Your opinion on XTH?

Didn't see a thread on this so here goes

Is XTH good? Should it be kept?
Should XTH be removed/amended?

Pros: gets players involved with mATs(best I could think of)
Cons: puts zkeys in economy every month and messes with it

Question for Regina if you see this
Will Xth be removed anytime soon? Before gw2? Thanks

So share your opinions!


(sorry if there is similar thread or in wrong location)

I have no clue what XTH is, but I'm for it because it makes you whine about the economy.

I love the free money I get from this system.

But it has to be changed or stopped.

Maybe gamble Z Keys or something.

xunlai tournament house....go to guildwars.com-->competitive-->xunlai tournament house


And honestly I'm not whining about economy, just stating the facts...hey I get keys from it so it doesn't hurt me

The XTH needs to be removed. It's economic/financial mismanagement hundreds of times the scale of the subprime mortgage crisis.

Yes, im 'whining' about an economy that operates currency that doesn't exist in printed form, but seriously, if you think the economy isn't important in a multiplayer game, go back to single player...

There's a thread in sardelac, sharing my view on the topic

great, do we need to go over why zkeys do not tamper with the economy, because all it does is shift money around?

First of all, good luck with the thread mate.

Is XTH good?
Yes for Anet, the extra accounts bring in revenue
Yes to fight goldfarmers and bots and Ebay. (is this temporarely, I don't know)

pros:
- people indeed get to know the top pvp teams which is a good thing imo
- free stuff is always nice until it becomes a normal thing, after that it looses its effect somewhat
- free monthly gambling system of Anet is a cool thing. Every month I feel a bit like I'm betting on top soccer teams or something

cons:
- Still no real pve emote and zaishen title didn't really help on that part imo. But ok it's here now, still hope some day pve will get an emote for the KoBD title track. Nothing big or the pvp peeps are gonna be pissed.
- It doesn't always seem to function properly and it gives the playerbase and especially some folks at Anet headaches. They have some time to fix this, but it can't go on like that forever.

Should it be kept?
Should XTH be removed/amended?
Well, we have it for a year now, it would be interesting to look at the effects since then. Anet has more info on that and I'm wondering how they think about it now.

I'm not making any conclusions yet.

I Think it should be abolished before GW2.

I don't care about it I guess. Considering even it does hurt the economy, you can't really hurt something that's already a vegetable. They will eventually become very cheap just like most farmable things in guild wars. It's just the cycle of life with this game. Someone catches on to get rich quick item or technique, shares it with a friend or is figured out by the vast majority some other way. Prices go down as it becomes more well known and popular. Dead swords, elemental swords, chaos axes, colossal scimitars. The list goes on, and no sought after item is an exception it would seem. XTH and Z-keys are no different, lots of people want them, and getting them is very easy.

Amen , brother,

I have made several quotes in most of the xunlai whine threads explaining why zkeys only shift money around the economy of guild wars.

The part it did wreck was the devaluing of somewhat rare skins that you had to do something to get, eg. some of the skins that only came from dungeon chests and a very small chance of getting them then.

Most of the people that qq in these threads don't understand the concepts of the only thing that is getting prices hurt are the zkeys themselves because of supply spikes from XTH and the fanbois with 472 accounts.

I'm for it. It's fun, sorta like being given ten lottery tickets in your Christmas stocking. It keeps people engaged in an otherwise dwindling fanbase, and that's always a good thing.

I just wish they stopped having problems every single month with distribution. But that's a relatively petty concern.

Lets face it, it's ANet's version of an Item Shop. They won't likely stop it as it brings constant revenue into the business. Pure genius on their part.

Players who can afford to purchase 472 accounts will have the most money ingame. That's a bit sad cause now all you need do is log in once a month, trade your keys and buy whatever weapon skin, armor set etc you want with the gold/ecto. In a sense it eliminated the need for (at least some) skill from certain areas of the game.

I think it will be around for as long as GW1 is around.

xunlai tournament house is fine. only true problem is the abuse of people using multiple accounts. making predictions on 10+ accounts and getting 200+ keys a month is a little broken.

I adored it when I could sell zkeys for 5k ea within 5 min. Easy 100k gogo.
But now, even trying to sell for 4k is taking forever. <.<

I do like it overall. Free money is always ftw and it makes the title easier to get. If I wanted to keep XTH, I totally would :P

It should be imho completely removed.

It allows players who don't play the game to get massive amounts of free money - I know a guy who's best char is still lv18 after 6 months but he's already made his first Million gold on selling the free ZKeys.

The worst thing about XTH is that it greatly reduces the value of rewards PvP players get.
With more and more players registering more and more accounts into XTH, the value of Zaishen Keys will continue to go down and down every month. There's simply not enough money in the economy to pay for the huge overflow of free zkeys.

Other than that, XTH doesn't even fulfill it's function of getting players interested in PvP, especially with the HB votes. Those are completely screwed up and totally random, because of HB players constantly switching accounts and changing names.

It's just a FREE random lottery where you always win.

Game is boring anyway. Only fun thing to do is dressing up characters in items etc, House provides a little money/lottery to do so.

So what you're saying is that if the government prints a bunch of money and inflates the value of everything, that's OK because all it does is make the existing rich (ie: holders of land, property and valuable resources) richer?

Distributional consequences are bad. Stable expectations are good.

While XTH was a terrible idea for the game, it is a source of revenue for the devs and is not going away. XTH is simply a blatant effort by the devs to legalize RMT and collect the surplus themselves without catching the negative publicity associated with selling money in an online game.

Anyone that tries to tell you differently is either naive or self-serving.

Agreed.People need to realise the ideas behind XTH. If you predict on 1 account and get 80pts,back in the day that roughly translated to 1pt-1k. Those points don't have the same value now so what do people do? play.com amazon.com and buy more accounts for £10 ea.More sales and revenue for them,happier players that now have x amount of accounts for XTH farming (Like me).

Thinking otherwise is a pretty dumb thing to do..

Imo, keep it. However, "account-bound" Zaishen Keys should be the resulting prizes.

This would stop people from buying 40 + accounts and selling the z keys, but would not stop normal PvPers from selling them, or the people from opening the chest themselves.

It keeps money flowing to Anet. That's a good thing. That's GW2 being released in 2011 rather than never. If people want to break open their piggybanks for a bunch of $5 Prophecies accounts so they can accumulate in-game wealth, good for them. At least they're not paying gold farmers for the same thing. It doesn't hurt me in the least, and it doesn't hurt you either. Someone having more gold/goodies than you doesn't have any bearing on your game or your real life persona whatsoever. Deal with it.

Seemed to work fine for the US up to one point

How many accounts do you guys use?

Hmm, this is again sounding like a few PVPers QQing over their lost profits. The idea that the Ztitle was JUST a PVP title was gone the minute they started selling the Zkeys to the PVE and now are mad that the PVE has another way of acquiring this title and cutting into their funds. WAAAAAH. What do PVPers even need gold for anyway, since everything they could want is given to them thru balth faction and TPs? We always hear endless attacks that the PVP titles are the only ones that matter and that the PVE ones are useless and stupid. So what is it that falls from the Zchest that is even used by PVPers? Tomes, Lockpicks, Creme Brulee, Firewater, R12 skins? Nothing. PVErs constantly hear about if we want Zkeys to learn to PVP. Put the shoe on the other foot and if the PVPers want gold, then take your ass off its high horse and learn to farm for it.

I get my keys every month, and i use my keys every month. The XTH is fine. Whats wrong, is all you greedy B*tches whining endlessly about how little you are making every month off of the Zkeys now compared to when it started. If you want to put a stop to the greed, then stop selling your damn keys and stop buying them, or stop whining about this. If someone wants to shell out another 50 bucks to buy an alt account so he can acquire more keys, whether to use them himself or to sell them, its his game and he can do with it what he wants. Its up to them, not you to tell them, how they can play their game or what to do with the items they get in that game. And, with the constant influx of items into a game, with no way for them to be removed from the game, the inevitable devaluation of ALL items will eventually happen reguardless of the QQing behind it. Deal with it.

XTH? Never bothered with it. It seems to involve predicting PvP tournament stuff, but PvP tournament is something I'm anything but involved in. (My PvP is limited to Aspenwood and JQ)

So, I would not care if it gets removed. But because XTH can be a source of gold, it would be nice to have an alternative for PvE players.

It's the z-keys that are destroying the value of things and thus devaluing the economy. There are only a handful of items now left with any value to them at all. I remember when +30hp weapons and items would bring 30k, now you're lucky if you can get 2-5k on most inserts. There was a time when farming was fun because of it's value, now unless you can farm ectos (even they have died in value) and torment or other high end only items you are just wasting your time as well as taking more of that precious time to aquire any value at all in your inventory or coin vault. The only value left in the game anymore is pure Epeen for titles as everything else now comes pretty cheaply and easily. Obsidian armor doesn't cost hardly anything anymore not like the 2mil+ it used to cost to be elite and wear elite armor. At least games like WOW or EQ don't go ruining the value of your time like GW does.

i think a poll should be added.
now straight to the point, I don't like the xth and think it should be removed.

Zkeys don't, but the fact that you get hundreds of Tourney Reward Points every month for free, basically means that sooner or later Tourney Reward Points/Balthazar Faction are gonna be worthless, and PvP is once again, gonna be something you do cos farming got boring.

EDit:
Fyi, this is a economic phenomenon called 'Market Failure'.

A recent example of which was banks marketing loans with very low initial interest repayments to 'Subprime' Candidates, which were then bundled into securities, and sold as AAA grade assets.

When the market fails, governments need to respond =]

The Zkeys generated from xth are acting as a very effective tool for distributing accumulated wealth from the few to the many. It stimulates the economy by giving some buying power to those who would purchase every day items instead of it all sitting in the hands of people that are only after r7/8 non-inscribable rare skins.

A undeniable boon.

This would be absolutely true IF and only if, each person was to have access to one account.

However there is clear anecdotal evidence given by numerous people on these forums alone, that many people have purchased accounts purely for the purposes of XTH predictions.

So now its the case that it re-distributes the wealth to those who are willing to spend the money.

so, basically your just saying your mad because more people are allowed to have e-peen now?

the thing that makes me laugh the most about the QQers are the people who complain about the z-chest giving peaple easy access to high end/valuable items. its more than likely most people got an item from the z-chest, then complain that they cant sell it for as much as it used to be... because of the z-chest.

then you get the other QQers who complain that they dont get enough good items from the z-chest and they get too many firewaters/creme brulees.

whatever you do, you will never keep everysingle person happy. just be glad your getting anything for free imo

Its not so bad, the game is dying and the PvE economy is non existant since the duping fiasco so i dont see a reason why they shouldnt just flood the game with cash.

It allows everyone to get the millions of gold they need for their GWAMM title, even the casual players can quite easily get it.

I would have been outraged at something like this a couple of years ago when money meant something and items had value but since duping the whole scale of value has been lost, people with hordes of minipets attained via duped armbraces killed any sort of real economy.

The one part i dont like is that the XTH is a way of anet indirectly selling ingame gold, its not very professional but i supose they just want every last penny out of the game before GW2.

+1


(12char)

XTH is a great. Keep it.

Just as in real life the people who QQ the most about poor folks getting the chance to get some cash, are those that already have money and want to remain in some kind of elite group, looking down their nose at the majority of other players.

Screw them.

One of the worst additions ever to this game.
ZKeys should have never been made tradedable.

Please let the one account, non farming, non powertrading, non fifty stacks of ecto per trade crowd have some Z points, you greedy bastards!

I XTH goes away, i will have one Zkey per day at most.

XTH is terrible, not just from its further dirtying of the economy. You can literally throw random names in for predictions and still come out with something. Free money for nothing is always a poor idea in a game like this, and it compounds with players buying up new accounts, multiplying that free and easy money gain by disgustingly huge numbers.

Perhaps you should look into taking an economics class. If you did, you'd know that new money is created every day. Every time someone gets a home loan, that money is created virtually out of thin air. Sounds crazy, but it works. The distribution of Z Keys is a very similar concept. While it does change the value of certain items, it does keeps the economy moving.

The "market failure" in this game is because there is no way for items to be removed from the game. If TVs never broke, then eventually the company making them could not sell anymore because no one would need, or want, one. I will repeat myself again, with no way for items to be removed, and the constant addition of that same item, the eventuality is for a decrease in price of that item, because there is no demand for it.

Now with the Zkeys there is a demand for them, and they are removed from the market by being used on the chest. But like the housing market, the over inflated price of the item from what it used to be, to what it is now, is the sole responsiblity of the PVPers who had control over these to begin with, and its their greed that caused this, by doubling the price of the keys once the title for it came out. If the Zkeys were sold at the same price as lockpicks i doubt people wouldve shelled out for extra accounts to capitalize on this greed. So what we are seeing now is a balancing out of this inflation and supply and demand. So i hope you sold your house, or Zkeys, at the height of the market, because now they arent really worth what you thought they should be, and just thank your lucky stars that you didnt do this all on credit. This all still comes down to the fact that you are a bunch of greedy f**ks and are QQing over a loss in what you thought something should be worth instead of what it really is worth and you only have yourselves, not ANET, to blame. You just bought the wrong stock. And the buyer has now cut out the middle man, and gets his items from the company. Only a fool bets on something to last forever. And i have serious doubts that anyone crying over the drop in prices, has only one account at the XTH, because a drop in 30k a month wouldnt be worth QQing about in the first place. If it is, you need to get a life, or learn to farm. Because any first day noob can make 1k a day.

So admit you are all a bunch a greedy bitches, deal with the losses you suffer now because of your greed, and move on and stop QQing. Its not ANETs fault that you want to be richer, and have more stuff, than the next player. Its yours. And since you didnt buy on credit, its not up to the Government, or ANET, to bail you out.

it's funny to see people here claim compare the effects of the XTH as a change from a Communist economy to a Capitalist economy. it's funny because GW economy is nothing like real life economy, for the simple reason that the supply is endless, as you can count on mobs to always be there and drop something for you...

at the topic itself, the XTH is an awful idea, just like permanoobs, ursan, random overpowered elites, stupid heroes in HA, rawrspike, etc. enjoy this game while you still can, cause it will be dead(and I mean really dead) pretty sppn, so until than have your fun with it while it lasts...

I see no reason to remove it because of economy reasons.
Zkeys don't bring new gold in the economy, they are worth whatever some fool might give for them. They are worth even less than Ecto, which has a merchant value of 100g I think.

Now we see a steady decline in the value of Zkeys.
Why? Because people can obtain them themselfs, people don't care for the max title since it takes 100 years to max and people realise Zkeys have a merchant value of 0, making the item worthless if there are no buyers.

The only reason why XTH and by that the Zkeys should be removed is because it's another attempt of A-net to get more people involved in PvP play that didn't work very well.
If people want Zkeys, let them play PvP. Dedicate Zkeys to the account, making them completely worthless to anyone else.

!. It's fun.
2. Who cares about the economy?
3. Keep the XTH.