The Great Guild Wars Depression

So GW is way past recession. It is in depression really deep. The economy is pretty much crap because there are not enough gold sinks. Most expensive thing in the game is guild halls and armor. After that there is nothing to put money back to vendors, it just goes from player to player. Ectos are bein farmed to hell for 1 reason, they are the worth the most. That is slowly changing, they are falling even more. The only way they will ever rise again is by putting another thing to spend ectos on besides FoW and chaos gloves. Maybe a couple things. That way they will stop bein sold to the vendor and maybe some people will even buy them from the vendor.

this thread had potential but i really have no true direction of where this is going so... its just a random collection of my thoughts on the guild wars economy.

Not enough gold sinks? Yeah, sure, whatever. And money going from player to player...You just defined what an economy is in an MMO.
And, ectos have ALWAYS been farmed to hell and back. ALWAYS. What's with people thinking this is something that's only started recently? The economy's been crap for at least a year now.

You're right. I've always looked at it this way...

Guild Wars was an MMO amongst a ton of others, but still was a class of all it's own. GW tried to do it's very own thing, it was pretty unique in it's mechanics once you got into it. That being said, countless errors were bound to occur in the long run. It's very hard to start something of your own and have it withstand the test of time without big problems occurring. And that's what i think happened to GW. That some problems arose that were just too great to fix without having the community lash back. I can accept that.

What i'm hoping is that ANet realizes all of this, and fixes it in GW2. I'm hoping for still a GW feel of balanced gameplay that actually requires a brain to be good at. In a way i almost feel GW was just so the developers could get the hang of things, and GW2 will be the real test of the franchise's success.

Do people ever stop complaining? This thread never had potential and it's been made like 100 times already. Ectos were 5k at one time and that's what they're now. 10k+ an ecto was way too much. Why do you want them to be more expensive anyway?

I lol'd.

If people hasn't noticed, it's about the same in real life, things go down in price with the time. So eventually we'll have a economy collapse. It's just impossible to stabilize the economy, as the game gets more and more of the same stuff. For example, runes, which will never get out of the market. And now ectos, which will never get out of the market.

In real life there's no Anet to patch anything. If someone is farming(this is actually something else, but making money an easy way) then they're going to get away with it for the most part. Things change and we have to adapt, we can adapt, and we will adapt. I'm sorry your stack of ectos isn't worth as much. The only thing they were ever used for is Obsidian, Chaos, and high end trades. Those high end trades will be cheaper now because of everything being more available. The only thing that's going to remain a very high price is those special miniatures that are saw once in a great while. If your mad because you'll need more ectos to get them then you need to cut the QQ out right now.

you cant expect much from a three-year old game at the tail end of its lifecycle

the most important question though is, how long do we have to endure waiting for gw2. or indeed even hearing any news of it.

I don't have even one stack of ectos. And I've never used a sin or even bothered to create one, like you do. And I have all the three minis I like (but I like mini Freezie so I may get one). And I don't need to QQ about having less ectos/less money, because they're so cheap now and will be so cheap tomorrow that I'm off trading in Z-keys or Black dyes.

I wasn't saying you were QQing, I'm talking about the person who made the thread.

Don't worry, I'm over it, but it still hurts when I read things like that. Dam you Anet, I'm gonna ninja you

I hate to quote myself, but...

The "depression" is simply lowering the opportunity cost of not farming ectos with a perma sin (because it is lowering the profit of the perma sin). Under free market conditions, this simply means that a new equilibrium will soon be reached, one where people stop farming ectos with a perma sin because the profit of doing this (which is also the opportunity cost of not spending your time doing this) will decrease until it matches the profit of doing something else (which is also the opportunity cost of spending time farming ectoes with a perma sin).

In layman's terms, deflation has made ectoes and ecto-dependent products more accessible to people not involved in perma sin ecto farming, as these people did not depend on ecto farming for their Guild Wars income. People who did - "regular" ecto farmers and "old" perma sin farmers who popularized the build - will now be making less. If the market is left to its own devices, ectoes will eventually bottom out and will rise again, but nothing actually needs to be done unless ANet wishes to inflate the price of ectoes artificially. For example, if ANet's data shows that ecto farmers comprise a significant proportion of the player base, and ecto farming is the only thing keeping these players grinding away until GW2, ANet (in its newfound focus on keeping people playing GW1 through grind) may indeed choose to artificially inflate ecto prices - either by introducing new ecto-consuming items or by other means, such as nerfing the ease with which ectoes are farmed.

some people are losing a lot of money from this. Lemming for instance in all his wisdom decided to make cash in to ecto after getting rp's from a mAT and low and behold ecto went down in value costing him lots of gold.

I HOPE THIS MAKES SENSE.

First) no it wasn't to expensive im sorry you couldnt afford them before but o well tough shit for you

Second) Some of us had lots of money in ectos as MMS already pointed out and we lost a lot of money when the ecto price crashed. As for why we want them to be more expensive....that should be painfully obvious....so we can sell them for more.....

Well if there were more players the market would be better obviously. GW is in end-of-life mode. Its going to get worse.

The economy in Eve is so much larger and complex than the GW economy.. I don't think GW2 is going to need an economist.

Anyway, yes the economy sucks at the moment... is there anything else to say? No. Just stop damaging it more, nerf SF and lets finish this

According to this forum GW has been in "end-of-life mode" since it came out. Negative threads such as this and the other 9001+ are nothing new. The sky is not falling its called a slump. Play the game and have fun you dont need to listen to all the random threads that these ....people post.

Equipment is never lost in GW, except by deliberate action (the rare accident excluded). It's because of this that everything will drop in price, forever. There will be momentary up-ticks, but the trend is always down. The quantity of each item only goes up, never down, hence the price also goes down. It is also because of this that EVE's economy is very healthy. There is constant demand for just about everything, because everything is eventually lost in the normal gameplay (unless you just spin in a station forever).

Ectos are somewhat stable, because there is a large sink for them in armor, but even the price of ecto is slowly trending downward, albiet more slowly than pretty much everything else.

In order to have even a semblance of a stable economy, items have to be lost in the normal course of play. Of course that would piss off the player base more than the permanent recession does now, so it will never be fixed.

Lol, Shyft... did you just go through economics class?

Well I'm sorry you couldn't invest your money into a more stable "stock" (so to say), but oh well, tough shit for you.

ya. 10k for a guildhall is ridunkulus. mini kanaxi are most DEF not a gold sink.

Indeed. Pretty much sums up my argument in a nutshell.

For RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOs sake, unless Guild Wars servers crash one day and ANET staff are brutally raped by their professions coming to life from a teleportation and genetic modification machine, I highly doubt that, "OMGZ T3H GW R DYIN L3TZ 4LL GO 2 WOW PLZ" is even remotely true.

Yeah, there were probably a lot of people pissed off in 1929 cause they didn't understand or keep an eye on the stock market.

Stocks = ecto in case you missed it. They've had high points, low points, trending patterns, booms, and depressions. Luckily, with money from other sources still abundant in-game, you don't have the problem of a declining investment that you're incapable of liquidating. And, if you're one of the brave few, you can buy ectos for ridiculously cheap prices now and wait until favor hits zero and the flood of farmers can't go in as reliably anymore.

But I guess since we're literally starving, our heads should be up our butts and should be thinking irrationally about this like the whole GW world is. I guess that's a better option than actually figuring out solutions instead of complaining all the time.

Bahaha you just made my day [=

Thanks ^.^

EDIT: KFC FOR DINNER! WOO! =]

That pic really makes the thread; especially when ive just watched the episode of Family Guy with the doomsday and the chicken with coupons

Why do people keep creating forum accounts just to QQ about the guild wars economy.

The economy is fine and really no one cares that much anymore with GW2 on the horizon.

Just play the game and have fun, if you can't do that then do something else.

But, stop with the stupid economy threads already.

yeah cant we just appreciate what a wonderful game we play?

I mean sure if I wnated to whine about GW i would have 10 pages full of stuff i want changed

BUT NOT EVERYONE WNATS THE SAME THIGN AS SOON AS WE COMPLAIN IF IT GETS CHANGED THEN EVERYONE WILL COMPLAIN TO GET IT BACK

so just play the game how it is

@OP

There are more than enough gold sinks. The economy is ruined, because there is very little income in drops. *cough* Loot-scaling sux kthx *cough*
Casual gamers, as well as farmers earn less loot and so less money is generated.
To counter the flawed economy, Anet would have to lower fixed prices of merchants and weapons/armorsmiths. But I don't see that coming very soon.
Let's hope GW2 won't have these problems.

I feel that this parallels the economic stimulus packs being sent to ppl here in the US. Ecto is easily being made available to ppl who have the skills, however because more of it is available, it is worth less.

Lol, it really boils down to who can make the most of it... the true damage is long term, as many ppl who had nothing now have 600+ ecto from easy farming. Personally, I have made 260+ ecto in 3 days and would agree that SOMETHING needs to be done. :/

the falling price of ectos is not the downfall of the economy...
When did Anet ever announce that Ectos would be the constant in the economy? In my 3 years playing i don't think ever. Holding onto ectos is an investment game, just like the stock market. If the price falls and doesn't look like its gonna rebound you best sell outta that investment. Did Anet jump up to save the day when Onyx started dropping in value from 10k down to its abysmal 1.1k? no. The only people complaining the economy sux ares those who had a ton invested in ectos. IE cant buy that item that was 100k and 1200e anymore. just because the price of ectos fell didnt mean the price of everything fell. If anything the prices of things went up on the ecto end and the ecto hoarders dont like that. Oh well, i laugh at you now LOL.

The only great Guild Wars depression is the amount of people whining about Assassins doing something other classes have been doing for years. It's actually nice to see a good use in PvE for two underused and generally unfavoured classes in PvE & UW farming (Mesmer being the second class).

Personally I don't think it's a bad thing that Anet have unleashed more Ectos into the market so to speak. More people with money and Ectos to trade equals better opputunities to make good trades with people. As for what someone said about it making other items like Tormented Weapons etc cheaper, it will just make more people demand more Ectos in trade for the most part.

I think most fear comes from unrealistic statements like this one.

260+ ectos in 3 days??? lets say you sleep 8 hours a day, and im going to round down in your favor, and do math in my head but you'd have to farm 5 ectos an hour, 16 hours a day, 3 days straight to reach that. ANd if you did do it, the only thing that needs to be changed is your play style.

You can get 15 ectos per hr with perma-SF farming though.

What I don't understand is why people with oodles of money already are complaining that they're not making as much as they used to.

Those stacks of ectos they have in storage which used to be worth, at 6.5k per, 1,625,000g are now, at 4.5 per, worth 1,125,000g. And this is an example of how the GW economy has been 'ruined'.

FFS, how much f'ing money do you people need? You're QQing that there isn't anything to spend what you have now on while at the same time QQing that you're not making more.

One reason prices go down is that people aren't making as much as they used to, especially newer players. If they can't afford the high prices you put on what you sell, you end up lowering your prices to move your merchandise.

Here's an idea - start giving away your millions in 100k chunks to new players. The more they have, the more they can spend and they can then afford to pay higher prices, so you can start raising your prices and make more money, though you still won't have anything to spend it on unless Anet adds more gold sinks.

I have over a million gold on each of my accounts, plus probably another million worth of 'stuff' between the two. Why? Because I don't spend it like a drunken sailor. I find the standard 1k armors, in most instances, more attractive than the 15k versions, for example. And, so, if I see someone selling, say, a req 9 Saurian scythe for 40k, I can buy it without blinking an eye because it's 40k I'd just be moving out of storage onto a mule, otherwise. The GW economy is working just fine for me, thank you very much.

If you people put the same level of entrepreneurial effort into selling crap on eBay in RL as you do on this silly game, you'd all be fabulously wealthy and you wouldn't get to complain that there wasn't anything to spend your money on.

EDIT:

I want to apologize if the above sounds a little angry. I'm a firm believer in everyone being able to enjoy the game in their own way and I sometimes forget that some people find power trading and amassing huge fortunes to be fun, so more power to them and it is unfortunate if their fun is being affected. I realize, too, that some of the armors sets can cost in excess of a million gold, which takes a lot of farming and power trading to get.

You think you'll be hitting that on the 3rd day of straight farming?

Troll somewhere else?

On topic - Guru gets 76768768 of these whiner threads every day.

Not enough gold sinks? k Edited as Gift3d proved a valid point. Gold sinks - Sweet tooth, drunkard. Go.

Also - you say you want stuff to be sold to vendors, but then you whine about stuff being made so that stuff is NOT sold to vendors?

-.-

GOLD SINK = DELETING GOLD FROM THE GAME
Lockpicks @ merchant = gold sink. The gold you spend on it is no longer in the game. It's gone.
ANYTHING you buy from another player, no matter how expensive, is not a gold sink. The gold is still circulating through the userbase.

edit: INCLUDING ZAISHEN KEYS! You can buy Zaishen Keys from NPC's with gold? Please tell me where. The only 'sink' Zaishen Keys are is a balthazar faction sink.

Although you've got to consider how ANet sees it. I saw someone post once that they thought Ursan remained unnerfed to motivate players to buy EotN who haven't already done so, i never really looked at it that way but it makes sense.

edit2: i also don't understand why people see this as a QQ thread. We know GW is dying, it's unfortunate but it was bound to happen sooner or later.. it just happened, well, sooner :P. Nothing wrong with discussing that.

Okay rather than just being another post explaining the obvious in a discussion that didn't need 40 replies, here's some IDEAS for further gold/ecto sinks.

- Eternal Armor. We have Obsidian armor from the FoW, why not have an armor set that uses Ectoplasm and some other rare material (instead of Obsidian Shards - Diamonds perhaps?) available for crafting in the UW?

- A full Ghostly Weapons set. Think Destroyer weapons, but forged with ectoplasm and glittering dust. Would be similar in art style to the already existent Ghostly Staff (which of course would be part of the set, just now craftable).

- Add more weapon craftsmen for weapons of low to medium rarity to later areas of each campaign. That doesn't mean people will be crafting Crystalline swords in the same way Dwarven Axes were made craftable - medium to low rarity skins only.

That's all I can really think of at the moment, might suggest others if people give a shit.

New Elite armor to act as a gold sink has been proposed many times before, I dont see it happening. Even the "new" armor sets from GWEN were reskins...

Indeed, but people bought them regardless. I myself succumbed to Monument armor for my Warrior despite outwardly admitting I hated it initially.

But in regards to the Eternal Armor idea, I would assume there would be nothing retextured for any of them in each set - you wouldn't pay the absurd amount of gold they'd cost for a reskin.

How is cheap stuff a depression? last time I checked the Great Depression was when everyone was broke and were looking for jobs and had nothing to feed their families. In GW today everyone can afford anything they want if they work a little (well not extremes of course like polar bear or panda) ...
It doesn't matter anymore.. now everyone can get their fow for cheap and everyone can be happy. What's the point of having 1mil anyways if you don't know what to spend it on?