Update - Friday April 20, 2007

Mesmerman is right and because he is right I'm upset that they caved. I could have been charging 50K for 15K greens inside of a month if that update had stood. The rich get richer and the poor stay poor. Now everyone will keep on glutting the market and devaluing merchandise. What gets me is apparently a lot of farmers who have played the market don't get economics because they were the loudest complainers when this could have been their cash cow. I mean come on 12K trader ecto? And with a nerfed drop rate how long before it hit 20? How many people have made gold hand over fist and converted it to ecto stacks? Can you say double your investment? If I could I would collectively slap the lot of them. So be happy the solo farmer is still able to do their thing Miral otherwise you'd be saving for a year to buy that rare skinned sundering whatever the hell you want.

its not about having everything atainable for me. I don't give a RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO about FoW armor or rare skins or any of that shit. Its about NOT having rare prestigious stuff just HANDED to solo farmers because they found a build on wiki or a fansite that can get them a few ectos every 20 minutes, or tons of anguish gemstones. It is about a huge rift in the economy between real players and those who set up a generic farming build for ectos or whatever. It's about people abusing flaws in the game system, arenanet fixing those flaws, and then giving in to the farmers less than a day later. farmers having tons of money means they have more money to spend. if a group has more money to spend, prices go up. when prices go up, the people not of that group suffer. Its just like when say... a hollywood studio comes to a small town and their only store starts charging 300% normal prices. the actors and producers can afford those goods, but now the normal people in that small town can't afford goods in their own town. THAT is what solo farmers do to the guildwars economy. if you're a solo farmer it makes sense that you would not see it, since you are not of the real players who suffer from your activities.

prices went up because people panicked about the change and bought a bunch of ecto from the trader. it happens every time a major change happens to ecto farming. like I said, they didn't even give it a full day to settle down

That's such rubbish. If they hadn't changed it the players who don't already have money would never have enough to buy anything they wanted that cost more than droks armour. It's still harder for those players to get it but at least they have a chance.

And as for all the pvpers etc having a go at us pve players for complaining well you can get off your high horse right now. If Anet released an update tomorrow removing HA and GVGs from the game because people were acquiring too much fame/faction or something i'd like to see you avoid coming here and complaining.

yeah because its not like normal players can't join a group and get a lucky ecto drop, then sell that to the rich people. What they should have done today is increase the base drop rate, NOT make everything worthwhile exempt from the scaling. as it is now, a solo farmer using a generic build gets more than a full team actually fighting through underworld the way it was meant to be done. And I mean the TOTAL of the full team, not what each member gets. If you want soloing to be viable, fine. But as is with solofarmers.... if soloing is the only viable way to get loot, then we really need changes. put everything back on loot scaling, then increase the base drop rate for EVERYONE.

how would you be selling those 15k greens for 50k if no one has the 50k to buy it from you in the first place?

yeah thats what people dont seem to understand when they say the rich will get richer...

I know plenty of people who don't farm (I am one of them) and I'm currently sitting on about 1.7million, I have 2 sets of FoW, 15k armor on all 10 of my PvE characters (1 of each profession), and a plethora of other crap. What are YOU doing wrong? O_o

Then you just must be really really really really reallly lucky with your group drops when not farming.

Or a comfortable job that allows for such luxuries that only ebay give.

heh theres not many people who will argue that group drops are not crap. thats the whole source of the problem, the whole reason people went to solofarming to begin with. and why I argue that they should keep the loot scaling on all items (so that solo farming can get some stuff but balanced groups are more viable) and then up the base drop rate on ectos and greens and other popular items like what was done with golds yesterday. This way anyone playing in the area can get a good drop, but using teamwork will make it more likely. is there really any reason we can't have it like that? that way people who want to solo can solo, and people who want to group can group, and in they end they can all be about even.

solo'ing is nowhere near unnerfed. before, you'd be guaranteed 1 drop for every monster, whether it's a collectable, gold, equipment, or salvage item. you're guaranteed one of those.
on the other hand, you'd have a chance at a dye, gold, and some other stuff. these, however, are not guaranteed.

the latter was also victims of the nerf, and now it's just been reverted back to the low chances you'd normally get. basically, your chance of getting those previously guaranteed items, are now at the same chance (more or less) of getting a gold, dye, green, etc.

and jeez, i recall one of the representatives mentioning that this update will encourage more social activity among players. yeah, right. like i'm going to try and befriend any of the damn kids and idiots in game. apparently the trade channel is only there for show, not for trading. and things need to be said 50 times every 5 seconds or nobody will see it.
'course there's some good people. a minority, and hard to find. just finding them is definitely not something worth investing a lot of time in. i've only gotten lucky a few times.

the majority are actually fairly decent, its just that the bad people are more.... whats the word.... blatant?

Maybe some people don't spend thousands of hours in a game, which is what you're doing wrong.

I would tend to give your argument a little more weight if you weren't basing economic theory on an episode of the Simpsons.

This update is a perfectly acceptable compromise and I applaude ANET for taking appropriate action to address what was a legitimate concern by a large percentage of its player base. GG Anet. I also like HM quite a bit. Good, solid fun.

Thanks again Anet. You've managed to keep (for the time being) a loyal customer.

Oz