Here is my take on farming in GW:
Firstly, I am a primarily a PvE player and consider myself experienced and very knowledgeable about this game.
Did ANet truly make this game so that people could get attempt to get rich quick? They certainly saw what happens when they allow mass killing of the same monster in Diablo II (cow runs). When GW first came out, if you killed the same monster over and over again (i'm not sure if this still happens), the drops simply would disappear. Some of this may seem super obvious, but it should still be taken into consideration to determine what Anet's goals are in this game. You get "statistically" perfect armor for your character in a relatively short time period. After getting a big of faction, and some lucky drops, you can design your own level 20 character with PERFECT mods on the weapon, PERFECT armor, and all the skills you've unlocked to play in PvP.
What does this tell you? - This game is a PvP game where money is meant to have little value. Lets say, a good GW player has 1 million gold to go around and buy whatever he wants. He would probably buy: a new 2nd birthday mini pet, a perfect sword with an AWESOME skin for his warrior, and FoW armor that he's always wanted on his ele. BOOM the million gold is gone because of those raw materials he needed for the armor. This game is MEANT to take your money for useless things for your character. I mean useless to do "statistically" better in this game. Obviously its not useless because of all those compliments you get for your armor =). Introduction of minipets? Getting your character to look cooler for another 100k? Awesome!
Skills costing 1k each is no coincidence. They also allowed you to easily change your secondary profession. So you could buy more skills? Possibly.
In addition, how many patches have tried to screw up farming builds? How about when spirit bond only works for the next 10 attacks? Long ago, Divine boom had no cooldown. Remember that? That was a pretty cool build. How about when UW was changed so that the monsters have more enchant removal?
This is only a theory, but I believe that ANet wanted your amount of income to be roughly equal, or a little higher to your regular spending. The necessary things you need to buy, such as salvage kits, ID kits, skills, armor, raw materials, runes, weapons, etc, will be roughly equal to the income you receive from playing the game.
I know I'll get flamed to hell that I dislike farming, but I advocate that players simply play the game.
P.S. Since the introduction of titles, people may want to get the rare drops title, or other titles that include farming something, such as lightbringer points. I agree, farming may be necessary for that.
Is farming necessary?
shrift
FeroxC
Talk about stating the obviouse, i challenge people not to flame him.
Coloneh
must.... resist... flaming..... captain.... obvious..............
Blue man
ok tell me this cap obvious, not bein rude, just wanna know how u think people make enough money to buy tht cool item they want or something like tht other then wastin hours and hours doin underworld runs in 8 man groups or tombs or something. i mean other then gettin insaneley lucky or winning hall of heroes and farming, u really dont make enough money to buy something nice for ur guy.throughout profecies without farming i wouldnt have made any money at all the quests give u nothing. i jsut wanna know what u plan to do other then farm or get lucky
Nkah Sennyt
I'm pre-emptively closing this before it turns into an inevitable flame-fest.