Your opinion on XTH?

So PvE means trading to you? no wonder it is a "boring and repetitive waste of time"

Or fee to claim your rewards, which should be easier to implement.

Say, 100 faction per reward point. 10k Balth faction is fairly low price to claim 20 zkeys, but it goes beyond "don't do anything", and it allows people to claim their rewards in small chunks, i.e. pretty much every time they win PvP match.

Or, give players 5rps from XTH every time they win PvP match, making it real incentive to PvP.

Or charge 1sp per 5rps. (finally use for SPs!).

Or pretty much _anything_ that currently holds next no value, but which should. Hell, Zkey could "cost" one gold or green item to make, creating huge sink for such drops.

Perhaps I can help.

Halls (assuming no updates or NOPs) gives out eight Zkeys per winning team. Matches start every twelve minutes. 8*5=40 per hour. 40*24 = 960 per day. 960*30 = 28,800 keys per month.

The 1v1 monthly kicks out 1472 keys for order of finish, plus keys for winning matches. Assuming 60 participants for a six round tournament, an average finish of 3/3 and 1 zkey per win, that's another 180 keys. Add 4+3+2+2+(1*4) = 15 keys for the single elim, and that's 1472+180+15 = 1677 keys for the mAT.

The 8v8 monthly kicks out quite a bit more. Keys from placement bonuses are given by: [(4500*8)+(2970*8)+(2475*8*2)+(1485*8*4)+(495*8*8)]/5 = (36000+23760+39600+47520+31860)/5= 35,712 keys. Assuming 60 participants again, 3 zkeys per win and 8 players per team, we have (60*3*8)=1440 more keys, and another 15*3*8=360 keys for single elim wins. Sum = 1800+35712 = 37,512 keys.

So, from the largest PvP sources of these things, we have: 37,512 + 28,800 + 1677 = 67,989 keys. Sure, there are daily ATs and faction earned from regular play. But the general point is that players don't earn all that many keys in-game at the end of the day.

A *really* conservative XTH estimate would tell you that at least a million keys are created monthly. Probably far more. If almost all keys are going to PvE-ers in small quantities, but the overall effect is REALLY large - can you see how this is a serious problem?

If Regina would like to toss some real data at this to refute the above argument, I'll listen. Otherwise, I consider the assertion that the vast majority of zkeys comes from the XTH to be proven.

i don't see how this is a serious problem. yes there are a lot of keys, but it's a lot of keys chasing the same amount of money each month. you must remember that the keys themselves have practically zero value. it is only worth anything because players attach value to it. as such, all the keys will do is shift money around. at most, it might encourage farming, which isn't necessarily bad.

you must also realize that the keys have a title and potentially valuable items attached to it. this means that keys are routinely purged from the system. they might get traded around, but in the end, they go into two places: 1) the chest, in which it is gone; or 2) someone's storage, in which it is effectively gone until the owner of those keys decides to use it or sell it, in which case they will end back at 1) anyways.

please note that just because there's a ton of something circulating in the economy, it doesn't mean it will make it any worse. heck, there's probably a few million ectos in the playerbase, and no one's crying for ecto droprate to be nerfed yet. nevermind the fact that ectos don't nearly have as good as a sink as keys have.

Actually, from what I know it is about 3.5 million keys per month.

Consider this: PvP alone only gives enough keys for 3 people to max z-title each month. Assuming GW2 comes out in 2011, that is like 100 possible max zranks, and no more. Actually, it would be a bit less because keys would spread a bit in market.

XTH gives enough keys to allow 150+ people to max z-title each month, that allows about 10k people to max z-rank by time GW2 is out.

Draw your own conclusions.

Sure, and ectos eventually end up in someone's box, get turned into FoW or get turned into chaos gloves. Please. Lots of zkeys are kicking around right now, and they're being created much faster than they're being destroyed.

A few million ectos is probably a very conservative estimate of the total number outstanding. Still, compare to zwei2stein's quoted rate of 3.5 million zkeys PER MONTH. It's true that eventually the price of zkeys will crash because the supply will outstrip the demand, but for the time being there's a huge advantage to be gained from buying up oodles of accounts.

Also note that people got extremely upset when the drop rate of ectos effectively tripled via perma-SF. This is the same sort of distributional problem. In that case, people with lots of time available right when the farm was going on benefited, and everyone else lost. Now, you're seeing the benefit going to people that are effectively engaging in RMT - much more reprehensible.

The basic point I'm making is this: there's a massive giveaway of in-game cash going on. Unless you're willing to drop a few hundred bucks on GW accounts or engage in clear exploits (champ point farming) to capitalize on the ready supply of in-game cash, you are quickly losing ground to the field.


I am of the opinion that ANet is getting through the current credit crisis with revenue derived from the sale of accounts for XTH, and that this is the reason for their conspicuous silence on the matter and lack of action. The parent company's finances are known to be in poor shape. GW is the only consistent source of revenue the parent company has had, and they have to be leveraged due to some boneheaded acquisitions.

They can't go dry on revenue or they run out of cash with which to make interest payments, and fail to release GW2. Best solution: incentivize existing customers to buy more accounts at cut rates, since development costs are sunk.

and i don't give a damn. tell me, does having a billion gold suddenly make me play better? obviously not. until having a ton of gold make characters tangibly more powerful, gold is worthless. it's good for buying some armor sets and some items that you want. once past that, gold can pretty much disappear and there won't be much difference.

now ask yourself this: where does gold come from? from drops, and more specifically, because people farm it. the gold gets traded for keys, the keys get used, and the gold get used to buy armor sets and weapon skins. both disappear, and the cycle start anew. i've said this before, and i'll say it again (hopefully you lot understand this time): zkeys DO NOT HAVE INHERENT VALUE. ectos have inherent value, it will always have it because there's a trader for it. zkeys are worth ZERO, and only has its current value because the market pressures dictates that value. is it overfarmed? probably, and all that means is that zkeys will worth less.

you speak of "advantages" by having a ton of accounts. i personally see no advantage. maybe because my notion of advantage is based on performance, and your advantage is based on vanity. if people are stupid enough to spend hundreds of dollars on meaningless vanity, then let them. all it means is that anet gets more money, and hopefully make GW/GW2 better.

^people like to have a good economy whether or not it has an effect on gameplay.

i will agree that xth doesn't have any effect on gameplay performance, but it does have an effect on the economy. to say that the economy is unimportant just because it doesn't affect gameplay performance is quite closed-minded if you ask me.

as a means of gaining wealth, just to compare, pvp'er were already playing ats, earning balth points. theres no extra steps involved, just do what you were doing and earn those keys.

pvers need to explicitly farm to gain more gold. that deviates from normal gameplay, and to most is rather boring and repeditive. farming areas over time generally have reduced payoff due to nerfs etc.

pvp'er can also use xth, and probably have a higher prediction rate since they are familiar with the teams and meta, versus the average pve'er whois randomly guessing.

either way, i doubt anet will do anything to change the current situation. zkeys, just like all items will loose value over time.

i'm not just arguing that the game economy does not matter much (which is very true), but also that zkeys do not adversely affect the economy. like i said before, zkeys are effectively worthless items, and is only traded because of potential items and a silly title track. once these conditions cease to exist, and it will, since the tonics will recycle themselves after april, zkeys will go back to their old trade value, which is around 2k.

zkeys themselves do not affect the economy. unlike ectos, zkeys represent zero gold in the game engine. it is a commodity that's based on no "concrete" value. as such, adding a few million, or even a few billion of them into the game at once won't affect the overall scheme of things. all it will accomplish is redistribute the gold already in the game.

Yes lets get rid of it, and get rid of PvP, GvG and so forth.....

The only people complaining are the "LEET" PvP'ers who think that PvE is for the losers not good enuf to "fight" against another person as opposed to some AI controlled creature.

You really want to fix this, make PvE and PvP two separate games that never cross, otherwise, there will always be someone who thinks the other side is getting unfair perks.

PvP hates XTH for giving zkeys to undeserving n00bs.
PvE hates PvP for nerfing our game, because some PvP'er thought certain skills or mechanics were too powerful.

I know, the point is that it was a short-term issue. That doesn't mean it's unimportant. A week to a month of rapidly fluxuating prices is not something Anet wants, especially if they plan on doing similar things with periodic updates. The logic behind books exactly confirms this, because you can still get X money by doing the missions, but not all in one shot as retroactive would've done.

[quote]It's more likely they are worth 100g or so, but yes, their gold-value is far below their market value. By the same token ectos are only with 40g or something. Traders reflect market prices through supply/demand, they don't have a true "inherent" value either, farming an ecto does not cause an extra 4k of gold to be created, because the ecto only retains its price by someone buying from the trader for 4.5k.

@moriz (edit: lol stop replying so fast, i don't like using quotes)
yes, no money is produced persay (even though its still possible by selling the golds/lps/etc obtained through the zchest), but don't forget that it is only one aspect of economy. exchange and distribution is also a big part--and zkeys definitely affects the economy in that regard.

You insist that I share your preferences. Further, you insist that anyone that does not share your preferences is stupid.

You are a bigot. QED.

I keep seeing this a lot in this thread and I'm here to say it doesn't tell us anything and makes no sense. I could say nothing in the game has any value. Gold itself has no value if players didn't attach something to it. Many players today are using keys as currency so that is what they are for all intents and purposes.

Because most people don't care about playing better? The ratio of people who care about the economy compared to being skilled is probably at least 10:1.

Lastly this whole Anet selling gold thing is hilarious. Hilarious in that I agree with it and hadn't thought about it until now. Thanks for bringing it up (it adds to my future thread lol).

right back at you.

You insist that I share your preferences. Further, you insist that anyone that does not share your preferences is stupid.

You are a bigot. QED.

but since you insist on playing this little game, answer me this: what will happen to the economy if a few million 2-3 damage swords suddenly gets added? the answer, in case you don't know, is nothing. similarly, adding a bunch of keys, each effectively spawns zero gold in the game (unless you get really lucky and manages to get something good from that chest, but even then, the game does not generate gold from those items) will have the same effect.

this is different from adding a bunch of ectos, purely because i can cash in the ectos at 4k or so. the game spawns ectos at around 4k (or whatever the current price is) each, and that adds directly into the game. keys are not tokens to an auto-money generator.

for a relatively simple game like GW, the economy only needs to maintain one thing: the amount of gold generated is approximately equal to the gold being lost. gold generation comes from monsters and merchants, gold lost goes into armor/titles/consumables. the zaishen keys themselves do not represent gold in the economy, so you can add as many of them into the game as you want, and the overall economy won't be affected. it does change the way trades are being conducted, but it does not negatively/positively affect the overall economy.

I think it's time mods close this thread. Too much QQing and not enough playing!

Not to mention Martin is making this into a flame war!

Yah...or a poll would be sweet.... (No QQ plox)

Well, since they all have a merch price, around ten million gold would be added to the economy. Not a big deal, given the amount that is already in circulation.

It doesn't have to be the case that the item can be tradered or merched to have an impact on total currency in circulation. If players value 5 points towards the Zaishen title at 3k and the average value of the chest drop is 1k (accounting for outliers that are worth oodles), then the intrinsic value of a zkey is indeed 4k.

You continue to miss this fact. Gold is virtually worthless except for aesthetic purposes. (Yes, there are limited industrial uses.) Yet people still pay over a thousand dollars an ounce for the stuff. Why? Because it looks nice, and you can reshape it into just about any form you please.

As for your retort about argument content, there's a difference here. If you don't want the same things that I want, that's fine. I'm arguing that you're losing rather than winning with XTH, and the sad part is that you don't even know it. The short run benefits have blinded you to the long run consequences.

My argument is: a problem exists, this is why it is a problem, and this is the proper solution. Yours is: you're an idiot for caring about this problem, and it isn't a problem anyway. The trouble with the second half of the argument is that you're just wrong (and I'm not the only one telling you this), and the trouble with the first half is that it isn't falsifiable.

Here's why my argument works and yours doesn't: explain why the price of fixed-supply items is skyrocketing right now. You can't with your theory. According to your theory, the prices should be remaining constant. Yet they are not. I can explain this phenomenon with the story that I am telling. This should tell you that zkeys have intrinsic value and that a massive giveaway of zkeys isn't a great idea.

I agree with Sir Skullcrusher that it's time to lock. I am losing my patience with arguing with someone that refuses to accept logic. The previous post indicates that succinctly.

I like it. If it's only once a month it's fine. In a month a player can easily farm the money that you can make and a bit of gambling is what the zkey thingy is all about. I don't think it should be completely free though. It should cost 1 k at least to join each time.

Except you can sell to trader for 4k ea?....they are worth avg of 4k each...cause no matter what you can sell for 4k ea...and 100g to merch if you really want...

I still can not believe people buy multiple accounts just to get more zkeys from the XTH. I see enough people post here to see its true. I guess for anet its a win win situation because they make more money. I just can not see doing that though. I mean damn its a game. I guess Forrest Gump was right, Stupid is as Stupid does.

Why not? You could argue the same over the original purchase why spend money on a game?

Having multiple accounts is always a BIG help with MMORPGs

I can see buying the game and enjoy playing it, but to buy multiple copies of the game like 10, 20, or 100. Come on give me a break. Thats like going to a movie and buying every ticket in the theater. If buying multiple accounts is a big help, all I can say is Anet Loves You!

I dont mean to start a dispute. I could care less what anyone does. Just found it hard to believe buying accounts for more zkeys.

if i'm not mistaken, npc price works by supply/demand. so if 10 million ectos were placed into the economy similar to zkeys, the npc would eventually buy/sell ectos @ 100g each.

incorrect. my argument was "there ISN'T a problem, and here's why". all you've said over the last little while is "ASSUMING there's a problem, here's what we should do about it". your entire basis of your argument is incorrect, simply because you haven't proven how zkeys themselves actually generate any significant amount of gold in the game engine.

i actually bothered to write a long and detailed explanation of why prices can rise and fall without significant infusion of gold, but i lost connection and it got deleted. but here's the abridged version:

"gold is now more evenly distributed than before. with that, more players can enter the mid-high commodity market (by mid-high, i mean stuff that trades for 75k-100k-ish). with more players chasing after the same amount of goods, the prices for those things will rise"

there you go, the explanation-that-i-am-not-able-to-give according to you.

lastly, i'll go over basic economy one more time, hopefully this time it will sink in to you people:

"a basic economy only needs two things: a roughly fixed amount of currency, and a roughly fixed amount of commodities being traded. in other words, the currency:commodity ratio needs to be kept roughly the same. these two variables, especially for individual items, can change overtime. as long as the ratio remain roughly constant, the economy is in good shape."

your argument effectively boils down to: prices are rising (calling it skyrocketting would be exaggeration of the highest order) because there's more gold being pumped into the economy, we are heading for hyper-inflation.

my argument is: prices are rising for certain items ('cause you know, black dye and ecto are still remaining constant over the last little while), because there are more buyers in those priceranges. there is still roughly the same amount of gold overall, but now more evenly distributed.

given what i've said about zkeys not adding significant amount of gold into the economy, it should be very obvious which argument is more likely to be true.

Hmm i must not have taken it in context again....man i cant pay attention for the life of me...

I say Keep! (until GW2 [If it happens])

You're thinking too small. Gold has nothing to do with it. Z-keys are money in and of themselves. Along with ectoplasm, they're the currency of the high-end market. Although it's no concern of most people, or even known to them at all, there's definitely a steep inflation going on there. I'd go as far as to say that some prices are skyrocketing, even.

If on this very day, I'd sell the minipets I bought a month and a half ago, I'd make a 300% profit. I'm not going to for a while though, I'll hold on to them until I can sell them for enough crap to max the zaishen title. I'm not going to shell out real money to get my keys, I'll leave it to others to spend their dollars for my benefit. Go on, buy more accounts, I'm all geared to profit off you. (And if it never happens, no skin off my back, I'll have my minipets.)

Given that the effects caused by an ever-growing monthly Z-key influx have nothing to do with gold at all, your argument is pointless.

Firstly lemme just say, your quote "a basic economy only needs two things: a roughly fixed amount of currency, and a roughly fixed amount of commodities being traded" I've never heard of anywhere before, and would like to know where you quoted it from.

Also, your idea of ectos, being different to Keys in that ectos can be sold to the merch for 4k is flawed, since ppl can also purchase ecto for the price the merchant is asking. Given the bid/ask spread of the merchant, and the fact that keys when consumed actually generate currency, you could say that ectos are relatively deflationary compared to keys.

Finally I'd like to say that I agree, Keys won't really have a huge impact on the economy in the long term, aside from a small wealth effect, cos at the end of the day, they aren't gonna be worth much, and all key stock that people hold onto won't amount to a tradeable currency of huge value.
Because alot of people will gain the max zaishen title, and far fewer people will be willing to pay for the keys, esp since they get their own trickle of keys every month

HOWEVER I'd really like for you to consider the consequences of the complete devaluation of keys on PvP. Think about it... What your really getting every month isn't a hand out of keys, but it's a handout of Tournament Reward Points, you know, the prize handout you get when you win a tournament in PvP.
What happens when no1 gives a damn about TRP?
If you don't give a damn about PvP, thats fine, but saying that the handing out of Massive amounts of keys every month has no effect on the game is Insluting every1 that does have even a moderate interest in PvP.

I conceded that you were making this argument. I then disproved it. You were clearly making both arguments that I stipulated.

I'm going to try this one more time. They are currency for two reasons. First of all, they stack. Second, they have an intrinsic value along two dimensions: 1) +5 points to title track 2) shinies out of z-chest. If players value the +5 to the title track, then zkeys have value. This is all that it takes, even if the shinies from the zchest were worthless. In fact, one can easily argue that they have MORE intrinsic value than ecto, since you can convert very large quantities into something desired by players.

Two things prop up ecto prices: the rare materials trader's buggy code that creates a value plateau around 5k, and the liquidity of the market. This creates stable expectations, ensuring that there are always buyers and sellers and keeping the currency stable. It's the same mechanism that keeps the dollar relatively stable under normal circumstances.

This is EXACTLY my point! The price of these goods is skyrocketing because of a massive currency influx! Thank you for finally agreeing with me.

"Skyrocketing" is not hyperbolic when you're discussing items doubling in value over the course of a month to two months.

Don't be silly. I never intended this to break down into something as petty as flaming. We are two people with firm opinions having a discussion, simple as that.

What I'm saying is that I would like the ability to play the game in some fashion other than the most efficient farming method currently on PVX and still have a shot at maxing titles on at least one toon. Since my primary is a Mes, and I spread play among multiple toons, and I like to just mess around sometimes (you know, play the game), it may take folks like me a bit longer to farm the gold and items to max some of our titles. I don't see how it is unreasonable that ANet tosses us a bone once in a while.

After all, we spent $250 for the game, just like everyone else. It's not like I'm asking to make skill titles easier; just a way to lessen the amount of time I spend on parts of the game I couldn't care less about.

Other than a few minis, there are no real fixed items. Everything can be farmed if people were to go out and kill critters.

And here we perhaps we find the real issue. People who are willing to purchase multiple accounts are able to more effectively cash in on this method. We effectively have a gold farming debate. I myself am not necessarily opposed to actual gold farming (although I would never partake). The only reason I have more than one account (and may sign them up for XTH) is for mule purposes. Even though I am no free-market maven, I think that the ZKey boom will eventually play itself out, and people will either use them on the chests, like they were intended.

So another question we could ask is; since ANet doesn't charge a monthly fee, is it more palatable for them to do an end run around that by selling extra accounts for XTH or other such in-game rewards?


My abilities to earn a living, and the way I choose to game are irrelevant to each other. I can make plenty of money doing raptor farms, and yet I rarely do them because they are not fun. What is most efficient, what is fun, and what ANet did with HoM are not always in perfect coherence. Forgive me if I am willing to exploit the system that is presented to me, and am happy with the status quo.

To be frank, I couldn't care less either way. My interest in ZKeys is solely in the title and the goodies I can get from the chests. If it disappeared tomorrow, I would go about my business just the same, with one less title I could max.

No assumptions made. I was speaking in a general sense.

I never meant this discussion to be as vitriolic as you apparently assumed it to be (my opening remark aside). No reason we can't keep this civil.

okay lews

P.S. lolgw

On what mini pets?

1-2 months ago yearly minis like mad king, black beast and rabbit, were selling for 250k-300k+ range. Now they are selling in the 120-250k.

So only mini pets that exist in limited numbers will rise in price, because, they are limited.

Additionally there is a limit for the value of any item - 100k+1750 (whatever is seen as currency).

As you noted at the end, the opener seemed to indicate otherwise. I apologize for the misinterpretation. Happy to keep it civil.

I have no qualms with that. There are better ways to go about it, however. If the problem is the title tracks, the events serve to both keep prices manageable and provide an opportunity to make quick progress.

Actually, you just never see the other fixed supply stuff any more. The old unconditional, q7 15^50, and q8s on super-rare skins have pretty much dried up. Customization, plus the fact that stuff like that just won't hit the market because the owners sell to friends rather than on the open market.

That probably tends to prop up prices on the Zkey. As the price gets low enough, people buy 'em and use 'em, decreasing the supply.

I can sympathize with that perspective. Clearly ANet did not put HoM in to make people have fun; they put it in to give people goals that keep them playing. All I argue is that eventually the low-end player will become a mid-range player under this system, and will regret the fact that the leap to own nice shinies will have become insurmountable.

and yet, you still refuse to see that zkeys do not have anything that converts it immediately into gold (as in, there's no npc i can talk to sell my keys for 4k), and whatever good items you get from the chest is worth a maximum of around 300g at a merchant. those items are only worth huge amounts because players are willing to pay that much. this might seem like a problem, until you realize that those gold ultimately came from a monster, or some mats/runes that was dropped from a monster and subsequently sold to the trader. that gold was already in the economy (or in someone's storage) before the rare item ever came into existence. that gold is ALREADY THERE. it is not added JUST BECAUSE a rare item dropped from the chest. ditto for the title also. therefore, the keys do not ADD gold into the economy, it merely shifts it around.

I have to completly agree here...It does just shift money around there is no money "created" unless the keys are used...and if u use 100 keys thats like 30k if u sell to merch...

They have the potential to create money...that is all that matters. But the more important point people are trying to get across is that they ARE money, particularly in any kind of high end trades. They don't NEED to add money because they act as it. Welcome to the flawed trading system.

Yes they add money. So do mini pets and books.

What value does money have in this game? Nil.

How do all three of those add money?

So why are zkeys worse than the previous currency of ecto?