Xunlai Bank Notes, a simple fix to the trade system.

There is a very simple, easy fix to the current hubbub about high end trading, ecto, farming, and all that other wonderful stuff that drives the rumors of the economy. To fix the economic situation in guild wars, we have to realize that trade above the gold cap happens, and happens a lot, and is going to keep happening, but there isn't a decent product to fall back on. Ecto, the backbone of the higher trade, is a shifting commodity, subject to frequent farming scrutiny and constantly changing with supply, demand, and speculation.

So. Bank Notes.

Xunlai Agents, at present, are useless once you open and upgrade your storage. Let's give them a purpose.

By speaking with an agent, you can open up a trade window. Xunlai Bank Notes can be bought for 5k, and sold for 5k, exactly. They are stackable, can be put in storage, and most importantly, can be traded alone or in stacks with other players.

And thus, the fix. High end trading becomes easier, the economy isn't rocked every time ecto is changed, and the entire trading system becomes simpler, more elegant, and more practical, placing our faith in the Xunlai Banking System, which has been serving adventurers and guilds for generations.

Thoughts?

That may sound simple, but let me point a few things out.

First, the GWLT would have to make and implement this into GW. Considering it's taken them 5 months to do a skill update, I have a feeling that this would take over a year for them.

Second, 5k per note is almost pointless. People in GW, at this point, have stacks upon stacks of ectos. The notes would have to be worth 10k at least.

Third, this would only add more things for people to keep in storage. Whether we like it or not, ectos are going to remain currency as long as people can benefit from their changing price. So, by doing this, you end up causing people to keep both in their storage.

Not much of a solution and definitely not simple.

This goes back to what I said in the other thread about pretty much the same thing...

It will make ectos worthless and thereby remove what I would estimate is 85% of currency from the game... who knows what this will do.

Next, you seem to be thinking of gold as having a constant value...it's not quite so...just like you could say 1$ is always worth 1$ and 1 euro will always be 1 euro.... 1$ will not always be equal to .689673 Euros. So the value of gold will still fluctuate (pretty much always going down as more gold is consistently comming into the game then going out). All this will solve is making it shorter by a few minutes to make a high end trade. How hard is it to go to Spamadan and see the guy selling his ectos? is it worth risking an entire collapse of a somewhat viable economy just to save a few minutes?

Perhaps if you made it so you can trade in ectos and mabye obby shards for bank notes.

Removing gold from the game is always good. The problem nowadays is, that there is no decent gold sink. I guess ANET tried to add some gold sinks in the form of summoning stones etc.

removing over half in one update is good? removing over time is good...going around burning every bank in the US so that my paycheck is worth more is not good.

on a side note: if anyone does want to burn their money my paycheck sucks and would be glad if it was worth more...


People seem to miss the point that the second ectos are unNESSESARY for trading they will be reduced to almost nothing... I would expect a sudden drop in prices then a slight rise as people say hey ectos are cheap I'm gonna grab chaos gloves and fow armor...and then after about a month lvl off at around 800g ea.

Its not the best way to fix the "problem" but it is a good idea. Maybe they could add this idea into the development of GW but lets just leave the game we have alone for now.

There could be a possible section under where your deposit/withdraw money that stores notes and it could store up to like 500,000. And when you withdraw multiple stacks it just seperates the stacks in inventory.


Again, though, this would be best if implemented in the launch of GW2, not added to GW.

here we go, just add to whats still in the system:
1 gold = 1 gold
1 platinum = 1000 gold
1 <insert term here> = 100 platinum

would no doubt affect ecto prices >_<

More along the lines of 100 platinum each. Since 100 platinum is the max amount you can have equipped at any one time, that's as high as any individual ticket could go and still be able to fill in the remainder with your own gold.

For example, selling an item for 481 platinum: instead, you sell it for four Xunlai Bank Notes and 81 platinum.

Also, this would probably crash ecto prices. Not that that's a bad thing, just mentioning it.

Feasible idea, but like others have mentioned, what will become of ectos? Currently, far too many people have invested most if not all of their money into ectos. Something must be done about ectos and their place in the economy first before anything can be implemented for gold. And a fix for that would be hard solve. You can't remove ectos from trading/the game because they are more widely used than gold and they are also a crafting mat, needed for armor. You can't have something replace ectos for trading purposes either because too many people use them to store their wealth. And no one wants to go from millionaire to pauper over night if a new source comes along and makes ectos worthless.

I for one would freeze ectos at their current price for now (not sure if that is possible) that way people can liquidate, and then employ something such as these bank notes. Is it a perfect fix? No, but its a start.

bank notes ain't a sink. we need a gold sink, some fun items boughtable at traders, non-tradeable though, that would make the gold vanish from the game. something like a trader selling old festival hats for 250k each - just a quick example, nothing serious here. there's just too much gold in the market whilst the notes wouldn't change it.
they would, however, make trading easier and shatter the alternative currency of ectos, which wouldn't be bad. changes are good <3 and screw ecto hoarders. it's the rule of the market to hoard and gain profit from it, it's the rule of the market to lose their money because of sudden currency spike or wrong speculation. basic economy.

And for the people that have multiple stacks of ectos?
they're screwed because there's no place to put the money that they'd be liquidating.
And also people are screwed...You can't freeze market prices of ectos...so you'd have to freeze the price at the trader and have people sell to him...the issue with this is...the price the trader buys at is significantly less then market price again screwing over anyone who may have just purchased ectos at market price because their storage was getting full.

in this case no...changes are not good. I myself am holding onto a small handful of ectos as I plan on making a few purchases...is that hording? no...it's saving up...I would loose out albeit much much less then some...and what about those who aren't hording ectos by choice but because of the cap? your screwing them with a 10 foot pool. If this was coming up within the first few months of the games release I would be all about this as i think it is a horrible mechanic...However, not worth destroying an already unstable economy.

It's more then basic economy at this point because of the caps. just like the price of milk (why supermarkets can't give you a gallon of milk for free if it's been incorrectly marked) isn't basic economy because of government price barriers. (again based on the restrictions in my area...)

I'll explain more. Freeze ectos prices for a small period of time, let people liquidate and as they are liquidating exchange for bank notes, bank notes would have to be implemented into the game during the time the prices of ectos are frozen. Yes, this idea has some significant drawbacks and loopholes as you have pointed out, but it is just that, an idea. It won't fix the problem of too much gold being in the market as drkn said, but it will draw attention away from ectos to something more stable (bank notes) for the economy, which is the end result that is needed.

I understand completely what you were saying...and I'm saying you'd be screwing people out of money...which I won't support... They can't freeze the market because well they just don't have that kind of power..they can freeze the trader prices...but the trader isn't setup to buy at market price but rather under market price.

Also...as I have said...gold is no more stable then ectos...it's just less noticeable because of the way its thought of...people think of gold as being 1=1 and ectos as crazy. It could be said in reverse though 1 ecto= 1 ecto and the prices of gold is crazy...

Freezing trader prices is what I mean. And they would have to manipulate the cost at which the traders buy ectos, which as you mentioned is probably beyond their powers. As for losing money, that is not the intention of this idea, but a possible side effect. Sad fact is people are going to have to take a cut from their gold stash if a change from ectos to something else is made. It's completely unrealistic that no one will lose money if Anet decided to do something like bank notes tomorrow. I just thought this idea would involve the least loss of gold and allow a smoother transition from ectos to another form of currency.

Not following this train of thought lol, sorry.

As I supposed you did put in the other gunk just in case

Would require a complete rework of the traders from what I understand...It'd be easier for them to design a new NPC for it...but that would be impractical to fix an issue...that is barely an issue...

and yes it is a decent Idea...But I myself feel the need to fight any option that requires screwing people out of what they "worked" for

Very true, I wouldn't want to lose money that I worked for either. The problem with gold, ectos and the economy is just that complex. Many suggestions, but very little true solutions with positive outcomes.

To me complexity is not enough of an issue to warrant any of these ideas. The economy isn't horrible hard...spend 5 minutes in kamadan and you can probably get a general figure of the value of ectos...It's just not worth the harm

I like this idea. As far as coding, this should be a lot easier to implement than it was to add new storage devices, though of course the live team seems to have given up working on anything other than trying to fix security problems lately.

There is a chance that this would affect the price of ectos, but it might not. Initially ectos became the hot-commodity item because people wanted FoW armor and they were rare. To have an item like ectos be worth as much as they currently are is a direct result of the fact that anet poorly planned the trading system in the first place. They have few in game uses and those are only for vanity items (FoW armor and chaos gloves). Because of their artificially high value they have been the cause of all sorts of farming problems for anet... they've had to nerf UW repeatedly to try and curb the excessive farming. In short, ecto based currency is a bad idea.

Still, due to their historically high value and their tendency to fluctuate in value, ectos will probably still be valued. People will still try to buy a lot at low prices and then sell them for higher prices like you would with stocks. Every material in GW functions this way, and most keep their value until some sort of exploit/farm or nerf occurs.