The State of the GW Economy

I'm just curious as to the opinions of other Guild Wars players.
Do you think the economy is currently stable, inflated, or deflated? Also, why? =o



Sub note: I really don't think there is a standard monetary supply in the economy to which people can pin a zero inflation level (or way in which you can measure that supply); however, I ask that you give your best guess/opinion based upon overall price changes and observed effects of botting.

Economy is crapola. Ecto's used to be pretty stable, but they're in the can too nowadays.

This is fine if you're 'po' but inhibits wealth generation.

I reckon everyone would feel a lot richer if they added another '0' to the end of all drops, item costs etc.

I can safely say I lost bout a million gold thanks to ecto price drop.

Oh well.

Ecto price were over inflated. The recent price drop was a correction.

As to the overall health of the GW economy I can't comment much. I don't do much player-to-player trade and I'm no economist.

Having more than 100k is garnering wealth for wealths sake. Cool a strange unrecognized title. Everything seems to have dropped in price. Is this perhaps due to bots?

Luckily I am.

The drop in price of ectoplasm was to be expected. The focus of lootscaling was to slow the influx of merchanted whites to the economy, which was (is) the primary means of wealth for bots. It served its purpose well, and we now have cheaper everything...runes, dyes, materials, you name it.

The second component of the price change in ecto was due to its loss of utility as a form of currency. Because there are fewer and fewer items that fetch a price of 100k+Xe, the demand for holding ectos has steadily decreased. Also (and this is just speculation on my part) fewer people are crafting fissure armor these days. Most players who desire it already own a set, and the prestige sets in Cantha and Elona look better anyway.

Now...having said all that, who knows where the price will go in the near future. The new favor system and the emergence of EotN will likely change the market in the short run, until people become accustomed to the new environment. Then things will settle out as always.

The in-game economy has become cheaper while player's prices remain the same. Naturally over time, prices of weapons such as Dead Swords and Scar Eaters either gradually decrease or take a complete nose dive, but items such as runes have been completely decimated.

To give you an example:

A few months back, I found a Superior Rune of Vigor that at the time, was worth 40k. Back then, a Woespreader was worth 10-15k. Now, the rune in question is worth 12k but the Woespreader has only dropped to 8k-10k, creating a discrepancy that can't be ignored.

With this said, the built in game economy is at odds with the player economy, and this causes a massive gap in-between.

The economy got "adapted" to suit the player base..slow, boring and nearly dead.

In certain cases it is massively inflated i.e. Mini Pets.

For example, a player recently sold his Mini Kanaxi for 8000 Ecto, well the equivalent in ambraces.

That is for something which numbers 26.

Then there are minis which are numbered in the hundreds selling for 1000 Ecto +

The mini pet market seems to be infested with people who purchase gold.

The number of gold buyers who purchase huge amounts of gold has almost certainly increased. There are more gold buyers than in the golden age of trading and item collecting.

Item wise the economy is sucking majorly rarity wise. There seems to be a huge market for mildly rare inscribable items e.g. R9 Stygian Axe for well over 400e. Yet items numbering only a couple would fail get anywhere near the price of the R9 Stygian Axe e.g. R8 15>50 Ascalon Maul. Rarity is not appreciated now.

The majority of items are rediculously cheap now.

I and several others who have mainly traded since GW's release have decided to give up with it and just work on titles now. As they will carry over to GW2 they are far more useful than items which just get nerfed or depreciate.

Conclusion: The GW Economy is in an awful state. Bulk buying of gold is at its worst. Appreciation of rare items is at its worst. Fear of items being nerfed or their drop rate messed with is at its biggest.

Heh the mini-pet market is keeping the bots in business.

yup, and if u want to see by yurself, welcome to ascalon id

With modification to favour, possibility arises of ecto going back up due to possible erratic timing of earning favour

True. Price wise prob wouldn't be enough to lay any real cash on it though.

I have always avoided there for a reason :P

I can only really see ecto going down long term.

i can remember making over 300k in a day just sitting in town during 1 weekend befor the loot scaling took place i would do this regularly with my items an i even sell my stuff cheap back then in the glory days ...but now ...omg ... now is a completely dif story im lucky to make more than 20k selling my items during the week or weekends ...for me the economy sux bad atm ;'(

Word, what he said

This is, without a doubt, the single worst piece of 'logic' I've seen posted with regard to this topic. What you're suggesting is like trying to tie the price of tomatoes to that of an iPod.

Seriously...learn some basic economics and quit spewing such grotesque fallacy. You're only harming your own argument.

with some recent offers i've had on my minis, i'm wondering where some of this money's coming from.

i've had multiple offers from different people on my kanaxai mini pet as well as my panda mini pet.

some of the offers ranged in the 100k+1500 ectos + 40-100 armbrace range.

seems to me that its inflated atm until anet decides to release more of the limited pets.

for normal items, economy is fairly stable. its just really hard to sell stuff.

Mini-pets are the new Chaos axe+Eternal Shield combo = uber l33tne3ss (pfft)

You can show off your mini-pet in town but not your weapon/shield, plus the new hall of monuments has a section for mini-pets.

It all comes down to what you view as 'the economy'.

One can view that in the 'gold in -> gold out' perspective.
And that including gold (or items) on bots and excluding that gold.
The reason for this is that gold on bots is not in the economy as long as it's on the bot account. Only if it is sold to an other player it is in the economy.
I think there is still more gold moving in than out the economy, but this is inherent to people keeping gold and items in storage.
However, the amount of gold/player getting into the economy is probably less than before lootscaling.

This affects the second part of viewing, namely gold circulating in the economy.
This affects the player and trader market.
As The Herbalizer pointed out, there is massive inflation in certain items, specially rare minipets.
I don't know if The Herbalizer is right on botter gold, but he/she could be very right on that.

Then there is the weapons market. There has been a huge deflation of prices.
Certain items remain expensive, others are down the drain now.
I think this is the market that is hit most from loot scaling the most.
And not only because buying power decreased, but also uncertainty and the release of GWEN.
The low end of this market seems to have improved for the players. However, this is only for certain items, most on the traders.
The current trading system does not support trading of items below a certain value because of income/hour rating.

This brings us to my final look, on individual player level.
For the starting player, things got a little better, because runes dropped in price.
For the somewhat experienced player, things got better. Items on player market are cheaper and materials got somewhat cheaper.
However, they need to have some gold to invest, because the trading system does not support trading below a certain value (most non-perfect weapons and upgrades go to merch, while these kind of players might want to buy them).
For specialized people, things got better. I'm spending almost all my time in HM and income (in full groups) is somewhat better .

However, for a certain group of people things got worse.
Specially for those who used to solo-farm whites. People that want to fully equip all their characters and heroes with good weapons and runes.
People that want to unlock all skills on their characters (again, see loot scaling thread).

There is a gap between the somewhat experienced player and the people that have real whealth. It used to be possible to fill that gap relatively fast by solo-farming whites. Now the only way is to farm specific items and spend time selling them, get a lucky drop or just save up.

This gap is there and will stay.
This is not bad, it's always been like that. And the gap is about wants and not needs. When a certain item becomes 'need' and the general population cannot afford it, then there is a problem.

The way I see it, the economy goes through some influx at times.

Yea..i just saw a few people advertising 20 tormented weapons or w/e for a certain mini-pet...

I can't believe Anet can't find these people and ban their ass.

Anyone else here notice that Ectos are worth 7k right now?

It looks to me that the ingame economy is going to get a big boost when GW:EN is released based off of new items and abilites. Then it will slowly start to falter again; The people who will want to buy expensive items will have bought them, so the sellers of said items willl have to lower their prices to appeal to a larger market. I think the problem right now is that it's been one year since the last game release and, with the exception of second year mini's, there hasn't been an influx of new and exciting items to drive the economy back up.

Having said that, I'm worried about the economy two years after GW:EN, before GW2 is released.

Well I think it sucks because there are so many bots every time I log in more than there ever was and not only at 3 am but all the time now. The should stop nerfing farm builds but work harder on catching bots, even though this might be very difficult for them to figure out.

I'm minoring in Economy in college, and judging GW's economy, I can say that while prices seem EXTREMELY instable, it's fairly solid none the less. After all, a non-max damage weapon has never been worth much, and ectos always have and will be worth quite a bit. Thanks to NPC traders holding the price within a certain range, the economy is stable.

ectos went up in price because of the change to the favor system and uncertainty about the availability of farming in UW and FoW from now on. Once it's certain how it will affect it, ectos will balance out again.

lol, I read the title of this and just started laughing.

It's a game. If the economy sucks it's not the end of the world.