to love obtaining nice items however once I got rich enough to buy anything I want it no longer was as fun. Through Anet making it easier to obain virtually anything you want it also means people no longer get as much enjoyment through collecting items. Hence why virtually all of the people who collected rare and expensive items no longer play Guild Wars.

The idea just sprung to mind, might be utter nonsence but non the less: I think ecto's are materials like that are kept arteficially high so they can be used and kept being used as a trading material (since that's what every very rich GW player has basicly all his money in) I mean how many people really want ecto to get FoW armour? Demand is very low on it compared to say iron ingots but because demand is high on it for trading purposes, it is in essence arteficially being kept high.

exactly, few remember the old days. if people think its hard to afford stuff now, they need to get a time-machine into last year.
and its not that "you're an idiot if you spent 100k on weapon upgrades" its if you actually wanted weapon upgrades AT ALL, you better plan to spend 100k.
in this time period it was easier than any other time in GW to go from rags to riches...and easier to stay rags to rags...depending on your abilities.

yep.
its better now for people who want to skate by with no effort...but for players who want to climb the ranks, it is far, far worse. what people dont understand is that as a whole, its harder to make money when things are cheaper.
you could ALWAYS go bottom-of-the-barrel, ignoring rare skins and spending money on collectors items and droks armor only (many of the now wealthy did so in their early days to save money...myself included), but now that msot items are in the 5-50k range, its harder for people who want to get rich, to actually do so.


it doesnt matter if people sell here or not...i can assure you the VAST majority of top-notch rare items do NOT occur on GWG, yet most high-end traders know about the sales anyway. its called a traders network. and while i will concede its impossible to know for sure, i can guarantee you that the few renowned traders of old that are left have a FAR better idea as to the numbers than anyone else that plays the game.
before you spew your opinions, try having a resume` that can back them up?
i was a VERY successful trader (beyond your possible comprehension), and while i will not claim to know EXACTLY how many of any particular item exist in the game (because it is impossible without an anet-endorsed figure), it is, however, very possible to get an EXTREMELY good idea...especially when the particular item in question sells for over 5m a pop at almost a minimum.
i, personally know, if X9 8 15.50s to exist, there are probably more, but probably not many more than that.
as an extremely successful trader i made it my business to know who had what, who was selling, who wasnt, who they sold to, who they bought from, etc.
if a high-end trader is unable to keep track of the extremely rare and valuable items and who possesses them, it makes it very difficult to operate effectivly. and the trader network that existed in this game was absolutly massive. if an 8 15>50 crystalline dropped from an HoH chest, interested parties would often know about it in hours, if not minutes; and rarely did it take more than a few days.

LOL I don't understand the game? been playing 16 odd months made countless trades and made vast amounts of money...sup asorb sucks. It was good to farm from ettins and thats it.

^lol

Herbalizer and akhilleus, I <3 you for all that you just said, even though I just skimmed it. I got the gist, and well said.

I don't really blame it on anybody. The economy seems normal to me. If there's a lot of something, price goes down. Looks normal to me. (After the triple green drop weekend, I saw the scar eater go down from 25k to 15k - it was the only time i could ever buy one.)

The only thing I hate when people run around flaunting their wealth. I can never seem to make over 20k without having something to spend it on whether it's a weapon or new armor. Unless it's given to me, I'll be constantly broke.

umm lie... i do believe victos went up after a wile from the update :P

I'd say, if there are a handful of people claiming stuff is too expensive and they can't afford crap, and there are a handful of people claiming stuff is too cheap and their riches are now pointless, and the rest are saying it's fine, then the economy is perfect.

IDK, but i found the game more interesting atleast for me when everything is expensive. Now i could afford anything but crytalline sword but i am not happy. Maybe just me. I remember the the excitement i got from the old days when i first got a hp+29 req8 gold eternal shield for 100k+40ecto:L..
Now i got a req9 hp30 dam-5(20%) for 100k+5ecto but It seems not as exciting as the old req8 hp+29 shield>..

^^

Exactly... it made the game fun to have to work for something.

Some great economic theory in this thread, and surprisingly accurate overall. The only problem is, the rules of economics quoted here don't work in the world of Guild Wars (or at least, not completely).

Simply, real-world economics isn't mappable onto what is essentially a rudimentary simulation of an economic system.

First, unlike the real world, the value of currency never changes. 1g will always be 1g, and will always be 1% of the price of a salvage kit, and so on. This essentially means that there is no inherent loss in amassing large amounts of idle wealth, as their would be (albeit gradually) in the real world.

Second, there is no cost of living in Guild Wars. Sure, you have to buy the occasional salvage and ID kit, but after the initial outlay, the cost of continuing to 'live in the manner to which you are accustomed' (i.e. play at the level you have achieved) is negligable. For example, in the real world, armor and equipment would gradually wear out and need to be replaced, you would need to eat and drink, find and maintain shelter and so on.

In the real world, these factors among others affect the universal rule of supply and demand, where consumers temper their buying habits based on their needs versus their resources. In the rudimentary economy of Guild Wars, there is no need-driven purchasing. All purchases (beyond the initial outlay mentioned above) are driven by want, therefore supply and demand act unbridled in the economy, and you'll find both extremely high pricing and extremely low pricing on very similar items.

Props to ANet, then, that they have very insightfully made the initial outlay to reach a satisfactory standard at level twenty not only independant of supply and demand, but independant of currency completely (think collector weapons and armour, plus drops).

As green weapons (for example) become more common, the laws of supply and demand inevitably lower their prices, making them more available to players of lower wealth. The only glitch in this system is sellers who are unwilling to lower the prices of their stock. With green weapons, this will probably lead to them not finding buyers, and consequently being forced to lower their prices.

However, with extremely rare items like the Crystalline Swords oft-mentioned in this thread, a small number of sellers literally control the market, and will keep prices very high as long as they can.

So, we have an economy of consumers who only increase in wealth (unless they want to spend it, remember I pointed out the difference between want and need) and suppliers who have no overheads to supply their goods (save for the time spent farming them). This is neither healthy or unhealthy from a nuetral point of view - it's simply unrealistic, and so it should be, it's a game!

However, the people who stand to lose (either wealth or potential wealth) are those at either exteme end of the spectrum - the minority of sellers with high supply (think green item farmers dismayed at dropping prices) and the minority of buyers with high demand (the guy who just has to have his Crystalline Sword and Dwarven Axe, for example).

In short, the economy of the game is fluctuating, as real economies do, but fluctuating with increasing tendency towards a certain level of pricing based on supply and demand (again, as real economies do). The only people who lose out are those who farm huge amonts of greens (unwise investment) and those who want the rarest items (value inconsistent with 'worth').

The great thing about the Guild Wars economy is that you dont have to buy into it at all if you don't want to; and that is a credit to good game design, and designers!