Hey Anet, here's a brilliant idea concerning econ:

Make rune prices STATIC. That's right, you heard me.

This game isn't about gold, right? Amount of skill and not hours played right? Well, you already have collectors sprinkled out all over the place which offers us all the best weapons in the game in terms of effectiveness, but a lot of my builds depend on superior runes which I SIMPLY CANNOT AFFORD! I have played this game since release. The most gold I've ever had at once is 10k. I don't farm. I just play the missions to unlock skills, enjoy myself in strategic PvE, and play PvP. Therefore, it's rediculous that I should go out there and pointlessly FARM (while not having fun, might I add) days for something that's detrimental to my build.

For those of you folks that want to play Sim Stock Market, you still have your bottles of dye, ectos, and shards or whatever the hell cosmetic stuff you like to juggle around, I don't care. Those things don't make me any more efficient strategy-wise. I do care, however, when I need a superior rune of marksmanship and people are selling those at 10k a pop, and the trader is all sold out.

Make the rune trader prices static at a reasonable price with unlimited supplies. 250 for minor runes, 300 for major runes, and 1k for superior runes, with the exception sup. vigor or absorp being 3k or 4k. This will make runes NOT be a trading commodity whose prices can be juggled this way and that. This way, I can progress my character normally through the missions and by the time I hit the level cap, I *WILL* have earned enough money WITHOUT FARMING to afford one superior rune and a few minor runes to finish off my build.

The crux of my argument is this:

It's against the stated doctrines of the game to have something detrimental to effective gameplay be used as a luxury trading commodity.

Obviously this is going to cause a few voices of dissent and controvesy. Please feel free to offer your constructive criticism.

no, i agree wholeheartedly with you.

i think anll items sold at traders should be fixed price, dyes, ecto, everything.

the only things that should be subject to players market should be items such as staves, swords, axes, etc.

this is meant to be a game, and yet like so many other online games before it, it has been ruined by greedy players who like to bring real life economics into it.

to be greeted by 24k for black dye at the trader is enough to make me switch off for a few days and play another game.

I have no problem with dye prices or ecto or shards or whatever other luxury commodities are being traded. I don't care if ectos or dye cost 550k a pop. That doesn't bother me because the only purpose they serve is making your character look better. Someone who spent 20 hours a day farming DESERVES to look better than me, who did not put in as much effort, but in NO WAY should that person have an equipment advantage over me because he can afford better runes that I cannot *hope* to afford by playing through the game normally.

Didn't they institute a ceiling on prices for some items, such as black dye? Last night I was online and the trader was offering one vial for 7k gold. Is anyone in game right now that could check the price currently?

Superior runes were still in double digit k's and cost more than all my gold pooled together when I checked a few hours ago. What's more? They were out of stock. I don't care about dyes and never visit the dye trader, so I'm not sure about black dye prices.

just shut up people. your not even lvl 20!!!!!!!!!! this game was made for PvP, and when u make a PvP character you get perfect equipment. u can even unlock things like runes!!!! i hate all these bitching people, then all of a sudden they find a 15%>50% fellblade, sell it for 500k and no longer care

Runes were out of wack for a little while, but for the majority of time since the traders were out rune prices were very affordable. If you play pvp, use your faction to unlock the runes you want. I think through normal play, you can certainly get what you need for a pvp character, or a pve character (sup rune, major vigor, drok armor, collector items). If you haven't made enough gold/faction to do those things for one character and played since the start.. I'm sorry.. but you're doing something wrong.

There should be bonuses for ya know playing more, farming, etc. And right now the benefits are slight, which is right about as advertised. With just normal play you can be competitive in pve and pvp (at least with 2 profs). If you're salvaging incorrectly, trading nothing, selling material to merchants, etc.. yah.. you can screw yourself enough so some things aren't available.. but it's within your means.

Alright, the flaming and immaturity aside, your point is as follows:

PvP people can unlock runes with faction.

Here are my counter-arguments:

1. That's a good argument for PvP, but how can I amass enough faction points if that superior rune is detrimental to my PvP build? Should I PvP with a half-finished build and expect to win or perform at my best? Believe it or not, the easiest way to unlock things in PvP is by playing through PvE, both skillwise and runewise.

2. There is a good bit of strategy and unpredictability in PvE. Like many people, I enjoy tackling challenging missions and explore challenging areas where I'm likely to get a good run for my money, especially if my team is not opitmized. This is one aspect PvP characters do not have access to.

I respectfully disagree. Up to Ember Light Camp, my character has made a total of about 10k gold. From experiences with my guild mates and fellow players, this seems to be about average. Subtract the amount of armor cost and misc stuff such as runes of holding/bags, and I have very little left to afford superior runes, which cost anywhere from 14k-80k.

I don't doubt runes were affordable at one point of the game, but sadly, this is not so at the moment. I'm not asking rune prices to be available for free. I'm asking the prices to be static so those who DO have an amazing amount of funds from ebay or farming will not be able to control what I can and cannot use to make my character, a casual player, more effective in combat.

First of all, how do you know we're not all lvl 20? Who cares if we are or are not?

Secondly, How can you say that the game is all about pvp? I enjoy pve much better than pvp, because npcs are better than most people to play with.

Thirdly, I was under the impression that you unlock runes in PvE for PvP, not the other way around. please feel free to correct me if Im wrong. On that note, if what you say is true, then what is the need for PvE at all?

Fourthly, get a life. This is a game meant for people to have fun with, and you telling people to shut up is only making yourself look bad, not those who support this thread

Have a nice day!

You seem to like your exclamation points...anyway, I am level 20, and if you understood anything about this game you would understand that it WAS NOT primarily made for PvP. Go read the dev notes and the release notes for GW. This is a C-MMORPG (Coop-MMORPG) Meaning that you have to work with other to get to a specific goal. I enjoy PvE more than PvP. Granted PvP is great but right now, its not the thing for me. If you spend enough time in PvP to get 3000 faction, then spend it all to unlock ONE rune, I will have unlocked a number of weapon upgrades, runes. or elites to use in my PvP, now tell me, which would be the more logical thing to do?

You gripe about people bitching, why not look in a mirror.

Just make EVERYTHING a static price. No need for balancing the Econ. then. Red dye would ALWAYS be 100g (or whatever) etc.. etc..

That's too radical, because then you have people complaining about the FoW armor being too easy to get, every farmer and their mother would own a set, how no one would buy their dozen black dye for 200k, blah blah blah...

but see..people will whine no matter what. Even if this game was absolutely perfect (which it's not, but it's still great) people will WHINE. doesn't matter. So I say just make it all static...that at least saves us from a little of the whining and that frees up the Devs to work on more content rather than sorting through the pages of "this item is too high priced! WAAAaaa!!!!" threads. =)

The latest update stabilized the prices somewhat. Yes, some runes still cost double digit platinum, but I think that there is a ceiling on prices, which is good... right? Am I wrong in assuming that the price of an item/rune/vial of dye not being able to go higher than a certain price at the traders is a good thing?

I AM level 20, and I wholeheartedly disagree with you.
"This game was made for PvP".
If I had a nickle for every time someone said this, well, lets just say I wouldn't need to ever work again.
If I had a penny for every time someone so biased and, forgive me, airheaded as yourself said this (in such a manner as you have), I would be able to buy out ANet.

The game is made for however you want to play it. Why the hell would the devs have made a winding storyline for PvE if they didn't intend it to be followed? Why is the map so bloody huge if the game was meant to be fought in arenas?
Personally, I see PvP as an end of game pass-time while we wait for the expansion, which will bring more PvE.

Like it or not, there are people who do not share your one-sided opinion. And if you can't bring yourself to converse constructively with them, then you don't belong in this thread.

Now, onto the market.
I like this idea. I would also settle for the vendors to be pommeled to near-death with a nerf bat so they will buy people's stuff for more than 1/1000 of what they will sell it to the people for. I wholeheartedly disagree with NPCs controlling our market.
I looked at the dye trader a few days ago, and silver dye was selling for 8,150 gold. But what did I get offered for the one I had? 294 gold. 3.6% of what the NPC is selling for. I call this horse shit.
If they buy things for 75% of what they sell them for, I would have gotten 6,112 gold. More than 20x what I would make if I sold it for 294.

I think static rune (and dye) prices are a good idea. This is a game, not - as someone mentioned earlier - a Sim Stock Market.

/signed Ristaron

You contridict yourself heavily in this statement. You seem to understand the relationship between time spent and how good your character looks but not time spent playing and gold earned. In every other MMORPG since the begining of time the players who play more always have better stuff. Thats the nature of RPG games, watching your character improve. If you can't get over the fact time played = how good your character is you might need to switch game types. The way I read your arguement I think you want an egalitarian game with some lite rpg elements. If that is the case I recommend you play The Sims, Temple of Elemental Evil, or Never Winter Nights. All of which have infinitely better single player story lines.

I for one am very happy with the traders now. Yes, Sup Vigor and Abs are very expensive, but hey, they're rare. As for the traders being out, it's most likely because everyone bought a crapload when they were 2-5k each (I for one bought about 12 sup vigors for myself and my guild's officers and regular players, and all else i didnt use, I sold back to trader.) And IMHO, that's what alot of people are doing right now. They bought heavy for personal use, and sold what they didnt use back. Remember, the traders are linked now, so Korea could have an influx of sups into the trader, which would then enable us to buy them at lower prices, and vice versa. It's actually VIABLE to sell to traders now, which I most likely will do at peak times. Sure, I would be able to make more gold selling to players, but it's quite a hassle to try to sell wood and low end supplies through hundreds of WTSWTBLTBOMGZGODLY1!1one!1.

Anyways, I'm happy with the changes, I'm not rich or anything right now, I didn't make money from the whole ordeal, mostly I used it to help out my guild. Hell, I already forgot what this topic is about from all this crap I'm typing, so uhh, yeah, I'm done.

*OH, and I hope people will stop being gold and item RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOs now. I gave away all color dyes from black to blue, and tons of sup and maj runes in Amnoon last night to show the people that missed the trader resetting that there still is a new hope for the economy.

With all due respect, I think you misunderstood my point. A person who spent all his time farming for gold has his cosmetic trinkets such as the FoW armor or black dyes to show for it, but he should not have greater access to runes which impact gameplay instead of cosmetics than the casual player.