Raise the Gold Cap!!!

I'm failing to understand how the economy is going to crash in this scenario. The price of ectos will collapse to 5k when this is initialized and then will slowly rise and even out at a much lower price than before. The only people who will be panicing are the people who are sitting on stacks of ecto, who I feel no sympathy for since they are just hoarding them anyway.

You're completly right about the overall supply of gold being increased, but there will only be a select few in which actually see the large influx of gold.

This change will hurt cash mediums (IE ecto, zkeys, picks) and inflate the price of items worth more than 500k, but I fail to see how such items are needed to max HoM anyway.

/signed

Personally, I am not a fan of raising the cap with the exception of storage, but this is probably the best idea I have seen yet on the matter. I don't think changes should be made at this point, but I would rather see this change than increasing the amount of gold in trade and on a player.

This game and real life have one thing in common for sure, when you die you can't take it with you. And, when you are playing GW2, you GW1 characters will be technically dead (either because you don't play them, or the simple fact that 200 years or more has passed). So, why hoard?

Long story, short...there is no real reason to cap the amount of gold per trade or stored on ones account. Hoarding gold doesn't make it worth more or less, and who cares if it lowers the value of other items with their regard to gold. The world didn't end when ecto dropped from 17-20k down to 5k, and it won't end if they raise the cap on gold and ecto becomes worth it's value with relation to the number of people who still want it to make armor. Because, you can't take it with you.

/signed

Bad idea when most of the wealth in the game is stored in that form.

Barter items should be something that always exist at a fixed price and have no other use than being able to turn in for the listed amount. Crafter materials shouldn't be pushed into exorbitant prices for artificial means.

Then the in-game currency needs to be given more value. Raising the cap won't do that.
Breaking ectos as a currency would be immensely difficult to do sensibly. The only trouble with having something like ectos inflate to act as currency is that it greatly inflates the value of whatever that item is required for. An upshot is that it's much more abundant.

fyi, you cannot assume EVERY player will decide to play GW2 and abandon GW1. Anet cannot let the economy collapse just because most of the players will be playing GW2.
It's true that the economy wont completely collapse but the GW economy is just like any real world economy: increasing the supply of one common-public good (gold) offsets the value of any product that depends on it. In my example of the US Stock Market crash, the value of the dollar significantly decreased and thus inflation ensued. If the gold supply of GW were to suddenly increase like in this proposition, the value of all gold-related items in the game (which is everything) would experience a dramatic increase or decrease depending on elasticity.

QFT. And, it would happen even more dramatically in GW because there is a never-ending supply of gold. It's not finite so it wouldn't hold any value.

A common misunderstanding is that raising the storage gold cap would somehow increase the gold supply.
WRONG.
Even an infinite gold storage cap wouldn't affect how much new gold would be entering the economy and how much would be leaving it.

It's the changing of the trade cap that may have a significant effect on the alternative currencies (mainly ectos) to gold exchange rates.
Just think about possible cases:
Infinite storage of gold in chest but keeping the 100k per character and trade limit would mean no real change in the way players trade and no short or mid term effect on ecto prices at all. Only the players who already have a lot of ectos would be possibly less inclined to buy even more if they were just amassing value without aiming for something expensive to buy.

Now imagine an update as suggested in the OP comes real. 5M in storage, 500k per character. Do you really think people would suddenly NEED to posess large value in pure gold? In a game with no huge gold sinks? Ecto value crash? Players holding many stacks would suddenly dump them? Can you imagine lots of sellers going "WTS blahblah 400k NO ECTOS"? A complete change in the way of trading?
No. It would just mean more ways of trading. No crash would happen immediately and ectos would remain a currency, depreciaction wouldn't be dramatic at all. Even if some players panicked ectos wouldn't drop below 6k. The pure gold trading wouldn't become the normal standard way to do 100-500k trades exactly because there IS NOT ENOUGH GOLD in the economy!
If you think that dumping loads of ectos to trader will generate the gold, you're wrong. It's quite the opposite, practically trader will only pay the gold that players spent at him and there will be players buying them (there have always been such players, even if it seems unreasonable), effectively removing gold from the economy (trader profit is big). Ofcourse in a short term we would see a price crash but it would balance out at levels not much lower than current.


Only something like the solution suggested long ago - instead of rising caps introduce valuable inventory items - stackable 100k banknotes (sell and buy to any merch at fixed price of 100k) - effectively removing the trade/storage caps almost entirely (1 stack = 25M, tradelimit 175,100,000g) would crash ecto and armbrace prices, as it would be a clear signal that they're no longer currencies. But that crash can be prevented by introducing an NPC to buy ectos/braces at a fixed gold price for a limited time - providing price floors and removing the excess ectos/braces that were stored just for value. That *would* be generating tons of new gold into the economy, but no new value and as such *no inflation* would be observed.

It would decrease the liquidity of important commodities.

While i could have a lot to say to you about basic economics, i'll repress to just comment on a few factors of your statements:

1) Yes, i do believe ecto-hoarders would sell their stacks asap in order to acquire gold. As i have said twice already, gold will always be desired over any other good in the economy due to its nature. Imagine if for some reason the current U.S. market lost its faith in the $20 bill. As the demand for $20 has decreased, the demand for more of the lesser forms of trade ($10 bills, $5 bills) will increase dramatically. The point im making is that the lesser or 'truer' forms of trade like gold in GW will always retain their value (unless a truly horrific crash happens). Which leads me to my second point....

2) You commented that there would not be enough gold in the economy for purchases 100k-500k, i disagree. If this change was implemented, players would lose faith in the ecto or other mid-range forms of trade. It's price would be reduced significantly to the point that players who have over 1,000K would be forced to sell their ecto to minimize losses from the shift in ecto price. Again referring to my example above, if the $20 bill was losing value, it is natural for you to want to get rid of them in order to acquire more valuable or stable forms of trade. I could site several examples from World Economic History; however this forum is not the place for such a thing.

3) I do agree with you on the fact that increasing the storage vault cap would not dramatically affect the GW economy. The only change is that players would invest a certain amount of gold in ectos to serve as an intermediate item for purchases exceeding 100k, while keeping the majority of their funds in gold (as it is the most reliable and stable currency).

On a side note, i also agree with you that the market would eventually stabilize in the long run, as every economy does.

I strongly suggest everyone who reads a forum on any form of economics at least take an economics class so they know how things work and so they dont embarrass themselves.

Yes, basic economics do apply to even the GW economy. But I dont think it works the same as your examples. First off, if the trade/storage cap were increased, a bunch of gold doesnt appear out of thin air. That gold would have to be farmed from monster drops, quests, etc. It would be slowly put into the system at the same rate it always has been.

The problem with ectos is that it has a variable worth. And your bartering, not selling. There is a reason why we dont use bartering as a basis for the real life economy. One reason is that an exact figure cannot easily be agreed on. 14 ectos for 100k? or is it 15? Who is getting the better deal? Who is getting ripped off? What happens when a new build to farm ectos faster in UW comes along? Or a content/skill update makes farming ectos harder? What happend to armbraces? See why its a bad idea.

i'm all for this, no item should take gold's place in game as a trade medium.

/signed

also nothing was said about changing drop rates on stuff like ecto.

so they will remain as crap as they've normally been.

Not entirely true. In the GW market, gold is a public yet unlimited good. As you stated, it can be farmed, bought, etc. I wont argue with you over its inherent nature; however, assume the following hypothetical example: There are many players with ecto in the game, some with substantially more than others. Also, assume that instead of trading between players, the ecto sellers sell their ectos to the Rare Material Trader. Now while you as a seller would get more profit from selling to a player, if the market is flooded with people trying to sell ecto, the demand will be relatively low, prices would drop, etc. Therefore, the safest and fastest way to get rid of your ecto(because of its falling price) would be to immediately sell to the trader. The gold that the trader gives you actually comes out of thin air. If you right now sold your ecto to the trader, it does not inhibit the trader's ability to pay me as i am also selling my ecto. The trader has an unlimited supply of gold. And if this chain of events happened on a large scale like the proposed OP said, it would undoubtedly have the results that every basic economist could predict.

Again though, this is probably a worst-case scenario. As a student studying economics, i feel that exploring the worst case scenario is necessary for understanding the big picture that this implementation could have.

Interesting "yawn" as economics are they don't really matter in the GW economy.
Real world price rises and crashes inflation and all the other aspects can and do hurt real people, destroy lives finish off companies cause mass unemployment and of course make a few very rich.

Changes have been made to this game loads of times and the economy and the players have survived.
Unlike real life the vast majority of the players didn't feel any serious effects at all.
A few made and lost lots of cash, those that dabble in such things either saw their imaginary wealth rise or fall.

There will soon be a major alteration to the game with the creation of Embark Beach and full hero parties, that will alter the game dramatically.

There is an alteration to Dervishes due soon that may prevent some of the dervish secondary builds from working as well which could affect prices.

For all you know after Christmas Ectos may be dead and people will be using some other material as currency.
This is bound to happen again and again when you move from the lockpick standard to the ambrace standard and all the other standards used to try to keep ahead of the game.

Solve the problem once and for all by making the coinage work, sure prices will alter but within a few months they will stabilise at a new level and the problem wont occur again because materials will be just that materials.
Their price will be determined by how rare they are and by who wants to buy them just as it should be.

In your scenerio, the ectos are simply being changed into gold. The amount of worth everyone has if they trade in all thier ectos, is the same worth as the amount of gold they have now + ectos. If anything, they lose worth in this process, due to defalted ecto value.

Say I have 1mil gold in the bank and a stack of ectos thats worth around 1.5mil gold(6k an ecto). Combined I have a worth of 2.5mil, an amount I cant hold in my bank. If we get more storage in our bank, and I cash in my ectos for 1.5mil, I will still only have 2.5 mil gold. I would be no richer than before.

Worst case scerio is that a bunch of idiots panic and stop selling or increase prices for a month or so until they realize nothing really changed and they over reacted.

Wait... this makes no sence at all. To barter means to trade goods for goods and agreeing to current prices of each item. I. e. Trading chickens for baked bread where as the 2 parties barter with each other to come out in a trade of 1 chicken for 5 loaves of bread tomorrow ine chicken is only worth 3 loaves. Both items have a flexible worth and have to be renegotiated every time.

• In gw. an example of that would be trading party items for alcohol. Both items have a flexible worth because Party items may be 100g per point today and 130g tomorrow and Alc can be 60g per point today and 80g tomorrow

If you suddenly fix the worth of one item it is not bartering any more and you are trading normally with haggling. i. e. 1 chicken is worth 2 Dollars today and you agree on a new price of 1,50 Dollars tomorrow. The Dollars are fixed worth items and dont change in value because they are backed by the Government over a 3rd comodity which is the national Gold reserves.

• In GW an example of this is trading Gold for an Opressor weapon. The worth of gold is backed by the amount that can be stored on an account/Traded in one session and the flexible part is the Weapon which might be 90K today and 50K tomorrow.

$20 bill =/= Ecto

A note's entire existence is solely for the purpose of representing value that is backed up by the government. A $20 bill is nothing more than paper with words that say "This is worth 20 bucks according to our system".

Ectos, however, have value outside of being another form of currency. They're material used to craft the most expensive armor in the game. They only drop from the most elite areas in the game. They won't suddenly become harder/easier to farm, in fact people may even stop farming them since they wouldn't need them anymore unless they planned on selling them. Which would decrease the incoming supply and increase the price of ectos that are already sitting in storage. But they would no longer be used as anything other than what they were originally intended to be used for: a crafting material.

I still fail to see how this is going to crash the economy. It would definitely fluctuate the price of ectos for a while just because of people panicking and liquidating or hoarding and waiting to see if prices rise, but things would pan out as they always do. I think that just goes to show how unsteady an unofficial currency is. Better to try to improve the system than to just sit with an unsteady one because it's most comfortable right now for a select group of people.

Few things, yes i should've used coinage instead, for it actually has value whereas bills do not. My point remains valid though. Refer to above posts.

Second, the economy wont "crash", at least not to the degree i believe your aiming at. The economy will be unstable for a while until it balances itself out again. The point i was making is that it is unnecessary for such a change seeing as the market is already stable. Implementing the OP idea would cause market instability until it balances out. In the span of economics, if you already have a stable economy, you should NOT make changes that would otherwise make it unstable (unless circumstances permit).

Too lazy to read everything else up til now (about 6-8 LONG new posts since I last caught up). But I disagree with this.

You really think there's something inherent in the materials that go into your coinage to make them worth their face value? That would suggest that the material in a dime is of far greater value, per ounce, than the material in a nickel. But go look up what they use to make nickels and dimes. It's all nickel and copper, in roughly the same proportions.

I give up. When I get to a million gold i'll just give 100k to a random lvl 3 noob in shing jea to keep from going over.

The crashing bit isn't my fear, just what I've read from others on the thread.

The economy may not be "broken", but it obviously could be improved. I think sacrificing the value of an ecto as a secondary currency would be completely worth bringing the game to a more precise form of trade (100k in gold is 100k in gold. 100k in ectos may be 14 or 15 ectos, dependent upon who trades with you. Not very precise at all).

The business with trading with ectos is a way to compensate for the gold cap. People seem to forget this. If we get rid of the gold cap, it would eradicate the need for the secondary currency. This is a good thing. It would make things uneasy for a while, but all changes do. When the HoM Calculator came out, all sorts of items sky-rocketed and the economy was going through a bit of a shake (everything from materials to minipets were affected) but it eventually evened out. I wouldn't say we should nix the HoM update just to avoid the change in the economy.

Ectos would still be highly sought after because of their value as a high-end armor crafting agent and because of their rarity. This wouldn't change anything that didn't need to be changed.

Just settling for the present because it's what's comfortable (when there's room for improvement) doesn't seem like a valid reason to /notsign this.

^ This ^...change isn't always a bad thing.

Yes we have a stable economy.
We have a land of chicken farmers with a stable economy based on small coins.
But make a large purchase like a new chicken farm you have to make a journey to the mountains and let your chickens starve so you can capture 10 goats to buy a farm because the seller doesn't accept gold or chickens.

When you get back goats have dropped in value and you need 11 so you go back to the mountains and get two more to be safe.
Returning again you find the farm sold so have to search for another which you now get for 9 so have two goats left over.

Wondering what to do with them you decide to become a goat farmer as there is money in it, so eventually everyone gives up chicken farming ie playing the game and become itinerant goat traders.

Yes i agree there is room for improvement, there always will be, but im not sure that this update is a necessary one. Sure it would help solve the problem of ecto's being used as currency; however unless the gold cap is completely removed for both player and xunlai chest, it would only shift the prices of secondary materials as currency. If we truly wanted gold to be the exclusive currency used, than its cap must be removed completely (although having 99999999 gold in a singe trade would be a bit ridiculous and cumbersome)

That is why i say leaving it as is would be perfectly fine. If it were a sincere concern among most players i would say otherwise, but only those traders who specialize in trades over 100k would be really interested in this topic.
That being said, i am slightly bias as i am not a power trader that deals with 100K+ purchases.

p.s. Lmao about chickens and goats example

Necessary? I think that it's definitely an improvement that should be considered since it's obvious that people are trading large amounts of money so often and are having to use ectos as currency. This is a game, so I guess in the big picture nothing is technically "necessary". That just depends on what's most important to you as a player in the game.

I agree that a 999999999 trade would be a bit ridiculous, but the issue here is that ectos have made such an impact on the way the economy works (they're not stable at all) AND it's just dang annoying to have to trade large sums of money unless you always have ectos lying around in your storage.

By making the gold cap higher would greatly reduce the hassle that players have to go through to make a transaction that involves more than 100k. I can say myself that I'm no powertrader or ecto farmer and I don't trade large sums of money on a regular basis, which just makes it all the more irritating to me when I do. I have to go and purchase ectos just to make the transaction happen, even when the buyer is perfectly willing to take pure gold and I have the gold on hand. But because of a gold cap, I have to shuffle around the cap.

Many, many items these days are selling for 100k+. I think a 1000k trade maximum would cover a great deal of the items that are being sold. Not many things are sold for more than that, and using armbraces or other, larger secondary currencies would fill in that small margin of leftover items. True, it still requires a secondary currency but this would reduce most of the needless stress that players face on a daily basis.

I think that more people deal with this issue than you're assuming. Just look at Kamadan, any district. Or any main city, for that matter. Many, many people deal with this problem. It wouldn't affect newbies and people who don't trade at all, and it would only improve the experience of players who do trade large sums of money. Once again, I don't see a reason not to consider this.

re Goats comments Thanks its nice to have my attempts at humour recognised.

I am not quite in agreement with the cap being increased or done away with altogether I am more in favour of a third tier in coinage.

They should have started with copper as the base not gold that would then allow the obvious copper Silver Gold

It works in most role playing games and is the stuff of fantasy fiction not to mention many early civilisations.
Almost any civilisation I can think of eventually moves from one coin type to 2 then 3 4 5 6 7 whatever was needed.

There are several coins used as collectables in the game that are based on Copper Silver Gold and its a little late to revalue the current coins to add either copper or Silver.

Hence my suggestion of Adamantium as being one level above Platinum.

Those that trade with big numbers lose a lot of gold because of the fluctuations in Ecto price.


That's a gold sink, a tax for going over the 100k gold limit.

It's fine as it is.

I think the cap is a good way to prevent inflation.

9 Rings is a gold sink, the money basically leaves the economy at that point. Buying anything from a Merchant/NPC and using it for personal use(ID/Salvage kits) is a gold sink. Trading ectos only distributes wealth to another player. Meanwhile, farming ectos slowly inflates the market just as much as gold trickling in from gameplay also inflates the market.


How? If I have two stacks of ectos worth roughly 3 million gold, how is that not the same as having or being able trade 3 million gold? It still bypasses the cap, preventing nothing but a fair trading system.

Fluctuations in ecto prices are a tax on some and a source of income for others.
If you just buy a few to use in trade you might lose out you might not.
This rarely if ever happens to those that "Trade with big numbers"

According to other players the best way to make the most cash in the game is power trading.
In other words buying and selling expensive items that have fluctuating values, of necessity Ectos are used in such trades.

I guess those that lose a lot of gold in this way are more than compensated by the huge profits they make.
If the money cap increased or we started using a higher value coin in trading they would still make the same profits because they are good at what they do but it would just make the trading system more rational.

/signed

A higher gold cap in both Storage and Players is a welcomed change. Also a Trade Cap increase is needed.

Only those who are too obsessed with their amassed wealth in Ecto are against something so easy and convenient. I mean considering the actually percentage of items actually over 1000k is very small there's no reason to not allow a higher Trade cap. Also there is only a small percentage of people that actually have that kind of money or are willing to pay for those items.

By the way... BIG DEAL if ectos crash in price they are a Material, and should only be a material. The only reason for the price they have now is trading, and it's cumbersome to either have to swap out the cold hard cash for them or go farm.

I have dealt with Trades over 100k and having to use or go get Ecto when I have the cold hard cash is irritating and inconvenient. But Unless the cap is removed as a whole, there will be need for a secondary currency or a third tier in the current monetary system. And as previously stated by others the removal will be cumbersome. But given that Anet has more important things ahead of them at the moment, a simple increase would be the most expedient solution.

It's still very possible to make precise trades using cash + ectos, so I don't really see the problem. WOuld've been a good idea at the start of GW but not now anymore.

/signed

I agree with raising the xunlai cap. Raising the player and trade caps would mess up trade and be an unnecessary change. Raising xunlai caps would just let people hoard more gold without having to deal with ecto rates. Hell, anet could even make raising the cap a cash item like they do with extra storage slots.

The fact that you can make precise trades is not the point.

You still have to rely on variable price items that can only be obtained as a rare drop in a few areas of the game.
That or forced to buy them from other players.

If your a player with no ectos whether you be a new player or no and suddenly come across a good deal in trade what are you to do, say hang on for a day or two while I go try to get the ectos,

You could even have a situation where a group of players do a scam one selling something good and another providing ectos at an inflated price.
Pretty easy I would have thought to turn down all but the most ott offer till the other reports he has sold his ectos.

Whether this should have been done last week last year or 5 years ago is not important.
Expensive items are being sold and all players have a right to expect the currency to allow their purchase.
Why do you think players report bots farming like mad in some areas or the gold sellers etc a lot of that has to be because the game is so open to abuse.

Ectos prices are usually stable and are also easily bought. The scam you mentioned is easily enough done with any item in Guild Wars so I don't think it's an argument in favor of your case. Should you raise the gold cap, then ectos would suddenly be worth much less and a lot of people would lose a lot of money. I for one have a few hundred ectos, and my fortune would be like halved should this come through. And please don't give me the 'you're rich so it doesn't matter' crap. I worked hard for those ectos and I wouldn't want to see that playtime ruined because there are people who don't want to invest 5 minutes of their time into buying ectos in ToA..

That's not a reason not to change the system. That's a reason why you wouldn't want to change the system, because it might affect you in a negative way. But I say that changing the system would be useful. Why is your personal reason any better than my prosocial reason? (I'm not gaining/losing any money if this were to happen, just improving the quality of the game)

People have ectos because they ...

A) Have no more room for pure gold and must store their wealth elsewhere. This is one thing we want to get rid of: forcing people to store pure gold in items because of small storage space. I don't see why these people would complain about a change. It clears their storage space out and makes life a little easier.

B) Invested in ectos. And an investment can always turn over on itself. You can win, you can lose. That's why many people liquidate as much as possible into pure gold before going on a lengthy break. You can always lose when you invest.

And like I said before, ectos may even rise in price for all we know. I don't see how making ectos less useful as a secondary currency would cheapen them. You're not making a build that would make farming them easier, you're not increasing the drop rate, you're not decreasing the drop rate. I, for one, would not run and sell my ectos to the nearest trader ASAP if this were released. I still want my money's worth out of them.

It's just a matter of what's most important for the game in the long run. Everyone has admitted that it will cause some instability at first, but any change would. It will even out eventually, though. Especially with the release of GW2 nearing, I think that getting rid of the gold cap is a great idea. Ectos will probably be harder to come by after GW2 rolls in, just because of fewer players farming AND because people will leave GW for good (leaving their ectos and money to rot in storage, not circulating in the economy). It will be even harder to get the ectos you need just to trade for something.

It's not a personal reason. I only used myself as an example. This change would affect the wealth of thousands upon thousands of players. Not only those people who have ectos, which are a lot of people, but also people that make money by getting ectos in a certain way, such as TOPK Farming, UW runs, Ecto solo farm. Good going making Speed Clearing an even more forced way to make your money. Soon the population will be 99% assassin.

If people don't store their wealth in ectos they might store it in a different way. You having items in your storage makes you guilty of storing cash in currency as well. Ectos are not so different.

You're trying to justify our losses by saying investing can give you potential losses. True, but we do not invest in ectos. We only use them as a currency which is nearly as efficient as gold itself. Investing in a semi-stable item would be silly.

Everybody with at least a grain of common sense will know that ectos go down if they increase the gold cap. Probably more than 90% of the people needing ectos right now are people who buy high end items. Demand drops, supply stays more or less the same, price goes down. Simple economics.

You don't seem to understand the consequences of an action as you propose. It will grief so many players (Ecto farmers, people who play UW, ~30% of the total community since they're using ectos) for the good it may cause. Speaking for the community as a whole is narrow-minded because there are many people who wouldn't care if they changed it or not. Lots of people I know either don't attain the wealth that they're forced to ectos, or just use ectos because it's actually quite convenient.

I am actually quite amazed that people still have a large fortune in either gold, ectos or anything else.

I don't suppose I should presume to know any other players reason for a fantasy fortune but I assumed once it was determined exactly what was needed to fill out the HOM players would be busy using their resources to do that.

I had some 800k pretty small by most standards and perhaps another 400k in resources I could sell.
Half of that has gone on elite armour sets to fill out the hom and I am now just working on Vabbian armour to get me to 30 points.

I am curious as to just what anyone needs to still keep a large cash or ecto reserve for.

As for alterations to the present system causing a crash and people losing out, well that could happen at any time really.
Relying on one item is probably foolish if you have too great a fortune to be stored as platinum I would have thought spreading out from ectos into zaishen keys Gemstones etc would be a good thing.

Any game change could cause a loss in value of any one item at any time, anyway from the posts it seems there are a lot of people on both sides of the argument and if anet pay any attention to such posts they can decide the outcome of this thread themselves.

/signed

Sick and tired of keeping 75k on each caracter