Money buying in Store

I've got some ideas and remark of the game that I must have to tell you.

First of all, Farming.
When I had some free time then I went to UW to farm some ecto, I was
rich, I was happy.
Bought minipets, my favorites.
Now, the farm is nerfed and when I have 30-60 minutes to play I choose
another game or help rookies in missions. I'm not so happy. I have no
money, so I can't buy GWEN minipet. I checked the prices on Guru, and
the prices on ebay! (I swear that I NEVER EVER bought gold on ebay, just
checked the prices some time) Before the farming nerf, the gold was
cheaper than now. Now a little bit more expensive but the business is
going on ebay. And I guess there are people who buyes on ebay.

My idea is: you sell the money in your online store. I see you got pvp
packages and char slots. Introduce the money buying. If I need 100K I'll
pay you 5 or x dollars and I am happy. What is the problem with these?
Crashes out the market, the prices?
I guess not.
Just some rich people or that guys who want some pets or another stuff
they can buy it legaly. Not need to farm for hours or going to the dark
side and buying money on ebay. Maybe the chinese farming are decreasing.
In my opinion if I need a GWEN minipet and haven't got money i have 3
ways.
Farming hours or days, I wont buy the pet, or buy money on ebay.
BUT if you sells me money in your online store, 500k for x dollars? Who
cares. I'll buy with my VISA and I'm happy again.
You got some more money with these transactions and I guess these micro
transaction are the future. Some of my colleagues sharing my idea (there
are WoW players )

Guild Wars Teams answer:

"Hello,

Thank you for taking the time out to write us with your suggestions. We
would ask that you please share your idea on one of our various fansite
forums: http://www.guildwars.com/community/fansites/ as members of our
team read these forums daily, and putting the ideas out there for others
to comment on allows us to judge feedback on a greater scale. We hope
this helps!

Regards,

The Guild Wars Team "


What's your opinion about this? Is it a good idea or not?

no - just no

As the man above me said.

hmm....let me think about this one...........*thinking*................no...

Let this thread just die or better be closed fast. Such horrible ideas shoudn't see the light of the day.

/NOT SIGNED mods close please

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yawgmoth /NOT SIGNED mods close please

I think I'll leave this one open.

Just for you.

thanks i love threads like this, OMFGNOOBGGFUX i mean you can see where hes coming from even though its a bad idea but yet you get flame after flame. but meh /notsigned

Threads like this make me laugh, as there are books about the economics of online gaming, and pretty much it will ALWAYS exist, yet the companies spend all this time fighting off the gold traders and not fixing the issue at the core. Either no exclusive high end content, or sell the gold themselves. God, in terms of man hours saved and cost / reward benefits of hunting bots would see the logical answer. But no instead they will change entire systems in the game to fight off the macro runners, which does nothing but cause virtual inflation, cut down supply and increase cost of online gold. Which leaves the macro runners in the same place they started, as if demand stays constant, and supply is limited, they can no deal with farming for half the stuff, and still make the same they did as before. Who loses, the players.

no, no and no
/notsigned

why does anyone need so much in game gold?
im a casual, i do a little farming but i struggle to make any major amounts, i dont farm major places as im not that farr through with any of my chars (the most i get seams to be form quests that give cash rewards).

/notsigned.
game gold in the store is a very bad idea.
so they nerfed farming, big deal, go find something else to do like dancing on the steps of kamadan wearing horns.

Lol fail @ economics.

Gold Farmers - at least they're taking actual ingame gold and selling it.

Buying at store - would be creating new gold that did NOT drop during farming but was rather created by a dev/admin command, possibly at unstable speeds. The game economy would probably crash.

/NOT SIGNED

Not only that but I'm sure Gaile has said already that the team cannot "make gold" in game.

I have to clarify a few things:

Gaile has said the team can't, but she means that their avatars can't - they don't have that power in game. The team could easily change things so that they could.

Second - the bit about the economy and how the gold that the farmers sell isn't just "created" - yes it is. There is no grand reserve of gold, as soon as an instance is made, the gold is simply created to fill it. It's not drawing on virtual ore, it's not limited by the extent of dwarven drilling - more players = more gold, in the sense that every instance adds more.

Farming of gold by rooms full of poorly paid foreign workers is a reality. That gold is simply created at the expense of their labour, and is then sold at a higher price, netting a profit for the companies. Sure, ANet catches some, but they keep selling, keep buying new accounts and continue to provide the gold. Banning them doesn't stop it, it's too profitable to simply buy more accounts and keep farming. After all, the cost of a single account can easily be made up with a few gold sales, and the labour is cheap.

Gold trading has nothing to do with "gold" and everything to do with time - you aren't really buying gold, you are buying time spent gathering gold, and as long as there is anything in game that is acquired by spending time, it can be traded in. Sure, gold is convenient, but if it were devalued by ANet selling gold it would simply shift to be materials, or ecto, or something - whatever the artificial currency became.

Explore the idea - what would be the effect of ANet selling gold?

Well, a few things could happen.
1) Nothing much. Things might continue roughly as before. ANet may price higher than people want, or simply that the number of people motivated to buy gold is pretty constant, and they don't care if its legal or not. Net effect to economy = none, ANet makes a bit of money.

2) Inflation. Could result from many forces - ANet undercuts the farming market, rendering gold farms un-profitable. People buy the cheap gold in droves (or alternatively, ANet doesn't undercut, but the option of legal gold prompts many more buyers willing to pay for the lack of risk). Effect in game - trade between players gets more and more pricy. In game prices however will not change, since merchants etc. are operating on fixed prices, hence anything that is simply created (ID kits, Salvage kits) are fixed in price. Hoarding of materials could result, since the material traders are programmed to operate within limits - the stocks of materials at traders would perpetually be low/empty, since they can command a larger price in player-to-player sales. Ironically, farming of materials might then pose a bigger problem, though storage space considerations enter the picture. Effect on high end items: horrible elevated prices, unaffordable by farming gold. Effect on the average player: Little effect, since one can easily farm materials needed in game, and material pricing will rise for all used materials. ANet makes money.

To be perfectly honest, I don't see any particular risks. The purchasing power a player has is still determined by what they can earn per hour farming - whether the gold has value or not, the materials do. If gold is devalued it will simply be an economy based on something else.

The value of an object in game is a product of only a few factors, and boils down to supply and demand:
Is it limited in number? (special prizes from ANet events etc., supply)
Do people know how to obtain it? (temporary value for newly discovered things, supply, a bit of demand)
How long does it take to farm (expected value of time spent, supply)
Need for the object (demand)

The value of any object in game (say ectos) will be determined this way. If ectos become easier to farm the value drops. If new uses for piles of ecto arrive (chaos gloves) the price rises. Same with gold.

i love it.

some casual slob could simply spend a few dollars and have all the ingame gold needed to outbid you you rich little hard core elitest you

COMBAT OF THE CREDIT CARDS WITH BETTING ON THE SIDE FROM US LITTLE GUYS

I LOVE IT ALREADY

No on buying plat...why do you want to pay even more RL money for a game you already paid for? See below for solution to the mess that is GW Economy.

Problem #1

Things people want cost so much that it takes months to farm the plat/ecto to buy

Solution to prob #1

Make more of high end items so they drop more and you can just get the item you want instead of having to farm months for the gold to buy it or resort to e-bay gold to buy it.

Who is hurt with solution?

Only powertraders whos only purpose is to try to get wealth in-game and since there is a cap on amount of gold you can have on account then this was not the intention of game anyway so no need to worry about them

Who is helped with this solution?

Everyone else

Problem # 2

Non drop items that are rare and cost big plat (minipets)

Solution to prob #2

Make all minipets available from a merchant or trader to everyone

Who is hurt with this solution?

only powertraders whos only purpose is to try to get wealth in-game and since there is a cap on amount of gold you can have on account then this was not the intention of game anyway so no need to worry about them

Who is helped with this solution?

Everyone else

Problem #3

Umm....well....guess solutions 1 and 2 pretty much fixed the problems

True - as I said, you are trading in time with gold buying. Remove the need to spend countless hours to get things and you remove the gold sellers, since they can only really trade in time.

You'll never see gold selling in an MMOFPS. But I suspect people don't want a game in which skill determines your prestige. Most people aren't very skilled, but have a lot of time :P

Um, a lot of people would be hurt by this, not just the powertraders. I would wager that the majority of RPGers actually enjoy challenges and collecting and all the other aspects that come along with RPGs. To sell gold now makes everything not so difficult or rare or anything like that removing the whole reason people play. So, a lot of people quit. Good for the servers, right? ANet already made their money since there is no monthly fee. How many people will buy future ANet products knowing that they did the opposite of what they had always claimed they would stand by? None of those that quit the game for it. ANet would be hurt bigtime by selling gold. I really enjoy the game. I think it is well balanced (basically because I hear about as many complaints as it being too long and hard as I do about it being too short and easy). ANet is on the right path. Not everyone is pleased, and few (if any) are 100% pleased. But they are right where they need to be. Don't sell gold for no other reason than it ruins the game. Why would anyone be proud of their accomplishments knowing they could have gotten them by cheating? If you argue that at least that person knowss he didn't buy gold or cheat, then they would get more enjoyment out of a non-MMO game. Not what ANet wants.

Ok, please explain. How does gold being available in a store make anything less rare?

It's not like you can buy items from the store. Players have to find the items. If the item is rare, it's still rare. The only change will be inflation.

When a player gets a great drop, it's still a great drop - it'll just sell for more, because of inflation.

Gold farmers get drops when they farm. Those drops go into the economy as well, creating a huge influx of gold items for example. These items reduce the cost of insignia, runes, inscriptions, skins and gold items in general. Gold from the store wouldn't bring any of that with it. If the store sold just gold it would likely drive up the prices of many things, since both the lack of those drops and the possible inflation would contribute. That still doesn't make it bad.

I think people fool themselves that gold buying isn't in game, or that the farmers don't affect *them*, since they don't buy gold. If you've bought runes, you've been affected by gold buying. If you've bought gold items to ID with in game gold, you've likely been supplying farmers with gold to sell.

This will not remove botters.
Will increase them. They will bring more bots to gaing more gold and sell it cheaper than the store.

No, that's flawed logic. Anet makes gold for 0. Any price is a profit. Botters make gold for X, where X is >0. There exists a price Y such that 0<Y<X.

Botters must buy accounts, computers, pay employees, buy new accounts when they get banned etc - there's a minimum price they can afford. Anet has no such minimum.

Botters could however farm materials :P

We could start a petition to add in the emote /I win. you could just type it in and have 1 of everything in the game, maxed gold on all characters, all skills on all characters, masters in all missions in nm and hm, all the maps opened to 100%, and obsidian armor on all your characters.






well we could........




o btw /NOT SIGNED

Quote:

Originally Posted by SotiCoto Not only that but I'm sure Gaile has said already that the team cannot "make gold" in game.

Gaile also said that she hit her teammates with Poison Arrow in GvG.

not signed

*shakes his fist at the mod "will you lock this thread already?!?!"*

??? whats so weird about that i do it all the time *i have really bad aim >.>* lol and i use poison arrow with my wand, cause well its a projectile so it should work..... >.>

That would be good reason to stop playing the game and never buy another Anet product, ever. When any game becomes about who spends more real life money (instead of time, skill, or anything else) it's time to move on.

Oh man, would I like to buy my way through the game..
I actually would.
But I still say no.
/notsigned

Not to high jack this thread, but I have a better idea, remove loot scaling. That would make it easier for people to make money and thus reducing the demand for botters. Don't read that wrong, there will always be people that would rather pay real life money for in game money, but if gold is easier to come buy, then there will be less people looking into that option.

If you were talking about a real economy you might be right. But the supply of gold in GW is limitless. It's not like the real world where there's currency limited by how much the federal government will print/gold/silver in the world. All it takes is some a bot and some time to generate however much gold you want. And since you're unlimited in the accounts you can buy, you can have as many accounts as you want, bot farming whatever. It's the same as if Anet were creating that gold. Now, think about this. If Anet were to sell at such a price where botters couldn't compete, well.... Anet makes more money, and botters lose, and people who buy gold still get to buy it, and people who dont buy gold, don't have to. Seriously, do you think Anet's no gold buying policy really STOPS people who want to? Trust me it doesn't hinder them in the slightest.

I'm absolutely agree!
I don't want to buy gold. I want gold.
When the farm was cool, looting was cool. I farmed for 3-4 month to buy fow armor. I bought it.
Now?
I farm 6-7 month to buy fow armor with this s*x drop? Nope.
I haven't got that mutch free time becouse work.

OK fine you guys want it Tell you what Anet. if you want to offer this great do so but charge a dollar for a gold piece.. only then will it not adversely effect the economy even worse then the gold reseller cheaters. so you want 100,000 gold its gonna cost you $100,000 there is realism for ya. Fing cheaters.

Maybe then you will appreciate what you get in the game for what it is, instead of pushing for devaluing of game money Continually by allowing cheaters to prosper while a legitimate player pays the price for their cheating everyday.

ok /Sarcasm off... Look I don't see why you people continually think its within you purview to get something you have not earned and thus make things more difficult for a legitimate player to just exist in the game. In real life if you do not work you do not get money so you do not get stuff right? if you Buy illegal currency on the % that's money laundering or counterfeiting and thus illegal and you go to jail...

The reason things cost too much on the imaginary market values you people put to these item skins is cause the gold is not finite. indeed every day a person farms for gold the value of a gold piece goes down more. what you once bought for 1,000 gold now cost 10,000 gold. this will always be that case as long as there is not enough NPC gold sinks to pull gold OUT of the game. which Anet is starting to learn is a requirement. Less gold drops so people can not launder it around illegally in massive amounts. more gold amount caps, and devaluing of high priced items with fixed NPC prices thus making it more affordable for a causal player to actually just PLAY the game.

Thus all the runes and dyes dropping in prices over the years drastically. This was 1 control put in place for the out of control inflation market... Which is a fundamental aspect of gold selling and buying in and of itself.

Lack of a game wide auction house is not going to happen unfortunately.. But that too is a kind of market control that they can monitor. If thins start getting too overpriced that should not be in their opinion they can tweak the drop rates to have them become more common thus driving the prices down cause there will not be a need to buy them. Or they can CAP a price ceiling on the auction house on some items to make it less likely to be abused. This is commonly done in the City of Villains (an NCSOFT PRODUCT) Black Market.

Finally allowing gold to be bought from anet is just not necessary... I have said it before and I will say it again and again and again.. NOTHING in this game is unattainable, or worth such unbelievable high prices... Look at your BASE value of your item. most golds base is less then 400gold... why cause its not really that big a deal... There is no rare weapon that is uber. its just a skin. there is no max armor that is better then another, again they are just different skins. now you can add runes to them. great... so you can customize what you got to fit your needs. no problem...

Want a weapon. you do NOT have to have 100k+50 ecto and 2 diamonds for something... never did... that exact same weapon has a FREE collecter weapon or craftable equivalent for a fraction of that cost from a NPC somewhere... and if you REALLY want that uber green. go look up where it drops and go get it yourself with some buddies... Not only do you end up EARNING something in the doing of it, but you have fun PLAYING the game. Which is what it is all suppose to be about after all.

Point is the only reason you want more gold is to support the Reseller inflated market that is asking for too much for their wares to being with. That here in is the core problem... the more gold you get with no effort and little cost, the more these attainable items will SKYROCKET in price. If Anet did allow this it would be be a matter of days before we would see some green weapon that has no NPC control in the game to manage fair market values skyrocketing to some price in the millions of gold to attain. Want it? go pay anet $20 so you can get it from me at my price... Is that fair? No .. indeed it is 100% the exact opposite Anet wants to achieve with their in game economy that is crashed much as the yen did a decade ago...

The only solution to reverse these unreasonable prices appearing is to

• [1] Put in Market controls for some more common items... (check Dye, Rune, Rare material, Scroll trader, destroyer weapon crafters NPCs)
  [2] Not make it too easy to sell items in the game in an uncontrolled way. (check Spam banning)
  ......{note would be better to remove trade button and use an auction house similar to CoV but this is not possible now in GW for whatever reason}
  [3] Nerf solo farming bots so their drop rate drastically reduce (check)
  [4] Increase drops for players that participate in full parties {no heroes or npcs} (check)
  [5] Pull gold out of the game using NPC gold sinks(check, with lockpicks, keys, and GH services, and New Highend Weapon Crafters)
  [6] Reduce incentive to trade items with customization... (again CHECK +20% And HoM)
  [7] Making sure that for every RARE there is a common equivalent available for little to no cost to the player in the game. (check with collector weapons)

As you can see they are doing everything they can so far to control an outrageous market. Doing what the OP asked for would 100% reverse every effort they have achieve thus far in the past 2 years in the game.

Would you discredit a firefighter's ability to save you from a burning building because he couldn't type at 120wpm or tapdance? Would you decline someone from your GvG team because they suck at some Sea Bass Fishing game?
I doubt it.

Gaile doesn't have to be awesome at GvG to do her job properly... amazingly enough.

I should say Anet has 1 recourse left they could do but the doing of it would drastically hurt loyal players that have been in the game for years now... that is a complete and currency crash. Thus gold has no value. everything in the game becomes plat based. and everyone basically starts over from 0. with probably something like Diamonds or rubies becoming the higher end currency exchange.

This would require quite a bit of coding to achieve and would basically cut the prices overnight by 1000% on the markets because gold as it is now, would no longer exist as it was devauled to 0.

so plat becomes gold equivalent and diamonds become plat equivalent. that kind of thing. Trust me you do not want Anet to go there cause the day they do people will go all ape shit over it. All prices at NPC start listing FIXED plat prices, and markets are no longer allowed to fluctuate at all. fairly or unfairly..

That is the last ditch effort for Anet to do a market correction. we are not there yet, but if it comes to that eventually you know it will happen...

Lol @ SotiCoto.

It's impossible to hit a teammate.

His point is that Gaile says things (in jest in this case) that aren't true. WTB sense of humour.

Sorry, I was unclear. i was trying to refer more to materials, runes, and the like. Being able to purchase those makes acquisition of high-end armor, for example, easy. Most of the armor sets would no longer be rare at all, if you could purchase all the materials from the traders with gold purchased from the store. I was not referring to weapons or offhands.

No *point*

/Not signed

/Not Signed

I do agree if any game could pull this of GW can, (skill vs grind).

That being said, they have to make some changes to the game which I don't want to see.

I don't like the idea either.

I make barely any gold in game, and have no clue how I will ever afford elite armor- but I do know if GW sold gold- I would buy lots of it.
It would really kill the prices of things in game for people that make a living off farming and whatnot.
If everyone had the elite armors, and high end weapons then they wouldn't be elite or high end anymore & then what would we in PvE have to do in game? Wouldn't farm because we would just buy the gold, we would all have the top end items, and that would equal major boredom for me.
Not a good idea. =S

They should also decrase the price of non-identified items, increase their identified price, and make the items that can be sold in traders do not appear in the merchant sell lists.

Too bad.

a. Cope with it.
b. Bad idea.
c. Credit card wars ftl. I don't want to have to keep spending to have a good time.
d. Thread necromancy ftl.
e. /notsigned.