Why capped at 100k?

It does'nt limit player prices... It would do if there was no alternate way to go beyond 100K but there is

E.g Limiting way
Units of Currency are Gold and Platinum
Current way
Gold, Platinum, Ecto(or an other)

There is no limit at all save the amount of ecto that can be traded in a trade window(7X250 1750=of anything..))

The 100k does not limit anything, it just forces a change of denomination..

And I presume so many people have problems, because the largest ammount they can trade is 7x250 ectos, or roughly 14 million.

Yea, it's broken. Fix it anet. This is game breaking, and it's really messing with my game enjoyment. I mean, I buy weapons daily for 100k + 55 ectos, and I can't even buy a ferry anymore because I can't fit enough ectos in trade.

How many here have even maxed out their bank? How often do you buy stuff worth over 100k?

This is just a pointless rant about a non-issue.

In the glory days of crystalines and HoD there was perhaps a few dozen of those items floating around. There just seemed to be many of them because those that were selling them were spamming for days or weeks.

Nobody else has even the slightest realistic problem with the cap.

I dont mind 100k being max in a inventory..as i dont usually have 100k to spend ^^. But like all of u i would like there to be no limit espically in storeage... and bring in armour storage now!!!

Then if the cap was removed, the price would be the new cap + ectos.

Its one of the few limits we have on trying to prevent over rich players.

Which is why we need a cap on 100k.

People can quite easily share money between characters and use one as a mule to hold more.

But the economy is bad to start with. If we removed the limit, the economy would blow out of proportion as people could have endless amounts of gold.

No, unless the trade window size is increased the hard limit is 100K+1750 of the most expensive mat at the time. E.g Ecto's.

The higher up you go the less numerous the trades. As far as I know the most expensive item ever sold in GW fetched 30m by someone in 2005

Lots of trades are above 100K but <2m so a ceiling of say 15m is plenty. Then only the very,very rare unique trades would need to resort to ecto.

Check the amount of items sold for 100K+ on the auction site, people buy them all the time.

Regardless of this, more scams have taken place because of the 100K limit than almost any other, why do I say this? Simply by spending hours in the trading centres and watching local chat. It should be changed not only to help trades but also to help the buyers also.

Where would this endless amount of gold come from? Gold doesn't just appear, you know - removing the limit won't suddenly just add however many hundreds of platinum to a person's storage.

Look at it this way - if the value of an ecto is, say, 7k and one individual character can hold 45 stacks of ecto, that's over 75 million gold. How does increasing the maximum gold one individual character can hold make any difference when that character can easily hold the equivalent of millions of gold at one time?

If anything, increasing the amount of gold a character/account can store would devalue the ecto since it seems that more ectos are used in trades than what they were created for - crafting FoW armor.

actually you are wrong there,
players need to have ectos to make trades > 100k

more ppl keep their ectos

think when they would change the cap suddenly to a much higher value

effect: players will sell their ectos because they won't be worth alot anymore for them (don't come with fissure armour)

ectos prices will drop pretty hard, a player who is a bit to late with selling his ectos won't be happy I guess.

you sound like ecto = a specific amount of cash wich is wrong, ectos fluctuate

I'm not talking about the value of ecto. As someone said Gold won't suddenly appear in peoples storage. Those with ecto wont always sell to free up cash, so the two systems will co-exist for a while.

Of course it will change, which I why I said it was a denomination. Think of gold = US dollars and Ecto UK sterling and you have a more accurate picture of what I was saying.

So at the moment to buy or sell anything over 100K you have to use US dollars and add Sterling on top. It would make far more sense to only have to pay US dollars..

Except the price of a material good can fluctuate. The price of ecto can go up and down and not everyones wants or has ectors.

You talk about ectos like currency, as if its an easy thing to come by. Ectos are not something which everyone can easily get ahold of, want or need.

You only need them if your wanting obsid armor or you want to use them as income.

If the cap was removed from the gold storage, then those who dont have or want ectos would have a way to make an infinite amount of gold.

The only benefit I can see, is that the rich players would no longer just be the UW or FOW players. The casual player could save up lots of gold without needing ecto.

But thats the last thing we need.

As ive said in many threads before, increasing gold will obviously increase prices.

And you say that gold doesnt just apear out of no-where. But gold is ALOT easier to make then ecto and it obviously drops alot more requently in varied amounts.

You can probably make the cost of 1 ecto easily in one day, if not more. So without a cap on gold, you would make millionaires very fast.

This is why we dont want caps removed.

For most high-end traders, ecto is currency. While its true that not everyone wants to deal in ecto or needs to, for those who do ecto is easily attainable. You don't have to farm for it - just hang out at any major trading area and you can always find some. If you want a better price, hang out at ToA or other areas where people go in to find them.

Again, ecto is a form of currency for most high-end traders. There's a bit of risk involved, but when aquiring items over 100k it tends to be the safest way to go.

Are you suggesting that people who don't deal with ecto simply stop trying to aquire gold once they hit the storage limit? I highly doubt that any player with that kind of wealth would simply stop doing anything to aquire more because they don't have any more room in storage.

With a few good drops here and there, a player could be rich without ever visiting either the UW or FoW. Besides, what's wrong with the 'casual player' saving up lots of gold? Haven't they earned it?

To sell more copies of the game.
The only logical reason for the cap, is so anet can sell more copies of the game. Sure we all have storage issues, so why not go buy another account and double your storage capacity.

Ive absolutely nothing against anyone earning gold to any amount, aslong as its legit.

And I realise people can actually have more then 100k by sharing their gold amoungst characters.

I also have nothing against people possessing ectos and using it as currency. Because they've worked for it.

I have alot more respect for those who take the time to earn and save gold, then those who beg. I tend to give lectures to anyone who begs from me ingame.

But I personally wouldnt say ecto was the second or main currency in game, because as I mentioned, its not attainable by most. Or atleast to a degree that it could be used as effective currency.

Its more a luxary item which you need large amounts of gold to purchase to start with, or you need the time and dedication in the UW or FOW to farm.

This renders it as an unattainable form of currency to most players.

Thats why im pretty much ignoring it as a form of currency as part of this debate.

Im concenstrating purely on gold for the arguement, because its something easily attainable by all. Either throw farming, drops while questing or selling materials (like ecto) or trading.

So if you only discuss gold and ignore ecto, then I still feel a cap at 100k is justified.

I hope that made sense, because I think I lost my train of thought somewhere.

But I believe the cap is justified because, as I also mentioned, we need some form of control on how much gold people can own. Obviously you get around this by putting gold into mules and possessing expensive materials. But in the sense of an individual character and just in gold. We need it the cap.

The economy as it is, needs some controls over how much gold we own. Alot of people also suggest that we should add more gold to make items more attainable, but the truth is that we need to limit how much we all own.

We need gold sinks, and limits.

This is one such limit (which is avoidable), which we have.

We're discussing the 100 and 1000K cap. Just because some players dont have that much cash does'nt mean that the usage of ecto should be disgregarded as a de-facto currency. It's like saying that since the majority of the population does'nt have 1m in the bank we should'nt count gold.

Since we are talking about high end prices, then whether or not normal players can attain it is kinda irrelevant.

One counting someones wealth in RL, people seldom just include their cash assets, but also count property, gold, shares etc etc. Such amounts are included in the economic figures also. Therefore people purchasing power is also not limited to their cash figures but also how much other stuff they can liquidate or swap. Therefore the cash limit is a pointless one in terms of limiting wealth, it just gets in the way of people who can and do trade high end items. It does'nt stop them, it's just a pain.

Ecto is worth 7-9k. How is that not attainable.

If you have 8k, you can obtain it. Anyone can, at any time.

And when you do loot an ecto, it's the same as looting 8,000 gold pieces.

In life, you use coins, banknotes, bonds, stocks, .... A house you live in isn't money, yet has a fluctuating value on the market. This worth is well known. Stock market = ecto market. Prices go up and down, but they make trade possible since it scales the trades not possible with regular currency. Let's say you want to buy 51% of a company. There aren't enough banknotes in circulation to bring suitcases totalling $160 billion. But a single piece of paper will transfer ownership to you. Are banknotes better? Perhaps. If the company files for ch. 11 tommorow your piece of paper is worthless, but banknotes would retain value. But they are impractical.

The reason ecto is used and not some other item (sup vigor runes) is because historically, ectos have proven to be by far the most stable currency. They are the real world equivalent of gold. Value of gold has changed, but it was for longest time used as the most stable asset upon which the value of currency was based.

It's same in GW. Ectos aren't woth 8k gold. 1 gold piece is 1/8000 of an ecto. Ectos define the currency, and the market prices. If ectos suddenly dropped to 1k, the prices would go up on everything. This - is a good thing. It defines the value of money. GW's gold is worthless. Why is something worth this and that much? Ectos.

Why is this an issue? 99.5% of players don't trade with ectos. 80% have never seen one or owned one. It's a non-issue. It's there to fulfil extremly specialized trade among an extremly narrow group of people counted in thousands, possibly hundreds.

Think of these players as conglomerates, dictating the world's currency, with supervision from Anet. Anet is the government that ensures that ectos remain somewhat stable, and the high-rollers define the prices through their trades.

GW's economic system is surprisingly deep beneath all the W*2*B spam. Simplistic, but well defined and functional.

Haha you think storing larger numbers than 100k would cause disk space problems.

Think about sites like Amazon that have to store MUCH more data as well as images etc. Storage for the GW server is probably a no issue.

The cap is an attempt to lower item prices to under 100k no one would buy rare materialss if the cap was infinite as the rare material prices fluctuate too much; it's gambling.

Ectos dont define the market price, only the rich trade in ectos the average player(who doesnt visit high end forums everyday for a good deal) wont even have 30k in the bank let alone over 100k and has no interest in buying ectos. They dont want FoW armour and the stuff they do want is less than 100k.

If ectos dropped to 1k the average player wouldnt care.
Just like in the real world if diamands suddenly cost a penny each we wouldnt have hyper inflation

Everyone in the game can buy an ecto at the rare material trader, so it IS easily obtainable by anyone.

How many people over looked this answer its the only reply I read that made sense on this whole thread. It shouldve been closed after this post.

I actually think it's the opposite - NPC prices are capped at 100k because of the cap on storage, not storage being capped because the most an NPC can charge is 100k. Any item that sold for 100k from an NPC would likely have been more had the storage cap been higher. Remember that supply and demand play heavily on NPC pricing - if a highly valued item got to that point, why would it stop at 100k and not go beyond that price? The answer is simple - the developers had to put a cap on any individual item equal to the cap on what one character could hold.

I personally believe that the 100k, 1000k limits were just numbers picked because the designers felt they would be sufficient. They may or may not be, but I'd rather see them put time and effort into other things first - this would, in my opinion, be a pretty low priority.

Why would someone use 8k worth of gold which they saved up to then buy one ecto, if they didnt intend to use it on obsideon armor?

And if their going to use them on obsideon armor, then their not going to use them as currency.

Plus prices can fluctuate.

If your going to buy an ecto to simple store 8k in material worth instead of gold, you could loose profit when trading back if the price has fallen.

This was my point. Not everyone needs or wants ectos.

The only people who will trade in ectos are those who wants Obsid armor or those who deal in high end trading to make millions, or those who have lots of spare time and dont need to be spending gold and can save up for ectos.

Something which the majority dont do.

Most people cant casually save up 8k for an ecto, because they need the gold for other more important things.

Thats why Im not counting ecto into my debate. Its not a form of wealth which everyone possesses.

Im not saying its unfair to own ectos, and make money from it. If your able to do it, then great.

But the majority cant because they need the gold for more important stuff, or they dont need ectos.

If you then only consider gold as the kind of wealth which most people possess, its a bad thing to remove the cap. It will only invite easier wealth and make people richer alot easier as they can store alot more gold.

Its bad enough we a select few who have grand amounts of wealth (which they probably got legally and legittly), but if we shouldnt gave everyone a really easy way to store lots and lots and lots more gold, it would make everyone rich alot easier.

Which we dont want.

Neither are gold, diamonds,houses, $$ stock options or owning companies and yet they are all counted as wealth. In game people's worth is also counted as the amount of ecto,black dye, weapons etc etc they have so just because x% of players don't have them does not mean they should be discounted.

We're not talking about lower end trades below the limit, but the hassle of over 100K ones. If you're not ever going to trade or have these amounts then the limit has no effect on you.

However when you have that lucky drop and want to sell that perfect uber item it sure will as you will want the cold hard cash rather than having to mess about with material values.

Point I'm making is
Having to use another material to supplement the gold limit:
1. Causes the trader/buyer to lose money if they have to convert gold>material or materials>gold
2. Gives an opening for scammers for high end items
3. Artifically inflates the price of certain materials, and maybe contributes to the ebay gold, bot problem

The reason for the cap is simple. Anet never wanted anything in the game to cost over 100k. As such I see no reason to increase the cap.

Having a single set of currency causes unlimited inflation. Look at any game that uses that model. As time goes on, prices of items skyrocket into absurdity. It has nothing to do with money cap.

By tying the economy to statically priced resource (rare crafting materials) this problem is elminated.

In Diablo 2, Jordan stones were same as gold. Gold and stones were obtained from loot, but there was no static value assigned to either. And as such, inflation went through the roof. And at the same time, D2 used capped money. But without a mechanism to set the value of that money, market ran away. Same goes for all other games.

In GW, ectos are constantly traded, reulting in consistent fine-grained unlimited money sink. This is how alternate market controls the prices.

In WoW, secondary materials market determines the price of everything. While there's strong fluctuations, prices are relatively stable.

Star Wars Galaxies - items that used to be hard to sell for 50k now cost 50 million.

Having a single linear currency, no matter how large results in endless inflation. Having orthogonal currencies, keeps market in check.

A linear function can never even remotely be balanced. There's either extreme inflation, or extreme shortage. But never good balance.

What do ectos and resources have to do with money cap? Everything. They are what makes the 100k cap irrelevant, since, even after 20 months, insane farming bot exploits, eBay running rampant, the economy is completely stable. Even more, price spikes have been completely eliminated. Every single item is now available for several k, making them, for the first time, completely accessible to everyone.

Unlike runaway models, GW's economy has been balanced and has overcome the high barrier of entry just about every other game imposes.

It doesn't matter why ANet set the cap at 100k. They did and we have to live with it. As there is only a small percentage of the game population that is affected by the cap, I don't think they will ever change it. The economy is effectively balanced with only the material price spurts caused by a new chapter.

The high-end traders should be grateful that ANet doesn't really hate them. They could do to the game what they did to the trial keys - prevent trading of items or gold between players (no dropping on the ground either).
Then you would really have a reason to scream as your way of enjoying the game would be gone.

So you will just have to keep contributing to the stability of ecto prices as the rest of us watch you in grateful wonder. I like knowing that my one and only ecto is still worth what it was 4 months ago, when I traded some amber for it.

No you are wrong. i will say the real reason again why there is a cap.

GET IT GOT IT UNDERSTAND IT. It really is that simple.

Along with other probably-valid points above, especially about 3-4 digit number storage; it could probably stop Bot's from selling too many rares too fast, and stop inflation get too high.

I must be very simple as I don't get the link. To me thats like saying you're not allowed to spend more than 100 Dollars as thats the highest priced item the local store has in stock.

I'm not sure it does slow down the gold sellers, all they do is buy/bot/farm ecto like everyone else.

Edit in response to the below post..

Thats circular reasoning. I.e You cant have more than 100K on a character because the most you can trade is 100K

It is very simple. Since the most you can pay for any one item is 100k, there was no need for anymore to be carried around on your character and the fact that you can have your storage opened and carried around with you there was no need for any more to be carried on a char.

No it has nothing to do with gold sellers as the cap came around before there really was that many.

To get rid of cash...once you hit 1mill in cash you are kinda running out of room for more...buying ecto is an easy solution to that problem.

one of the most illfounded statements i have EVER seen posted.
if you think for a seccond that the 100k character/1000k storage limits prevent people from aquiring 5, 10, 50 or 100 million in net-worth, you need an awakening.
all the cap does, is force them to put their money into other things; which isnt too big a deal to most players of means, but it is largely inconveniant.

exactly.
you are one of the FEW people in this thread who seem to have an incling of what the heck they are talking about.
people who think the 100k limit stops people from aquring mass amounts of wealth, do not know what they are talking about, period.
ALL the limit does, is keep ecto prices artificially high (people who think that the ecto prices are kept high by people buying FoW armor=laugh), and enable scammers.

please know what you are talking about before ranting.
whille i will concede its easier to function as a player now than perhaps a year ago (though the stat differences are still marginal) the seperation in means between the lower class and upper class has actually INCREASED.
and it has NOTHING to do with ecto that GWs economy has been made new-player friendly, and everything to do with the fact that anet has MASSIVELY increased items' drop-rates, introduced greens (inherently "perfect" items with an almost 100% droprate and predictable bosses dropping predictable mods; this increasing the rate of which desired ones are obtained, and simentaneously decreasing their prices).
ecto play into the guildwars economy almost exclusivly for items that bridge the 100k gold limit.
and you forgot to mention that in most other MMORPGS gold isnt nearly ass essential.
as some here may know...i am far from a poor player in guildwars...
well, the level of wealth i possessed in diablo-2 makes my guildwars accounts (preportionally) look damned near destitute. and i cant recall EVER using gold for ANYTHING other than repairing my non-ethereal-zodded weapons. what am i getting at? gold, in guildwars, unlike the majority of mmorpgs, is very, very useful, and for the most part UNLESS you participate in the trading/farming/running economy MOST of your gold will be spent to aquire the items you need to function. in most other mmorpgs, past the early stages, gold is ridiculously easy to come by, and overall not that needed; especially where a seccondary means of transfer exist. such as sojs, 3/20/20s, ectoplasm, etc. the fact that ecto has not taken complete dominance over the vast majority of the economy is soley due to my aforementioned points; that the game uses up a substantial amount of gold.
even the wealthiest players in guildwars need to keep a certain amount of gold if they wish to function at a base level (salvage/id kits etc) and substantially more, the more active they become in the economy; spending hundreds of thousands of plat on armor crafting, runes, etc.
and unlike in other mmorpgs, there is a substantial sub-group...a group of palyers still operating fully with gold, hardly using ecto as a means of currency. these players, while they are poorer, make up a larger percentage of the population. and it is because of them, and the necessity in dealing with them that wealthy players often have to convert gold to ecto, ecto to gold, items to ecto, items to gold, etc.
the the multi-leveled existance of mutiple avinues of investment (developed PLAYER-side, NOT server-side) and the UTTER importance of gold that keeps the market stable as to the lack of any one dominating primary or alternate form of currency. and it is the constant tinkering with droprates that keeps items available to the poorer classes, in various methods and forms.

Most likely anet has a log with all the combinations and their code. And when you save the template the code itself is used.

Amount of dye combinations = 11 + 11*10 + 11*11*10 + 11*11*11*10 = 14641 combinations.
Of course most of those are double but in 8 bits you can only store 255 combinations. There are WAY more then that. Please get the maths done properly

So you never unexplored a little piece of the map without getting 0.1% up? I did many many times. the 0.1% consists out of many small parts. I am not sure how many since i never calculated it but i think around 8 (the 1 byte will be 0.1% explored). Meaning that you need 1000 bytes of data just for the exploration of 1 character in 1 chapter.

GW does have a transactional log. How else can they take down bots? And how else can they get down the money traders? It is not smart to only log obvious actions since there are easy ways to work around them once they are known. It is a lot smarter to log everything and then run a script to see or something weird happens. The thing is that you do not loose any history of the game and that you can always change your script to go thru it to catch more abusers/cheaters.

Nice way to end your rant but i haven't seen anything is this post that was even remotely correct Please go study in the art of computer science or stay silent.

then why 100, why not 999?

100 is the lowest 3 digit number that exists

the limit is there for controlling the amount of gold people can have, mainly this is for the eBay'ers, so they can't run around with 20 billion on them, it just makes it a bit slower though, its a halfhearted attempt to stop it