The Great Guild Wars Depression

At this moment, ecto costs 4.5k at the trader. The price has been hovering between that and 5.5k for how long now....a year? Even if the price is dropping very slowly, who cares (besides the people with stacks of them that want to stay richer than everyone else, which, as someone said earlier "tough shit"). Perma-Form farming has been around a while. It did NOT start with the latest buff to SF, which most people can't seem to realize (though I admit, that's when it became insanely popular). Even if it is nerfed, people will find a way to keep using it.

So, after Perma-form is nerfed, and ecto prices continue to fall...what will you blame, hoping for a nerf next?

Ectos are one of the very few things worth farming anymore. Unless loot scaling is removed or people are given a reason to farm something else, they will continue to farm them, just as they always have, with or without A/E, and the price will continue to fall as more ectos are introduced to a playerbase that is running out of uses for them.

You're ignoring the fact that ecto dropped to 3.9K at the rare material trader yesterday, which it hadn't seen in well over a year. These developments have occurred within the past week, so I wouldn't say that the price has been declining for a very long time. It's definitely a direct correlation to the fact that the SF farm is now much easier and now foolproof.

To me, ecto prices falling are not signaling some sort of depression...I believe that it's actually a good thing for the game. Yes, it pisses off the veterans who bought their FoW armor and Chaos gloves when ecto were much more expensive, but it also allows many other players access to the high-end trading market that were previously excluded with little hope of accessing it.

But the thing is, that the price HAS been declining for a long time. Remember when they cost 10k each? I do (and it sucked). Yes, of course the explosion of A/E Chaos Plains farmers will affect it. And honestly, I think the only time to really worry is when they hit 3k at the trader and STAY at that (personally I wouldn't be worried even at that, let them get as cheap as possible). Dipping to 3.9 during peak hours then returning to 4.5 the next day isn't the end of the world. When SF is nerfed (I think it will be, and quite soon), the price will stay at 4.5k, instead of dipping to 3.9.

Like I said, ectos are one of the few "good" ways to farm for gold anymore. And people will continue to, with or without A/E, and the price will continue to drop as more ectos are introduced to people that are running out of uses for them. The ecto price will NEVER return to 6k+...sorry to bust anyone's bubble that is hoping otherwise (unless a new super-expensive, amazing set of armor/set of weapons is introduced...and NO, I do NOT mean taking existing armor and weapons and making them look "Eternal").


On another note...I feel that the people sitting on stacks of them, and complaining that their "investment" is dwindling in value, did it to themselves. I mean COME ON! What did they EXPECT to happen? As a game starts to near the end of its life, they expected them to become...more valuable? o.O Should have traded your "stock" before the "shares" started to lose value. And if you plan to make money off of them, better do it soon, because soon many will be just as "rich" (rich meaning, of course, the number of ectos you have in storage) as you, if not more

Actually, I took it in 3+ years ago, but certain things stick with you. Like the fact that what an ecomonist calls "fair" is a situation where the winners can potentially compensate the losers, which ignores the "traditional" definition of fairness and whether any actual compensation takes place.

Functionally, the collector weapons and 1k armor are the best items in the game. But due to the need for maintaining PvP balance, Guild Wars has placed increasing emphasis on looks, which - due mainly to the inclusion of Obsidian Armor in the game - has driven a certain fraction of the player base. Over time, as obtaining "hard-to-get" armor and weapon skins became less and less desirable (due to personal preference and/or the comparative ease with which newer "elite" things could be obtained), accumulating wealth itself - rather than accumulating wealth for the purpose of spending it - became a goal for many of these players. If a grinder feels good showing off a "God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals," these players got their endorphin rush from "financial success." Obviously, any game change that threatens the way these players measure their success will also negatively impact the players' enjoyment of the game.

To many, the point was having 1mil. Collecting a stack of ectoes in your rare materials storage is no easy feat, and someone who did this before the perma sin can be compared to someone who achieved Legendary Cartographer before Texmod. The "old school" player will most likely feel "cheated" - because he will perceive that new players who achieve the same thanks to ANet-approved shortcuts are "cheapening the experience," "lowering the prestige" of the accomplishment, and effectively "destroying its value" by eliminating exclusivity.

Technically, the "old school" player is right about the exclusivity (the rest of the above points are arguably subjective, and whether the "old school" player is right to voice them depends highly on whether you personally agree with said player). ANet, however, has shown an increasing tendency towards reducing the difficulty of grind-based achievements, from effectively cutting the Luxon/Kurzick title requirements in half (few people had this, so there was less complaining on the forums) to introducing Ursan to fill up Hall of Monuments (more people were affected, so there was more complaining) to the current re-breaking/un-nerfing of Shadow Form and its UW-farming consequences. With most people using at ectoes as the "real" currency of Guild Wars for "high end" trades, the current situation is simply the last straw in the constant stream of "high-end trader" complaints about item depreciation over time, but the incredibly fast and profound effect it has had on the price of ectoes (and by extension the GW populace) is precisely what's making people compare current GW situation with the Great Depression.

Then there's also the general increase in hopelessness as people realize Guild Wars is dying

QQ, while I get more ectos to buy Items I always wanted, already have FOW don't need another one.

And when it get worst, i will have the oportunity to buy all ectos and shards and buy my obsidian armor!
The economy is going very well from my point of view.

ITS NOT MY FAULT YOU FOLLOW CAPTALISM AND LIKE TO SAVE ECTOS JUST FOR SAVING.

Eventually they will be worth 1k, when GW2 comes out!
So sorry =]

This is true, altho the perma sf is very effective, to reach that amount in 3 days I had to farm roughly 12 hrs out of the day (its summer anyways).

I would wake up around 10 am ish here, farm till about 5:00 pm (7 hrs).
Get back around 9:00 pm, farm till about 3 or 4 am (at most another 7 hrs).

Ok, so maybe it was about 14 hrs. But yeah its killer, I got my stack and im somewhat casually doing it now. The fact still remains though that even though I played alot to get to this amount... If I had tried to do this with the e/me sandstorm smite solo or rit smite solo, I'd have nowhere near this amount in 3 days (trust me, I used to do the sandstorm).

Ecto was 7.5k-8k a year ago, just a little fyi fact checking. It might have bottomed-out at 6.5k at some point. Ecto is easily hitting all-time lows recently, and by a pretty wide margin.

BRB. Converting all my cash to ectos waiting for favor to run out.

Wow, it's almost like saying Guild Wars economy is runned by right-wing people.

And it is going to continue to get lower. At least I think so. The way I see it, the SF farming is not the main problem. It is a problem, sure...all those sins ravaging the UW at once is gonna have a hit. The main problem is that there are thousands upon thousands of ectos flooding a market that is running out of uses for them. The fact that the price was apparently dropping so rapidly, even before A/E, (I dont remember 8k ectos last year, but I have a crappy memory and will take your word for it), kinda shows this. All the SF farming is doing is speeding up the price crash that is going to happen anyway. Why delay the inevitable? Just let people have their fun in a game that is beginning to die.

The GW economy (and what is left of it right now), should not have relied solely on a single rare material to stay strong. It was a problem from the start.

in GW, the rich gets richer and the poor get poorer. Much like the concept of capitalism.

If you want to play an economy game try Informatist, otherwise just play GW as it is intended, a fantasy game.

Here's an MMO with excellent graphics and solid economy. It's not free-to-play though.

The reason people farm ectos is because they are worth so much that it is by far the fastest way to make money. However, as the price of ectos decline, then there will be less incentive to farm them, and they will become what they were supposed to be, crafting materials. I assume that with a low ecto price, people will find some new item for use as currency, hopefully a more stable one.

For the ultimate gold sink, they should make an ingame auction that is Guild Wars run.

So like once every three days they sell one of those eternal transmog tonics... and just let people bid on them. You could even make it cost 1% of a bid to even bid.

There are really easy ways to pump money out of a inflated economy.

Sounds like a gamble to me: gamble that ectos go up, and if they do, you win big. Gamble and watch them go down...and lose big. (Like most of my stock portfolio; like real estate...)

I can't figure out if the GW economy is "suffering" from deflation, though--which wouldn't be a bad thing; my pitiful bank would go a greater distance--or inflation--which would be bad.

The price of ecto is a problem, I think, if you have seriously kept assuming a) ecto prices were likely to stay stable (ummm, anyone seen what's happened to a dollar recently?), and b) that as a currency, ecto would remain viable. If you want b) to happen, you might need to accept that a) can't remain true: currencies fluctuate.

What has undergone deflation, I think, is the worth of a platinum. With ecto worth less, and the Z-chest, and the ability to farm weapons, and recent skill buffs, and the age of the game, and lockpicks (and yup, even Ursan), the price of a number of market goods has come down (Torment weps for under 100k +17e?? Saw it the other day in Kamadan). Much of this has to do with things said in other threads about the GW market-- there's a steady (maybe even increasing) supply of things like weapons and minipets and so on, but a decreasing demand. So now 100k goes a bit longer than it used to.

Not sure I'm complaining about that.

QFT

Just need to persuade ANet to stop wrecking the fantasy game experience to preserve their twisted amature notion of what economy should be. They seem hell bent on turning the game into Grindwars where time>>>>skill.

What? In fantasy, you don't hoard tons of gold to buy something, a single gold coin is A LOT.
An economy with huge numbers in prices is not fantasy-like. It's just plain stupid.

I'm missing your point.

In GW 1 gold is the smallest value the game will support. Do you beleive the current GW economy is good or bad?

I don't really care if things are cheap or expensive, I care that ANet persistantly screw over the gameplay experience to preserve their precious economy, and then drop billions of bonus loot and wealth in the form of event items and mega-rare items/pets to the lucky few. Its not suprising that the economy stands no chance at all.

HAHAHAHA its a game....you guys wanna chill "THE GREAT DEPRESSION" if its that bad just go play another game lol

Your "Guild Wars depression" is another player's height of enjoyment with the game.

And no, I didn't really read the OP or other posts really, I didn't have to.

I sold off all my ecto's (the ones I owned before farming, obviously) the moment I read of the Shadow Form buff. This is called being proactive in the market. If you lost out on a lot of money due to hording them while looking the oncoming train directly in the face, it is inarguably your own fault. Holding on to an anchor hoping it'll grow wings is not the best idea.

Ectos was going for 4.1k yesterday @ trader.

My friend told me this is the best time to buy ectos because in a few months, it will go back to 5-6k+

I have never herd of any MMORPG going into a recession or depression.......
dont think its possible


then again Diablod LOD

You know, they make a bunch of Asian mmos where you can collect gold to your heart's content. There's also this cool game where you collect real estate and charge people tons of money to rent it. What was that game... oh yeah, Monopoly!

Christ, if all you get off on is collecting stacks of cash and wealth in a video game, maybe Guild Wars isn't the right game for you.

/signed for merging this with the 100 other threads on the "economy".

LOL

Remembering what Guild Halls used to cost, this makes me laugh.

every time i see the title of this thread, i want to lol, sorry but just can't help it.

GW being a game and all, the SF buff makes it easier for people to get their own ectos instead of having to buy them. I, for one, feel far more satisfied when I have accomplished something myself and if I were to get some obsidian armor then I would love to know that "I did that".

Thanks ANet

Sure, it might suck for poeple who had a ton of ectos to see their value drop, but that's why they call it gambling.

Who every said that?

Anyone who looks realistically at stock and commodities (especially futures) markets.

It seems funny to me that people who complain about the GW economy, seem to have so little knowledge of economics.

The definition of gambling does. Placing monetary value in something without a set price or directly tied to the established economy is always a gamble.

We don't need multiple threads on the economy. Post in What happened to Ecto and Shard Prices instead. Closed.