Destroy the Ebay Gold interest

I do not want to stuff envelopes for a living. I do not want to be a repetitive midless idiot out farming for a living. I want to play the game. I want to get good decent things while I play the game. Since returning to the game I have seen a few green drops. I am absolutely positive these are completely glitches by the program. One of these is Kepkhet's Refuge. Two are worthless greens that will not even bring a k if I should try to sell them are are better off merched. In fact I attempted to use one of the greens on Hero Susouki and it only resulted in him getting killed, which tells me how worthless it really is.

Outside of that I have seen very few golds, and most of what I do see are worthless gold runes that merch for 10g if slavaged. But what I have seen is 2 dozen monk mesmers running in and out of Altrumm Ruins at the same time. They may not be bots, but they are certainly making money selling gold on e-bay to players. The way to stop them is to make their effort worthless. Destroy their reason for being here.

I just tried to raise enough of one drop to get a collector item I can settle for. It isnt what I want - it is acceptable. In several days of romping through the area I did not get one drop for the collector. Finally I camped outside The Eternal Grove and killed the same Gki repetedly for the body part. I killed the Gaki so many times I leveled and was 71% percent to making my next skill point and Never received a single collector drop. Nor did I ever see a single gold. Nor did I see a purple that was worth considering modifying or keeping. Nor did I see a blue that was worth modifying or keeping. Nor did I see a white that was worth modifying or keeping. The only hero I took with me was Tahlkora to help keep me up, as I am playing a Nuker and do not have any farming crap. All told I think I made about 3-4k in that time - which is pretty useless.

Anyone who supports, and I mean this absolutely, anyone who supports the continuance of restricted drops is only supporting e-bay gold and interested in controlling the play of their fellow players. The only way to end the e-bay gold and end the bots is to destroy their profit by making playing the game something that provides for the players as they play. Currently the game does not doe this and in my experience, starting 21 months ago, it never has.

Fitz Rinley

Destroying the reason bots exist sounds much simpler then it is. Why do people ebay for gold? Their too lazy to farm the amount they want to have better looks then anyone else without having to work for it. As long as there is an elite status to achieve people will strive for it to be in this way unique and in their way better then others, if your suggesting to destroy the need for them it would mean destroying all vanity equipment in the game or make it as cheap as any other armor wich I dont see happen in the near future.

However there are effective ways to deal with bots, anet could make a third realm of a god any of the ones currently have none, melandru for example they could make this area interesting to bot to lure the botters in there then banish them from the servers, this theory sounds simple aswell it isnt. But with much time spent into creating a trap for botters i think anet could lure them from their holes.

Asking anet to give one a viable source of income has been done more then 1000 times it will probally never happen, however they made some armors and materials cheaper to gain and these are now achievable by simply playing.

If you refuse to farm, I suggest you do some FoW trips for fun these should net a nice income. Also the free treasures are an option if you didnt handle them already. If your still displeased with getting gold, your going to have to farm here is a link how to farm lots of monoliths with a cheap a/e e/a build http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GcLokdLID8 easy to obtain and easy to do, nets about 3 5 golds a run and 1 2kish in gold.

Runes can be identified, you smart guy. Gold runes, once identified, may be sold for up to 500g. If you don't identify them, they will rarely go over 25g.

I would only agree to force Bosses to drop at least one trophy to at least one playing character.

Or they could also exempt collectable drops from the stupid Loot Scaling list.

Some of them are quite an income, up to 60g. Like most weapons.
Just removing them out from llotscale would be like removing weapons.

MAking boss drop them would be better, since they are few, farmeable by the 'good' farmers (Boss riders, parties, etc...) and less bot-able.

I know exactly what the rune was I got. It was a superior rune of Water Magic - a worthless rune. There was no problem Identifying it. And yes, it can be destroyed out of circulation by selling to a regular merchant for 25 gold.

I am not just talking about dropping greens - although since I purchased Factions I have killed the healer bug outside Shing Jea almost every time I go out the door and NEVER seen the green drop. Most of the greens I have had in the past have been gifts (Flint's Staff) or cheap purchases (Rockmoulder, Shadestone). I have actually had drop, as usable greens, Bludgeoner and Kepkhet's Refuge.

I have two of the useless baby greens which aren't even sales worthy and some daggers for my assassin that I will actually find useful at some point. That is my entire list in 2,678 hours of play across two accounts. (And yes I go back to when you could not have more than four characters on an account and if you wanted to play all the classes you had to by more accounts.)

After Factions I got angry because of Faction, GvG not being open like it was during preview, the Favor control of FoW/UW which I still opose, the lack of storage (which is still insufficient for the games to the point I have had to buy extra slots for mules), the horrible presence in RP channel, and the incredible cost of everything in the game.

I want to play the game not spend all of my time farming for things I can live with. I have tried three times to make a necro in Elona and had to give up. I could not stand to look at the dirty little wench my character would have to be if I made her there. So I made her in Tyria and a friend helped me get her to Elona so I could play there with something that did not gross me out to look at. At least now it does not look like she is some kind of skank that wont take a bath. Getting appearances in game is not just about vanity, it is sometimes about decent - even moral taste. Being able to afford things that fit with the character or are decent to look at instead of dirty or ugly crap that I would not live with in my own home isn't mere vanity - it is having enough taste not to be gutter trash. Though I am sure some people who play the game consider that art - I have more education than that.

And none of that changes the fact that the only way to stop the ebay EULA violation is to make it not worth their while. Either prosecute the companies comitting these violations in some way - perhaps assist the IRS in researching those not paying propper income tax/tarrifs on moneys transferred for virtual funds, or sue in class action all those offenders for money to compensate law abiding players and Guild Wars for the damages to the economy and game hassles.

I think that a class action lawsuit may be a bit too much to expect Anet to do. Sure, they could improve control on bots, but there is a limit for reasonable expectations.

That being said, I find that most prices have actually been dropping recently, and it seems to be an ongoing trend. Just look at ectos, mods, inscriptions, or any rare wep skin you care to name, the price is going down as the supply in game grows. Some are still outrageously expensive, but they aren't as expensive as they were, and in the future they won't be as expensive as they are now.

As far as making money without farming goes, have you tried Hard Mode? I find that after vanquishing an area, I get between 1-3k in drops, plus a couple grapes, or a gold, or a pick, or even some scrolls and a tome or two. While it won't make you the richest player in the world, it will make you enough to buy some new stuff. I financed a second set of 15k armor for my warrior just through vanquishing, so it can be done. Plus, its a fun and challenging activity, with a nifty title to work towards.

At any rate, thats my 2 cents

Seconding Hard Mode. The drops in regular mode are pretty much total crap, so if I'm really hard pressed for cash, I kiss my protector title, don the red helmet, and run outside.

I can usually get a few K even if the drops suck and go straight to the merch.

Just a quick FYI that Kepkhet's Refuge you keep calling merch food is (in my opinion) the best protection staff ingame

You don't have to be in level20 turf or hardmode to make lots of cash. I make huge cash in the North Shiverpeaks in normal mode
Look around and find a build and a place thats easy and rewarding

he he finaly i found something we both agree on .

I think if you pay attention you will find that I said I had KepKhet's Refuge and Bludgeoner drop as useable greens - that is in 21 months of having the game, and 2,678 hours of play.

Unless ANet wants to encourage bots, EULA violations, and is somehow profitting from the illicit economy they have no reason to maintain the restrictions. If they want to end the bots and violations then they will open up drops so that people can get what they want without being restricted.

Yes, I have been in Hard Mode. I have completed a couple missions in Hard Mode. Frankly, I used to make more killing in the Crystal Desert a year ago than I got in Hard Mode in the same area, and my drops were better. But now that Elona exist with inscriptions, everything in Tyria and Cantha that isn't Perfect Max and Exact for build is a piece of merch fodder.

Sounds like bad luck, unless you were farming back then, in which case it isn't really a fair comparision. At any rate, yes, the Elonian changes have made many thing less valuble. But that just means it takes less merch fodder to get to that item you want.

I've clocked almost as many hours as you, and have likewise recieved only a handful of greens. Even after opening hundreds of chests, I've only found less then a dozen items worth selling to others, and only last week found my first item I thought of as worthy of putting up for a low-end auction (and it isn't selling .) The point is, rare drops are rare for a reason, not everyone gets them all the time, before or after the the loot changes. If you don't want to farm, then just do what you want, and use merch fodder to save up for that item some other fellow was lucky enough to get.

The only reason to keep items rare, and to keep items limited, is if ANet is profitting at the back-end of the botting industry. If they are not, then they have no reason not to destroy the botting industry by eliminating the need for their services.

I have purchased a couple of things. I detest it. I hate spending hours farming through the trade channels begging people to have something I want at a price I can afford. And that is all it amounts to. There is no game in that crap. It is a demeaning, painful, tormenting period dealing with jerks. I hate selling and I hate buying.

Well the botters won't die, there will still be plenty of them and plenty of people who want to sit on their fat butts doing nothing while getting anything they want with a few clicks on money-selling pages.

That said, I tend to agree. The botting business would thin out considerably and people would actually start playing (dare I say "enjoying"?) the game instead of grinding for hours on end to get what they want if the income were to increase. And we're not talking a marginal 20% or something increase here, it has to be way larger to have any effect. And I also agree that rare items should stay rare, there's no point if that were to change but while they do need to be hard to get, I don't think one should have to grind in the same place over and over for them. That's not hard, that's just tedious. A good example is Mallyx, the mission is god damn hard, and killing him is no afternoon tea party but in the end you get a reward, always. It's fun and it's worth doing and that's what everything should be like, instead I had to make 143 2-3 min runs today to get one single item I've been aching for because it wasn't on sale anywhere (now I know why). That was not fun, it was not profitable and no, I don't feel good about myself now that I have the item.

Ok, I'm a bit lost. Is the purpose of this thread a recommendation to petition for an increase in drops? If so, why complain about worthless drops? After all, even a sup water rune would be worth thousands if it wasn't at least somewhat common. Additionally, who's to say that increased drops equals decreased bots? If every drop in Guild Wars were to double (double gold, double the chance for uncommon and rare items, greens, and perfect mods) what exactly would happen? Bots would continue, and perhaps even do better. They're getting twice as much now, and although they may have to cut their prices to entice buys, that just makes them more appealing to a wider part of the gaming public. Rather it takes 2000 hours or 1000 hours to get 1000k is irrelevant to person buying gold from the bots. They want instant gratification, and nothing is going to stop at least some of the gold seller's clients from purchasing. As long as customers remain, the bots will remain, changing drops won't change bots.

Damasus, that is not how economics works. Are people selling Short Swords (Req 0): Dmg 2-4? Why is it they do not sell them? Why aren't the bots running up to us in Droks baning on us to trade with them for these swords? Is it because they are not in demand? When you eliminate demand for the good or service you eliminate the person who sells it. We only by Air when we cannot breath normally. People will only give up cash for e-bayed gold and loot if they cannot get what they are after normally.

The point of this thread is to eliminate bots/e-bayers ANet is going to have to provide us with access to what we want and need to get. I have a character built entirely on the theme of the Raven staves. She will never carry or use one because they are a waste of effort to get. They do not have any valuable stats. The are 17% and sliding down hill from there. And it is really a shame they have wasted some really nice skins, like the Rave, Dragon, Cockatrice, Celestial, with such poor stats that they are useless to a player as anything other than merch fodder. (And now with inscriptions for weapons in Elona, nothing in Cantha or Tyria that is not perfect has any value at all outside of merch fodder.) I have accepted that things that would be nice in the game, fun in the game, enjoyable in the game, ANet will never give a rat's arse about. But in the meantime, the game itself is being destroyed by bots and sweatshop farmers. The only way to drive them out is to make their services unnecessary. That is done by creating such a supply that there is no reason for people to ever go to third parties to purchase virtual gold or virtual items for play using real cash.

Changing the drops is the only way to eliminate the bots and the sweatshop interest. It is the only way to make their time and effort in our game worthless to their bank account.

Seems to me this is just an other 'loot scaling' thread in disguise.

If you ID without salvaging, they are worth what ever the armor that they are on is worth. I usually don't salvage unless it's a vigor.

Starting to seem that way to me as well. But even if loot scaling were undone, it wouldn't stop bots.

The only way I can see to implement Fitz's idea of having widely available weapons in every skin would be to have every character be able to personalize weapons with skins in some sort of system similiar to the pvp wep creation system. As nice as it would be for everyone to have an elemental sword, this doesn't seem to be a likley move on Anets part, especially when one considers how readily available max weapons are. To do so would completely undermine the game's economy (and not just the bot controlled portion.) Indeed, what would be the point of money in such a system?

One could I suppose implement either an advanced weaponsmith system with different skins costing different materials, or a system like the tournment reward one only with money used to buy the skins, not reward points. But if money were to be implemented anywhere into any skin unlocking system, lazy people would buy money, and bots would thrive. In short, I fail to see how one could flood a system with enough items to invalidate gold buying while at the same time keep a thriving legetimate in game economy.

As far as the wasated skins of Tyri and Cantha goes, I wholeheartedly agree. I'm all for implementing the Elonian weapon system on all the continents. In fact, I have a suspicion that Anet will be doing just that in the near future, perhaps with the release of GW:EN. This won't be stopping bots, but it will give all players a chance to better get that skin they want with usable mods.

Frankly, I don't care about the in game economy. I have owned the game for 21 months. I have never found anything in the economy beneficial. I have never found anything in the constant trade spam enjoyable. I have never found farming to be anything but the most degrading monotonous assembly line manure ever invented. I have occassionally sold crafting materials, and hated sitting in my chair advertising for hours. I have in the past tried to sell max gold items with perfect stats and ended up selling them for 100 g each just to get them out of the way so I could play the game. The economy in GW does now and has always sucked simply because it is there. It is a waste of time, and mostly benefits those who do not want to play the game - but simply forgot to get off the clock when they clocked out so they need some other routine monotonous task to labor at, or who have been playing since first beta and had full advantage of every exploit and money maker there is - so they play at 100k + 50 ectos to purchase because they do not need your money and can restrict their sales. After all, they are still playing so they can show how much they have and new people dont.

This is where I stopped taking your post seriously. If you think the weapon you gave your hero was what was causing him to get killed than you have more serious issues to deal with than destroying the eBay market.

I tossed on him Modoss' Focus - a worthless piece of junk that does not even have a recommended sales value to price check. Yes, since without it he was able to hold his own against Mandragors, I fully believe the addition of this focus to his inventory was a mistake. The additional energy is not worht the loss in energy recovery.

Ok, you've got me, we could indeed stop bots from gold farming if we removed gold. However, this doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Destroying the very concept of a money economy is like dropping a nuke. You'll destroy the bots, and every hardworking honest player with them. Take out the gold system and you'll harm those who have bought gold a little, but they haven't really worked for it anyway, so what does it matter to them? In the end they'll get what they want under a wep creation system without work, so it makes no difference. But you'll really hurt those who haven't bought gold, those who have started from scratch and worked towards their goals within the rules. The veterans who have played to get their gold will have wasted all that time and effort.

The gold economy in its purest form rewards those who have played the longest by giving them a means through which to purchase rewards, which by and large in GW are purely for vanity anyway. The system though, like any system with humans in it, tends to be abused, in this case by bots. However, the solution isn't to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Bots can be controlled in less radical ways, and eliminating them in this fashion has too great a cost.

Now, if one returns to the arguement is that gold should be easily acrued in ways other then farming, well that perhaps has more merit, but increasing quest rewards or drops won't eradicate bots either. Most people who buy from e-bay aren't those who have done everything and completed the game. Rather, the gold buyers are those who aren't much interested in any form of labor, they just want the vanity items and gear. Such people could be offered any incentive in the world to "play" the game and wouldn't, because buying gold is easier. As long as such people purchase gold, the bots have a market, and will continue to be an annoyance. On a final note, how can one increase drops for legitimate players without increasing drops for bots? To the best of my knowledge, the loot scaling system was designed to do that, and no one seems happy with that.

is this thread a joke? you complain about weapons being so high, yet you complain about weapons being so low...there are bots, get over it. the only thing they are doing is pushing prices lower. taking gold out of the game? what the hell is that supposed to do? bots have already been ruined by lootscaling and the market now sucking. there is not much else to do

You don't care about game economy, but yet you complain about it?
While I do understand it's hard to get certain collectors weapons, it only got harder for those that tried farming the collectibles solo.
Bad economy is not caused by bots and E-bay gold, but by the ordinary player that solo farmed. The number of those players far exceeded the number of bots, generating more ingame gold than bots ever can.
Bots can farm 24/7, but they need to sell their gold before they get booted from the game. Farming players generate less cash, but the gold remains in the game. And their numbers make up for the bots.

About the old players. I am not one of them, but I can still buy almost anything I want, just by setting my goals and taking my time.
The only things that are really out of reach are a couple of very rare weapons.
With regular gameplay, that's just playing Hard Mode with the guild and having some fun vanquishing areas with small teams, I manage to get enough gold for a skill-cap title in little more than 1 month play (that's my current goal).
Not selling anything to players, just merching or keeping drops for heroes.

Now if some moderator could merch this one with an existing 'loot scaling thread', I'd be happy

I hate bots as much as anybody in this game. The sheer amount of them seems to be on the rise in all 3 campaigns lately. The shiverpeaks are flooded with them in Prophecies, many of the later Kurzick towns as well, and recently I made a new character in Elona only to see Chabeck Village overrun by new bots making it to level 2. I don't know the procedure involved in eliminating a bot by Anet but I hope they can pick up the pace on it.

Sure they farm gold and lazy gamers buy it on E-bay. They should all be banned. But what does this do to the in-game economy? As far as I can see it drives prices down. Lazy gold buyers can buy that ultra rare perfect Crystalline, but big deal. They didn't earn it so I'm not impressed. The thing that bothers me about it all is that when I finally DO get a rare drop, it is hardly worth anything anymore because of the huge drop in prices. A weapon that used to be worth 40k is now worth 1-5k in many instances so now I have to grind even more to make the gold I need. Human farmers have an effect on this too but at least they are playing the game and not botting.

Increasing drops would just drive the prices into the cellar more than they already are. Maybe increasing gold from quest rewards could help alleviate some of the need to farm or buy gold online. I prefer to keep rare items rare and valuable and difficult to get instead of flooding the market with them. Greens are already over farmed and too easy to purchase because people know EXACTLY where to get them so they are hardly rare anymore. I've been playing GW for over 2 years now and got about 6-7 greens ever. I like it that way (I don't farm for them either) but it stinks that when you do finally get one (not from farming) it just isn't worth that much. (Anyone remember when a Victo's Bulwark was going for around 90-100k?)

Farming in general has made the economy what it is today, whether that is from bots or regular players. Eliminating the need for bots is a good idea but just how that can be done is anybodys guess. I would just like to see something done to the cheaters and bots since they don't help matters any. Making gold easier to acquire would cut back on the need for farming so maybe that is a possible, if only partial solution. Heck, I've done some farming myself but only to earn gold for armor and cap sigs. If gold was easier to get from quests then I wouldn't have to or want to farm at all. I'm not saying that we should get 5k rewards from every quest, but even a modest gold increase would probably alleviate the need for some farming and the bot/ebayers.

Weapon farming...not sure what to do about that. Make things too easy to get and everything becomes worthless in the market. Make it harder to get and farming goes up due to demand. Maybe offer people a way to get rare weapons that doesn't involve farming like a quest reward. Something like a random gold/green weapon for completing certain tough quests? That could reduce farming a bit but might not help prices (although prices keep going down anyway...). Personally I'd love a Tormented Sheild but I don't want to see them costing 10k anytime soon either since that defeats the purpose of them being rare and in difficult areas to acquire. I've always thought quest and mission rewards are pretty lame for the most part so maybe that is something to think about. Anyway... BAN THE BOTS AND EBAYERS! They might not be as bad for the economy as many people think but they sure don't help it and they are breaking the EULA.

***As far as the runes go, just ID the armor piece but don't salvage it right away. Then go to the rune trader to see the value of the rune and insignia. If the purchase price of the rune is less than 200g then I sell the armor to the merchant or salvage it for a rune/insignia to put on a hero if I need one. Many times for a purple or gold armor piece, you make a lot more from selling the armor to the merchant than from salvaging the rune/insignia and selling that. I still like getting rune drops since I have NEVER gotten a SUP Vigor or about 25 other runes for that matter. Just be smart with the salvaging and you make good money on these yet.

I see alot of hour dropping. I played for xxxx hours, I played for xxx months.

yeah....and what did you DO in that time? There's alot of methods to get cash and drops in GW which isnt farming. Farming certainly helps, but just because you walk outside and slay one dragon its not going to explode ectos and rubies down upon you.

A simple fact of life, you rarely get free rewards for doing nothing or doing little. All those high end weps armor etc are acquired by people who grind their ass off and would call your version of grinding, casual play. Their reward for so much effort is high end gear, we're all not equal, some ppl make do with meagre items, some have flashy ones. Just like in real life, you cant wander in to a Mercedes Benz dealership, complain you're 50 and deserve a free car.

The fact you dont care for the in game economy says it all. Its all about what YOU want and to heck with everyone else. You want to pay real cash for in game cash and screw anyone who is unable to afford or to purchase the same. You've got the same problem, just switched currency.

Selling in game might be tedius, but forums like guru take some of the hassle away, make a thread, post some pics, sit back and look at bids, then go in game and sell. No standing in LA for 3 hours spamming. Thats your selling/buying taken care of.

Want better drops, fight in harder areas, crystal desert drops shit, but drops it in high numbers, good for only merchant fodder to add up as cash IE basic farming. Farming UW isnt hard and yields ectos, not exactly mindless if you have ts/vent/mic and play with someone. Its the same as talking on the phone and getting paid in ecto.

It looks like you've applied little effort, got tired and gave up then complained because you have xxxx hours you're entitled to benefits.


Items cannot make you fail or die. Different items suit differ builds tasks. Eg. warrior fight warrior, basic battle, ill use either adrenal/ebon 15^50 sword +5 armor. after a bit into the battle ill heal with breeze, use HH, battle wages on, i need energy to heal, so ill switch to a zealous sword, build up energy, win, then move on. wouldnt use zealous normally, only for situations etc.

your hero died because you gave him the wrong tools for the job, not because the tools were poor.

First off you have said that you have been playing this game for xx months and xxxx amount of hours yet one of the first things you say is this "since returning to the game" this tells me you have not been playing for a long while. probably since(I am guessing this from later posts you have made) factions came out and have just now gotten nightfall. So my point is you have not been actually playing all that time.

And in this post you insult everyone that likes the nightfall art by calling them un-educated(you imply it anyways).

There are many ways to farm and get nice things. But from what I have gathered so far you seem like you want all these nice things but don't want to put any of the work into it. You act as if the only way to get gold is to farm but yet you can quest and missions.(get the bonus/masters rewards on them because they will yield you a better reward )

I hope the many replies given by the members of GWG help you in your time of need .

Just what the hell are you talking about?

Seriously this thread doesn't even make sense... and your other thread on Concussion Shot your just rambling off-topic now.

This has never been stated. This is the exact opposite of what I have stated. I have stated that one eliminates the bots by eliminating the need for their service. If people do not need to buy virtual currency with real money because the supply in game is too low, then they will not. Increase the drops, to the point where the interest in purchasing outside gold ceases.

I had a wise professor once point out that it is Americans who first began working at their play. They have turned every vacation, every family outing, every game into something which must be bean counted, pre-planned, worked at, and worked through and then wonder why they cannot relieve themselves of stress. The most egregious sorrow in this is their penchant for spreading this dehumanizing habit to the rest of the world.

This is good rhetoric only if one wishes to protect the botting industry.

The loot scaling system can never have been so designed because its purpose is prohibition against new players and those who are not maxed elite players. It therefore must by very essence create incentive for bots to increase and the e-bay gold industry to abound. It is through starving the players that the incentive for bots is created. Only the inverse of loot scaling will destroy botting. Only the elimination of unequal treatment of players will destroy botting.

All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. I shall not.

No, they push prices higher. Because players know they can count on e-bay gold purchases and 100k on players they market to these prices. To lower the prices make the drops so plentiful in all categories that the bots and such players ass depend on their provided services for their own gain no longer have economic leverage. The only reason such prices exist is because the drops are prohibited from regular players. The only reason bots have for selling gold to players is because they need the money to buy these goods and services that are prohibited to them by loot scaling and anti-farming measures which have always been done backwards. The way you destroy excessive farming is you make the farming so lucrative it is meaningless. If all players can max out their gold values, then farming is of no importance for controlling economic leverage.

You are correct I oversimplified the statement. I do not care about the monetary control and gains of farmers, long time players, and scammers who seek to maintain a monopoly on their economic power for purposes of vanity and ego against their fellow players.

And the reason we have both farmers and bots is because of the prohibition against players being able to achieve the image which entertains them. This is constantly referred to as vanity, when in fact it is the very purpose of playing a visual interactive medium game. If the image which expresses you does not entertain you then the game fails. The creation of separate ‘’castes’’ of persons based upon the rarity of items or ‘’eliteness’’ of appearance is anathema to everything for which a democratic republic stands.

Time laboring at having fun – grinding.

Hard Mode play is NOT regular game play. It is Hard Mode. And I have gone into Hard Mode in both Prophecies and Factions and found their drops to be just as lousy frankly. Other than, perhaps they are supposed to only have the max end in Hard Mode (which I have never seen) Hard Mode is just as valueless as any other. Not because I want to but because I am forced to I have started farming. I detest it. I continue to detest it, and I loathe those that force it as a game requirement to accomplish anything. I went out both Hard Mode and Normal and saw no benefit to Hard Mode for myself.

It definitely does not involve acting upon reports of them. I have been reporting incidences in Altrumm Ruins for days and they have done nothing.

Increase the amount of currency available to the amount of items available and you increase the price. The only way to decrease the price is to increase the production against inflation. Since all players have a max gold reserve there is an automatic ceiling of tolerance not practiced in the real world. One eliminates incentive to bot, farm, and support EULA violations by increasing supply of product so that prices drop.

I do not attempt to buy “green” weapons because in most cases they do not have what I want. There are a few with stats that are decent, and they are too expensive to consider buying. A player busy playing the game has so many gold sinks to fill they cannot possibly consider getting these things anyway. That is a reason I have only three characters that will ever be in “elite armor” and the rest are set for run of the mills stuff. I certainly expect to have nothing worth putting in the Hall of Monuments for GW 2.

So it is your belief that fellow players should be able to denigrate others because they have a rare find, rather than that fellow players should be able to express themselves in that image and manner which is appropriate to the persona of their character and their entertainment? That kind of thing is exactly why I oppose the tyranny Hall of Heroes has over fellow players (who equally paid for access to game content) in preventing them from being able to play where they will when they will. Now that scrolls can be purchased for faction in Factions, the system allowing/promoting tyranny from elite Mega Faction Farming Zergs is eliminated. I do not feel the opportunity to self-expression by fellow players, who have all purchased the game, should be controlled or limited by others.

Yes, and I also remember when a ruin of Superior Absorption was 95k. That side of the economy is better; especially since it takes an entire month or better to acquire 100k if you are a dedicated active player.

The fact is most weapons are worthless in the market anyway. When I did attempt to sell, because a neighbor convinced me that was the way to go, the only thing that I ever found selling were crafting materials. I even figured out which rare ones I could make a profit on making them. But ‘’virtually’’ standing on the street corner screaming ‘’Gold Weapons for Sale’’ or ‘’wts … Gold SUNDERING AXE of FORTITUDE (Req: 9) Dmg: 6-28, Sund 20/19, H +30’’ for hours at a time in district after district was as tedious as I find farming to be. I don’t remember selling any of them for better than 100 to 500 g in inventory clearance.

They are always wanting PvE to PvP but give them no incentive, other than if you do you can spend a K to open a skill you fought for. I suggested so long ago I can’t remember they have faction reward purchases to change skins and so forth on the weapons and off-hands. I see this is allowed for PvP players only. So, again they failed to do something that would have generated interest in PvPing by PvE.

I did not misrepresent myself. I quit playing for sometime after Factions came out because nothing was being done about things which were wrong. A few of those things have changed.

As near as I can tell, farming does not help. I farmed yesterday for as long as I could take it. I had a few worthless drops, and some gold out of it. I have a celestial shield and celestial sword which are not max and so worthless, even though they are gold. So, do I spend hours upon hours farming – no. Have I spent hours upon hours mapping, questing, slaying enemies of the Kurzicks – yes. Is it filling my pockets with enough money to get what I want as well as do what I need – no. Do I go back and do missions just because they may need someone who has done it – yes.

Are you making the mistake of confusing Virtual Life with Real Life? There are places where they should not separate – such as the moral values of protecting the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of each fellow player. The imposition of a caste system, of denigration, of over-lordship, of prohibition to ensure these things is not something that should be transferred from Real Life to Virtual Life.

You are exactly wrong. And you cannot have paid attention to anything that was written by me to make this statement. I have and continue to oppose botting. That ANet does so little about it leads me to suspect they are or have employees who are making a profit by protecting and supporting the bots/e-bay gold buyers. I have made three trouble tickets in the past few days on Altrumm Ruins alone. They cannot be bothered to even look.

I am not a computer technician, nor do I want to be. Nor should I have to be. I do not work for e-bay or any of its competitors. This system may work fine for those who are those things. It has no value for me.

I have in the past made some gold in Crystal. I used to be able to walk the circuit of its cities and make about 5k in one round. Then the Farming Code would set in and there was no reason to be there. I have come within 1 or 2 monsters of vanquishing Prophets Path twice now. Other than a tome, I did not get any better drops in Hard Mode than in normal mode. As for UW – I have never entered it that we were not swarmed by 9-12 Ataxes on touch down and TPKd before we were even all loaded. That combined with the immoral control of HoH over access by PvE players to PvE content means I will not bother with the elitist toilet paper.

Well then, by all means go into battle with a starter sword instead, if the item has no effect – or better yet bare handed with no weapon at all. But then you contradict yourself with an “I use a adrenal/ebon 15^50 +5.” I will just bet the damage on that sword is max. If the items are not max they are economically and statistically worthless.

I posted the number of hours to show that I had not been playing solid since Factions came out. If I had been I would have about another 2,500 hours worth of play. I showed the number of hours to deliberately indicate the difference. Nor do I assess any loss from that missed play. Things were designed solely for elite players, farmers, and bots then and they remain that way.

I have studied art all of my life because both of my parents are artists. Nor are they the type that has a monkey throw paint through an airplane propeller and calls the random splashes on a canvass from it ‘’art.’’ Nor did I include all Nightfall art as you did. I specified the entry level Necro who looks like a gutter skank that will not take a bath. It is the opinion of the other posters, that since I want something that I prefer to look at and do not find distasteful that I must be merely trying to fill a vanity need. I will admit to such elitism as suggests people should bathe and be clean in their personal hygiene and appearance (accepting and excepting some places in the world where those who desire to do so are not able to because of socio-economic and political conditions).

There are only two ways to farm: 1. To repeatedly adventure in an area and get punished with the Farm Code/Loot Scaling because you are adventuring in that area where your character has development to do, and 2. To deliberately minimize number of wealth recipients and maximize damage out put while entering an area with the intent to do nothing else but get gain. I have Protector of Tyria. I almost have Protector of Cantha. (I have not finished Kurzick and so lack the Luxon area almost completely, and I have yet to be in a PUG that can Master Raisu Palace.)

The only way to get gold is to farm or e-bay for it. I detest both.

Ok there's only so many times this can be said (between this thread and its now closed twin in another part of these forums) raising the drop rate isn't going to eradicate bots. There will always be a segment of the gaming public who will buy gold as a matter of course, or to avoid any manner of questing or grinding and get right to having flashy gear to show off. Unless raising the drop rate involves letting every other mantid in Shing Jea drop a crystalline sword, this is will be the case. As long as such people exist, bots will be there to take their real money in exchange for virtual money. Claiming I'm some sort of Bot supporter isn't going to change this.

On a final note, if you believe that bots have ruined the game, if you believe that to get what you want in the game is too much work, if it feels like labor to you, if you feel the game is fundamentally flawed, if you feel the loot system is garbage, if the art offends your sensibilities, if the game is no longer fun, why not buy another game? It's not like there aren't other RPG's in the world, just go find another that suites you.

Me either, other than more titles to shoot for if you are into that. I haven't seen any incentive to hard mode other than that because the loot almost seems worse for the extra effort you need to put into getting it.

I stopped filling out reports too. I filed one more than a year ago and they actually responded to me and asked for screenshots and lists of suspected bot names. I was impressed. Now I don't know if they do as much about it since I filed a couple reports in June but got nothing but the auto response and bots are over-running a lot of towns.


I simply meant that opening the floodgates on weapon drops would make all the weapons worth nothing in gold or in stature. I like that rare skin weapons are a bit tough to get and you have to work for them. It feels good to get a rare drop even though my personal experience has left me with very few of my own to the point of it being near ridiculous.
PvP snobs irritate me too though (NOTICE I did not say ALL PvPers people!). If you are good at it and enjoy it then thats cool but don't act like you are better than PvE'ers. I've tried it several times. PvP is not my type of play and I almost feel penalized for it because I will never get so many of the coolest drops. I would like that stuff more available to everyone but we should still have to work for it a bit since we did pay equal money for the same game.... without having to grind or farm for 500 hours.

I do PvE over all 3 campaigns with 7 characters so my time is well spent working hard through the entire game. I don't just kill one dragon and expect rubies to shower down on me either like someone else brought up. I just think for the amount of time and work I put in on the PvE end I should have gotten a little more than a handful of greens and one or two rare skin weapons that are worth next to nothing because they aren't even max. Why do less than max WHITE drops happen so often in the near end game areas? OH and I have tried playing in elite areas but god forbid someone let you in a group there. Those places are mainly for farmers too and you sure can't hench it.

If I had only played for 100 hours and said all this it would sound like I want the best of both worlds. That's not the case by any means. If playing hard for over 1000 hours in PvE isn't enough to be worthy of a good drop once in a while then what is? I shouldn't have to grind/farm on top of that just so I can finally get a cool weapon. People SHOULD have to earn the good stuff, but make it available to everyone without having to farm farm farm or leaving it skewed in favor of PvP players.

Agreed.

Agreed as well. Unless you have something worth 100k + ectos you might as well merch it half the time just to save the hassle of finding a buyer. I did get lucky on 2 mini pets for my birthdays to get me about 150k though but across 7 characters that doesn't last too long.


Same here. A few months back I finally decided to farm a little just because I don't make enough gold playing PvE in a regular manner. There are so many skills and sigs and armor to buy that you NEED lots of gold. I was bored to tears farming for a few weeks (only a couple hours at a time cuz thats all I can take) to earn a few hundred K. Then its gone in 2 days.

Anyway like I said before... GET RID OF BOTS! That is step number one.

For me, HM is regular gameplay. It can be unlocked in all games within one week when you have some knowledge of the game. The 8-player area's are not that much more difficult than others.
The loot is indeed not that special, but chances of finding gold items (drop rate is better in HM) or Tomes (only HM) do add some value.
I know our previous guild leader was going through the NF storyline quest in HM because of the added loot, so it does net extra value.

Mmmm, I never farm with my mesmer, but I just had to put gold in storage because I was reaching max on him. That's about 1.5 months of play, in which I also played on with my monk (which earned about 50K in that period).
That can be considered "Time laboring at having fun – grinding", but if that's your opinion, I surgest you just quit the game, since the only thing you can do after finishing the storyline can be considered grind! And even that can be considered grind.

So far I dont see anything better in hard mode, and I am not sure there needs to be another "Look how much superior I am to you" set up in the game. The game is more about how to destroy and denigrate fellow players around the world at this point than the supposed ideals of supporting human integritty and value indicated in ANet and NC Softs publications. The prohibition against new players, casual players, and those who were not among the first beta testers in drops (while supporting and encouraging EULA violations through the same) is a perfect example of this.

Edit: Played in Hard Mode today for a couple of hours. In that time this is my drop list"
Ball Hammer (R: 11) Dmg 18-34.
Jungle Troll Tusks, 2
Blue Double Bladed Axe (R: 8) Dmg 6-27, Highly Salvageable
Smiting Staff (R:10) 11-21, En +10, HSR 17%
Gold Water Wand (R:13) 11-22, HCT 9%
Ebon Spider Legs, 2
Chitin Fragments, 35
Plant Fibers, 50
Blue Pyromancer Centaur Harness of Attunement
Maguuma Spider Web
Short Sword (R:9) Dmg 15-21
Behemoth Jaw

Adding in the fact that none of it can carry inscriptions, it is all worthless. Nothing interesting. One rune worth getting out of the trip - Attunement.

I was planning on quoting every line where someone was complaining... I decided not to because I don't feel like repeating nearly every single thing that was said in this thread.

Unfortunately for every Guru member who reads forums and are actually enjoying the game, we will have to deal with idiots like yourself 'Fitz Rinley', because even though you can't stop complaining, you are in fact addicted to this game and will continue posting annoying things. "Stop complaining!" You are accomplishing nothing by doing this besides showing to everyone how useless and idiotic you are.

Anyone else feel like guru forums should have a 'I am an useless idiot who likes complaining about something I'm addicted to' thread, for these idiots to do there complaining so we can continue reading interesting posts?

...Done

does more player farming at one same destination reduces the chances of another players getting good drops even if they are not in the same farming party?

for instant:

3 seperate players farming at sardelac have more drops compare to 100 seperate players farming at sardelac

Anyone else feel like guru forums should have a 'I am an useless idiot who likes complaining about something I'm addicted to' thread, for these idiots to do there complaining so we can continue reading interesting posts?

Totally agree shall we go make one ?

From Ralph Koster's (Designer of Ultima Online) laws of Online Games:

Macroing, botting, and automation
No matter what you do, someone is going to automate the process of playing your world.

Corollary:
Looking at what parts of your game players tend to automate is a good way to determine which parts of the game are tedious and/or not fun.

Why are e-bayers bad? I never understood why people look down apon them so much, its almost like you all think they are stealing from you personally. People will always look for an easier why to aceive their goals, and if that means just buying all the gold they will ever need, well then the botters will come to supply them. If you want to shut down e-baying then you need to make everything in the game obtainable by everyone, so super rare drops, no super expensive armour, and no super expensive runes. If everything in thhe game cost 1k well then there would be no botters its that simple. As long as their are items that are virtually impossible to come by other than trade, ebaying will NOT go away.

The next point for ebayers is that A-Net is continually making legitimate farming harder and harder making gold more scarce, yet the price of armour has remainded stagnent. A-net is forcing players to make a choice: A) forgo the top quality stuff and just use collector weapons and armour, B) Legitimatley farm for hours on end to purchase a couple nice looking weapons or 15k armour, C) Spend 3 minutes on-line and buy 1 mil gold. Which choice is the most appealing? The only way to make option B better than C is to either change the prices or make farming EASIER so we wont need bots to do it for us.

p.s. Why doesn't A-Net just sell the gold on their store and reap the profits the botters are making.

/vote Freezyguy President ... of anet

to ppl that dont like to buy gold stfu and dont buy it