Your opinion on XTH?

Anet could also create a second pool of TRP that came from the XTH. Those TRP could either be traded for PvP unlocks but not golden flames (and could be used in conjunction with the normal pool TRP for the purpose of unlocks) or be redeemed for zaishen keys that couldn't be traded.

A simpler method would be just making the rewards from the XTH come in the form of untradeable zkeys instead of TRP. Keys acquired with balthazar faction and other TRP could still be traded.

Maybe I'm not being clear here. My point is that making zkeys untradeable has the undesirable effect of rewarding all of the players that jumped on the "max the zkey bandwagon" early and effectively makes it impossible for anyone else to max the title. By making zkeys untradeable you artificially inflate the value of those accounts that have maxed or nearly maxed the title, which you probably do not want to do.

By contrast, pulling XTH from the game directly punishes the abusers of the system (their revenue stream drops to zero) and merely inconveniences players using the system fairly. XTH is not a huge windfall for the legitimate player; at worst, such a player could replace the lost income with a few hours of play each month if desired.

The conclusion is that removing XTH is a superior solution to making zkeys untradeable.

Ah ok my bad...we are on the same page. The problem is that Anet has a history of keeping abusive destructive things in their game as long as enough people enjoy it. Frown.

Stop it already. I don't farm.I don't powertrade. I have only one PVE character. So let me pleeease have my six free Zkeys every month.

I won't worry too much about it.
It's highly unlikely for ANet to pull the plug on their steady income just because its hurting the "economy" and similar to RMT.
This is not UB or SF.

What they should do is just give title points for the XTH not keys. This would solve the whole issue for those going for the title. Those that are just abusing it for the money would have to find other means like PVPing with us and taking the beating and pounding they deserve.

Here is my situation about zkeys:

Prior to the XTH I had 7 accounts(5 all campaigns/expansions) all full with different items from events. My main account alone has 21 char slots, and the others at 12-16 chars slots all bought with the add an extra char for $9.99. I started purchasing accounts from Bestbuy/Newegg for 9.99 since it is a lot cheaper for 4 chars(45*4+40 item spaces), than it is for me to buy 1 char and get a whole 45 item spaces. So my question then to you

If anyone knows me in game, I am a huge packrat. Yeah you might tell me to sell some of the stuff I have, but I rather help out a guildie when they say "anyone have a drake flesh or a titan gem to help me out?". Yes I have stated I have 33 accounts. The XTH is a bonus to me, do I sell my zkeys? one word "No". Instead I help friends who are trying to max that title out every month.

Im still running out of space. Guild Events/Community Events/and a Wisdom Service. So if I work hard for my 9.99 in real life, I am justified that I can spend my hard earned 9.99 on anything I want. If they take away the XTH its one less thing I can help guildies/friends with for titles. Oh and yes those that PvP are QQing about this because it is driving down the value, oops. Want to join a R8/10+ gvg/ha group, btw im R1, lets see that happen...

Cry me a river about value of items ingame. Im still sitting on 20 Sup Absorbs waiting for them to go back to 100k like it was back in the day.

Have some more fun QQing now.

Absolutely correct.

We can spend our hard earned money on whatever we want! Including hiring hitmen, paying off drug traffickers, suicide bombings, mob 'protection'...

But of course we can't... and with good reason.

So here we aren't discussing whether or not you're able (ethically or ability wise) spend your money on virtual loot, the discussion is on whether you should be allowed to or not.

Have some more fun thinking about that under a bodhi tree

33 accounts... That's just not human. Does Anet really need to calculate in such insane behavior when they introduce a feature? XTH was designed with somewhat sane people in mind: Those who buy the game once and play it. This whole topic is about high end, multi-account nutjobs QQing about thier massive stacks of ecto losing value. One account players do not face such player generated issues so they should not be punished by losing their monthly Zkeys because some people have more then one or two accounts and somehow think they are the norm.

The whole XTH economy problem is a player generated thing. QQ about them.

Toffy is putting his money where his mouth is.
I can imagine that if A.Net is reading this, they consider his argument to be among the strongest ones here.

don't worry, XTH is what keep player disillusion that they belong to part of some e-sport that they don't actually have anything to do with to keep these players hang on to the game its going to stay.

Half year ago, if you ask me if I'd by Guild Wars 2, without blinking I'd put dow an full payment for it and patiently waits for its arrival. Now, this moment, i am serious considering not purchasing Guild Wars 2 at all. Simply too many disappointments.

I forgot about it the past 2 months, thats pretty much how I feel about it, some people sadly have multiple a/c's for it though (greed, it's a sin lol)

They probably see spike in sales at end of each months few days before XTH closes. And they know that it pays their wages. And they know that @ 85 RP per month it takes 50 accounts running XTH two years to max zkey title.

Word of player buying guild worth of accounts has a lot of weight ... enough weight to ignore 50 other players complaining. Toffy here is prime example.

So anything being made that ends in extra accounts being useless is out of question. That means untradeable zkeys are not gonna happen. Points no longer giving zkeys are not gonna happen. XTH closing is not gonna happen. Nothing.

Misguided short term thinking.

If they are in desperate financial straits and must have the revenue to weather the storm until GW2 is released, that's one thing.

If not, they are shooting themselves in the foot. It makes more sense to sell ten expensive accounts in the new game than fifty cheap ones in the old game. Especially since you can sell expansions in the new game. The accounts purchased for XTH purposes will never be upsold in any way.

GW is designed to be a comparatively casual game. This just does not mix with giving the rich kid on the block a huge in-game advantage. I could buy all those accounts; I make more than enough money. I choose not to; it's a matter of principle. Further, I will choose not to purchase a sequel if this sort of thing continues, and I am certain that I am not alone on this score.

As the devs, you'd rather make toffy mad because: a) you've already got his money and he can't get it back, and b) he's going to want to see exactly the same thing in the new game, and you're incentivized not to give him what he wants initially.

please state what this advantage is kthx. last time i checked, you can fully equip a character with max gear for about 25k. you can easily find that much gold just by playing through the game, no farming/powertrading involved.

But they are not gonna sell 10 pimped accounts. Veterans already got em. Unless to new players, which could not care less about someone complaining about economy. Also, there is no difference between selling 10 pricey or 50 cheap ... money is money. And its not like they have to make decidion to make. They can happily sell accounts both to new players which will get pimped eventually (or might not because they will not like game) and to old players which will serve as mules or xth slaves and will not get pimped in any way.

And in GW, Rich kind does get zero advantage except pixels. You can spawn all weapons you will ever need with /bonus command, or in pvp equipment screen. What advantage over this can ingame money buy you? gold /zrank instead of bronze? Glowing gloves that are equal to gloves from boreal station or found at collectors?

Guy X, should he play next game will want extra, indeed. But he is gonna pay extra. I repeat: that kind will pay extra. Do you let RMT get it or will you get it yourself, in controlled fashion? See, you do not want to RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO that customer over. and Definitelly not because someone who already game them money (you are at same boat as him; they have all your money too) is complaining. And our Mr. X might buy even more accounts in near future. You will not. He is also likely to spend assload money on GW2 in far future, you are, again, not. And you will get over it eventually anyway. He would likely not.

Really, longterm thinking. You dont piss best customers. Just like mc donalds staff smiles at smelly nasty blobs of fat instead of kicking em out for sake of other customers.

Reread. My point was: they are driving people away from GW2. You make more money over the long haul by retaining your customer base, not by pandering to a select few for short term gains at the expense of everyone else.

People care about this stuff. In fact, a lot more of the audience cares about this stuff than who wins the monthly.

@ moriz: This is the advantage. It's simple: people care about this stuff. If you let people pay real money to get stuff that other players want, those players will leave. A larger share of the audience wants to have the nice shinies than you seem to think. If it becomes impossible for that segment of the audience to acquire the status symbols (without dropping IRL cash), that segment of the audience will find another game where they don't have to spend money to get them. Just because you don't care does not mean that the devs should not. We've established that you don't care. But you're not everyone.

You redesign the game and make it so that you can only earn shinies for accomplishments. You further make it so that shinies are non-transferable. In short: you get rid of drops and the economy entirely, eliminating RMT.

The title system has the right concept, but it falls woefully short of the efficient solution. Lose the titles and replace them WITH the shinies for accomplishments. Then the community will properly sneer at those who purchase accounts (just as they sneer at purchased gold cape trim). You win as the developer by stripping faux accomplishments of legitimacy, and not by legalizing RMT.

Legalizing RMT will drive away 50-80% of the audience and leave ANet bankrupt. It's like the dark side of the Force: once you start down that path...

That's a large market because it's inexpensive. Turn your game into an RMT haven and it becomes an expensive luxury market. That's the kiss of death for a game with huge development costs. Not enough people will buy the game to enable the developer to float the debt payments long enough to acquire the long term influx of RMT cash from players.

so you concede that there is no advantage, since your "advantage" is pure vanity, and vanity is not the way success in this game is measured.

btw, the devs DON'T care. that's why they made vanity items to be vanity items: there's no statistical advantage attached to those items. if they DO care for such things, they would've made them to confer an actual advantage. GW is a different kind of game. if people want to play it to collect shiny items, then let them go nuts and do it. however, they do so with the full knowledge of the fact that this playstyle is not encouraged, and the devs have no obligation to do anything for it.

heck, this is what i find really funny about people who want to play GW as an economic simulation: just a few months ago, every one of them were complaining that prices were deflating. rare and expensive items were no longer expensive. now that prices are rising (and no, they are not skyrocketting. please stop exaggerating), those people are complaining that expensive items are expensive again. i think i've figured it out now: those who play GW as an economy simulator will NEVER be satisfied, purely because GW is not meant to be one.

lastly, buying more accounts for potential ingame gains is not RMT. you've bought the privilege to use that account, and playing the XTH is one of the benefits of that account. if you consider RMT to be anything that will give a user ingame currency, the anet should stop selling GW accounts period. after all, all accounts can make ingame gold (even my pvp only account can make money through zkeys), and by your definition, that's RMT isn't it? if that's the case, that's pretty dumb for obvious reasons.

What you seem to be forgetting is what items we are dealing with.
Like previously noted - we are dealing with luxury or vanity items.
And part of their appeal is that they are either limited by supply or by their high price. The only thing that possibly changes with the massive influx of gold is who is able to obtain them.
What doesn't change is how many people are able to obtain them.
We are still dealing with a very small number.

Oh? By whose standard? Yours? The community on QQ forums?

There are lots of ways to measure success, yours isn't the only one, and many (most?) people could care less about your yardstick.

Lots of people care about this stuff. Every UWSC/FoWSC player, every player that spends time in Kamadan AD1 regularly, every DoA player, every dungeon runner, every map runner. You're outnumbered.

However, they also made super-rare shinies that people fight over, and they haven't watered down their value. This implies that they recognize that there is a (large) market for this sort of thing and that they need to satisfy it in order to maximize the number of players buying their game. The devs have reason to care, and have demonstrated that they care through their actions. This concept is called revealed preference.

Sure, they don't have to do anything to support this market. But they have financial incentives to do so - they want to sell GW2 to as many people as possible. What I'm saying here is that XTH is a stupid profit-maximization strategy unless the company will go bankrupt without selling a ton of cheap accounts to meet immediate debt payments.

There will always be dissatisfaction with shifts in the status quo, unless they are strictly Pareto-improving (make everyone better off and no one worse off). Which almost never happens. I could make the same basic argument about the PvP community and nerfs.

Did you know that if you start from absurd premises and then apply logic, you arrive at absurd conclusions? Setting up a straw man and beating it down impresses no one.

The problem is that one person can purchase dozens of accounts and then transfer the in-game benefits to a single account. That's trading RL cash for in-game cash. That's RMT. You've still done nothing to address this, except to claim that no one cares because you don't. That doesn't follow logically.

Depends on which ones we are talking about. The devs created tons of limited miniatures that were given out in large quantities. They created items like Tormented gear, FoW armor, chaos gloves, etc. as well. They also created extremely rare drops and stocked dungeon chests and the end chests of FoW and UW with them.

Items that cannot be farmed have been hit first. Items that cannot be farmed quickly (ultra-rare drops) will be next. With enough zkeys kicking around, the time price associated with acquiring all valuable in-game items through any means other than farming them directly will keep increasing.

And you know what's really tough about inflation? Once the expectation of inflation is created, it is incredibly difficult to get rid of. People change their behavior in a fashion that tends to lead to more inflation.

your standards. you've admitted that those items have no inherit advantage over any others.

every player who plays for a few hours at a time, every player who plays for fun, every player who player who fools around for shits and giggles, every player who plays with friends, every player who plays pvp, every player who plays pve, and yes, even those who plays both equally, care very little about this stuff. you are outnumbered. badly.

the devs don't water down their value because the value will water down by itself. anet primarily add stuff to the game because they think it would be fun for the players. the last thing they care about is how it will be traded, because the market will regulate itself. you shouldn't care either.

anet does not have financial incentives here. they are now making/maintaining the flagship franchise for ncsoft in north america/europe. do you honestly think they are short on money? if ncsoft is not completely retarded, money would be pouring into the GW franchise. after all, anet did double their staff over the last year or so. even if ncsoft go belly up, the GW franchise will be eagerly sought after by every major studio in the world. money is basically no object for GW, unless they completely mismanage it.

if anet wants to sell GW2, they need to generate buzz. having a gigantic tournament, with ingame prizes, is probably the best way to generate buzz both for current players as well as future ones. if it happens to sell more accounts because people are really keen on making ingame gold on it, then it's even better.

heh, YOU accusing me of using strawman arguments, when you've been using one all along. you still have not conclusively prove that zkeys actually generate significant amount of gold in the game economy. indeed, you are still trying to compare GW economy with a real life economy, which is a completely futile exercise. until you've come up with something that can prove zkeys actually generate gold, instead of shuffling it around and drawing it out of someone's storage, your entire argument is basically unfounded.

not to mention, there's nothing wrong with my argument. buying privilege to use account? true. playing XTH is one of the benefits? true. accounts can generate ingame gold? true. gold on one account can be traded to another? true. everything i said in that sentence is true. i did not base them on anything that's untrue, or even hypothetical.

The only thing that will change is the fact that the super rich will just need to get ever richer if they will want to obtain said items.
For your average Joe - nothing will change.
He is too poor to obtain them now and he will be too poor to obtain them later.

Sorry.
Some people here seem to have a very serious misconception regarding the difference between RMT and XTH.

There Is No Difference Between RMT And The XTH.

RMT gives you x gold (ingame, play money) for x dollars (real life currency) for doing absolutely nothing in-game at all. You only need to purchase the additional accounts, make your picks on the site and log in once a month to collect your keys... you don't have to play the game at all.

Arguments that any account can generate gold is indeed correct but then you have to consider that the player will need to do something to generate said gold in-game, not just thumb suck a couple of predictions and collect the loot once a month. Anyone here tried ecto farming recently?

Most people have a single account, some went to the trouble to purchase a secondary for storage etc. But, the rich kid can (and does) buy many more accounts - very similar to buying large amounts of ecto and plat for real money. Where RMT is something like $xxx for x amount of gold (once off) the XTH is $9.99 for x amount of free keys per month, EVERY MONTH.

They have an advantage, just not the one you are thinking of or care about.

Far more people care about money or titles and XTH than skill or pvp or just about anything else. Its just a fact of the game now. More people would rather be rich in money and titles than be good.

Which is true, but they don't have to do that to be a massive problem.

Winner.

Anet royally pissed me with consumables & pve only skills. Probably more than you are with this XTH business. I would swear i'd never buy GW2 year ago ... but now? I would not, but reasons changed and are not related to anet actions anymore.

And people would buy accounts. Or runs. Look at wow, it has this achievement "preservation" in form of best items being soulbound. Result? People are buying accounts or single characters, or buying Raid runs with guaranteed rolls on items they want. In GW, people did buy high ranked accounts or paid for fame. Community frowning on it does not really solve that.

Shinines for achievements? In theory, awesome.

But then you realize that only good players can get em and other, just as (or even more) dedicated, customers want them too but cant get em. And there is lots of them. And not only that, if these thing are reward for true achievements (like, say, killing X the hard way), it will take good players few hours to get em and spend rest of their game related time bitching on forums how easy it was while others bitch how insane it is. We were there, ursan happened. Remember?

So you end up making them grind rewards instead, approachable by everyone who has time. That's not improvement really. It's just combining grind and bling.

We are already there; been there for some time, people just didn't notice.

Luxury market is not whole game. Its not even point of this game. The only items that actually matter are either overly cheap (basic max equipment for pve, pvp equipment) or can be gotten with little market interference ("HOM recognized" items are not drops but are crafted at NPCs instead in infinite supply). Just let people waste their cash on FOTM items.

To those can't see an advantage to spending money on multiple accounts to rake in hundreds if not thousands of Z-keys a month: take off your blinders.

Here's the simple truth for you, in just one sentence:

Vast amounts of Z-keys give people an advantage in the competition for limited resources.

If such an advantage is bought instead of played for, it taints the game for others in that competition who don't want to spend real money.

Now, if the competition for shinies is of no interest to you, fine. I feel the same way about PvP balance, which is why I never argue on that topic.

I have been away for a long time and defo dont care much about competitive play, but still, what about the Denravi axes and similar stuff? The 1 handed weapons with 55hp on them? Were they eventually removed from the GW world??

Anyhow, I too don't see any real problem with XTH :x (then again, I don't care about BUYING shinies, I prefer finding my rare stuff on my own). And to most that say "I wont buy GW2 because of it", stop lying, I'm sure at least 90% of you eventually will (provided its not a total failure)

PS. But yeah, I got 2 extra accounts

QQ some mohr...

If you care so much about pixels, ANet says buy more accounts from them and not gold from those off shore gold farming pirates. Simple as that.

So who does ANet like the no lifer who spends 24/7 online with one account taking up resources or the rich kid who bought multiple accounts on line a few hours a week? What behavior do you think they want to promote?

This kind of strategy works as it does only affect the esthetics and not the actual game play. No matter how many accounts you have you cant get an advantage over the one account person when it comes to game play.

You bought the game already if you are not going to give ANet anymore money gtfo. And the threat you are not going to buy GW2 cause you are pissed off at ANet for them trying to make money is ridiculous. Think of the hours spent just hit "/age" and see the hours of enjoyment you had for what $49.99? multiple campaigns so $150.00? For that many hours of enjoyment ANet provides don't you think they deserve a little scratch here and there?

mods that mimic the denravi weapons became a common drop. 55 monks can still be run, but no one would bother since shadowform can now be infinitely maintained by assassins. not to mention, the 55 offhand is kinda useless in a pvp setting.

btw, there is a pretty big difference between RMT and XTH: with XTH, the money is going towards anet. this does not violate the EULA. whereas with RMT, money is going towards some dude operating somewhere in china. this DOES violate the EULA. while anet does not particularly need money now, given how heavily funded they are by ncsoft, being able to sell more accounts is always a plus.

anyways, you've all agreed to XTH when you pressed the accept button on the EULA. if you really object to this, i should've pressed the other button.

Well I meant the Denravi AXE... Guess you didnt bother to read my post,however short it was.

From all the posts claiming the real "goal" of the game isnt item-hunting, I thought you would think of Pvp first before pve farming

ah, the denravi axe no longer have those mods. so yes, that was basically removed.

and your second statement is incorrect.

You must mean the denravi sword which was the only sword in prophesies with a +5 energy mod. When factions was released weapons with +5 energy could be crafted and the HOD sword became almost worthless.

@Moriz the 55 offhand is far from useless in pvp. Swapping to that offhand when the other team wants to time kill you is a pretty good option.

technically true, but its almost never used. it is a very marginally useful item, and most players go without it. you can probably count the number of times it had been used on one hand.

So what? You get advantages in other ways in a game where game play is less important than money and titles by many players standards.

There is no difference. Real money trading=Trading real money for in game items. And the problem here is not the EULA...the problem is Anet on multiple occasions specifically saying that they would not engage in selling in game items, but this is exactly what they are doing just hidden under the "XTH" title instead of in the store.

except they are not selling items, they are selling accounts. and if you recall, the EULA allows for the use of XTH on each account. you've agreed to it when they updated it, when they added XTH in the first place. they are allowed to do this. more specifically, YOU'VE allowed them to do this.

XTH is not going away.

Which directly turn into items. Again, same thing.

I don't know why you keep bringing up the flawed EULA. For one nobody reads it. For two nobody denies it (because most don't see it until after they have already bought the game). Most importantly though Anet can change it at any time do to any thing, but that still wouldn't make it right. They could change the EULA to allow them to do RMT in the store and it would still mean they lied to us.

And that is the problem.

then if i manage to make any gold/items on an account, that amounts to RMT by your definition? alrighty then, just so we're clear.

btw, you must consider the bonus mission packs "RMT" also. after all, you pay $10, and you'll get UNLIMITED items. gee, should we remove that also?

You don't get any more items playing the bonus missions than you get for playing most other parts of the game, moriz.

Meh now you're just grasping at straws. You and I both know how XTH is different from the examples you gave. Your argument boils down to Anet using loopholes so everything is ok.

on the contrary, you get items that you can't get anywhere else in the bonus missions. by the definitions used by some people in this thread, that means it gives users who have the bonus pack a huge advantage. and by their rather bizarre logic, that means the bonus mission pack is RMT. also by those definitions, the BMP is even worse than XTH, because the items generated basically makes the ingame economy irrelevant. after all, you need to pay money for it. XTH is, at least, free for all accounts.