Rune Traders, Yay or Nay ?

same, the price is too wierd, superior cost so little, major swords is 2k, minoor swords is 1k, wth is going on with that, but good thing is it helps character get stronger

Did you ever see people buy those?

I know you may be exaggerating, but for instance, a superior rune of the same attribute: easily worth 10-12 platinum as, imo, it should be. Now it's not even worth half that at all the rune traders I've been to.

Hmmm somthing I noticed today....Supior vigor was selling for 100p at the trader around 15p-20p more than id seen or heard them go for before traders btw 100k for a rune thats only 10hp better than Major is total and complete BS

Curiously, few people are interested in UNID runes. I had a full inventory of unidentified minors (good professions) & majors and nobody seemed to care. I tried to sell unidentified major vigors for more than I would get from the trader (basically at rune trader's sell price) and I got no reply. PvE players didn't want them because the rune trader had all identified runes from their profession and they didn't want to gamble for UNID, and PvP players already have spent so much time grinding that they need only a small handful of UNIDS. Conclusion: I gave away a lot of runes to guildies who didn't farm at all, and I sold the rest to the trader.

To me, the rune trader was selffishly good, because it cleaned my inventory, and filled my pockets from runes I had been too lazy to spam&sell. In the first couple of hours, it gave a LOT of money from everything, including crappy runes.

However in my opinion, it is very bad for PvE & economy as a whole.
- PvE players can get all the runes they need from Ascalon. You don't have to trade for the runes you need. They are given as cookies on a silver platter. No need to buy from players.
- Now, most runes drops are as crappy as collector items or dyes. It's like "blue armor?. Yay, it's worth 25g at the trader...". Just great.
- Major runes are now pretty much pointless. You can buy anything including superiors for a ridiculous price, no what's the point of buying majors? Try to sell a major rune to the trader and you'll get 25 to 200g.
- Superior used to be a VERY cool drop from monsters (barring farming), now it's just XXX gold you have saved. Wow, sooo exciting.

In a few words, trying to fix the farming was good (there are still a few ways to get around their patch, but... hush...) and the patch doesn't address the unlock issue (let's wait for the next update) which caused the problem in the first place.

But the trader is bad for PvE because drops are no longer exciting and because getting everything you need is for PvP, not for PvE. Playing the game and trading with players is what makes PvE enjoyable. Finding everything you need from a bland NPC in Ascalon is booooring.

Btw, the same stands for the rare materials trader. They used to be rare and I remember old days where you had to work for your armor. Getting enough rare materials to build a high level armor was an achievement. You had to salvage a lot of stuff and to trade and haggle with other players. Now it's just too easy to get everything you need from the trader. Everything is available right away. You don't have to trade for those. If you happen to salvage rare materials, you're not even happy anymore. It's no longer a rare materials, it's just XXX worth of gold at the trader. No longer exciting.

Don't take me wrong, there are many cool features in this patch.
But "Rune Traders"? Nay...

That's pretty much the crux of it - you need to be selling unidentified superiors, not unidentified minors. Non-Superior runes have always been pretty worthless IMO and it's nice to have a merchant to throw them at. I've been giving away or junking minors for a long time now, and having a merchant that pays more than 25 gold per rune is pretty nice.


You're seeing two effects here. First, that minor runes really are pretty worthless and you no longer have to pay someone to sit around town and sell them to you. So the old pricing scheme of '50 gold for the rune, 300 gold for me to sit around spamming in Lion's Arch' has fallen apart.

On the flip side of that, valuable runes are worth even more now, as the market of people who want to buy but don't want to deal with trade spam gets to throw its money into the ring.

The other effect is that all of those terrible runes that used to get tossed at the merchants are now going to the traders, and that keeps prices rock-bottom. We were selling for 25 gold before (if we weren't tossing them on the ground), and we're doing it now, the difference is that now we're selling to other players.


Major runes have always been pointless. They were only used as a stepping stone when a Superior could not be found for whatever reason. Now impediments to trade have been removed and Superiors are largely available, making major runes the trash they are. Part of me is still saddened that they sell for more than minors, because the minors are certainly better.


Salvage the rune out and sell the Superior unidentified.

Everything does start to look like a price tag when it's easy to sell. The only way to fight that is to make things harder to sell, but with all the cries for an auction house and a better trade system I think people would rather be able to get what they want quickly, than having to enjoy the fun 'grind' of looking for important items.


I'll be incredibly surprised if they address unlocking anytime soon.

But what was the problem in the first place? How hard it was to get runes? The unlock problem helped solve that in a way by directing people to pharm for runes. Was the problem falling prices on all runes? That was an effect of people being able to pharm runes easily, flooding the market.

Still there are vastly different PvE and PvP demands, and the fact that all of the unlocking has to be done in PvE does affect the PvE market even if you don't want it to. Until there's a mechanic for PvPers to unlock what they need to unlock besides power-pharming, you're going to see the market flooded with that pharming slag. That's unavoidable.


What's most maddening to me, though, is that pharming in many cases is being done out of neccessity, not out of some desire to acquire piles of cash. I want to be competitive in PvP. To be competitive, I need to unlock items and particularly superior runes. To unlock those runes, I need to power pharm, both to acquire the runes and to get the gold to buy boots with. I'm pharming because *the game is broken*, because despite all the advertising to the contrary this is a game where time spent pharming translates directly to PvP success.

So how does this get addressed? By seriously nerfing any productive pharming spot that pops up, making it even *harder* for me to get what I need to PvP. Whenever any rune pharming spot pops up I have to drop what I'm doing and go and power pharm it all day, because I know it's going to get caught, get nerfed, and after that it's back on the intolerable treadmill. I seriously pity anyone who comes into this game months from now and tries to be competitive in PvP, when there are no longer any good ways to unlock what you need.

I'm seriously terrified of expansions adding new classes, meaning that I'll have to grind out yet another character through the same repetitive missions in order to unlock what I need for PvP.

Your game is broken. Half-measures on the symptoms are just a distraction. Fix it.

Peace,
-CxE

The Rune Traders purpose is to be a money sink...it wouldn't make sense for the trader to give you top dollar for your rune.

At the moment, I'm glad to have them.

They provide a valuable money sink.

They provide a way to get rid of runes no one usually wants in no time.

They provide a way to acquire runes that you may not want to spend time shopping around for.

They help (somewhat) stabilize prices, AND provide referencable pricing to everyone at once.

They don't give much fo a money sink considering the rune trader is just one stop between two players. Money in one hand, out the other. It's still in the player market, just with a slight drop. (barely noticable, imo)

Actually, superior rune drops used to be a major headache. I'm "gifted" with this item I need to first figure out what it's worth, then stand around in Lion's Arch spamming rather than actually play the game to find someone who wants to buy it. No thanks, I'll just give it away to a guildmate. If I can find one who wants it. Then track them down when we're both not in a mission to arrange the trade. Or I can stick this major annoyance I've been gifted with in my vault where it can deny me space until I find someone who actually wants it. Bah.

Now, of course, it's actually cool when I get one. I can take it right to the vendor and be assured that it'll eventually wind up in the hands of someone who really wants it while I can get on with actually playing the game.

Trading with players is mind-numbingly boring. I sold most of my runes to a merchant for 25gp before, because the amount extra I could get from a player wasn't enough to make the time it takes worthwhile. Now at least when I sell them, I know eventually some player will get to use them, rather than them ending up in the bit-bucket like before.

Yeah I was exaggerating, but not by much at all. I am sorry that you cant get nearly as much from the trader for a good rune. But I'm not sorry that people now have a better option to go to when people want to gouge unreasonably high prices for that rune. So maybe now that your all big and bad and dont need help this "hurts" your bottom line. For the rest of us begging scraps from your table... it is blessed.

You can put them in bank/ storage and get it after you start PvP character.
I love these traders, runes are hard to find but having these traders it makes the game a lit best difficult. Its not really spoiling the game, its not like they sell MAJOR runes. Guess now that makes those rune values go up.