old fansite interview "economic integrity"

i thought it was funny (given the current economic state...)

also:
do people still stop to pick up gold, almost 4 years later? i sometimes dont, only if its on my way forward

ps - i got this from gw wiki: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Fansite_Friday/Tactics

Depends how I feel and how my bank account feels. Generally my bank/chars are full, and buying ecto is iffy. So sometimes I don't.

It also varies if I'm intent on doing something bigger (vanq, mission, grinding for stuff).

Generally, I do always try to pick up gold though, but no way in hell am I going out of my way to get pick up 100 gold which will give me the crap end of 12 in a group. In grps with ppl, I let other ppl do all the work in picking the gold up for me ^^.

I do if I am h/h'ing or with a friend but in a group of 8 I will let someone else do the picking up.. and if nobody does so be it.

Since I solo without heroes and henchmen, I pick up all gold coins. It's a big difference not having to divide it 8 ways.

I always pick up everything. I once bound a macro(semicolon + space bar) to do it faster, until guild members started dropping clutter. I could care less about the player economy; GW isn't about items unless you make it that way yourself.

always pick up gold no matter the size of my group---my characters need the cash and half of the items that drop arent worth picking up either (when I GET drops that is).
always pick up cash even in rl I will stop to pick up a penny.

yup agree with cosyfiep here

@OP: Yes that's funny and at the same time one realises they can say whatever they want, even if it's full of crap like the economy perhaps?

I stopped picking up gold when I'm grouping some 2 years ago. Solo or duo farming is different though, I will pick up the gold there.

You wont get rich by splitting up 100g in a 8 man team. Half of the whites give more than 50g if you identify them, way better imo. If they are worth more than 60g, I will sell them to the trader, otherwise I salvage them for materials. A white with 50g value, can still give you 6 iron for example, which is more interesting.

I pick up everything; 2-3g coins, even whites that drop in Shing Jea or the area outside of Kamadan. EVERYTHING!

It seems to me that gold is actually a much more viable currency nowadays, since you can buy anything you want with it without having to tack '+XX Ectos' at the end of every trade message. Granted, I think the main issue is that there simply isn't anything to buy. But as far as that article goes, they are actually sticking to that in as much as gold has become the main currency instead of ectos again.

The only time I ever pick it up is when I'm just buy myself (Boxing for Survivor, 55 farming, etc.). If I'm in a group of people, whether it be henchies or humans, I never pick anything up unless it's purple or gold or a Tome. I never pick up whites anymore. I never really buy much of anything, if at all, so guessing at the XTH and getting ~50k a month is really more than enough for me.

You see, I'm a man of simple tastes. I like dynamite and gunpowder and gasoline. And the one thing they have in common is... they're all cheap.

I pick up everything. whites = big money if you id them

Agree, after a while the money starts to show lol.

I don't believe that the point of that statement was that you'd want to literally pick up every pile of gold. Rather, I think the point was that they wanted to keep GW a currency-based (gold in this case) economy instead of a barter economy like we saw with D2. In that respect, they have largely succeeded.

Well, gold is worth far more now then it was before the introduction of Hard Mode and Loot Scaling. Or, for basic items, still on the same level.
Being able to buy more with the same amount of money means deflation and that means gold is becoming worth more.

The problem with this is that it's easy to hoard gold and not spend it.
In the recent past one had to bring 50K to the rune trader for a sup vigor, now it's only about 15K. Meaning one has 35K more to spend on other things which are also cheaper.
So while the actual value of gold increased, the perceived value of gold decreased because there is not that much to spend it on anymore.
It's the problem of the rich, how to spend your money when you have everything you want....

This leads to the situation where people are leaving gold on the floor.
Someone calculated that if Bill Gates would see a 100 dolar note on the floor and he would stop to pick it up that would cause a nett loss for him since he would have made more money walking past.
To the OP: feel fortunate, you are rich or have a source of income that allows you to leave gold on the floor.

Yes, I puck up all crap and whites. Together it still brings in some money, especially from the higher level missions / area's.

i can't help it. i always pick up everything :P

I don't pick up much when I'm in the low level areas (for example, started a new character), but once I get to the 100+ stacks of gold, 50+g whites areas I start picking up stuff again. I figure, if you have a full main bag of whites in a level 20 area, that's 20 x 50 = 1k gold right there. In areas long enough to fill my pack, I swap out whites for more valuable items (blue, purple, gold, rare mats, stacks available in large quantities, whatever else).

I pick up gold stacks when they drop, but if I miss one for some reason and don't notice until I've moved away, I have no problems leaving it behind. Someone else pointed out, it's only about 12 gold per stack. The "real money" in standard play (relatively speaking) is in selling merch trash (assuming no lucky high value drops).

What they said then holds just a true today as it did back then, it's just that for some of us the following is true:

For those people there is no way that what they are saying will *ever* be true (at least if one wants a successful game). I'm that way - why pick it up? I still mostly bother in later game areas but even then I mostly leave it. But then I have all the armors I want, all the armors I want, all the skills I want, and all the titles I have left are not gold based. I have a few hundred K in the bank along with many hundreds of K of value in my material storage - why bother with more? I could kit out a new character with everything I want and if I really wanted something like Obsidian armor for a new character it is now easy to farm the few materials I would need. While that is common now on the forums it is *not* common in game.

To contrast this I got the bug to play Diablo II again about three weeks ago - I no longer pick up anything other than high runes, gems, and a few gold items up off the ground. I see no reason too as they are worthless (I leave any gold items I can't use on the ground - I could have 3 million gold and it would be irrelevant as it purchases nothing). GW took me a few years to get to that point, Diablo II took a few weeks and I don't play that many hours a day.

Since they are looking at being between DII and traditional MMO's that statement is still true. That you take it to mean more like a traditional MMO isn't their fault, they were clear as to their market and you chose to misinterpret what they said to be to your liking. Same thing is happening with GWII - many are noting the whole thing about no level cap yet ignoring the next sentence about you leveling quickly and not adding any "power" to your character, level just being a number. I've never really understood why people do this, are they just not able to critically read an article or did they hope that by ignoring the rest of what was said they would somehow magically be correct - I don't know but it even happens often even in hindsight (which is supposedly perfect).

True, but non-farming players are far better of now then they were in the past, specially pre-nightfall.
I think the worst case would be someone with Prophecies only.
Loot scaling made it harder to get collectors armor.
And I think the max armors at Drok's don't have insignia's on them anymore.
But most of those are not above 500g, the difference between the old and new price. So from that perspective there is not much difference.
Prices are lower now on the gold and green item market, so they have an advantage there.
Factions already gave better income and income wise Nightfall gives a lot.
The same for EotN. And I'm not talking about the player-player market, just quest rewards, treasure and merchant loot.

The fact that people moan about their gold in the game is something else.
For many it's not about income, it's about spending.
It's just one question one has to ask him/herself.
Do I need this or do I want this?

I usually pick up the gold and items. I usually only ID whites if they're max and then I always ID any purple or golds.

Given that my obsidian armor and 8 sets of 15k armor came from quest rewards and drops with no farming...