@ Ensign: The largest problem is that ANet plays a reactive game when balancing. They don't know a problem when they see it (eg: 5 energy Blinding Surge and paintball, PM me if you haven't heard the story), and when they DO see a problem they wait, wait, wait.
The biggest thing that needs to happen is that ANet needs to define the nature of a "problem" in PvP balance/in-game economics and then ACT when the signs are present. Unfortunately, the developer has perverse incentives because they want to sell games, and so they let such incentives undermine their duty as a caretaker of balance.
In my judgment, it is no coincidence that UWSC has persisted because it requires players to buy EVERY campaign. (Prophecies for access to groups in ToA, Factions for SF, Nightfall for Deadly Paradox, EotN for Glyph of Swiftness). Similarly, it is no coincidence that Ursan compelled players to purchase EotN, OP elite skills compelled purchases of Nightfall, and so forth. ANet learned from the disappointing sales of Factions and, just as Wizards did with M:tG after the disappointment of Fallen Empires, let greed get in the way of producing the sort of solid gaming experience that sustains a company over the long haul.
The mistake, of course, was the introduction of new skills and classes, rather than just content. Since there would be no way of actually balancing the new skills prior to release, their introduction was bound to be harmful. Again, greed got in the way because ANet wanted to ensure that PvP-ers and PvE-ers alike bought expansions, and that even casual players had to purchase the additional content in order to play with groups.
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Originally Posted by Shadowspawn X
This price spike was due to the initial rush of the population to obtain 200 zkeys. These zkeys were used to obtain r3 of the zaishen title, which was the minimum threshold for the HoM trophy related to that title. Once this condition was reached for the casual player, his interest waned in the title since maxing the title is such a monumental task.
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All we can say with certainty is that adding a title track increased the underlying value of zkeys. Prior to that time, they were valuable because they could be exchanged for chest drops that had value. After that, people placed some value on acquiring the title track. That value diminished over time, presumably because desire was slaked as zkeys were pumped into the system. Whose desire was slaked and why is much less certain.
Your conjecture is attractive and quite possibly correct, but is non-falsifiable unless ANet provides the data, which isn't happening.
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Originally Posted by Shadowspawn X
I disagree with this one. The reason zkeys are higher than they should be is that they made a transition from commodity to currency. Once they became a universally accepted median of exchange players have financial and emotional investment in the value of zkeys.
When a player sells a high end mini, EL tonic, or a rare skin for zkeys they have an emotional stake in keeping the price of zkeys stable and not seeing the currency devalued. This is where your statement about behavioral economics and expectations come into play.
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The problem with your argument is that there is nothing that the individual can do about it. The individual selling/receiving the zkeys has no control over their price. Unless you are buying/selling a gargantuan quantity, you are a price taker.
So the decision calculus is:
buy if your value for zkeys is greater than the market price plus anticipated transaction cost
sell if the value is less than market price less anticipated transaction cost
hold if neither of those conditions satisfies
convert if your value for the title track points plus drops is greater than the buy term
What happens in the summation sequence? The price moves when large sums of people anticipate that the value of the item will increase/decrease in the future (and their beliefs run in the same direction), or when the market fails to clear for a sufficiently lengthy period of time. The former mechanism creates booms and panics, because large shifts in expectations create market failures that perpetuate the expectations. The latter creates smoother, gentler shifts, because there is usually someone willing to take the other side of the bet on a commodity at a slightly lower than "market" price when expectations are stable.
Emotion doesn't come into the picture. It's not about what you "think" the "fair" value of the items is; it's about how you think OTHERS will react in the future!
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Originally Posted by Shadowspawn X
This is definitely not a coincidence. It refers back to the transitory state of zkeys being effected by rules of both commodity and currency. When zkeys were strictly a commodity(before the title) the basic laws of supply and demand dictated that the true worth of a zkey was 2.4k -2.5k roughly double the price of a regular lock pick, since the loot of the zchest far out shines that of a conventional chest. These same laws of supply and demand will always put downward pressure on zkeys, however these forces will be slowed or even nullified by the fact that as a currency players have expectations that a zkey is supposed to be valued at roughly an ecto.
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I seem to remember zkeys running around 3k before the title track; I also seem to remember thinking that this was ridiculously high for risk neutrality given the apparent drop rates.
You're ignoring that this "belief" that 1 zkey is worth +/- 1 ecto comes from somewhere, and that said belief is not necessarily stable. Real world currency prices are based upon supply and demand for what you can purchase with those currencies (usually investments denominated in that currency). That demand in turn is fueled by expectations regarding government policy, inflation and the like.
The ecto is a major anomaly that defies this explanation. The anomaly is created by the existence of the trader. The trader artificially creates very stable expectations regarding pricing, which in turn props up the value of the ecto. If ANet took that trader out tomorrow, you'd feel it within a few weeks.
The zkey does behave according to "natural" laws, however. Since it is convertible to something broadly valued as useful, its value is derived from the underlying distribution of different players' value for that title track. Flood the market and you should expect the observed slow decay in value as the players with the highest values for the title track are removed from the system via conversion and satisfaction. The slow rate of decay obtains because most players don't have huge capacity constraints, so only the wealthiest players "reach their goal" and stop buying over time.
The inverse is also true, but the precise pricing trend is uncertain due to problems of expectations. Since players anticipate the return of the XTH, people are deferring their purchase decisions and the price moves upward only slowly. Declare the death of the XTH, and the price will spike. If the XTH stays dead long enough, there will eventually be a spike regardless. However, it is impossible to predict the interval that will be "long enough".
In short: the demand curve moves downward over time, but this process is slow. Otherwise, the demand curve is static and elastic, resulting in relatively stable pricing unless there is a massive shift in anticipated supply. This explains the phenomenon without requiring us to believe that people expect that a zkey is worth an ecto. They don't. It's an artifact of present pricing that could change tomorrow without warning.
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Originally Posted by Shadowspawn X
The only way this is could be truly classified as a problem is that if it was proven that multiple account holders had a negative impact on single account holders to the point it negatively affected their gaming experience.
If that was proven to be the case, the simple solution would be to close down the XTH permanently.
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That's easy to prove. I can conjecture a single account holder (me) who believes that flooding the markets with currency deters new players from entering the game or sticking around, because the quest to acquire the nicest shinies is forever barred to them. Logically, this satisfies your statement.
A better question to ask is: what is the overall impact of rewarding multiple account holders on ANet's future? It's obvious that this benefits them in the short run. However, what is the probable impact on GW2 sales? My sense is that XTH keys don't make people that much happier than they would be in its absence, but that hatred of the XTH runs deep because it represents a betrayal of principles.
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Originally Posted by Daesu
Despite what the so-called "Inflationary" pressure the anti-XTH people have been preaching, most commodities in the game have gone down in prices since XTH started, including zkeys. In fact, it is only after the temporary closing down of XTH that zkey prices went up alittle. If they announce that XTH would be closed permanently, that would raise the prices of zkeys even higher as panic buying would take over.
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*sigh*
Inflation = decrease in the purchasing power of currency.
Pay attention to what happened in "commodities" during that same time frame. The number of ectos increased dramatically as a result of Chaos Plains farming, then the UWSC crowd. Basically, what happened is an ungodly number of both ectos and zkeys were dumped into the system. As a result, the prices of the stuff that cannot be farmed (req 7s, limited minis, etc.) went through the roof.
That's a decrease in the purchasing power of currency. The ability of an ecto, a zkey or a unit of gold to be converted into other stuff people want declined markedly. The only other time that prices shifted in this sort of manner was after the massive dupe.
Need I say more?
