Why is ecto falling in price so rapidly?

ibex333

ibex333

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jun 2005

Brooklyn, NY

[EYE]

Rt/A

What in the world is going on?

UW Farming? Well people have been farming for a while and that barely did anything to lower the price. It usually fluctuated between 7-10k on average.

People selling ecto for 4.5-5k? That's insane! Mabe it's the HM with it's higher drop rate?

This is the lowest I ever seen, and I've been playing since Prophecies Beta. Unless I am forgetting something, I never seen ecto go down this low. I lost a lot of money due to this price drop, and now I am simply broke... Yeah.. Boo hoo, and all that.

Does anyone know if the silly pink bits will ever go up again or that's unlikely in the near future?

wetsparks

wetsparks

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2006

If you lost a lot of money due to the price drop, you were rich enough to buy a lot of ectos and are still pretty rich compared to 90% of the community. And yes they are probably dropping more because of hard mode, and the UW passage scrolls that allow you to go there without favor. They also probably dropped because people freaked out over loot scaling and there are no new professions coming for new FoW armor so there is less demand.

w00t!

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Aug 2005

Sorrow's Furnace Hot Tub

RoS

Mo/Me

No surprise that ectos have dropped, due to a multitude of reasons
1) More supply (hard mode, ectos exempt from loot scaling)
2) Less demand (most who want FoW have it by now)

I for one think that ecto are finally priced close to what they should be. As a matter of fact, I'd speculate that they should eventually level out at around 2.5 ecto.

But one thing can save ectos: IF (and that's a big IF) GW:EN give special GW2 unlocks for people who have FoW armor, then demand, and price, will rise.

Malice Black

Site Legend

Join Date: Oct 2005

Bye bye ecto prices

Mesmer in Need

Mesmer in Need

Forge Runner

Join Date: Mar 2006

[ToA]

Most people think that hm increases the drop rate of ectos, which it does not. If you read the updates, you will find this. But the supply has gone up, because of things like the scatter ai in nm toned down, and the supply has gone down. Rubies now cost more than ectos. Lockpicks ftw.

Noz Crow

Noz Crow

Academy Page

Join Date: Apr 2006

R/Mo

With loot scaling no one has any money. Even people that had hordes of ectos have had to sell them to buy lockpicks and other items. Everyone is poor and will stay poor so get used to it.

GreatLich

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Aug 2005

It's a good thing then that having money is by no means required to play and enjoy the game.

Malice Black

Site Legend

Join Date: Oct 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by GreatLich
It's a good thing then that having money is by no means required to play and enjoy the game.
That's bollox. You never needed money to enjoy/play GW. GW is the only MMO I've played were you can get away with having no money at all.

Dauntless

Dauntless

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jun 2005

Mo/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Malice Black
That's bollox. You never needed money to enjoy/play GW. GW is the only MMO I've played were you can get away with having no money at all.
Yea thats pretty much what they were saying.

GreatLich

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Aug 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Malice Black
That's bollox. You never needed money to enjoy/play GW. GW is the only MMO I've played were you can get away with having no money at all.
Reading comprehension ftw!

Kook~NBK~

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Mar 2005

A little chalet outside Drok's

Natural Born Killaz

Loot Scaling has greatly reduced the amount of gold being introduced into the game. Because of this, the value of that gold has gone up. (According to the spam from gold sellers, their prices have nearly doubled.) And it's affecting everything. Ectos are only one indicator. Vigor runes have dropped in price as well (from around 32K dow2n to 16-17K). Dye prices have also taken a nose dive. It's still wierd to see "WTS Black Dye, 5k" stuff.

Another factor is everyone is selling off their stashes of ectos and more valuable items to cut their losses. That further lowers the prices of those items.

Captain Arne Is PRO

Captain Arne Is PRO

Banned

Join Date: Jun 2005

As soon as they announced the UW-armor to be, the prices started to plummet.

Linksys

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Apr 2006

Whatever the cause, the lower in price they drop the better. It lets more people get the FoW armor.

Iuris

Iuris

Forge Runner

Join Date: Nov 2006

Crazy ducks from the Forest

W/

Treads like this make want to kiss Anet. Prices dropping, gold gaining in value, market stabilizing - love it.

And watching these poor people complaining how poor they are becoming I wonder when they will realize that comparative prices are what matters, not the actual amount of gold.

ibex333

ibex333

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jun 2005

Brooklyn, NY

[EYE]

Rt/A

Quote:
Originally Posted by Iuris
Treads like this make want to kiss Anet. Prices dropping, gold gaining in value, market stabilizing - love it.

And watching these poor people complaining how poor they are becoming I wonder when they will realize that comparative prices are what matters, not the actual amount of gold.

That's all good and well, but if you'd grind for days and months like me just to suddenly loose most of the money you worked so hard to get, you'd feel bad too.

It's nice to be someone who was always broke and couldn't care less... You can finally afford just about anything.

But those who wasted lots of time to get some money would naturally feel bad.

I'm not one of those money obsessed freaks that spend all their time farming.. But I grinded hard to get my MILLION so that I could invest that in Drunkard, Lucky, and Sweet Tooth titles.... I made a mistake of investing a big part of it into ecto, and now I have only 200k left.... *tear*


Also the mere fact that now nubs can afford FoW armor is simply insulting for those who were saving up for it for many months... I didn't "ebay" my FoW armor.... I grinded very hard for it for a very long time. How is it "just" or "fair" that not just about anyone can get it?

Apparently Anet has just "negated" many core elements of this game. The way it used to be is that if you were a nub, you didnt have to be rich to be cool... You could always get collector armor and collector/crafter items and be just as efficient a anyone who has millions... But if you were someone who just cant be content with collector stuff you could go a little higher and get "leet" stuff - that was completely unnecessary.

The way it is now, is just about anyone can be "leet"... Well that's all good and well, but then why are all the collector/crafter things still ingame? Why are the purples still in game? They are simply not needed now when barely anyone will look at this stuff.

When Prophecies 1st came out, purples and collector things were still valuable. People actually still valued those to some extent back then. Now it's all crap and no one wants it. IMO what happened was not a nice change to make everyone equal. What happened is complete destruction of economy!

GW now, is like Soviet Union at the time of it's collapse!

Dauntless

Dauntless

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jun 2005

Mo/

Good lord people. Those of you who are complaining, you have to realize that in buying up or farming for Ectos, you made an investment. The market for your investment has crashed. This happens all the time in real life. Remember the .com boom? A lot of people lost money when their ill founded investment went under. It happens.

My God you people all want everything served to you on a silver platter. You all speak of entitlement, well no one is entitled to anything but basic human rights. One of those rights certainly isn't the right to be filthy rich in an inconsequential video game. If anything you whiners should be grateful for the experience you've gained in loosing in a video game. Learn to invest in something that has a more constant value, and learn to buy low and sell high. Just be glad your "losses" happened in a video game and not in real life.

Don't blame Anet. They aren't the ones who were hoarding Ectos, you have your in game rich buddies to blame for that. All those people who buy things for 100k+xx Ectos. The Ecto Market shrunk because of hoarders not because of Anet. Anet added hard mode and scaled loot. You all complained and as a result, like the wonderful company that they are, they removed scaling from the items we requested(greens, golds, purples, rare mats like ECTOS). So don't blame them. You did this to yourselves.

Silly Warrior

Silly Warrior

Hold it!

Join Date: Jul 2006

In your local courthouse.

The Arctic Marauders [TAM] (elite PvE, PM)

It's gone down before, it will go up again.

This happened before the release of Factions, and I'm sure the Ecto price will go back to a more 7kish state soon enough.

Perhaps more people are simplying learning how to farm Ectos.

Masseur

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Dec 2005

Southern California

R/Mo

and it's not like it's heading down, it went from around 8K-9K to around 6K and stayed (merchant prices). It's like it's fixed at that amount give or take 500g. It used to rise and fall much more, but now it's kinda stuck and doesn't seem to ever go outside 5.5K-6.5K, very strange. I'm one of those that are never poor, but I'm not filthy rich either. I could have bought FoW armor for many of my characters if I had thought it even remotely worth it or if I actually thought that armor looked decent, but I don't on either account.

If the prices go up, good for me since I don't keep them when they drop, I sell them right away, but then on the other side, lower prices are good for the users who wish to waste their money on that Armor.

Firebaall

Firebaall

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Sep 2006

There is no future in hoarding wealth in the form of ecto. There are no new characters that are comming out with new expansions/chapters. What this means, is there is not going to be an increased demand for the pink goo.

If you don't want to lose more of your net worth, sell it now. Buy something that has a set value, and is stackable. I wish there was another money item, but that's not going to happen either. Gemstones with a set value would have been very cool.

When I sell a rare item, I still have to deal with the 100K +xxx ecto crowd. I sell the ecto off to other players @ -1K vendor prices. I only keep 15e on hand for those times that the 100K +15e deal inevitably pops up. Get smart, dump the ecto now.

ShadowsRequiem

ShadowsRequiem

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Oct 2005

Inde is Smoking [Hawt] *ToA*

W/E

Quote:
Originally Posted by Iuris
Treads like this make want to kiss Anet. Prices dropping, gold gaining in value, market stabilizing - love it.

And watching these poor people complaining how poor they are becoming I wonder when they will realize that comparative prices are what matters, not the actual amount of gold.

I'm just wondering how in hell you consider this stabilizing(ectos dropping 5k value is sure stabilized to me).... before ectos prices were good, now everyone is freaking out like its doomsday and fanatically trying to find a new standard for gold over 100k trades.

October Jade

October Jade

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jul 2005

drifting between Indiana and NorCal

Last I checked, ectoplasm was classified as a rare crafting material, not "fancy-pants currency for people with an alarming lack of real-world responsibility."

It exists as a means of creating fissure armor; there was never any intention that players should utilize it as a standard of trade. As such, anyone choosing to speculate heavily in ecto is subject to its price fluctuations. If you don't like the direction the market is headed, put your money in something else.

So you got burned by a bad investment...as Dauntless mentioned above, it happens all the time. Tough cookies.

Additionally, anyone who had enough ecto to be seriously affected probably has a greater farming acumen than 95% of the general GW populace. Just keep up what you're doing; you still have more money than everyone else.

ryanryanryan0310

ryanryanryan0310

Desert Nomad

Join Date: May 2006

Scars Meadows [SMS]

It's mainly due to the new way to access the UW. With scrolls your region don't need favor. So there is massive farming going on in the UW anytime of the day. There are also rumors of bots in the UW.......

Dweasel

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Dec 2006

I wouldn't say any newb can get FoW armor now. The total price went from about 1.3 million to about 900K. That's a substantial drop, but still a lot of money.