A "different" GW Economy

I was thinking, when searching through these forums looking for anything about an Auction House, of how the economy in GW2 would be better than it's current state in GW1.

What if there were no player to player trading transactions. Take off the trade button so that I cannot sell that "godly" Sundering Stuper Blade of Fortitude to "Joe Mumma" for 100k and 150 ectos. There's another thing. Ectos being used as the currency for high end transactions. I'll get to those later.

As for not trading anything. Imagine with me for a second here, how that would completely stop ebayers, gold farmers, etc from trading their gold for real cash. There would be no way for them to trade it! AHa you say! " But they could go into an instance and "drop" the gold to the purchaser for him to pick it up after he made his purchase at WacOnald'sgold.com!" Why should A-net allow it for us to drop our gold in the first place? Why in the blue hell would I want to drop all 100k of my loot OR even 1g for that matter on the ground? I wouldn't do that with my real money unless I was doing something illegal like buying crack! Or so I hear that's how they do it lol!

Ok, so far we have
1. No trade between characters
2. No ability to drop your gold coins

Now let's talk about why A-net even felt we had a need for a storage capacity of 1,000,000 gold coins in my storage and my ability to carry 100,000 gold coins or actually 100 platinum bars on my character. Obviously they were expecting to have Rich and poor people in the Economy? Why not average people and "wealthy" people. My view of wealthy is a medium between average and rich.
Let's make a quick cheap table to better understand:

Poor people
Average people
Wealthy People
Rich people
A-net can simply put it to where there is no rich category in GW. The game shouldn't be centered on an economy. Sure there will be those that say "It isn't centered around an economy, you just think it is". Well, I'm not saying it is, I'm saying it shouldn't be.

Ok, let's get to my point on this topic already, before a Mod get bored and closes this thread lol
My point is, why not make the storage capacity cap out at 100k, and cap the amount a character can carry to 10k? I'll go ahead and explain my next economic issue to help you understand why I have this as an idea.

Cap the amount that any material can be worth. Let's take a quick look at ectos in our current economy. They are running at about 10k right now. I've seen them get up to about 14k. I've seen them as low as 5k. I see every other rare material at half the price of ectos. Most are at a 1/10th the amount of ectos. Here's my catch: Why not cap rare materials at 3k? Or less, something more reasonable than a limitless value on stuff that eventually makes for a better means of currency then currency(gold) itself. I don't go to the Mercedes-Benz dealership with a handful of diamonds to purchase a vehicle. Diamonds aren't the currency in RL, why should ectos be? You feel me?

Ok, so far we have
1. No trade between characters
2. No ability to drop your gold coins
3. Smaller cap on gold carrying
4. Cap on material value

Lastly is the Auction House, im going to make this quick. IMPLEMENT the freaking AH already! This will be our only means of selling our items and what not, so come up with an AH that will require the smallest amount of time needed to keep up with the trades. Have a cap on the amount that you want to sell your item. What should the cap be? Let me guess, 10k! Because that is all that your characters will be able to carry! Duh! Choose between an option of having a A.) Bidding Auction; or B.) a Set Price sell auction.

Your bidding auction is your standard "highest bidder at the end of the auction wins" thing.
The Set Price auction will be where you have a price you want to sell an item and the first one to accept that price and purchase it takes it.
You can always come and check to see if your item sold or not. Less hassle. More playtime!

Anyways, that is my view on what would be a new improved economy for a new improved GW. Any CONSTRUCTIVE criticism or suggestions to something I might have missed are always welcome! As for those that just want to be pessimistic, show me something better, and i'll listen! :P

Thank you for your time!

How are you supposed to buy 15k armor if you can only carry 10k? o_O

I don't get the point. It's not like you are at any disadvantage by being "poor". If you can't afford, say, a 30hp 15>50 sword, you can get a green for the gold you make doing 3 or 4 quests. Max armor is really cheap. Are you just bitter with those who can afford flashy weapons?

Well to be constructive why not just have your storage cash "linked" with your own cash when making a purchase? :P

Lets use an example like the OP does XD:

If I want to buy something but I don't have the cash for it then why can't I use my bank/credit card?


Anyways very interesting idea that I think might work.

One more point to bring up:
What if I just buy 100k worth of ecto (even if they are priced at 3k) and drop them all in the instance?

Well the OP is offering a solution to the current economic state. If you feel there is no problem then this thread does not apply to you.
What the OP is suggesting is a solution to the (what I feel) somewhat unbalanced economy in GW and addressing the ever-present ebay 3rd party market

Well until pve skills cost 0g there's a very practical reason to attain a lot of gold, not just FoW armor.

Anet apparently wants an economy that breaks its own EULA. It's sad but this is how it is. An economy where skills cost 1k and FoW costs 1 million can only operate on bots who sell money to rich people who buy rich stuff to fuel money for other for skills and armor.

I personally think skills should cost 0g and FoW armor should be skill/time based.

So I'm not really /unsigning this, but currently I do find the need to sell extremely expensive items so I can unlock skills en masse. Rather than spend time in pvp to unlock skills (interestingly enough pvp is an extremely slow way to unlock stuff for pvp! Strange yes, but I've 1.4 mil bal faction and most of unlocks come from pve chest running)

Interesting. While hypothetical, it gets the point across. I think it has potential. However, I see many people taking your ideas the wrong way and then handing out the BBQs. I, however, find your ideas to have zest. Maybe you'll be able to expand on it, or perhaps someone else will take it that extra step it needs to go before it is made of "win".

Thank you all for being constructive and I definitely like the point brought up about the 15k armor. I figure since the max gold in your storage and on yourself being capped lower, essentially the cost for high end armor would be lower. So theoretically speaking 15k armor would be more like 2k armor. It would be a matter of A-net balancing the costs of "actual" high end money sinks. This is a good point you brought up that I failed to realize in mentioning.

My gripe is the ebaying and online real cash trade for in-game gold ruining the economy. Most topics i've mentioned here are for fighting the ebay movement. There will always be "flashy" weapons that cost more than the regular weapons. Even if it is just for the skins.
I'm not sure what you are implying here? Are you dropping the ectos for a trade? If so, perhaps it can be allowed to trade up to a full stack of a material in the Auction House along with the capped 10k bid. Say I got that "perfect" Elemental sword and I'm gonna want 10k +40ectos. The maximum any item will be able to be worth is gonna be the 10k+250 ectos. That would max out at a value of 760,000g when converting the ectos to gold. That there is still alot lower than most items sell for right now with ectos at 10k right now. Now if anyone wants to spend ectos for an item be my guest. The only time i've ever used to ectos for a trade was to the Forgemaster in FoW.
That is definitely a mishap with the skills maxing out at 1k to purchase from skill "trainers". I seriously do not know why A-net would put that type of money sink in and not allowing an alternative way to acquire the skills like we were able to in Prophecies. Yes it's a money sink, but so is the 15k armor, but we have the alternative, collector's armor, and the 1.5k armor. So skills should have the same alternative. As for the FoW armor, if the same applies to it as it does with the 15k in the "improved" economy, then it would essentially be worth alot less. 2k per piece, that's 10k for the whole set, 122(i think?) ectos and shards. That would end up with a grand total of 742,000g. Compared to it costing over 1mil just in ectos if we were to take a Forgemaster trip today. FoW is the "elite" armor, so it is justified in being worth alot. But it shouldn't be so far up there that one would have to resort to ill methods to acquire it.

No trade between characters?

Trading between characters is the major, social aspect of the game. If we remove trading, then its no longer an MMO. Alot of players already choose not to PUG due to rude and arrogant players, and resort to AI most of the time.

Remove the trading and what are we left with?

Trading between characters is the fundimental aspect of an MMO. It incourages interaction and socialising. Its more important then being able to PUG.

As for capping gold storage and gold carrying. Why? we dont need to.

There is nothing wrong with people having vast amounts of gold because they earn it. To punish the good players, just because a small minority use ebay is wrong.

There is also nothing wrong with certain items such as armor, weapons and collectables being expensive. Thats how a market works. Some items are expensive and some are cheap. It provides insentive to play, because you want to own the expensive armor and the expensive weapons.

If everything was cheap, then why bother playing? where would the "I want to be better then him" aspect of the game? What drive would there be to play?

And people would soon get around the gold cap. The same way they already do. By using ecto and other rare materials as cash.

But by adding such a low cap, it would allow the rich to hord expensive rare materials, while the poor can hardly store any gold at all.

Result = an even greater vacuum between the rich and poor.

The only problem with the economy is we dont have enough gold sinks. We need more stuff for the rich to buy, to reduce their wealth and reduce the rift between rich and poor.

At the minute, alot of stuff is just given away for cheap or free. We need to make people pay for stuff ingame, instead of using commendations and vouchers to get free indentification kits.

As for the idea of reducing expensive armor from 15k to 2k, just because you want a 10k cap on gold storage...

...soooo nooooooooooo!!!

The idea is to have expensive armor that takes time and effort to save up for. Anet already killed that by giving us 5k armor in NF.

What kind of pride could you have walking around in 2k armor, when the regular stuff costs 1.5k?

Wheres the achievement in that?

We need expensive prices and armor and weapons ro strive for things.

If I spend the time and use my brains enough to get rich that is my business.

/notsigned at all

This whole thread isn't about the prices of certain things, especially the armor gold sinks. This method described is a way to fight Ebaying and 3rd party gold acquisition. You're not understanding the concept of this Economic situation. I am in no way implying that we convert to this type of method on our current economy. If this idea of mine were to be implemented, it would be to be implemented on GW2. Meaning everyone is starting from scratch are we not? Where will you have those millions you are saying the "rich" will have to horde the rare materials? In GW2, everything will start over, the prices, the availability. Surely you don't expect to transfer all the gold you so hard workingly earned from GW1 over to GW2. Because if you believe that, you're in for a serious dissapointment. Now, with the lower cap, balance is the economy's friend. If our current economic situation had it to where our storage capacity for gold was 10mil, and the amount one could carry on his char was capped at 1mil, don't you think the monster's would drop the respected amount compared to what we're capped now? Most monsters drop an average of 140g. That would mean that the monsters would drop 1,400~ gold. Give or take. Same thing with the other economy that I am suggesting. The monsters of course would drop less loot due to the cap.

Another thing, this isn't the real world where you spend money you earned from a job. In RL, most of us, don't kill stuff for a living to be rich. That's what this game is for. I play this game for the challenge, not the gold.

Let's just drop the whole armor argument here because the armor is a gold sink that works just fine. Expensive weapons, that's where it's at. So you "want to be better than him" by buying expensive weapons? How about "being better than him" because you know YOU were the one to actually acquire that weapon by killing that certain boss, and what not. That is the true feeling of accomplishment. Now I am not judging nor telling you how to acquire your items. That is up to you. Neither will this economy be taking away from your "sense" of accomplishment by not allowing you to be one of the wealthier people in the community. What purpose does having 1mil gold or even 100mil gold do for you? Jack. If the economy is capped in a better way than it is now, having 121 ectos or having 1,000 ectos won't mean anything because the ecto prices will be capped at a more reasonable price so that the "little" guy won't be affected by your' "hording".

You're right, there is nothing wrong with having vast amounts of gold that YOU earned. Because like I said, it won't mean anything. If you buy 1000 apples, and I only buy 10, why should my 10 apples cost me 9 times more than you paid for your first few before inflation. That applies to my capping every material. BUT, that small minority that uses ebay and eventually inflates prices way out of proportion is what "KILLS" the economy. Everyone suffers, yes even you Richie Rich.

So for the last time, it's not about being the richest or not, it's about a stable economy that prospers without the dreaded Ebay eclipsing our world.

100k is a perfect cypher, good price, you can get 1k just by killing some vermin or 3..7k just by clearing the Domain of Secrets with heroes.
You can get 100k in less than one week if you want.

I hate too the economy going too high, but such radical changes are way a too much, simply insane. A Kuunavang, Rurik or Bone Dragon miniatures DO ARE worth 100k and even more for those who really want them.

If you really want 'heavy' price control, or making a critical example of what not to do... Here's one way that will do the thing for you:
1.- Make impossible to trade gold and items at the same time.
2.- Make impossible to trade stuff that has traders.
That is, you can trade gold for items or item for items, but not gold for gold, gold and items for items or items for items.
And never trade dyes, scrolls, runes and such.

What would do that?
That would prevent people using 100k+ectos as currency...
Or just ectos as currency.
But they will surely do things to bypass that, like dropping thins in explorable areas or making multiple trades, thus increasing the chances of scamming.
So... nay...

Yes, trader prices should have min and max caps, they already have min caps, but I don't know if they have maximum ones.
For dyes, max caps could be 1k for colors, 5k for silver and 15k for black and white.
For runes, max caps should be 5k for blue, 20k for purple and 50k for gold.
For Scrolls, min 800g, max 3,200g

Currently the system is ok, you can gather 1000k and carry 100k. That is perfect.
Many unnecessary high prices would be fixed just by adding inscription and insignia worldwide, the rest of 'high prices' are there and will always be there because items are hard to get, like the Panda minature or a Crystaline sword skin.

It's perfectly normal that they are expensive. What is not perfect is being so huge differences like the ones you see between a 14^50% and a 15^50% sword. And that is fixed with the new inscription system.
So if the system where to be inserted worldwide, finally, just as armors, skin and color would be the only things that matter on a weapon.

Yes there are some people taking my view the wrong way. My idea of this economy isn't to financially equalize anyone. That word "equalize" has barely been mentioned in this post. None of the other posts in this thread say anything about financial equality. I am saying that the economy in GW2 should be able to function with a smaller cap. Take the level cap that will be introduced to GW2. Although there maybe a cap of 100 or perhaps no cap at all, that means nothing to the game's general performance. Once you hit lvl 20, you are as powerful as a lvl 1234 because anything over 20 means jack. I like that idea. I just wish people would understand that it's not about who's the richest. It's about the accomplishment, and barring 3rd party gold acquisition from ruining the GW2 economy.

Those 2 ideas sound good to implement as well. As far as bypassing by dropping in explorable areas, why not make it to where you cannot drop anything? What's the point in dropping anything? If you don't need it, put it up in the Auction House for sale. If it's merchant trash, duh! lol sell it to the merchant! If you just don't want it at all, then drag and drop on that lil ol' trash can we so conveniently have. The only things we should be able to drop are those items that have "drop item" such as the ritualist ashes and Spear of Archemorus, etc. How will we be able to transfer items between our own characters in our account? Of course you can drag and drop into your bank storage silly! Then log onto the other character and pick it up!

I still think that the best solution to the economy problem would be to make the money loop and not be droppable; this way no money can be created, and farmers cannot get so rich that they end up forming an elite of people with a lot of money, who in the end decide the prices.

*adding*

I want to clarify so that people understand why looping money would solve all problems.

I think there is a problem with rubies being at around 8k now, am i right?

If money loops, less people can buy rubies at such a high price.
Farmers keep on selling rubies, making the number of them rise.
More rubies cause the price to go down, and people to be able to buy them.

Why the economy stabilizes:

If you can only make money selling materials, then you will always have a balance between money and materials.

Amount of Money = Amount of Materials

If there are more people who sell materials then people who buy them, then the price of materials will go down.
As the price sinks more people tend to buy materials, so the price of them goes up again.

If there are more people who buy materials then people who buy them, then the price of materials will go up.
As the price goes up more people tend to sell materials, so the price goes down again.

I'm in no way suggesting we allow people to transfer gold, characters or anything over from GW1 to GW2.

Im one of those few anti-transfer people who thinks a fresh start in GW2 is exactly what we do need.

But in that case, I find this entire thread a bit redundant.

I admit I didnt read the entire thread, or your responce, because I bore easily and I dont like threads that go on for 10 years.

But from the jist of what I read, you basically want Anet to ensure that when we all start GW2 we are all as weathly as each other and no one is rich or poor!



Correct me if im wrong, but isnt that what their going to do?



Your suggestions wont benefit either GW1 or GW2. The economy is fine. The problem is (as in real life) the rich have influence over prices.

Real simple fix

The only thing that would have an actual benefit on the economy are set prices on materials and dyes. Then people could no longer hord ectos for wealth. Prices wouldnt be influenced by the rich pushing prices up.

Trade would still exist, because people would still be able to trade objects you cant get from the NPC. Such as green weapons and minipets.

Anet could still set rare materials to have very high prices, to ensure people cant easily buy them.

But they wouldnt be influenced by supply and demand.

In an RPG there is no comunism, but capitalism, capitalims must be controled by taxes and price limits, but that's all. That te working system, a limited partially self-controled market.
You kill monsters to get gold, the more you kill the more gold you get. THat's the basics of an RPG market.
Then, the system puts limits, so not only those who kill 24/7 can keep the stuff.

Because in our alliace we help our fellow members, mate, and that's what this game is about.
I give out the green items I don't need to my fellow guildies.
We share some items, and we bought all the GH NPCs in a few days because everyone paid for them.

Even if you add a way to give items to a fellow guilder, what about your friends out of the guild?
If you let people to trady when being insde the fiend list, they just add people to the list, and if you put a timer, they'll wait for the time to expire.
No, sorry, mine is still an example of waht not to do.

Yes, starting GW2 with set prices would actually help keep the economy stable to a degree. That is a good suggestion.

lets all give poor players welfare too and

tax the rich for ..being rich ( put rich and powerful in goolash camps)
almost sounds communist

and ban anyone going to guru forums


...sound good?

/notsigned

It's always seemed to me that Guild Wars has a two-tiered economy.

The first tier is inhabited by casual players and newbies. They don't play much, so they don't have much gold. Every new skill and armor piece is a major achievement for them, and for the most part they carry weapons they found themselves. The economy for these players is already strictly NPC-controlled; the greatest interaction they have with the player market is when they buy a stack of materials for their 1.5k armor.

The second tier is inhabited by forum posters. They play a lot, and all the basic milestones are boring to them. They set their sights on vanity achievements like titles and rare/expensive graphics for armor and weapons. They begin to consider these frills the foundation of the GW economy, and they begin to forget that no frill gives a player even the tiniest gameplay advantage.

Nothing in the luxury economy imbues a gameplay advantage. Everything in the luxury economy exists to give hardcore players something to do. Luxury economies are always inflated. There is no elite caste of farmers and cheaters dangling THINGS YOU NEED way above your head, only THINGS YOU WANT. The GW luxury economy doesn't need micromanagement because nothing in it matters to gameplay. (Occasionally there is an exception to this, like Razah, which Anet did eventually remedy.)

EDIT: I even made an illustration!

I barely had a K to my name at the start of the year. The reason? I didn't work for it.

If I spend MY time killing monsters for loot and MY time finding a buyer, I deserve to be rewarded. Basically, what you are saying, is that ANYONE should be able to get anything in-game by doing hardly a thing. Do a couple of quests, and zap there's that 1337 armour everyone else is walking around in. Titles would mean absolutely nothing because everyone would be able to afford to level those up that require gold (eg. Sweet Tooth etc.).

Making the gold cap even lower would anger a lot of players. When I can't hold any more gold, what am I supposed to do with it? Giving it away wouldn't be an option considering almost everyone would be able to buy anything they wanted.

The economy is fine the way it is (except for the lack of an auction).Those who play long and hard so that they can afford that weapon of their dreams should be allowed to.

It seems to me, and excuse me if I'm wrong, that you are complaining that there are poor people in the game and that rich people get to buy things the poorer people can't buy. That's life. If you invest, you reap the rewards!

Hmm... I think it raises good points, but every idea that you presented doesn't seem completely practical, with all due respect. Don't get me wrong, I salute and praise your efforts to devise a plan that would rid Guild Wars of those damn gold sellers, ebayers, and whatnots. An open, very lightly controlled, economy MUST thrive in an open game such as this.


ArenaNet doesn't tell you what armors and weapons you must get and they don't tell you how to get them, so there should not be set prices on anything that is a popular product of the economy. (I'll come back to this)


The money idea about lowering the max you can have... that's interesting, and I really can't comment on it because truthfully I don't know enough about that.

Trading Idea: That sounds ok, maybe some more restrictions instead of all out blocking it. Free Market idea ^. What needs to be done is more moderating. Moderation with numbers and perseverance, as well as punishment is more effective with stopping the gold sellers and ebayers than stopping trade. There will be a lot of pissed off people if you take away trade all together.

Dropping items: maybe some restrictions could be added, but the same idea with the trading- a free market must prevail for a successful economy. Remember, this is a game, and not a survival procedure or real life. (i.e a communism will work LESS here than in real life.)

Auction House- I full heartedly agree with this. More trade means better economy. Spam would be greatly reduced, and it would be easier to track gold sellers when the chat list doesnt move so quickly, in both the autcion and chat.

That's just my two cents.

Well.. thats not entirely true. Skills and CCs >.> My main beef is with skills.

dude wtf r u talking about
i agree 2k armor isnt great at all and you can get 1k from a quest reward
i acctually think that we need to be able to hold more money
i think your just crying because you cant get good stuff so want want the economy to go down
and the price cap is because items are rare DUHHHH
and that wont "lower" the economy it would destroy it
how are people supposed to get trade contracts to trade for gemstones for vabbian armor

so what if your inventory is full and a gold droped for you
then you cant pick it up cuz you cant toss out a useless white

Please read his post again and then think before you talk. It is a hypothetical situation. You jumped to a conclusion that I can say, for sure, is false.

Heh, didn't know about the trash bag in your inventory?

Ah, but the price of skills is NPC-controlled! Anet WANTS you to work that hard for UAX! Personally I think skills should cost 1 skill point OR 1000 gold, not both, but I doubt it will happen.

CCs are a bit of an exception, I guess. I wasn't deep enough into the game to need them before the most recent Christmas event - how high in price did they climb last year before the supply was replenished?

Heh, I'm just gonna say:

OK, EVERYONE forget about the money cap!

Seriously all but a few actually understood the concept of the lower cap. Everyone else is believing that the money drops, and prices of everything will remain the same, but that the cap for money will be lowered. So just forget the money cap, it was a bad idea.

And yes I wholeheartedly agree, you should reap the rewards you have worked for. The whole OP has been mainly singled out for the money cap, save for a few threads that actually talk about the AH, and price caps. My main intention when pondering the situation on our economy was, "how could we deal a powerful blow to the 3rd party gold sellers?" Keep that in mind when posting your insight on the situation please. Financially, I'm not poor, neither am I rich. I am doing good enough to be in a happy position.

LOL, you took the words out of my mouth.

Since the OP has stated that his idea is to combat ebaying and gold selling and not the cost of items I will only address the gold selling problem.

A very very very small amount of people purchase gold. There is no need to destroy an entire aspect of a game to combat such a small problem. It would be like making every form of farming impossible to combat bots and gold farmers. Overkill, no need.

Anet will never implement this. People do not quit Guild Wars simply because of gold sellers. People in the tens of thousands will quit Guild Wars if trading and the economy is destroyed.

It baffles me why people make these threads like every week when the reaction is usually highly criticle from the majority of people.

/not signed.